As an expert on worker safety, I was appointed by the unions to go talk to workers on the shop floor, ask them about their troubles, and look at the conditions they were working in. Most of the time, the workers didn’t have a problem with our presence there, or our questions. Managers did. They found our inquiry intolerable; all the more so because, by law, the company had to pay for it. They wanted to know, and even have a say in, who we met, what questions we asked, where we went, and what we saw. They agreed that workers’ safety and well-being were important topics; that they were happy to hire experts to help them understand problems and reduce risks. They weren’t happy that the experts they got were us. Seeing how nervous we made managers told me my presence was more than a piece of bureaucratic red tape.

In de-industrializing France, a shuttle bus is workers’ last link to stability.