Bargaining for distance: regulatory patterns of remote work in French collective agreements

Purpose This paper examines how collective bargaining shapes distinct patterns of remote work regulation in France, tracing the formalization of telework arrangements before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach Mixed-method analysis combining systematic coding of 126 variables across 107 company-level agreements with qualitative case studies, informed by Reynaud's Theory of Social Regulation (TSR). Findings Three regulatory models emerge: restrictive (39%), integration (36.2%), and transformative (24.8%), each with internally consistent patterns of temporal allocation, eligibility, material support, and managerial philosophy. Post-pandemic, integration agreements rose from 17.6% to 45.1% while transformative agreements slightly declined, indicating that bargaining produced moderate expansion rather than fundamental restructuring. Eligibility criteria, not technological capacity, serve as the primary mechanism determining who gains access to remote work. Trust appears as a central but contested mechanism, invoked to justify both the loosening and tightening of arrangements. Research limitations/implications The French institutional context limits direct transferability. The regulatory dimensions identified, particularly eligibility restrictions and the role of trust, may nonetheless prove relevant in other employment systems where collective bargaining structures remote work. Practical implications The three-model typology may serve as a diagnostic tool: organizations could locate their positioning along the restrictive-integration-transformative spectrum and identify which provisions distinguish one model from another. Social implications Post-pandemic eligibility exclusions tripled for production workers despite proven feasibility, and housing requirements in transformative agreements may exclude lower-income workers, suggesting that remote work policies risk creating new workplace inequalities. Originality/value Offers a rare mixed-method analysis of company-level telework agreements, revealing regulatory configurations typically obscured in qualitative research. Extends TSR empirically to virtual work contexts, showing how spatial disruption reshapes the interaction between management-imposed and worker-developed rules.