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The logistics sector in France is emblematic of contemporary labor processes in the service sector, where working conditions are at the root of a long-term, but silent, health crisis. Although the unionization of French logistics workers has gained some strength since the early 2000s, struggles over wages and working conditions remained segmented and local, and were unable to contain the progressive casualization of the employment or to counter the intensification of work. This article is a reflection on the fragmented and low-intensity conflictuality of the French logistics sector. Drawing on three ethnographic studies and on quantitative data, we analyze labor conflicts in various segments of the warehouse industry during the last decade in France, and identify some of the limits of French trade union strategies toward organizing logistics workers. We show that the massive use of temporary work and the weakness of the efforts made by traditional trade unions federations prevent the emergence of a larger labor movement in the sector. We argue that the fragmentation and the very high turnover that characterizes the French warehouse industry should encourage trade unions to invest more resources, often local and rooted in logistics zones, from outside the workplace.

International audience; By comparing two case studies in Italy and France, this article examines the effects of the casualization of employment in the logistics sector on collective labour movements and current forms of resistance at work. In both cases, Padua and Sénart, the logistics sector is a source of significant job insecurity: in France, through the segmentation of the workforce produced by the use of temporary employment agencies, which mainly recruit low-skilled workers belonging to the subaltern fractions of the labour force; in Italy, through the subcontracting of the workforce to cooperatives that mainly recruit migrant workers. Whereas over the last ten years Italy has seen the emergence of a large-scale labour movement in the warehouses of the north of the country, including in Padua, a movement in which migrant workers have been the main actors, the rare episodes of labour conflicts in France are mainly defensive and rarely go beyond the scope of the single warehouse. By focusing on the occupational mobility practices of the workforce and on local trade unions’ strategies, this article shows that the captivity of the workforce and the strength of migrants’ community networks, on which Italian trade unions’ strategies have relayed on, have played a central role in workers’ collective organization in Padua. On the contrary, in Melun-Sénart, workers’ mobility strategies tend to restrict labour actions to a small group of union activists belonging to the most stable segment of the workforce.; Grâce à la comparaison entre deux études de cas situées en Italie et en France dans le secteur de la logistique, cet article étudie les effets de la précarisation de l’emploi sur les mobilisations collectives et les formes actuelles de résistance au travail. À Padoue comme à Sénart, le secteur logistique est générateur d’une précarité professionnelle importante : en France, par la segmentation de la main-d’œuvre par l’intérim, recrutant les fractions disqualifiées du salariat subalterne ; en Italie, par la sous-traitance de la main-d’œuvre ouvrière à des coopératives recrutant principalement des travailleurs immigrés. Mais, alors qu’au cours des dix dernières années, l’Italie a vu émerger dans les entrepôts du nord du pays, notamment à Padoue, une mobilisation d’ampleur, dont les travailleurs immigrés ont été les protagonistes, les rares épisodes conflictuels en France sont des conflits défensifs qui ne dépassent pas le cadre d’un établissement. En s’intéressant aux pratiques de mobilité professionnelle de la main-d’œuvre et aux jeux syndicaux locaux, l’article montre que la captivité de la main-d’œuvre et les relations d’interconnaissances sur lesquelles s’appuient les stratégies syndicales jouent un rôle central dans la mobilisation collective à Padoue, alors qu’à Melun-Sénart, la mobilité des travailleurs restreint la conflictualité à un petit groupe de militants syndicaux du segment stable de la main-d’œuvre.