Academic literature on the topic 'Precarious employment – Greece'

Ιn the last decade, there has been a widespread expansion of both precarious work and precarious forms of employment (such as temporary and low-qualified jobs, seasonal and part-time jobs etc.), in which a growing share of young people work. The impact of precarious work on young people is likely to be permanent, while it seems to affect (even over-determine) their life courses. Non-smooth and early transitions into labour market are very likely to worsen progressively their long-term life chances (Lodovici & Semenza, 2012: 7). Undoubtedly, the long-lasting global economic Crisis and the subsequent Recession, has heavily affected the state of play in the labour market worldwide, provoking severe modifications both in the field of employment and countries’ social cohesion. Based on the above mentioned, the paper deals with precarious work in general, while it emphasizes precarious work among youth. It initially captures, briefly, the state of play in terms of the impact of the Crisis on the widening of the phenomenon of precarious work and then it focuses on theoretical insights and critical conceptual definitions concerning precariousness in the labour market. Further, based on secondary quantitative -data analysis, it analyses the key- parameters and facets of precarious work (focusing on youth) in the European Union and, mainly, in Greece. Additionally, it briefly presents parameters of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on precariousness in Greece. Finally, the paper explores the correlation between precarious work and social vulnerability, especially among young people. The present paper is based on an ongoing Research Project. More specifically, this research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) through the Operational Programme «Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020» in the context of the project “Precarious Work and Youth in today’s Greece: secondary quantitative analysis, qualitative filed research and research-based policy proposals” (MIS 5048510).

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cases of Bangladeshi, Filipina, Nigerian, Palestinian and Pakistani migrant workers and how the frame of their work and employment in precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs affects their perceptions and practices regarding health and access to healthcare services. Design/methodology/approach Using qualitative research methodology, the analysis via in-depth interviews focuses on male Bangladeshi, Nigerian, Pakistani and Palestinian unskilled manual and textile laborers as well as street vendors, and female Filipina live-in domestic workers. Findings Migrants are entrapped in a context of isolative and exploitative working conditions, i.e., in unskilled labor, textile work, street-vending, personal services, care and domestic work, which lead them to adopt a self-perception in which healthcare and social protection are not a priority. Social implications Throughout the paper it has become clear that these precarious low-status/low-wage jobs have an important underside effect on migrants’ lives, intensifying labor and health instability and exposing migrants to employment-generating activities that do not guarantee health safety. In Greek society, the impact of migration on public health is characterized by many as a “time bomb ready to explode,” especially in urban centers. Meanwhile, the economy and particularly the informal sector of the labor market is benefiting from migrant workers. More research is needed as this mode of exploitative labor and precarious employment needs to be adequately addressed to mitigate barriers in the access of labor and healthcare rights. Originality/value Via its contribution to the sociology of migration with particular emphasis on labor healthcare, the paper provides evidence that due to their concentration in precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs migrant workers have very limited access to healthcare services. The removal of inequalities and discrimination against migrant workers in accessing healthcare services and medical care is a challenge for South European Union countries and particularly for Greece. However, in spite of this, there is no uniform policy in the management of migrants with respect to their access to health services. The paper will aid debates between policy makers and academics working on migration and inequalities due to the division of labor and health disparities, will contribute to the understanding of the perils attached to precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs and in addressing health inequalities effectively.

Precarity is becoming the paradigmatic description of young people’s work conditions in crisis-ridden Greece, but also in other European countries. Focusing on interview data on the work experiences of young adults (18-26 years old), in urban centres of Greece, this study attempts to explore the ways in which informants account for working in precarious conditions and construct agency and subjectivity within these ways of accounting. The analysis drawing on insights from critical discursive social psychology indicates that participants construct precarious work conditions as widespread and banal a) by treating precarious work as a sine qua non condition of youth employment, b) by considering precarious work as an inherent trait of the Greek job-market, c) by considering precarious work as a necessary step on a (biographical) path leading to the desired and/or appropriate job, or d) by adopting a “there is no other alternative” accounting, representing precarious job conditions as the only alternative to unemployment. The analysis also points out the ways in which participants orient themselves to a dilemma of stake and accountability, being concerned to position themselves as effortful subjects, while they are rhetorically constructing the banal regime of precarious labour. The discussion considers the need to bring into the scope of social and political psychology the specific nuances of precarious labour.

