Precarious Workers

"Intellos précaires" et "classe créative" sont deux projets de groupes sociaux entrés en circulation dans les années 2000. Nous nous penchons ici sur la manière dont les acteurs qui, en France, promeuvent ces groupes cherchent à les appuyer sur des mesures quantitatives. L'analyse contrastée de leurs modes de quantification est une bonne voie pour expliciter les projets politiques qui sous-tendent ces deux propositions de regroupement social.

International tourism is now the predominant industry driving growth in many small island developing states (SIDS). Governments of small islands in the Indian Ocean, Caribbean and Pacific have seemingly put most of their eggs into one development basket – the all-inclusive holiday in a luxury hotel, resort or cruise ship. While this industry generates employment, foreign direct investment, and income for island governments and the private sector, it also brings with it dependencies which are borne from the transnational ownership of these all-inclusive accommodations, the risks from exogenous factors – many of which are tied to the wider security of the global system – as well as the domestic economies in the source markets in Europe and North America. We reflect upon these dependencies and risks through a case study of the Seychelles based on fieldwork research conducted in 2012. Our findings highlight that the international tourism industry in the Seychelles – even in a situation of high or growing demand – creates structurally driven precarity for tourism workers who are predominantly low paid, low-skilled, and increasingly recruited from overseas. These findings provide new evidence that contributes to the growing research into tourism in IPE. Our findings highlight the precarious condition of labour in this fast growing service sector of the world economy and in so doing also adds much needed empirical insights from the South to recent debates about an emerging precariat in contemporary capitalism.

Research on the post-socialist lived experience of the ordinary people often focuses on economic survival. It is equally important to examine how the working poor negotiate their status as consumers within a market economy. Continually hailed as potential owners of consumer goods, their meagre means force upon them a strict internalised hierarchy of non-subsistence consumption. This paper examines how peer and social networks facilitate 'self-provisioning' and mutual-aid practices to partially substitute for non-subsistence consumption in the face of material want. Ethnographic case studies of semi-skilled and skilled worker families in a Russian province show how decorative homemaking practices constitute a cultural good and are often pursued outside the circulation of goods and money of the market economy. These findings necessitate a re-examination of the meaning of consumption, production, and informal economic practices under post-socialism. The cultural good of DIY and non-consumption-orientated homemaking is important for workers' mutual recognition as providers - and their acknowledged status as sufficiently resourceful subjects. It also facilitates the ongoing functioning of the social network itself - a crucial a resource for the working poor - as network members share practical skills, pass-on tricks to avoid consumption, and interact in non-economic ways.

"Located at the intersection of an attempt to experiment a discourse analytical approach to the study of trade unions and a curiosity about the identities of maritime unions, this study comparatively investigates the discursive identity constructions of three seafaring trade unions of distinct characters in India, which is one of the most important maritime manpower supply countries.

Discourse analysis, consisting mainly of analysing documentary materials and interview discoursal data, demonstrates that the three unions through their respective discursive practices construct drastically different organisational identities. Union A, the most established union with the longest history, constructs itself with a sense of superiority, by asserting its ‘only-ness’, ‘highness’ and seemingly sidelining its own ordinary members; Union B, the overtly Marxist union, is found to indeed construct itself along Marxist lines through the deployment of radical discourses that are critical of capital and government but sympathetic with labour; and Union C, the union exclusively for maritime officers, positions itself as an elite union above the other two ratings’ unions mainly through constructing the image of elite officers. The ideology and discourse of neoliberalism is found to transcend the identity schemas of Union A and C, and this is countered by the Marxism/anti-neoliberalismof Union B.

However, despite the divergence at the discursive level, through examining the actual practices of the three unions , significantly the disciplining of members for organisational survivals, it is found that there is in fact a practical convergence which seems to render the discursive identity constructions insignificant. Yet, instead of adopting a realist dismissal of discursivity, through identifying the ways even fundamental and transcending practicalities are ‘deeply pigmented’ by identity discourses, the thesis concludes that the relationship between discursivity and practice is deeply interlocking and constitutively imbricated; in other words, discourse permeates and percolates both the ideational and practical aspects of organisations so deeply that it is neither extricable nor compartmentalisable."

Se presenta sintéticamente la situación sociolaboral de la Arqueología comercial en la Comunidad de Madrid, haciendo hincapié en sus problemas estructurales. Se plantean unas líneas prioritarias de trabajo hacia las que deberían avanzar los agentes implicados en el sector para superar las graves dificultades que, en particular, atraviesa el colectivo de trabajadores/as

""[ES]: Las “excavaciones de verano” tienen gran importancia en la formación arqueológica. En el estado español, los planes de estudio universitarios están focalizados hacia los aspectos teóricos, minimizando las cuestiones prácticas y metodológicas del trabajo arqueológico de campo. Por ello, sucesivas generaciones de arqueólogos han subsanado estas carencias participando como voluntarios en campañas estivales organizadas por universidades y OPIs. En el presente trabajo, se reflexiona acerca de la influencia que las vivencias obtenidas en estas campañas iniciáticas tienen para los estudiantes universitarios en la reproducción y naturalización de ciertos valores adosados a la idea de ser arqueólogo. Esto podría influir en la timidez de las reivindicaciones sociolaborales de los trabajadores de la Arqueología comercial. No en vano, este sector económico se caracteriza por la desregulación, la precariedad y la alta temporalidad del empleo.

