13

Anchored in an ethnographical approach to collective labor relations, this paper gives an account of observations made during negotiations and union representative meetings to highlight the logics behind the actions of employer representatives and union representatives. Far from the representations commonly expressed about “social democracy” in the corporate world, observing the interactions between representatives seen in their contexts of social production makes it possible to show that paternalism in management constitutes an additional means to block activism in transmitting the claims of employees.