Precarious Work: Legislative Challenges

• Author: Raluca Anderco
• Pages: 149-157

PRECARIOUS WORK: LEGISLATIVE CHALLENGES

Lawyer Raluca ANDERCO1

Abstract

The article aims to briefly review some of the key theoretical aspects of precarious work in Romania, starting

from the analysis of th e factual situation existing at the moment. We will also analyze official statistical information, in

relation to European legislation, highlighting the usefulness and weaknesses in the ph enomenon of precarious work and

its dynamics over time. Last but not least, we will enumerate the legal, quasi-illegal and illegal forms of precarious

work in today's Romania (identification, formal description and a brief discussion of socio -economic implications), as

well as legislative lacunae existing at this time. Finally, we will refer to case studies that illust rate every form of

precarious work analyzed in this article, with reference to both domestic and European legislation: e.g. poor work in

the rural population, precarious work through pricing of atypical contracts, precarious work as a fake form of

individual labor contract, "domestic" workers, etc.

Keywords: precarious work, standard, neoliberal, atypical form, risk.

JEL Classification: K31

1. Theoretical aspects of precarious work

Over the past 20 years, international literature has given special attention to atypical forms

of work. Non-standard work concepts, atypical work, self employed, informal work have begun to

be used in scientific articles on the social and economic consequences of labor market flexibility in

the 1970s and 1980s.

Precarious work is not an atypical form of work, in legal terms or a specific aspect of the

employment relationship, but rather is a mix of factors, a factual situation of workers.

Precarious work can be described as depending on a person's desire/intention, it is up to

some circumstances beyond the ability of a person to control them, but it is unsafe, unstable,

unpredictable, dangerous, changing, virtually lacking any stability and work security.

Some legal forms of work are more exposed, by their nature, to a certain risk or uncertainty

(such as atypical forms of work, non-standard labor contracts, subcontracting, etc.), even the

workers in a classical employment contract can sometimes find themselves in precarious situations,

therefore the definition of precarious work differs from one state to another, depending on the

economic reality, the actual situation, etc.

Basically, precarious work is the opposite of any decent form of work, as defined by an

individual labor contract.

The International Labor Organization's report on precarious work concludes that there are

some common characteristics of this type of work: "in the most general sense, precarious work is a

means for employers to shift risks and responsibilities on the workers."2 Amanda Latinne points out

that even cooperatives (where there should be no worker employer conflict of interest) follow a

general trend of neo liberalism in the sense of a huge flexibility in terms of employee-employer

relationship.3

Another important observation is that precarious work is an instrument to influence

competition between precarious workers and standard employees, meaning that the standard work

conditions of employees are becoming more and more precarious.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, with the neoliberal ideology, labor pressure has also begun to

push the labor market into a more flexible market, even to lower the level of workers’ rights.4

Under these conditions, the worker’s rights protected have gradually been degraded and

destroyed, meaning:

1 Raluca Anderco - Bucharest Bar Association, Romania, raluca.anderco@anderco.ro.

2 ILO, Policies and regulations to combat precarious employment, Geneva, 2011.

3 Latinne A., The Mondragon Cooperatives, Intersentia, Cambridge-Antwerp-Portland 2014, p. 124-125.

4 Buelens J, Pearson J, Standard Work: An Anachronism?, Intersentia, Cambridge-Antwerp-Portland, 2012, p. 3-5.