08 October 2009
No rights to a secure job and no rights at work.
For billions of workers worldwide, stable and secure jobs have never been an option. Instead they enjoy few rights and little respect.
Precarious work is a bad employment epidemic, where employers transfer their business risk onto their workers. Many workers have no option but to accept short-term contracts. Others are forced into bogus self-employment – treated as independent contractors, but in reality dependent on one employer. Some are casuals or day labourers, hoping each day to get work.
This is precarious work: No right to a secure job and no rights when at work.
For those forced to scrape a living, precarious work may provide some income, particularly for women who would otherwise have no escape from poverty. The economic situation of the country, the community and the family leaves them little or no choice.
Globalisation of investment and trade has brought jobs to countries that badly need them. But instead of bringing regular employment more fairly throughout the world, the impact has been to undermine full-time permanent work where it does exist.
Precarious work is a problem on every continent, undermining wages and conditions of work and threatening to divide working people. It used to be considered normal that, in return for its profits, a company would offer its workers a bit of security, allowing their local economy to build. Now they are passing the risk to workers without sharing the benefits.
Shifting production from place to place, always seeking the lowest labour costs is no route to stable economic and social development.
That is why:
- The massive expansion of precarious work must be stopped
- Where precarious work does exist, wages and conditions must be equal to those of regular workers
- Workers should be directly hired and indirect employment discouraged
- Non-permanent employment should be limited to cases of legitimate need
Who is at risk
- Nine out of 10 IMF unions say precarious work has increased in the five years before 2006.
- Young workers, women and low skilled or unskilled workers are the most affected, with migrant and older workers not far behind.
- Two out of three say precarious work is becoming more precarious — instead of hiring temporary staff directly, employers are using agencies or brokers.
- Nearly half of IMF unions say between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of the jobs in their sector are now precarious.
- The electrical and electronic industries are worst affected, followed by automotive industries, steel and non-ferrous and mechanical engineering.
- Using contract labour instead of permanent workers is the most common form of precarious work affecting IMF unions.
Source: IMF Survey on Changing Employment Practices and Precarious Work, 2006. www.imfmetal.org/precariousworksurvey
All electoral matter is authorised by Paul Howes, National Secretary