Youth Employment, Informality, and Precarity in the Global South

Characteristics of labor markets are often assumed to be universal, when in fact they are peculiar to patterns of employment in Europe and North America. This essay makes these universalist assumptions about labor markets for youth explicit, challenging their foundational claims in relation to trends in parts of the Global South. Urbanization, the Standard Employment Relationship (SER), and the notions of precarity are all analyzed for their Northern biases. The work of early labor market theorist W. Arthur Lewis is then explored, critiquing how his theory was reduced to one aspect—rural labor migration to urban factory work to increase productivity—when it had complex social, political, educational, and policy-related implications. Southern scholars should not be interpreted in terms of their relevance to Northern processes. They should be grappled with on their own terms, in relation to the Southern contexts from which they speak. Finally, an agenda for Southern labor market theory building is offered.

The Age of Increased Precarious Employment: Origins and Implications

This chapter explores why employment rules and norms took the form they did, the prevalence of precarious employment in the labour market today, and the social implications of the era of Increased Precarious Employment. The employment norms associated with the era of Increased Precarious Employment represent one component of a broader shift to a neoliberal form of social organization. The chapter begins by reviewing the factors that led to the transition from the Standard Employment Relationship and the forces that shaped the employment relationship in the era of Increased Precarious Employment. It then examines debates over how to measure the prevalence of the precarious workforce, before considering the impact of precarious employment on households, families, and communities. The chapter looks at the findings of the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario research group.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF LABOUR LAW AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

This paper seeks to take a look at recent labour law reforms in a number of selected CEE countries, and to examine the manner, in which the equation of standard employment relationship and the dynamics of collective bargaining processes have changed. The 1st section discusses the policy goals as well as drivers of legal changes, which have aff ected and guided recent labour law reforms in the sub-region. External infl uences over shaping of the new policy visions and recovery policies are also examined here. The 2nd section examines recent trends in regulating standard and non-standard employment relationship, as well as the collective agreements as determinants of working conditions and terms of employment. It also analyses the new approaches in the implementation of the guiding principles of collective bargaining, including the autonomy of the parties, and the principle of favourability. Furthermore, the 3rd section seeks to explore what the future looks like by traveling the paths opened by the works of the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, with a special focus on the Universal Labour Guarantee. Finally, a number of conclusions are drawn on the basis of the analysed data and policies.

Employment Models of Platform Companies in Norway: A Distinctive Approach?

The past decade has seen an increase in ‘platform companies’ functioning as the intermediary between workers and customers.The way these companies structure the labour process has significant implications for working conditions. In this article, we ask: In what ways does platform work in Norway differ from standard employment relationships? And do different employment strategies of platform companies put workers in precarious situations? The article builds on qualitative interviews with CEOs of platform companies in Norway, and aims to contribute to the literature by formulating a typology of the employment models of platform companies emerging in the Nordic countries. The platforms’ employment models are compared to the standard employment relationship and precariousness. Finally, the article suggests that institutions matter for why some platform companies adopt elements of the standard employment relationships as they appear in the Nordic labour market models, and discusses the implications of this.

British Steamship Workers, c. 1875–1945: Precarious before Precarity

Much current work on labour conditions is founded on the notion of precarity. This article contends that there is a lack of historical depth in the use of this concept. By looking at the case of British steamship workers, it argues that the Standard Employment Relationship (SER) which precarity theory has attributed to “advanced” economies in the twentieth century was not always the norm. The employment of British steamship workers was never characterised by a SER. They lacked labour freedom and were regularly imprisoned for work-related offences. They were never fully participant in the democratising processes that played out in liberal democratic societies. Seafarers were to an extraordinary extent subject to long-term debt relationships which generated structural poverty. They had life trajectories of a “catastrophic” character, involving difficulty in forming stable families, serious injury and early death. While British steamship workers were relatively privileged in relation to colonised workers, their case nevertheless places a question mark over the standard precarity theory narrative of the rise and fall of the SER.

