Life Paths and relationships between livestock farmers and wage workers in the Northern Alps

Madélrieux, Sophie; Dupré, Lucie; Rémy, Jacques

doi:10.4000/economierurale.2367

Cited by 6 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…They were hired to perform milking (cows and goats), but they started to perform additional tasks such as feeding, monitoring animals, and veterinary care: "I milked cows [at recruitment and after a few months) I did everything that needed to be done for the goats, including feeding, medicines to give them, monitoring animals" (employee 13). Assigning more tasks over time is a common farmer behavior to improve work flexibility (Hutt and Hutt 1993); for employees, it is a way to learn new tasks by performing them (Madelrieux et al 2009).…”

Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Assignment Of Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…in order to better share the workload with other members in the work group. Meanwhile, flexible routine work is common for shared employees from an employer group due to the room to maneuver to adapt according to the needs of the moment (Madelrieux et al 2009).…”

Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Assignment Of Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most employees perform only execution tasks during their career on a farm, while farmers prefer to perform responsibility tasks to better control the farm's technical performance. This is a common arrangement when employees want to work closely with the animals but do not want to have technical responsibilities (Madelrieux et al 2009 making, such as employee 5, who selected breeding bulls with the farmer and the veterinarian: "I give my opinion about each cow, its body condition, milk production. (…) The veterinarian suggests a breeding bull and we [employee and employer] tell him what faults we think the cow has and what needs to be improved" (employee 5).…”

Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Assignment Of Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Major job changes are concentrated at a specific moment in most employees' careers, especially from 1 to 3 years after recruitment. Building commitment between employer and employee is important during this period; to this end, employers test employees' technical skills (Madelrieux et al 2009).…”

Section: Two Variables Describing Evolutions In Versatility and Specimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Employees and farmers work in pairs at recruitment so that farmers can show how they currently work on the farm, indicate which tasks employees are to perform, and observe how the employees work. This practice is common, especially on family farms that hire an employee (Madelrieux et al 2009). Over time, the frequency of work in pairs decreases according to the employees' ability to perform tasks according to instructions.…”

Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

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A new framework to analyze changes in work organization for permanent employees on livestock farms

Malanski

Ingrand

Hostiou

2019

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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The importance of a hired workforce for the competitiveness of livestock farms emerges in a context of a decreasing family workforce and increasing farm size. Farmers' need for a regular workforce to perform labor-intensive tasks can conflict with the attractiveness of jobs and high rates of turnover among farm employees. Within farmers' strategies to attract and retain employees, little attention has been given to understand the role of work changes over time during the careers of employees on farms. We thus developed a framework to understand how employees' work organization on farms change over time since recruitment. Key concepts from human resource management and organizational change are the theoretical guidelines used to shape the framework. This conceptual base indicates what needs to be considered to understand changes in employees' work. Empirical data were used to transform the concepts into practical variables to analyze changes in employees' work. We interviewed 14 employees and 8 farmers (their employers) on dairy farms and collected data on work organization and changes over time, focusing on tasks performed by employees since recruitment, team composition, and farm history. The framework is composed of 8 variables that describe how work evolves according to changes in task assignments, changes in the way work is organized (versatility vs. specialization), and the level of autonomy afforded to workers. It also considers what drives these evolutions and the rhythm of evolution over time. The framework can be used by researchers to better understand trade-offs between labor management and farm changes over time. This is a new approach for analyzing work organization on livestock farms considering changes in work from the perspective of employees.

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Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Assignment Of Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Assignment Of Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Assignment Of Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Two Variables Describing Evolutions In Versatility and Specimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Three Variables Describing Evolutions In Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A new framework to analyze changes in work organization for permanent employees on livestock farms

Malanski

Ingrand

Hostiou

2019

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

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Entre maintien et transformation du caractère familial des exploitations agricoles. Le cas des exploitations laitières des Alpes du Nord

Terrier¹,

Madélrieux²,

Dedieu³

2015

L’agriculture en Famille : Travailler, Réinventer, Transmettre

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L'agriculture familiale est aujourd'hui sous le feu des projecteurs. Tandis que les Nations unies ont proclamé 2014 « Année internationale de l'agriculture familiale », les plaidoyers visant à démontrer l'importance, en termes de développement, de cette forme d'exercice de l'activité agricole à travers le monde, trouvent à se faire entendre. En France, l'exploitation familiale incarne un idéal longtemps mythifié par le dispositif idéologique syndical et consacré par les lois d'orientation de 1960 et 1962. L'expression « exploitation familiale » s'est cependant récemment vue effacée des textes de loi au profit de l'entreprise agricole. Ce changement de vocable signe-t-il pour autant la disparition du lien entre la famille et l'activité agricole ? Les données statistiques récentes dressent à ce propos un tableau ambigu. Selon une définition largement partagée, l'exploitation familiale renvoie à une exploitation agricole sur laquelle la propriété et le contrôle de la gestion, transmis d'une génération à l'autre, sont dans les mains d'individus liés par la parenté ou par le mariage et qui réalisent le travail agricole. Premier indice du maintien de la dimension familiale des exploitations françaises, c'est aujourd'hui 84 % des actifs permanents qui sont familiaux. Bien qu'en augmentation ces dernières années, l'appel à la main-d'oeuvre extérieure à la famille demeure minoritaire. Par ailleurs, l'agriculture reste un métier à forte reproduction sociale puisque 87 % des agriculteurs âgés de 21 à 34 ans ont un lien de parenté avec l'agriculteur qu'ils remplacent et dans les trois quarts des cas, il s'agit de leur père. Si ce tableau statistique tend à confirmer le caractère familial de l'agriculture française contemporaine, certaines évolutions telles que l'augmentation des installations hors cadre familial et du travail extérieur des conjointes, la généralisation des formes sociétaires ou encore, le recours de plus en plus fréquent aux salariés modèrent cet avis. En quoi ces évolutions transforment-elles le caractère familial des exploitations agricoles ? Comment coexistent ou s'articulent-elles avec le constat que nous faisons de permanence du caractère familial des exploitations françaises ? Re-questionner aujourd'hui les rapports familiaux de production sur l'exploitation agricole peut néanmoins sembler trivial, voire éculé, tant l'exploitation familiale a été disséquée depuis 50 ans. Pourtant, à y regarder de plus près, la dimension familiale de l'exploitation agricole a peu à peu disparu du champ scientifique français. Avec les profondes transformations de leurs « objets » privilégiés - « le rural », le « paysan » et le « village » - les recherches des ruralistes français, très prolifiques des années 1960 aux années 1980, s'en sont peu à peu détournées. À la recherche de nouvelles grilles de lecture pour analyser les formes sociales de production et d'organisation de l'agriculture contemporaine, c'est aujourd'hui vers l'agriculture de firme que se tournent les sociologues agricoles. Ainsi, de façon paradoxale, l'«...

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Entre maintien et transformation du caractère familial des exploitations agricoles . Le cas des exploitations laitières des Alpes du Nord

Terrier¹,

Madélrieux²,

Dedieu³

2020

l'Agriculture en Famille : Travailler, Réinventer, Transmettre

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Life Paths and relationships between livestock farmers and wage workers in the Northern Alps

Cited by 6 publications

References 16 publications

A new framework to analyze changes in work organization for permanent employees on livestock farms

A new framework to analyze changes in work organization for permanent employees on livestock farms

Entre maintien et transformation du caractère familial des exploitations agricoles. Le cas des exploitations laitières des Alpes du Nord

Entre maintien et transformation du caractère familial des exploitations agricoles . Le cas des exploitations laitières des Alpes du Nord

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