Precarious Work Outsourcing and Work Cooperatives

One of the most obvious results of the new production dynamics brought about by the organizational and technological changes imposed by the globalization of the world economy has been the disruption of the labour market especially that based on subordinate employment and salaried work since both structural unemployment on the one hand and political pressure to make labour legislation more flexible on the other tend to increase the number of workers who will be exposed to insecurity and precarious employment and wages. It is in this context that the cooperative proposal has once again emerged as an alternative solution to the problem of unemployment and as a proposal to overcome the old and historic relationship between capital and labor and the exploitation that results from it. Thus the practice of outsourcing through work cooperatives may be transforming thousands of associated workers into hostages of these new collective proposals for social inclusion characterized by flexibility vulnerability and social precariousness.