Missions

The main objective of the postdoctoral research is to contribute to the activities of the ANR SyndiCARE project. Specifically, the researcher will:
• Contribute, in collaboration with the scientific coordinator, to the overall progress of the project, including project management and organization of team meetings, participation in project events, monitoring of activities, archiving project documents, and disseminating project news (Hypotheses research blog).
• Analyze the legal and legislative frameworks of industrial relations systems in the UK, France, and Québec.
• Participate in fieldwork, from identifying contacts to analyzing the collected material, including scheduling interviews, conducting them, transcribing, archiving, and making verbatim transcripts available to the team. Most interviews outside Île-de-France will be held online. Short trips in France (1–2 days) may occasionally be required (e.g. visits to union sections, local or departmental unions). Support for the design and implementation of a questionnaire may also be required. Experience in quantitative analysis would be an asset.
• Contribute to the drafting of research outputs (reports and publications).

Activities

Main tasks include:
• Producing a synthesis of recent evolutions in UK, French, and Québec industrial relations systems, particularly their effects on the health of union representatives;
• Analyzing the legal frameworks governing trade union rights, collective bargaining, and the right to strike in the three countries;
• Conducting archival research, documentary analysis, and interviews with relevant actors;
• Writing sections of research reports and academic publications;
• Supporting the collective life of the research team and organizing scientific events.

Skills

Experience required: Quantitative and qualitative research methods, participation in or coordination of collective scientific projects. Junior post-doctoral fellow with less than 2 years of experience.
• PhD in sociology (specialization in industrial relations, trade unionism, occupational health), with openness to law and social history, ideally with international research experience.
• Doctoral research must have engaged with the transformation of industrial relations systems and their effects on social democracy, particularly from a union perspective.
• Strong knowledge of at least one trade union organization in the UK, France, or Québec.
• Competence in the analysis of trade unions, industrial relations systems (legal frameworks, union cultures, organizational structures and functioning).
• Skills in questionnaire design and quantitative analysis are desirable (knowledge of R or equivalent).
• Strong oral skills (for interviews), excellent writing skills (syntheses, reports), and proficiency with word-processing tools.
• Ability to take initiative, adopt new tools (including digital), and work independently.
• Good command of English for empirical fieldwork in the UK context is desirable.

Work Context

Remote work possible one day per week.
The post-doctoral researcher will be hosted at the Lise laboratory, Paris (2 rue Conté, 75003), Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. They will have access to a dedicated office, Cnam documentation centers, CNRS services, the staff canteen, the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and facilities offered by the staff association (cinema tickets, gym access, group activities, etc.).

The recruitment is carried out by the Lise laboratory (UMR CNRS 3320/Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers) in the framework of the ANR SyndiCARE project.
The SyndiCARE project aims to provide new knowledge to enrich the analysis of the conditions under which trade union mandates are exercised, and of the health issues—particularly mental health—faced by trade union representatives, using a comparative multi-level research design in three contexts (Québec, France, United Kingdom). It stems from the observation of an unprecedented deterioration in trade union representatives' health, exacerbated by neoliberal reforms, labor conflicts, and social mobilizations in the three selected regions.
The project seeks to analyze:
1. The characteristics of trade union representation activity that may present health risks, across different industrial relations systems;
2. The forms of expression and representations associated with health issues in union activism;
3. The strategies implemented by representatives and the activist groups to which they belong to better address and prevent such health risks.
By considering the health of representatives and the sustainability conditions of union mandates as an original analytical entry point, this project intends to contribute to a critical, cross-country reflection on the quality of industrial democracy and social justice. It seeks to accumulate conceptual and empirical knowledge in the field of industrial relations and occupational health through cross-analysis (Québec, France, United Kingdom), situating trade union representation in distinct social, legal, institutional, and historical contexts, which nevertheless share many commonalities.
The research will be carried out by a team of eight senior researchers, specialists in industrial relations, trade unionism, and health.
Fieldwork, in which the post-doctoral researcher will participate in collaboration with the team, will focus on two sectors: the transport industry and the healthcare sector. The work will involve studying the characteristics of national industrial relations systems in France, Québec, and the UK from the perspective of their effects on the health of union activists and staff representatives, conducting and analyzing semi-structured interviews, and designing an original questionnaire for trade union officials.