Les Valoristes : étude sociologique du cas de la récupération informelle des matériaux à Montréal
With this master’s thesis, I propose an analysis of the mutations of labour, by looking at the reality of the Valoristes, Montreal workers who collect refundable containers in the streets, alleys and parks of the city. I describe the workers and the activity itself, but I also look at the different dynamics of this type of informal activity, while analyzing the process who got the Valoristes to collects these containers in the first place. From the start, I define these individuals as workers who have an informal and atypical economic activity, but who are not substantially different from other kinsd of more traditional wage workers. This leads me to study their work not as a “mean to climb out of poverty”, but as the result of a multitude of exclusion dynamics and actors who create marginalized and precarized forms of labour. From this definition, it is possible to study the mutations of the labour market in new ways, different from the traditional work structure, while linking this reality with other forms of atypical or precarious work, which are growing to be a large part of today’s labour market. The study of the “Coopérative de solidarité Les Valoristes”, a cooperative that tries to organize these workers, then leads me to take a look at new forms of collective organization, that can improve the situation of marginalized workers while positioning itself outside the traditional codes of collective action.
Consigne Sociology of labour Atypical work Precarity Refundable containers Marginality Collective organization Cooperative movement