(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #231 - Right of reply: Agnone, capitalist firm or editorial collective and militant in crisis? (fr)

In his column "Readers" Alternative libertarian published in July 2013, a testimony from 
two former employees of Agnone, G and R, which speak methods "employer", "managerial" and 
"outsourcing strategies ". It's never nice to see old friends away with bitterness. And it 
is worse to see them publicly that the project in which they became so invested in their 
eyes the opposite of what it was a few months earlier. Respect for the work done, this 
response does not want to give another perspective on what happened in Agony in 2012. --- 
Number 50 of the magazine Agony which serves as starting point to letters to the editor 
discusses employer strategies of companies like Peugeot, EDF and Carrefour, where trade 
unionists are subjected to practices of repression and domestication constituting violent 
versions or mild sprains labor law and shattering lives. The group of publishers Rl 
himself described as pleasant if it is suddenly transformed into a capitalist firm [ 1 ]? 
The personality of its editorial director, Thierry Discepolo, well-known part of the 
activist world, she is suddenly transformed? We do not see things this way.

It is a fact, five employees have left editions Agnone between October 2012 and January 
2013. Each of them chose the conditions of his departure, and consequent premiums were 
awarded. The president of the association Agnone merely endorse them. All these departures 
follow a major crisis. Nobody denies. But this situation should be analyzed as political 
crisis a committed editorial project, amid upheaval worlds book.

These departures are not a thunderbolt from a clear sky. They followed several months of 
disagreement, after which the editorial director offers, in June 2012, to withdraw the 
benefit of editorial collegium composed of other employees. This proposal is rejected and 
causes the first two starts. A general meeting of employees and directors of collection is 
convened in September, during which the editorial director reiterates its proposal to 
withdraw the benefit of employees dissatisfied. It is denied again. Editorial director 
then proposes a reduction of logistical tasks and redesign of the website. This project is 
approved by a majority - and supported by the office of the association, including a wage 
increase of 20%. A week later, three other employees, including G and R, announce their 
departure.

General Assembly in September 2012, no single solution to disagreements did have emerged. 
Differences related to the collective organization of work and response to contemporary 
issues or former publishing: which uses digital book formats of the book? How far 
developing online sales? How do these practices coexist with the library?

These differences also focused on relations with the intellectual and academic world. For 
Agnone is not only a producer of material goods. Its raw material remaining texts, which, 
unfortunately, often predictable social backgrounds: small and large intellectual 
bourgeoisie, activist circles, academic circles, rarely worlds workers. This finding 
should be taken until the end: the publishing business implies a connection with these 
groups to access the raw materials are made of books.

To satisfy the ideal of an editorial collective committed this work collection (collection 
management), but also on the same texts (preface, translation, unit notes, appendices, 
etc..) Should be shared as much as possible among all employees of a publishing house.

Ignoring these issues, most houses have adopted a hierarchical organization of tasks which 
reproduces the intellectual cut / manual "great thinker" / "little hands." This produces a 
division between those who "find books" (orbiting in intellectual circles, including 
Paris) and "those who do become objects"; between those working on the texts and "agencent 
books together" to form an editorial line and those who give shape and movement. This is 
not a problem for Fayard or Flammarion arise, however, a real problem when a publishing 
how to books is as important as their home contents.

Agony in the collective organization of work based on the principle of equal pay. In 
addition, a large part of the work of collecting and working on the text is divided among 
employees performing the different jobs that brings a publishing house. But this is not 
enough. It was and remains very difficult to establish a division of labor totally 
egalitarian. This is a point of crisis that we went through. Can we settle the long term, 
an editorial director who provides most of the relationship between the publisher and its 
external stakeholders (authors, translators, colleagues, librarians, distributor and 
marketer, government)? How to manage information asymmetry, social visibility and the 
impact of customization that this inevitably occurs within a group?

The political lesson that there is to be learned from this situation does not seem to have 
to be found in a parallel displaced with managerial logic. (Thus the "outsourcing" is it 
mentioned that the delegation to the library Read Want to Ivry-sur-Seine, online ordering 
site Agone.org, and there was never a question of ". reducing payroll ") If we take a 
lesson from this crisis is the need to reflect on the shortness of the vocational model, 
which is at the center of Agnone project: responding to difficulties for Member a 
collective agreement on a self-management project in the long term, what is more with the 
current upheaval in the worlds of publishing. The question remains to successfully 
articulate the requirements of diffusion of symbolic goods with material realities which 
inevitably pass by a project that wants to keep these ambitions.

Spoiler Denis, Thierry Discepolo, GUENOCHE Alain Sylvain Laurens, Jo?lle Metzger, Julian 
Mischi Philippe Olivera, Penissat Etienne, Jean-Jacques Rosat, Jacques Vialle - officers 
or employee Editions Agony in 2012 and 2013.

[ 1 ] R (Agnone editions): "It is better to take your time," Article XI, July 2010.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/spip.php?article5424