Training trade unionists in ergonomics: Interaction between public policies, trade union practices and the development of research

For a number of years now, enterprises have become increasingly interested in training in the area of health and safety at work. Even though trade unionists and managers see different advantages in such training, they share the same willingness to reduce occupational injuries. Even if demand for training is sometimes limited on purpose (all that is expected of it is to pass on recipes enabling work to be continued without getting hurt), training in safety and health is a privileged point of contact between researchers and trade unionists. But the contact between these two groups of actors in the process of changing working conditions does not happen without raising a number of questions: that of reciprocal mental images of each other, for instance, something which will condition the ways in which their knowledge meets; or the issue of the target groups of training: all the workers or just the delegates representing the workers in cooperation bodies? Other fundamental questions relate to the context in which training takes place: what type of training should take pride of place? What is the role of the expert in this approach? And how should the expert's knowledge be linked in with that of the workers?