Collectively bargaining the management of competences: A new issue for industry-wide bargaining?

New ways for organizing work are ever more frequently based on an individua lized management of labour and a 'model of competence' centered around the firm. Does this signal a trend toward decentralized collective bargaining, which could put an end to industry as the level for regulating the system o f labour relations in France, as it exists since the 1980s and the Auroux A ct? Based on deep studies in two industries (plastics and pharmaceutics), t he answers vary: industry-wide bargaining talks are still quite vital, but the contents tend to change. These negotiations no longer focus on new coll ective rights but on the individual's right of access and on the respect fo r formal proceedings. We thus catch a glimpse of a new way in which the com panyand economic branch levels are linked through the definition of rules a nd regulations forwork. (C) Elsevier, Paris.