I. Changes in the sphere of work in the 21st century capitalism 

Wrocław, 14-15 November 2014

Organizers:

The Sociology of Work Section of the Polish Sociological Association

Institute of Sociology, University of Wrocław

in cooperation with

Students’ Circle for Social Initiatives, University of Wroclaw

Wrocław Branch of the Polish Sociological Association

We invite paper proposals for the international conference „Social boundaries of work. Changes in the sphere of work in the 21st century capitalism”. The conference will take place at the Institute of Sociology, University of Wrocław, on 14-15 November 2014. The goal of the conference is to discuss the changing meaning of human work in the context of economic, institutional and cultural transformations in the sphere of employment in the late capitalist societies. The contemporary debates on flexible labour market and inclusion and exclusion in the sphere of employment in Europe relatively rarely address in a critical manner the social, economic and political mechanisms of the marketisation and commodification of work. The latter mechanisms translate into the social constructions of the differences between work and employment, between standard and non-standard employment, between employment and unemployment and between formality and informality. The ways of investing work with particular meanings by various social actors (employees, employers, political elites, trade unions, labour administration, incl. career counsellors etc.) influence, in turn, the range of social and civic rights enjoyed by the various categories of employees. On the one hand, the new forms of employment and increasingly flexible labour market require new theoretical approaches to understand better the long-term outcomes of ongoing transformations. On the other hand, in order to grasp these transformations and formulate more accurate policy recommendations, it is necessary to move beyond the reductionist identification of work with employment and labour market.

The conference will be organised around two main thematic blocks: (1) a interdisciplinary theoretical panel in which the sociological, philosophical, ethical, legal and economic ways of defining work, labour and employment will be discussed from comparative and historical perspectives; (2) a practical panel for which practitioners active in shaping labour market policies and career counselling will be invited (employers, trade unions, career counsellors, policy-makers).     

            For the theoretical panel, we invite papers covering following themes:

• historical and contemporary discourses of work, employment, lack of work, “standard” and “non-standard” employment and their social, legal, institutional and cultural foundations and consequences;
• flexible labour in the European Union and periphery, social and biographical costs of the flexibilisation of labour market,
• occupational careers on the flexible labour market, the social and biographical costs of new career patterns;
• precariat and precarisation of work and “bullshit jobs” in low end and high end of the economy;
• work in informal and shadow labour markets;
• migrants and migrant work, the problems of inclusion/exclusion in the labour market;
• unpaid work – domestic work, work at home, work for employment, reproductive work, unpaid work in probationary periods, voluntary work;
• non-standard employment and interest representation: theoretical approaches
• legal aspects of work – the legal consciousness of employees working with non-standard employment contracts and the respective or envisaged evolutions of the labour law;

We also invite papers to the practical panel which will concern the following themes:

• the work of career counsellors;
• the role of state employment offices and private employment agencies;
• the experiences and problems of employers – the benefits and costs of non-standard employment;
• the role of trade unions and civil society organisations in representing the interests of non-standard employees;
• the challenges of gathering public statistics on the flexible forms of employment in Europe;

A special poster session (Project Open Day) of the Early Stage Researchers within the FP7-PEOPLE-2012-ITN project “Changing Employment” “The changing nature of employment in Europe in the context of challenges, threats and opportunities for employees and employers”, project no. 317321 (www.changingemployment.eu) will be organised on 15 November 2015.