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What is new in current social movements has to do both with their contents (not merely a denunciation of liberalism, there is also the suggestion of concrete alternatives), their form (the aim is to win over public opinion, elected representatives of the movement are made more directly answerable), and with their anchorage within society: instead of the hegemony of a group from which the movement emanates (the working class), we have a series of complex coalitions between the various components of the salaried class, including managers. Such are the traits rendering the identification and evaluation of these movements such a difficult task: no longer does it suffice to count up the number of strike-days or to make an assessment of labour negotiations bringing together the representatives of centralised trade-union organisations. The persistence of a taboo relative to any participation in the process of management confines those actively involved in social movements within a series of alternatives and representations which no longer correspond to the new practices currently emerging, by way of the invention of new types of solidarity, at the local level, between producers and users.