ILPC 2027

In current capitalism there have been profound transformations in labour's world: production, flexibility, State-role reduction, precariousness, isolation of labour force, etc. For social sciences, those shifts have led questioning how to understand aspects such as labour centrality in contemporary societies, the role of workers as social change agent or how to improve labour conditions.

In this context, it has decided to choose a Chilean case called “Trabajadores a Honorarios”. They are a workers group who develop their tasks for public administration without any labour rights. Its legal status defined them as an independent worker, who is under a civil contract (not covered by any legal code neither public nor private). Nevertheless, in public administration those employees are usually professionals and technicians, who work as any other public employee under subordination and dependency (working hours, office, responsibilities etc). In this sense, the present thesis also poses the question about the boundaries of independent labour.

Moreover, this case challenges our understanding about precariousness because it refers to professionals and technicians, who work for public administration and are above of Chilean minimal wage. In general, this thesis proposes the idea of precariousness at work emerges from the exclusion of labour rights beyond their position in social labour division and embrace all kind of workers beyond their qualifications or incomes. Therefore, Honorarios employees in public sector are a case of precariousness since they are excluded from all labour rights.

Furthermore, in this context, another question is: how it is possible to improve labour conditions of Honorarios? The main proposal it is to explore in their common/not common factors of identity for the purpose to think in a potential social agent of change. However, it is important to understand identity beyond the usual axes, i.e., social movements or social class, and start from an earlier analytical step; by knowing Honorarios’ perceptions about their situation considering their subjectivities about topics such as recognition, justice, rights and social/symbolic boundaries topics. This path allows to explore a workers group’s vision before to determine what kind potential identity they might have or not.

As research contribution, this proposal pretends to reflect about current forms of precariousness and identity as a previous step before to think in formal labour organisations. It also contributes on how to understand the limits of independent work; by analyzing whether Honorarios case is a type of flexibilization or a type of labour which is used as a way of reducing labour costs. 

The methodological view adopted in my thesis has an eminently qualitative character. It has been done 60 semi-structured interviews to Honorarios employees in public sector in the Chilean regions Metropolitana and Valparaiso, which are currently at the stage of analysis

It also includes a statistical revision about labour conditions of Honorarios in public sector and a theoretical discussion regarding identity and precariousness (including the analysis of independent work and its boundaries). Both stages are already developed.