Social protection of workers in non-standard forms of employment in Slovenia

The article deals with legal position of individuals who work in various nonstandard forms of employment in Slovenia. The author analyses labour law protection and social position of workers, carrying out the work in forms of temporary work (fixed-term employment, temporary and occasional work of students and retired people), in employment relationships with more than two parties (temporary agency work), and also the position of false self-employed and economically dependent persons. It is evident that these forms of work are not precarious on their own, since Slovenian legislation provides the workers with rather proper protection during the period, in which they work, and moreover, these workers are also entitled to rights from social insurance schemes (in narrower of broader scope). The situation is different in cases of abuse of these forms of work and in cases of false self-employed persons and other disguised employees, when workers are only entitled to a limited scope of rights in spite of working in relationships with elements of a standard employment relationship. In order to prevent these cases, not only additional legislation solutions and labour market measures are needed, but labour inspection will also have to be increased and furthermore, the awareness of employers and the society regarding long-term impacts of use of such non-standard forms of work will have to be raised.

PERANAN PEMERINTAH TERHADAP PRECARIOUS WORK DALAM KALANGAN NELAYAN DI SEMPORNA, SABAH

Abstrak Precarious work merupakan pekerjaan yang mempunyai amalan pekerjaan yang tidak menentu, tidak dapat dijangkakan dan berisiko terhadap golongan pekerja. Majikan berpotensi memanipulasikan kondisi pekerjaan yang perlu ditanggung oleh mereka kepada pekerja melalui ciri perhubungan pekerjaan yang bersifat precarious seperti tiada kontrak perkhidmatan dan gaji yang rendah. Ciri-ciri precarious work ini adalah bertentangan dengan sistem perhubungan pekerjaan standard yang sepatutnya diterima oleh seorang pekerja berdasarkan Akta Kerja 1955 dan Ordinan Buruh Sabah. Kajian ini menggunakan kaedah kualitatif dengan menemu bual majikan dan bekerja selain menggunakan borang soal selidik bagi menyokong data yang diperoleh. Artikel ini cuba menganalisis peranan pemerintah terhadap kawalan pembentukan ciri precarious work dalam kalangan pekerja nelayan di Sabah terutamanya di kawasan kajian di Semporna. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan lemahnya pengawasan pekerja terhadap undang-undang pekerjaan di sektor perikanan mengakibatkan banyak regulasi pekerjaan diabaikan dan disalahgunakan. Kata kunci: Ciri precarious work, majikan, pekerja maritim, nelayan, peranan pemerintah. Abstract Precarious work is a job that is uncertain, unpredictable and has risky work practices. Employers have the potential to manipulate the conditions of employment that they need to support their employees through the forms of precarious employment relationships such as no service contracts and low wages. These characteristics of precarious work contradicts the standard employment relationship systems, which should be accepted by an employee based on the Employment Act 1955 and the Sabah Labor Ordinance. This study is using a qualitative by interviewing the employers and employees as well as using questionaire to support the data. This paper attempts to analyze the role of the government in controlling the formation of precarious work characteristics among fishermen in Sabah especially in the research location in Semporna. The findings indicate that the lack of supervision of workers against employment laws in the fisheries sector are being ignored and misused in many of the work regulations. Keywords: Precarious work characteristics, employer, maritime workers, fisherman, the role of the government.

The EU social pillar

With atypical work gaining popularity, platform work seems to combine all the elements which, by deviating significantly from the standard employment relationship, challenge social security systems. After an overview of the features of the standard employment relationship and the different ways in which non-standard forms of work diverge from them, the article focuses on the nature of platform work. It then analyses how platform work is regulated in five European social security systems (i.e. Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium), and how this regulation may fare when analysed under the lens of the recent European Commission’s proposal for a Council Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed. The article concludes by highlighting the need for further adaptation of social security systems to the specific features of platform work, and by noting the risks of a regulatory approach towards this new form of work being dominated by the exclusion of low-paid work from the scope of labour-related social insurance schemes.

The grey zone and labour market dynamics in Germany

In this article, we define the ‘grey zone’ as the proliferation of categories of employment and the growing dissonance between those categories and the realities of the labour market. Against the background of the weakening of the standard employment relationship, and going beyond the dualism of the labour market, there are three processes by which the employment norm is differentiated: the institutionalisation of new employment categories by public authorities, the influence of collective norms on the framing of employment categories by organised groups such as unions and employers’ associations, and the uses of those norms by social actors such as companies. In this article, we first describe the evolution of the German labour market over the past 20 years. We then shed light on the dynamics of the grey zones of employment in Germany by drawing on two strands – self-employment and traineeships – and by distinguishing the three differentiation mechanisms.