The article addresses the shifting patterns of atypical employment across the regions of Greece, severely hit by the 2009 crisis. Changes are depicted by NUTS-II level data for the pre- and post-crisis periods of 2005–2009 and 2009–2011. A regional categorization is suggested, as different forms of atypical employment, namely part-time, temporary, solo self-employment and family work, have expanded unevenly across space. The authors argue that different patterns are related to regional specialization and industrial structures differently affected by the crisis. Established forms of atypical employment have been shaken, while new highly precarious ones have been boosted. Moreover, regulatory reforms for higher labour flexibilization have also defined the emergent atypical employment patterns in Greece. The article points out that in the Greek labour market, already marked by high flexibility and poor job security and social benefits, recent regulatory reforms increasing flexibilization have deteriorated labour and devalued atypical employment.

<p>Our work hypothesis is that the hegemonic employment model in Greece, which safeguarded employment and strong legal protection for the majority of employees, is in a process of transformation to the opposite direction. In the special conditions created by the policies of internal devaluation under the supervision of the troika, work relations are in a process of change in both the private and the public sector: The institutional protection of employment is “freezing”, and its place is occupied by special regimes, created through the application laws following the successive memoranda imposed by the governments of the last few years. Thus, the employment model tending to generalise in Greece at present, i.e. work with little or no institutional rights, was already in existence during the previous period, but concerned a small part of the active population. The consequence of the abolition of fundamental work rights, is the renewal of the larger part of wage labour through precarious work regimes. </p>

Over the last three decades of the 20th century, Greece was transformed from an emigration into an immigration countryand, more recently, into a country combining emigration and immigration. Initially, immigration from the ‘Balkans’ wasat the heart of the country’s migration debates. However, since the early 2000s, migration inflows have been highlydifferentiated, and the numbers have increased for both Asian and African migrants. During the era of austerity,Bangladeshis have followed diverse employment pathways and spatial trajectories. Their so-called ‘constellations of(im)mobility’ cover an array of socio-spatial mobility patterns, ranging from being entrapped in precarious jobs to gainingaccess to/ striving towards more prestigious occupational positions (self-employed occupations). Drawing on recent empirical research, this paper seeks to explore the multidimensional precarity of Bangladeshi migrants living in Greek urban and rural areas. Given the dynamic interplay between macro- and micro-level processes, it also discusses aspects of agency along with practices and strategies for improving the well-being of Bangladeshi migrants in the host society.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact particularly on the most vulnerable populations, including immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in the EU. The article depicts the results of the comparative research project “Local Alliance for Integration (LION/GSRI/University of West Attica/81018): Migrant and Refugee integration into local societies in times of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain and Greece” implementing a qualitative methodology. This article analyses via 32 in-depth interviews the experiences of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Greece, the increased barriers towards integration due to racial and ethnic inequalities, precarity and health disparities during this period which function as a means of perpetuating exclusion in five sectors: (a) formal employment, (b) healthcare, (c) formal education and language training, (d) housing and social care/protection, and (e) intercultural coexistence as well as the new rise of a hostile rhetoric and anti-migrant attitudes under a COVID-19 pandemic populism. The unravelling of the narratives revealed perceptions and practices of inequality and uncertainty as well as of hope. The socioeconomic impact of the pandemic on immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, similarities and differences that occurred and evidence of the ongoing obstacles they encountered during the pandemic are presented. Policy and practice implications include the implementation of prevention measures by the institutions that are tasked with the responsibility to remove hindrances, address unequal treatment, racial/ethnic and social inequalities and raise awareness on multiple ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified vulnerability.

This article examines the relationship between structural reforms commonly referred to as austerity and the growth of precarious labour in Greece. It argues that, in contrast to the proponents of labour market flexibility, the liberalisation of labour markets, employment protection systems, social protection systems and collective bargaining institutions have not increased employment in Greece or minimised the growth of precarious employment. Rather, liberalising structural reforms have resulted in the creation of the very precarity its proponents claim is the product of rigid labour markets, and they have failed to significantly reduce existing levels of unemployment and increasing employment rates.

