In the actual context of globalization and labour market transformations, this article discusses its implications on labour unionism and their forms of legitimacy in a Southern country such as Brazil. In a historic perspective, the analysis focuses on the sense of the activity of the activists for themselves and the potential of « professionalization » of this social, economic and political occupation, by questioning the relations between activists, trade union members and the public sector. The comparison of three sectors and figures of trade unionism – all from low-level, low-wage and more or less informal occupations, such as telemarketing, street sellers and domestic workers – allows to show their specificities, as well as to ask some more general questions about the sense of the actual transformations.
Isabelle Georges, Socio-Économie du Travail n°32 (Économies et Sociétés, tome XLIV), juillet 2010, p.1185-1211.