ILPC 2027

Our hypothesis departs from linear or dualistic conceptions of labour process and of the changing political economy of capitalism. The degradation of work since the already artificially reified height of the Fordist era and subsequent shattered standard employment relationship in Northern countries has given way to counter-tendencies, to complex and unchartered phenomena. In the global South, while informality is still largely present, employment norms are concurrently being constructed in an unequal manner. The “employment grey zone” notion is a comparative approach which disperses tensions as to subsequent potential objects of critical study. It analyses the indeterminations in work relations and superposition of levels of regulation that are not accounted for by labour market segmentation theory or the phenomenon of blurring legal boundaries between subordination and independent work designated by Supiot’s use of the term grey zone. It traces the historical intricacies of evolving from one system of labor-capital relations to another, the non-linear process of moving towards post-Fordist paradigms in the 21^st century labour market and political economy whose paradigm has yet to be determined.

There are many examples of grey areas reflecting the incomplete nature of employment relationship boundaries such as the legal limbo of the employment standard demonstrated by Supiot in a comparative approach between employee activities with the self-employed, the difficulties in identifying the employer's power in productive systems built on relationships of subcontracting firms or interdependent networks or, more recently, the upheaval occasioned by employment levels and working conditions with "uberised” workers. However, the number and variety of identified situations - the list is not exhaustive - suggests that these "grey zones" have become the rule rather than the exception.

Azaïs and Kesselman propose “Emerging figures of work in transforming labour markets and political economies”. Emerging figures of work reflect current transformations in labour and employment relations. The notion is particularly adapted to highlighting changing occupational structures, how people work and attempt to control and bring meaning to their work. Moreover, the emerging work figure approach traces labour processes and their appropriations, how individuals and collectives react to work and employment transformations in current capitalism.

Three main interpretations of emerging figures: the first type embodies declining figures, the degradation of work, the second intermediary figures, i.e. one does not know whether they will lead to a declining figure or to the third type, an ascending form, either restoration of traditional employment relations or new configurations that express individuals utopia and wishes. Kesselman will discuss how ”Uber” and collaborative jobs exemplify these three statements at once, in France and the United States. Azaïs will show how a new profession in Brazil, that of helicopter pilots, may embody the two latter figures, at various moments, given the unequal nature of norms in construction, how these “service class” workers are compelled to make their own living, conveying their own subjectivity.

Doing so, they contribute to a comparative understanding the current features of employment wage-earning relationship and social protection in emerging and e-economies, at a time when borders between global North and South countries tend to blur. They will comment on the difficulties of trade unions in incorporating labour market changes and the new strategies they have to gain social protections. The logics of individualisation, instability, uncertainty of labour and life conditions are expressed situations that are experienced by collectives of workers who, starting from an individual work status, can join and stand up for their interests.