ABSTRACT
This chapter has two main purposes: first, to evaluate the scope and effect of measures taken by the government since 10 May 1981; and secondly, to relate that evaluation to a description of the underlying tendencies of the French economy over the past fifteen years. The job-redesign process began in the 1960s, in the euphoric climate of stable economic growth, and was not interrupted by the crisis, which in some respects it helped to shape. It was nothing less than a key element in a broad strategy to reorganize the factory and control the working class-a strategy necessitated by the crisis. In France there has been a proliferation of temporary labor contracts, in Italy and the United States a rise in "moonlighting". It is useful to distinguish three broad trends. The plan to deal with labor relations problems in new way, by making a more forthright attempt to hammer out negotiated contracts, may well be defeated by long-term trends.
