La flexibilité du temps de travail: entre autonomie et contraintes. Une étude de cas en Suisse.

Flexitime : between autonomy and constraints. A case study in SwitzerlandBy looking at how a new regulation is translated into everyday practices, this dissertation explores through a specific case study the degree of autonomy gained by wage-earners with the introduction of flexible working schedules. The guiding hypothesis is that by introducing procedural rules, flexitime opens the space for more daily negotiations, therefore reinforcing the effects of power relations inherent to employment relationships. The goal is to understand, through a sociological approach, how employees experience a form of working time that transfers responsibility for time management to them, and howthey integrate work-related constraints with their life outside the workplace. The first part of the dissertation sets up the context of the case study. It offers a definition of flexibility by situating it in the broader history of work time, as well as in relation to various organizational forms and cultural transformations. An international literature review and a focus on the Swiss case are offered. In the second part, the focus is narrowed to a specificSwiss firm specialized in mail-order, where a system of individualized management of annual work time has been introduced. By combining a quantitative and qualitative approach, it is possible to analyze determinants of the practices internal to the firm anddeterminants related to employees themselves, as well as the way in which employees articulate these two orders of constraints. The results show that the implementation of flexible working time is not affecting daily negotiation practices so much as it is creating a set of informal rules. The autonomy ofwage-earners is expressed first and foremost through their capacity to produce, negotiate, and legitimate these rules. The intraindividual level has proven to be central for the social regulation of flexible working time. It is not so much a question of legitimation, but rather the process of institutionalization nurtured by the energy invested by wage-earners in their personal quest for a compromise between their various roles, identities, and aspirations. It is this individualized regulation that is ensuring the success of the system under study.

Droit des assurances sociales

Recueil de lois en assurances sociales

Vacuolar SNARE Protein Transmembrane Domains Serve as Nonspecific Membrane Anchors with Unequal Roles in Lipid Mixing.

Membrane fusion is induced by SNARE complexes that are anchored in both fusion partners. SNAREs zipper up from the N to C terminus bringing the two membranes into close apposition. Their transmembrane domains (TMDs) might be mere anchoring devices, deforming bilayers by mechanical force. Structural studies suggested that TMDs might also perturb lipid structure by undergoing conformational transitions or by zipping up into the bilayer. Here, we tested this latter hypothesis, which predicts that the activity of SNAREs should depend on the primary sequence of their TMDs. We replaced the TMDs of all vacuolar SNAREs (Nyv1, Vam3, and Vti1) by a lipid anchor, by a TMD from a protein unrelated to the membrane fusion machinery, or by artificial leucine-valine sequences. Individual exchange of the native SNARE TMDs against an unrelated transmembrane anchor or an artificial leucine-valine sequence yielded normal fusion activities. Fusion activity was also preserved upon pairwise exchange of the TMDs against unrelated peptides, which eliminates the possibility for specific TMD-TMD interactions. Thus, a specific primary sequence or zippering beyond the SNARE domains is not a prerequisite for fusion. Lipid-anchored Vti1 was fully active, and lipid-anchored Nyv1 permitted the reaction to proceed up to hemifusion, and lipid-anchored Vam3 interfered already before hemifusion. The unequal contribution of proteinaceous TMDs on Vam3 and Nyv1 suggests that Q- and R-SNAREs might make different contributions to the hemifusion intermediate and the opening of the fusion pore. Furthermore, our data support the view that SNARE TMDs serve as nonspecific membrane anchors in vacuole fusion.

Les codes de l'obligations : méta-analyses pragmatologiques de l'application de méthodes en sciences sociales

Cette thèse rassemble une série de méta-analyses, c'est-à-dire d'analyses ayant pour objet des analyses produites par des sociologues (notamment celles résultant de l'application de méthodes de traitement des entretiens). Il s'agit d'une démarche réflexive visant les pratiques concrètes des sociologues. Celles-ci sont envisagées comme des activités gouvernées par des règles. Une part importante de cette thèse sera donc consacrée au développement d'un outil d'analyse « pragmatologique » (E. Durkheim), c'est-à-dire permettant l'étude des pratiques et des règles en rapport avec elles. Pour aborder les règles, la philosophie analytique d'inspiration wittgensteinienne apporte plusieurs propositions importantes. Les règles sont ainsi considérées comme des concepts d'air de famille : il n'y a pas de définitions communes recouvrant l'ensemble des règles. Pour étudier les règles, il convient alors de faire des distinctions à partir de leurs usages. Une de ces distinctions concerne la différence entre règles constitutives et règles régulatives : une règle constitutive crée une pratique (e.g. le mariage), alors qu'une règle régulative s'applique à des activités qui peuvent exister sans elle (e.g. les règles du savoir-vivre). L'activité méthodologique des sociologues repose et est contrainte par ces types de règles, qui sont pour l'essentiel implicites. Cette thèse vise donc à rendre compte, par la description et la codification des règles, du caractère normatif des méthodes dans les pratiques d'analyse de la sociologie. Elle insiste en particulier sur les limites logiques qu'instituent les règles constitutives, celles-ci rendant impossibles (et non pas interdites) certaines actions des sociologues. This thesis brings together a series of meta-analyzes, that is, analyzes that tackle analyzes produced by sociologists (notably those resulting from the application of methods in treating interviews). The approach is reflexive and aimed at the concrete practices of sociologists, considered as activities governed by rules. An important part of this thesis is therefore devoted to the development of a "pragmatological" analytical tool (Durkheim) to conduct a study of such practices and of the rules that govern them. To approach these rules, Wittgenstein-inspired analytic philosophy offers several important proposals. The rules are, at first, seen as concepts of family resemblance, assuming that there is no common definition accounting for all rules. In order to conduct the study of such rules, it is therefore necessary to discern how they are respectively used. One of these distinctions concerns the difference between constitutive rules and regulative rules: a constitutive rule creates a practice (for example marriage), while a regulative rule applies to activities that can exist outside of the rule (for example, the rules of etiquette). The methodological activity of sociologists relies on, and is constrained by these types of rules, which are essentially implicit. Through the description and codification of rules, this thesis aims to account for the normative character of methods governing analytical practices in sociology. Particular emphasis is on the logical limits established by constitutive rules, limits that render several of the sociologist's actions impossible (rather than forbidden).