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In this article, we will undertake an analysis explaining several significant moments of contemporary struggles to preserve the system of social rights built in the 19th century and established in 1945, guaranteeing French workers favourable working conditions, health insurance, social security in the event of job loss and retirement, which are gradually subject to neoliberal reforms. The subject of our analysis here are three important moments in the struggle to preserve acquis sociaux, i.e.,
the social rights won, allowing us to understand the social meaning of the changes that have taken place in this matter since the early 1990s in France. The first of these moments is the largest labour strike since 1968, which took place in 1995 and was aimed both at defending the public sector, in particular the state railways (SNCF and RATP), against their privatisation, and at preserving the social rights existing in France at that time, including the pension law in force at that time. The second moment we will devote attention to here will be the “Yellow jackets” revolt, which took place in 2018—2019, and whose participants demanded the revocation of pro-ecological rights. The third moment is the fight against the pension system reform finally introduced “by force” in 2023.

Research on work stress during the COVID-19 pandemic has primarily focused on organizational psychology perspectives, often neglecting the role of broader social structures and meanings attached to this complex social crisis. This paper aims to provide an alternative approach, building on L. I. Pearlin’s stress process theory. The study draws on 29 in-depth interviews with Czech employees, capturing complexity of pandemic experiences and their perception. Pandemic-specific mechanisms of work stress were identified, with managerial approaches and workplace power dynamics emerging as central factors. The analysis reveals three distinct types of stress experiences, named: “Stress Mediated by Sense of Purpose,” “Disempowered Strain,” and “Behind the Shield.”

The article explores the paradox of underrepresentation of women in the leadership positions in the fashion industry. Despite the large number of women in lower-tier positions in the industry, higher positions are mainly held by men. By the analysis of data collected through qualitative interviews with female managers from fashion companies, combined with interviews published in leading fashion press, the research aims to explore the differences in career opportunities for women and men. The analysis is grounded in Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, which provides a framework for demonstrating the relationship between position in the field of fashion and potential career prospects.

This article addresses the issues of stigmatization and discrimination against individuals with excess body weight in the Polish labor market. Its primary aim is to analyze how overweight and obese individuals are perceived in the workplace by HR professionals and managers. A key focus is placed on identifying who is currently recognized as a person with excess body weight in professional contexts, what stereotypes are associated with overweight and obesity, and whether and how individuals with additional weight may face discrimination from HR staff, managerial personnel, and colleagues. The presented conclusions are based on the qualitative research conducted by the author among HR specialists and managers.

Maritime professions have been a central focus of Polish maritime sociology for decades. Researchers studying work at sea have been based not only in Gdańsk and Szczecin but also in Poznań or Katowice. The article presents several decades of research achievements in this field, with special emphasis on the specifics of employment on deep-sea vessels. This work environment has at times been perceived as a closed, quasi-total institution. The article also discusses contemporary research trends, including safety culture, equality, and automation, as well as the challenges maritime labour organizers face in light of the blue economy concept.

This article examines the popularization of remote work in Poland between 2020 and 2024, drawing on data from Statistics Poland (GUS). The observed trends are interpreted within the framework of reflexive modernization. The analysis shows that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated the flexibilization of the labour market, leading to a sustained increase in remote work, especially in knowledge-based sectors and the most modernized regions of the country. The article focuses on the scale and dynamics of remote work, exploring its demographic, spatial, and sectoral variations, as well as the associated inequalities. It is based on a comprehensive analysis of the GUS data on remote work and contributes to the existing Polish literature by offering an integrated study of this phenomenon.

Raymond Aron, a sociologist and intellectual, is regarded by many as one of the most eminent minds of the twentieth century. Refusing to “go with the flow of the ideological current along the Seine,” he spent most of his life on the margins of his country’s intellectual scene. Left-leaning scholars saw him as a reactionary thinker — an heir to and proponent of the outdated tenets of liberal (read: anti-communist) doctrine. He chose the fate of a hermit in the vibrant city of Paris. He preferred to be viewed as a pariah among the Parisian bohemia (including the café philosophers) rather than follow the herd of inept imitators of Jean-Paul Sartre. Independent thinking — this was his challenge. The price he paid included not only the loss of friends but also the loss of academic positions. To the end, he remained true to himself, refusing to be identified with either the political left or the right. From the mid-1970s onward, however, he increasingly came to be recognised as a custodian of the highest scholarly values — particularly objectivity in the study of political and socio-economic mechanisms. Aron consistently employed the rigorous tools of the researcher and sociologist in crafting his commentaries. For the French intellectual, it was crucial to capture the moment — essential for the agency of both society and the state — when the evaluation of the surrounding reality becomes as significant as reality itself. The explication of facts thus acquires the status of a sociological category, aiming to forecast the future on the basis of scientific methodology. As a commentator, Aron masterfully combined the craft of the sociologist with that of the intellectual and publicist.

This article examines the phenomenon of virtual affective labour as a form of immaterial labour centred on the production and maintenance of interpersonal bonds and the commodification of social relations through media-mediated communication and emotion facilitated by the Internet. The article demonstrates how this concept may be employed to advance our understanding of celebrities as a social category within the context of post-industrial transformations of labour. Social media platforms, by providing infrastructure that virtualises social interactions, capture, monetise, and render those interactions economically productive. Consequently, virtual affective labour — once confined to a small number of media figures — is becoming a mass phenomenon. Digitalised social relations, and above all the data generated through them and the attention invested in them, constitute the foundation of profit for contemporary digital affective industries. These industries generate parasocial relations in a twofold sense: they commercially exploit the emotions of the recipients of celebrity posts by simulating the creation of personal bonds, and they employ digital algorithms and bots to sustain communication with audiences. The article further describes how social media platforms, ostensibly democratising access to the tools of visibility-building, incentivise prosumers to perform affective labour on their behalf through the promise of celebrity fame and intermittent rewards dispensed by Skinnerian algorithms, thereby contributing to the proliferation of behavioural addictions.

Collective disputes are dynamic processes in which the bargaining power of the parties to the conflict—employers and trade unions—shifts continuously over time. This analysis starts from the assumption that Polish trade unions have structurally limited institutional bargaining power, resulting from the current legal regulations governing collective bargaining procedures and the right to strike. This article conceptualises bargaining power as a short-term variable, susceptible to fluctuations even at individual stages of the conflict. The analysis is based on qualitative research involving interviews with trade union leaders who headed collective disputes between 2019 and 2022. The findings indicate that employers systematically use, among other instruments, legal procedures, repression of union activists, and the juridification of conflict to curtail employees’ bargaining power. In response, trade unions resort to compensatory strategies such as employee mobilisation, externalisation of the conflict, building social coalitions, and using informal forms of pressure. The results show that the course of a collective dispute should be analysed as a relational sequence of mutual interactions, in which losses in one area of bargaining power can be partially offset by activating other sources of bargaining power. Understanding this dynamic is key to analysing contemporary labour conflicts and the functioning of collective industrial relations in Poland.

This text is a review a monography of "Solidarity" at Silesian University. The general evaluation and truthfulness of presented  facts were done. Especially, thos review emphasized the process of founding this organization, and the first period of its activity