Much attention has been paid to the growth of “informality” or “informal employment,” and it has been suggested that informality affects the capacity of workers to promote their interests. We move beyond the concept of informality and its multiple definitions and operationalizations to specify what precisely it is about informality that may have an effect on interest representation or participation in collective activities. We refer to these factors as the “operative traits” of the world of work, and we include variables that reflect various conceptualizations of formality and informality: work-based resources for problem solving (size of work-based network, access to unions, union experience), the precariousness of employment (income volatility, job instability), and the regulation of employment (contract status, social security status).
In this study, we explore the way these conditions of work and workplace organization may have a fundamental effect on interest representation both at work and in the political arena. How, do these conditions affect the capacity of workers to address materialist problems historically addressed by unions? Specifically, what aspects of the world of work influence the ability of the working classes to engage in a range of what we will call “problem-solving activities?” Further, to what extent do these aspects of the world of work affect the capacity to act around productionist (e.g. wages, working conditions), consumptionist (e.g. neighborhood improvement and service delivery), and political problems (e.g. corruption, crime), particularly given the high salience of the first of these?
Source: Working Paper Series, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley
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