It is with regret that we announce the cessation of publication of the journal Les Mondes du Travail. The Editorial Board has been involved in an internal conflict that has dragged on for several months over the past year. This conflict developed in a context marked by a weakening of our financial base and an accumulation of organizational problems. Although the coordination of the dossiers was taken on collectively, the secretarial work and subscriber management continued on a voluntary basis, which is indicative of a lack of institutional support, even though the journal has gained in recognition and visibility since 2019.
It also has to be said that the field of scientific publishing has undergone profound changes over the last years or so. The number of online journals has exploded and their organizational economy is based, for the most part for french language, on the Revues.org platform publishing online more than 670 different journals, if not on the Cairn pay portal publishing more than 550 journals. Obviously, the publication of a scientific journal has gained in ‘exchange value’ from the point of view of the economics of the academic field and (fairly precarious) careers, but it is also undeniable that its ‘use value’ is being steadily eroded.
The race to ‘publish or perish’ is generating an inflationary spiral in which the quantity of articles published outweighs their quality and breeds mediocrity. Generally speaking, the overall content of a journal is far less important than the multitude of articles that can be consulted separately and that will feed Chat GPT which will producing paraphrases helpful to write quickly a set of articles that will probably be published one or two years later, if so. This whole inflationary competitive climate which is propelled by the neoliberal university and its growing managerialist culture generates a kind of self-harming disease (cfr. the concept of auto-immunic pathology used by J. Derrida), producing the opposite that it pretends to achieve. Of course, in such a context, the search for coherence is evacuated, the availability for true dialogue between researchers becomes minimalist and critical positions or analysis that does not cope with mainstream doxa in social sciences are discarded or pushed towards self-censorship. By taking this decision, we definitely won’t be part of the problem…
However, despite the headwinds, we have managed to maintain an open and critical approach regarding work, labour, employment relations, as well as collective action for almost 18 years, with 30 issues published to date. But it has to be said that such an approach is difficult to sustain without support of structures such as research units. Knowing that the organizational culture of the world of academic research is more and more based upon free labour delivered by precarious ph.d students and post-docs, and since we do not want to move on that road, it seemed preferable to cease publication of the journal and redeploy our resources towards objectives and projects in line with the principles that presided over the launching of the journal in 2006. The individual and institutional subscriptions registered for the year 2024 will therefore come to an end with issue 31, due for a printed publication before end of 2024.
In the meantime, we are setting up a new platform for multilingual publication, editing and critical research connected to the real world and dealing not only with labour and work but with all interlinked urgent issues such as authoritarianism, democracy, the degradation of urban life, political economy, the war on nature and on life. This platform which will be made public when issue 31 will be printed. In the coming months we will also publish on this website the english translation of the most interesting articles and interviews such as those with Michael Burawoy, Dave Lyddon and Martin Kuhlman, Moshe Postone, Oskar Negt, Ewan Gibbs, Ake Sandberg, Robert Karasek, Antonio Casilli, Michel Lallemant and Michèle Riot-Sarcey, Fernando Urrea-Giraldo, Jorge Cabrita, Danièle Kergoat, Laurent Vogel, Anselm Jappe and Danièle Linhart.
Two steps back, one step forward!
For the executive board of the editing structure “Les Mondes du travail – association Loi 1901”
Stephen Bouquin, Denis Blot, Pascal Depoorter, Nathalie Frigul, Alain Maillard.
Global overview of visitors and pages visited
| When | Unique Visitors | Pages visited |
| Today (22/10/2024) | 11 | 16 |
| Yesterday (21/10/2024) | 115 | 349 |
| Last week | 754 | 1 374 |
| Last 30 days | 2 702 | 5 292 |
| Last 60 days | 4 131 | 8 861 |
| Last 90 days | 5 247 | 11 381 |
| Last 12 months | 16 964 | 34 319 |
| This year (Jan 2024-Today) | 15 725 | 32 413 |
| Last year (2023) | 26 523 | 54 935 |
| Total since 2020 | 94 397 | 203 820 |
| Issue and theme of dossier | Coordinators | number of downloads of pdf version (total amount 32,634) |
| N°31 – The future of work: challenges and critique (October 2024) | Marie-Anne Dujarier and Olivier Frayssé, | Paper only |
| N°30 – Labour, collective bargaining and industrial disputes: what recompositions? (September 2023) | Sophie Béroud and Jérôme Pélisse | 794 |
| N°29 – Work and ecology (March 2023) | Alexis Cuckier, David Gaboriau and Vincent Gay | 2,825 |
| N°28 – Varia (July 2022), | collective | 2,196 |
| N°27 – Periphéries, the role of work in the production of space (December 2021), José Caldéron, 2766 | José Caldéron | 2,766 |
| N°26 – Working in pandemic times (June 2021) | Rachid Bouchareb, Nicolas Cianferoni, Nathalie Frigul, Marc Loriol, | 2,983 |
| N°24-25 Automation in question (November 2020) | Stéphen Bouquin | 2156 |
| Hors série – Mobilizations and strikes (February 2020) | Stéphen Bouquin | 3,450 |
| N°23 – Utopias of work (November 2019), | Séverin Muller | 1,386 |
| N°22 – Writing about work (January 2019) | Marc Loriol | 876 |
| N°21 – Racial discriminations at work (May 2018), | Rachid Bouchareb | 898 |
| N°20 – International Trade unionism (October 2017) | Anne Dufresne and Corinne Gobin | 546 |
| N°19 – Work and disabilities (March 2017) | Françoise Piotet | 788 |
| N°18 – Working upon the oceans (September 2016) | Jorge Munoz | 597 |
| N°16-17 – Work and and non-working time (December 2015) | Marc Loriol and Françoise Piotet | 779 |
| N°15 – Varia (April 2015) | collective | 624 |
| N°14 – Geographical mobilities and labour (March 2014) | Alain Maillard | 592 |
| N°13 – Humor at work (June 2013) | Marc Loriol | 1,452 |
| N°12 – Labour and collective action in times of crisis (November 2012) | Jean Vandewattyne, and Mélanie Guyonvarc’h | 1,203 |
| N°11 – Varia (February 2012) | collective | 417 |
| N°9-10- Informality and labour (June 2011) | Stéphen Bouquin and Isabel Georges | 776 |
| N°8 – Social work and care (April 2010) | Pascal Depoorter and Nathalie Frigul | 567 |
| N°7 – Work and migrations (June 2009) | Alain Maillard and Denis Blot | 528 |
| N°6 – Labouring classes, political orientations and militant activism (September 2008) | Stephen Bouquin | 759 |
| n°5 – Miseries and splendors of working in non-profit associations (January 2008) | Mathieu Hély and Maud Simonet | 561 |
| n°3-4 – Work, Labour and social conflits (May 2007) | Pascal Depoorter, Isabelle Farcy, Thomas Rothé | 859 |
| n°2 – Fragmented social temporalities and work (September 2006) | Alain Maillard | 471 |
| n°1 – Labour relations, social rights and trade-unions in SME’s (January 2006) | Stephen Bouquin | 785 |