The global financial recession which began in 2008 has led to significant economic and social consequences for youth, with the case of Greece being a notable one in terms of severity. Repeated political-economic ‘shocks’ to the structure of Greek society have manifest in common situations of unemployment and underemployment. Although impacting heavily on the working classes, severe curtailments in medium-high-skilled labour have also been observed among the middle classes as well. Following these contexts, the article examines the experiences of highly educated young women in Greece ( n = 36) as they navigate precarious employment within the midst of the Greek economic crisis. It is argued that rather than their educated status offering opportunities to deploy resources to help withstand the crisis, their high education levels create frustrations and barriers towards achieving suitable employment. These perceived mismatches between high education and low status and/or poor-quality work conditions are assessed in the context of research on emerging adulthood.

Defence date: 25 November 2015
Examining Board: Professor Donatella della Porta, EUI; Professor Hanspeter Kriesi, EUI; Professor Maria Kousis, University of Crete; Professor Rick Fantasia, Smith College.
This thesis is the outcome of a six-year-long research, aiming at understanding how the flexibility-era South European workers unionize and engage in collective action. Its empirical material derives from the employment of a qualitative methodology techniques’ triangulation: archive research, participant observation and semi-structured interviews. I define as Precarious Workers’ Unions (PWUs) labor collectives the members of which (a) are subjected to atypical labor relations; (b) lack adequate access to the welfare state structures; (c) have developed a collective conscience of belonging to a post-Fordist labor force. The PWUs’ main characteristics put under scrutiny are: member recruitment, decision-making procedures, services offered, industrial and movement action undertaken. Determinants which I consider as having a significant impact on the above include each country’s labor legislation, formal trade union structure, social movement environment and tradition, as well as each PWU’s population make-up. A dual comparison is employed. On the one hand, similarities and differences are sought between the Italian PWUs and their Greek counterparts. On the other hand, an internal comparison is conducted between each country’s organizations, in order to locate and explain potential divergences from the national model. Despite the fact that the first unionizing initiatives in Greece and Italy were facing similar socio-economic structural conditions, their mobilization developed in a diversified way. Lately, a re-convergence between the two countries’ PWUs is to be noted: Mixed inside-outside the workplace interventions, a resurgence of mutualist practices and the inability to integrate in the formal trade union structure, combined with a relevant role in the broader social movement activities, are its main characteristics. Furthermore, as derives from the empirical data, attributing a unique class status to the expanding population of precarious workers may lead to erroneous assumptions. The precarious condition is a transversal, passing through the various social strata and is experienced in many different ways. The above is demonstrated not only by the significant impact of the PWUs’ population make-up on their organizational forms and activities, but also by the fact that, even inside organized labor entities, pre-existing inequalities are neither reversed nor dampened. Finally, the –partly eclectic, partly innovative- character of the PWUs is leading to the assumption that they are not only challenging the notion of precarity as perceived up to date, but also the very idea of what a union is and how it is supposed to operate. Whether this re-negotiation is to provide an answer to the 30-year-old “unions in crisis/union revitalization” riddle is not only a matter of the PWUs’ strategic choices. It is also dependent on the socio-economic context. Future research shall have to examine to what extent the post-2008 economic crisis acts as an accelerator of the tendencies identified, an obstacle – or a diversion, which shall lead the PWUs to new, unexplored territories.

Abstract This chapter outlines the foundations of Germany’s social market economy, which is deeply rooted in the ordoliberal tradition of coordination and consensus with the state providing the legal framework for interaction between market and non-market actors and foundations of the supporting welfare state. The main focus lies in analysing the changes Germany’s social market economy has undergone since German reunification. The partial collapse of industry in Eastern Germany, which was mainly the result of the restructuring undertaken by the government agency Treuhand, led to a steep rise in unemployment and to mounting pressures on the German economy and welfare state. The subsequent structural reforms introduced more than two decades ago—the Agenda 2010 policy—of the red-green coalition under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder have modified the institutional foundations of the social market economy and shown that they are adaptable. The most fundamental changes were introduced by the Hartz labour market reforms, which have both substantially increased the levels of precarious employment and transformed the formerly inclusive German welfare state towards activation and means-testing.