4 Jul 2015
Where do the Alternatives to Wage-Earning Fit in?
Session 19
While salaried employment is the norm in Western societies, more and more workers are becoming independant. Is this due to a desire for freedom or a need generated by a bad economic context ? In 2013 in the United Kingdom, 90% of job creation came from the creation of an activity by independent workers such as freelancers. In the United States, 25% of workers are their own boss. In France, nearly 10 million people have a self-employed activity as their main job or as a complement to a salaried job. But it is also the country of the European Union where the least non-salaried employment is found. Other forms of work must not be neglected: voluntary work, domestic work as well as indirect forms of work that we do every day. By giving consciously our data or by developing certain applications for groups such as Google or Facebook, we work to improve their product and we offer our labour for free. The collaborative and digital economy has disrupted our concept of traditional salaried employment. The trend towards outsourcing tasks also restacks the deck with respect to management and labour relations. What place should be given to these forms of work within companies and more broadly in society? Must we talk about job insecurity or the emancipation of the worker?