Di Tibor Meszmann
Since the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 2008, precarious employment has increasingly become the focus of attention for socially responsive international organizations and critical scholars and activists. Precarious employment has found its place at the centre of employment and social policy debates.
Common in the conceptualization of precarious employment is the “lack of decent jobs, security, protection and rights.” A recent ILO report, for example, underlines the most common forms of precarious employment relations, trends and features by noting that: “more than 60 percent of workers worldwide, predominantly women, are in temporary, part-time or short-term jobs in which wages are falling, a growing trend that is fuelling global income inequality and poverty.”
Against this predominantly policy oriented, and in terms of collective action perhaps paralyzing background, critical social theorists have again highlighted the importance of incorporating a historical perspective, including the reoccurring Marxian theme of the reserve army of industrial labour and the relationship between the proletariat and the sub proletariat (including its true meaning). Most crucial to the Marxian analysis is that the precariousness of workers is understood as part of the system of development of global capitalist production, which takes up concrete forms in current historical times, with clear signs of intensification.