Precarious Work: An International Problem

KEYWORDS precarious employment, conditions of employment, occupational health, role of ILO, multinational enterprisePrecarious work is a social scandal of our times. It is the exact opposite of decent work, as promoted by the ILO. Precarious work is found in both the informal economy and the formal sector. It is a widespread, growing phenomenon of universal scope.Huge numbers of under-resourced people head out into the streets every day to sell something or other, or to carry out all sorts of tasks for very little pay, as a way of surviving in a situation of widespread unemployment and few productive job openings. Another reason which explains why many people stay in the informal sector is that they have bad memories of poorly paid, monotonous jobs in firms that offered no career prospects. At least informal work provides them with a sense of feeling of freedom, despite the risks. In that sense, the informal sector is the result of both the lack of productive employment and the failure on the part of entreprises to offer respectable, attractive jobs.So, in many instances, the informal sector is somewhat inevitable, and the measures taken to shrink it, or to improve the conditions of those working in it, do not seem likely to make it disappear.Alongside the informal workers, ever-increasing numbers of wage-earners employed by private individuals or corporate entities are joining the ranks of the precariously employed. Everywhere, a pattern has been emerging in which a worker elite continues to enjoy normal labour conditions, including the rights laid down in the law, while a growing share of the workforce seems to be on the fringes of the law and is wholly or partially excluded from its benefits.The reality of dependent precarious employment reproduces the problems raised in the discussion on the employment relationship, as conducted by the International Labour Conference in 1997, 1998, 2003 and 2006. So in tackling this subject, we need to draw some lessons from that debate. But the problem of precariousness is becoming increasingly broad and diffuse. Precarious employment can exist without but also within a clear employment relationship.Two characteristics of present-day dependent precarious employment are particularly serious, and can often make it seem an unstoppable phenomenon. One is the ambivalent behaviour of private and public employers who use it as they see fit, on the fringes of legality. The other is the internationalization of the problem, through the action of multinational corporations and the transnationalization of employment. These characteristics run directly counter to the international labour standards and the ILO's mandate, thus constituting a major challenge. Wherever precarious labour is used and abused, social rights take a back seat.The ambiguity of precarious workA dependent job may be regarded as precarious for a number of reasons. It may be that a person's employment relationship is hidden, disguised by ostensible civil or commercial contracts. As a result, the person's labour rights will vanish into thin air or will simply be denied. It may also happen that an employee ends up in a triangular relationship, under contract to an employer to provide services to a third party, a user, and that this triangular relationship is not adequately protected. As became clear in the ILO discussions on the employment relationship, all sorts of labels are used from time to time in order to hide the labour link between the dependent worker and the public or private employer behind a screen of bogus self employment. Or else the actual user of the worker's services may access them via a contractor or an employment agency or a real or bogus cooperative. In this way, the employment conditions can be kept below those that the user would have had to provide in the case of a direct contractual relationship with the worker, and there will also be fewer safeguards. …