La déstabilisation des stables : restructuration financière et travail insoutenable

Since the nineties and the apogee of a financial accumulation regime, firms have been experiencing financial restructuring (i. e. mergers and acquisitions) that destabilize the employment relationship. Compulsory redundancies that are usually measured do not capture the whole effect of financial restructuring. Work conditions and job satisfaction are also affected, undermining co-operation and loyalty. Based on interviews with individuals who left their firm (either "voluntarily" or not) in a context of financial restructuring, our paper shows that the experience of an unbearable work situation always precedes job separation.. But the mode of separation itself is constructed within a process of disengagement which depends on many factors. At the end, and whatever the subsequent job, job separation in such a context seems to have changed the interviewees' attitude to work