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This article examines permanent contract employees working in two companies involved in staff reduction procedures, focusing on their participation in sporadic and local demonstrations organized to protest the announced layoffs. We explain this behavior by highlighting the occurrence of one or more interdependencies between meso contextual characteristics, on the one hand, and individual or micro properties, on the other. Described here as configurations, the four combinations that we have identified favors action, while individuals abstain from engagement in collective movements when these configurations are absent. Thus, an employee is more likely to participate in collective action if she or he depends on several of these interdependencies or maintains strong ties with colleagues who fall under the same explanatory configurations.