INTRODUCTION

Globalisation is not just about how things are made, bought and sold. It’s also about people. Transnational companies want cheap and flexible workers. So they have shifted from secure to insecure employment — making all jobs more “precarious”. That’s why today there are more temporary, more casual, more part-time and more contract jobs.

Workers doing the same job side-by-side might share everything except job security, wages and conditions. Some earn a dollar a day and work in desperate conditions. Others have no employment at all.

This precarious work is bad for all workers. It creates cut-price labour that drives down wages for all. It increases the gap between rich and poor. And it amplifies the unfair practices that already disadvantage women, young and migrant workers — all more likely to be in insecure jobs.

And it is everybody’s problem — today’s secure job could be tomorrow’s temporary contract.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Good jobs are what trade unions bargain for. Around the world, unions are mobilising, organising and bargaining for better, more secure work. That means challenging the legal and political ruses that allow precarious work to flourish. It means mobilising globally and taking union action against precarious work.

WHY PRECARIOUS WORK DOESN’T PAY

Precarious workers are faced with:

Job insecurity and an uncertain future

Low wages

Limited or no access to social benefits, such as health or pension schemes

Increased health and safety risks at work

The denial of rights at work, such as the right to join a union or bargain collectively

The constant threat of unemployment or underemploymentJul 09, 2008 – Cherisse Fredricks