Lefteris Kretsos

Union Responses to the Rise of Precarious Youth Employment in Greece

The ways unions have responded so far to the emergence of precarious employment among young people in Greece are critically analysed in this article. The analysis considers that traditional forms of regulation and union representation are not effective in protecting young workers from the risk of vulnerability at work. It further makes the case for a radical strategic reorientation of the Greek trade unions placing greater emphasis on organising and attracting young precarious workers through more appropriate representation structures and engagement strategies at the workplace level.

The Persistent Pandemic of Precariousness: Young People at Work

The emergence of a new underclass composed of young people usually described in the press as the “Precarious Generation” or the “Generation of 1,000 euros”1 (and earning even less in certain cases) is, currently, one of the most widely discussed issues in the international discourse about the future of work. The obvious reasons for such a development are related to the dramatic expansion of jobs, which are precarious in nature in recent decades, as well as to the multiple and decisive ways that such a development affects the social and political inclusion of the young people,2 as well as other vulnerable groups of the workforce, such as immigrants, women and other vulnerable groups. The contemporary context in Europe appears to be marked by an increase in economic inequalities and growing disparities in social participation and citizenship rights. In other words, current socio-economic forces have made work more insecure, unpredictable and risky.

Creative labour and collective interaction: the working lives of young jazz musicians in London

This article explores the types of work undertaken by jazz musicians in London, categorizing their activities using two axes derived from debates over ‘creative labour’. Firstly, the extent to which different jobs offer scope for creative autonomy and, secondly, the extent to which they involve collective as opposed to individualized working relationships. It focuses on the process of becoming established on the London ‘scene’, presenting qualitative interview data primarily with young workers seeking to build their careers. Musicians may make conscious decisions to pursue types of work which enable greater creative autonomy, but in doing so they may exacerbate fatalism about poor working conditions and undermine professional solidarity. The article also explores how pressures towards ‘entrepreneurialism’ in other forms of music work constitute further barriers to collective contestation of working conditions. Finally, it points towards types of music work where notions of professional economic interest have more traction.

“That’s the Experience”: Passion, Work Precarity, and Life Transitions Among London Jazz Musicians

This article looks at early-career jazz musicians working in London. It links sociological literature on precarity and the life course with a more specific focus on the process of establishing a career in music. It shows how participants sought to embrace and sometimes even manufacture greater precarity in their working lives, and how they contextualized it as part of the life course. Their ability to manage precarity in this way, however, was greatly affected by structural factors, specifically socioeconomic background. Particular elements that are especially pronounced in creative work, such as the prominence of project-based employment and the importance of passion for the job, are important factors leading to the management and indefinite extension of these transitional periods.

Grassroots unionism in the context of economic crisis in Greece

This article draws on empirical evidence from a trade union in the centre of Athens to explore the impact of a politically active membership and its dialectical relationship with union renewal. The examined union is considered as an exemplar for the Greek accounts of unionism in the sense that it has achieved considerable collective bargaining gains and it has organized successful membership mobilization stories. It is argued in the analysis that the success of this union stems from a strategy of making rank-and-file activists the very fabric of unions organizing and mobilization activities. Further, trust issues between leaders, activists and ordinary members are significant in the increase of the likelihood of collective action.

Youth policy in austerity Europe: the case of Greece

This article addresses young peoples declining power in the Greek labour market due to the implementation of sweeping austerity policies and the consequent expansion of youth precarious employment and unemployment since the first bailout agreement in 2010. The analysis concludes that the crisis has acted as a catalyst for worsening of the employment situation of young people. Nevertheless, the social and employment disadvantage for youth has strong historical roots and it can be only partially explained by the crisis, as long before the crisis precarious forms of employment and unemployment rates were already higher than the adult levels. Finally, the article concludes that precarious youth employment and high youth unemployment levels are two sides of the same coin of poverty and social exclusion risk.

Destandardization of Employment in the UK: Issues, Politics and Policy Re-Invention

The chapter aims to discuss labour market destandardization in the context of the United Kingdom (UK). This is a nation that has been synonymous with some of the most complex and substantive changes in terms of the organization and structure of employment. It is held, along with the case of the United States of America, as an example of a market-leaning and more individualized approach to labour market regulation. The chapter therefore starts with an outline of the context of the UK in terms of its economic and industrial relations system. It then outlines some of the dimensions of destandardization in terms of numerical, functional, temporal and financial developments. The chapter proceeds to argue that this complexity and this uneven form of destandardization create a series of challenges in terms of their sum and not just in terms of their parts. First, the nature of the changes in the labour market in terms of flexible, liberal and defensive developments will be discussed and explained. There are different contours, which provide us, ironically, with a non-standard experience of destandardization. Second, we aim to focus on how these different features evolve across time and how they lead to, and provide, different tensions and problems for workers, employers and the state. The construction of flexibility is not an end point but can provide workers and employers with a new set of issues and challenges. This leads to a third theme we aim to address: how the state deals with the problems and outcomes of a more precarious workforce and how it remakes its intervention and policy in the face of this.

The extent and determinants of precarious employment in Europe

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and determinants of the so-called precarious employment across Europe and using different measures and based on individual’s self-assessment. Design/methodology/approach - – Data on over two million workers across Europe (EU-15) from the European Union Labour Force Survey are utilised and a Heckman selection approach is adopted. Findings - – About one tenth of the total European workforce is in employment relationships that could be related to precariousness. The sources of precariousness are mainly involuntary part-time and temporary work. Less prominent as a source of precariousness is job insecurity related to fear of job loss. Vulnerable groups are found to have a higher risk of precariousness while significant country variations indicate that precariousness cannot be examined in isolation of the national context. Finally, signals of previous employment inability, such as lack of past working experience, as well as the state of labour market significantly increase the risk of precarious work. Originality/value - – The present study utilises a large-scale survey in order to investigate the incidence of precarious employment in a harmonised way and produce results that are comparable across EU-15 countries.