[EN]: “Summer excavations” are a fundamental component of archaeological training. However, Spanish University programmes focus on theoretical aspects of Archaeology and leave practical issues and fieldwork methodologies aside. Thus, several generations of archaeologists have solved these educational shortfalls working as volunteers in University-led excavations during summer. This paper reflects on the influence these experiences have for the undergraduate students in the reproduction and naturalization of certain values which contribute to the overall idea of what being an archaeologist means. This paper argues that this could have a great influence in the little labour and social claims put forward by Commercial Archaeology workers. In fact, this productive sector is characterized by labour market deregulation, precarious work and a high rate of temporal employment.""

SOCIAL REALITIES IN JAPAN HAVE BEEN CHANGING FOR ROUGHLY TWO DECADES AND THOSE YOUNG JAPANESE DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY THE „HIRING ICE AGES“ HAVE BECOME KNOWN AS A „LOST GENERATION.“ THE MEDIA DISCOURSE CONCERNING THIS PHENOMENON HAS BEEN DIVERSE, PUTTING FORWARD A NUMBER OF EXPLANATIONS FOR THIS DILEMMA, WHILE OFTEN YOUNGER GENERATIONS HAVE BEEN BLAMED FOR THEIR SITUATION. THIS PAPER CRITICALLY EXAMINES THE FACTS AND DISCOURSES SURROUNDING THE EMERGENCE OF THE „LOST GENERATION” IN THE 1990S IN JAPAN, HIGHLIGHTING POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS WITHIN THE DISCOURSE.

""Le second peuple de Nantes au XVIIIe siècle :
environnements du quotidien et interactions sociales.

Pour les intellectuels et lexicographes officiant sous l’Ancien Régime, le peuple de France n’est alors pas un mais multiple. Au cœur de l’espace urbain, exclusion faite de la population mendiante et vagabonde, la partie tout à la fois la plus nombreuse et la moins bien considérée de ce peuple regroupe les travailleurs journaliers et sans qualification, ceux de la terre ou plus ou moins qualifiés mais non dépendants d’un cadre corporatif, la domesticité au sens large, les ouvriers de manufactures, les compagnons et garçons de métiers jurés ainsi que l’ensemble des chambrelans besognant en contravention aux statuts des jurandes. Cette population que nous identifions sous l’appellation « second peuple » se caractérise par une existence de ses membres majoritairement vécue dans la précarité quotidienne, une insertion plus ou moins bien définie et solide au sein de la société urbaine et une inscription en dehors de toute forme officielle d’organisation horizontale du travail. Une attention portée sur trois pans majeurs de l’existence du second peuple de la ville de Nantes au dernier siècle de la monarchie absolue, soit la vie en communauté, la consommation matérielle et l’activité laborieuse, est en mesure de dévoiler quelques-uns des traits essentiels des individus le constituant : place centrale de l’élément féminin, importance des notions de déplacement et d’implantation géographiques, force des connexions et solidarités de voisinage, rapport parfois houleux à l’autorité et frugalité de l’environnement matériel du quotidien.

Mots clés : peuple, ville, Nantes, inventaire de biens, travail illégal, résistance, solidarité, voisinage, lien social, violence, mouvement, migration, parrainage, pauvreté, précarité, consommation, micro-histoire, déménagement.

The second people of Nantes in the XVIIIth century:
everyday environments and social interactions.

For the intellectuals and lexicographers officiating under the Ancien Regime, the people of France was then not one but many. At the heart of urban space, excluding the population of beggars and vagabonds, the at once most numerous and least well regarded part of this people groups together unqualified day laborers, those working on the land or more or less qualified but not dependent on a corporate framework, domestic workers in the broadest sense of the word, factory workers, journeymen and juniors in the legal profession and all “roomworkers” toiling in contravention of the statutes of the guilds. This population that we identify under the name of the “second people” is characterized by a life of its members mostly lived in everyday poverty, a more or less well defined and strong insertion in the heart of urban society and an entry without any official form of horizontal organization of work. A focus on three major segments of the existence of the second people of the city of Nantes in the last century of absolute monarchy, be it community life, material consumption or work activity, is able to reveal some essential features of the individuals which make it up: the central role of the feminine element, the importance of the concepts of travel and geographic location, the strength of connections and neighborhood solidarity, sometimes stormy relations with authority and the frugality of the material environment of daily life.

Key words: people, city, Nantes, inventories of goods, subterranean work, resistance, solidarity, neighborhood, social tie, violence, movement, migration, spiritual kinship, poverty, precariousness, household consumption, microhistory, move.""

La fraction garantiste des mouvements de chômeurs des années 1980 vise à fonder une nouvelle identité collective : « Il s’agit de viser une aire plus large que celle touchée par le mouvement des chômeurs : l’ensemble du champ parcouru par ce travailleur moderne qu’est le précaire » (81). Mais comment traduire « une théorie globale d'un rapport entre entités relativement abstraites » (78) dans des termes susceptibles de mobiliser largement ? Ce problème tout théorique, les acteurs concernés le rencontrent quotidiennement dans leur travail militant : « Souvent informulés publiquement, les questionnements politiques les plus explosifs parcourent l’Association des chômeurs et des précaires. À la théorie ne correspond pas de figure immédiate, la phrase qui trotte dans les têtes et s’énonce parfois ironiquement le dit de manière explicite : "cherche sujet social désespérément" » (p. 79)...

"This chapter addresses the associational rights of undocumented migrants. The right to organise is highly valuable for this group of workers. It not only helps them access important workplace goods; it also promotes their social integration. However, undocumented workers face at least two types of hurdles in their associational activity: first, in some countries, the state bans their unionization and the employers have the power to dismiss them if they associate. Second, on other occasions, the unions themselves exclude them from membership. Are these obstacles compatible with human rights law? The question is addressed in light of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The chapter concludes that banning undocumented workers from forming or joining associations (including trade unions) is incompatible with fundamental liberal values of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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