Contenu du sommaire : Sociologie du travail, 40ᵉ année n°1, Janvier-mars 1998.

Self-control, keeping track, responsibility. Nowadays, self-control has become an instrument in total quality strategies. But this case study of assembly workshops in a French automobile factory shows how hard it is to apply such a principle. Self-control combines two potentially contradictory activities : the tracking (i.e. recording) of all faults reported by operatives and each operative's responsibility for quality control. As a means for bringing pressure to bear on services and persons, tracking helps to make up for human and technical shortcomings. But it raises problems when persons are held responsible. During incidents for example, operators — in order to avoid accusations they feel to be unfounded or stigmatic — know how to get around formal channels so as to maintain the quality of production either by solving problems themselves or by obtaining unreported outside help.

Careers -Variations on the theme of anticipation : the case of technicians and white-collars in firms. Based on a study in two French firms (electrical and petroleum) of the real and imagined occupational prospects of three cohorts of wage-earners with at least two years of post-secondary education, this analysis seeks out the interrelations between : initial characteristics, the socialization of how wage-earners anticipate occupational prospects and the way firms manage careers. Organizational labelling processes (promotions, professionalization, marginalization) depend, as expected, on wage-earners' initial characteristics in relation to openings for promotions in the firms. But they also depend on wage-earners adjusting their behaviors to the normative requirements and opportunities for action within each firm. Three general scenarios of wage-earners' anticipatory practices are brought to light ; they represent three forms of labelling that affect the possibilities for filling openings inside the firms. They can be described as processes for socializing the relation to the future within each organization. These processes modulate the impact of wage-earners' initial social distribution on careers.

Police officers are more like judges than machines. Their room for manoeuvering — their so-called "discretionary power" — is quite real. In handling traffic violations (20 million tickets a year), they must observe, record, report, transmit and thus select and make decisions. On the basis of ethnographic observations and a longitudinal analysis of cohorts of violations, it is shown that writing out a ticket always entails using discernment and, ultimately, making a judgment. But what does "fair" mean to police officers ? How do they make choices ? Who will be given the benefit of a doubt ? This study of the work of the traffic police adopts a theoretical position that sees the bottom up approach as a way for renewing thought about how public policy is implemented. This general position lays emphasis on analyzing in detail the actual autonomy that those whom Lipsky has called "street-level bureaucrats" have in doing their jobs. This article provides an outline for the indispensable combination of a sociology of police activities and a sociology of the production of traffic safety.

This description of the sorting of household garbage prior to collection in public hou¬ sing projects in three neighbourhoods focuses on the role of "repairman" played by building caretakers. This role is essential for this type of garbage collection to be successful : these caretakers see to it that inhabitants sort garbage properly, and are responsible for buildings being kept clean. Without their active participation, selective garbage collection cannot work. Nonetheless, this group of actors has no place in plans for reforming garbage collection. Emphasis is laid on the organizational uncertainty of the position of caretakers, who, employed by public housing authorities, are overlooked by the municipal authorities behind these reforms. Alone in the field, these caretakers have to adapt and invent negotiating strategies. Their behavior is closely described.