The Collaborative Laboratory for Labour, Employment and Social Protection mobilises resources from academia, companies, public administration and social and solidarity economy organisations, with a view to gleaning a more in-depth understanding of the present and foreseeable problems in three central areas of activity: a) work and employment; b) social protection; and c) the social and solidarity economy. More >>
About Precariousness
In the beginning of the 1970s, economic premises supporting the typical model of labour relationships underwent profound changes, with a generalized use of atypical forms of work registered since the last quarter of the 20th century. This trend however, has not contributed to their regulation in providing legal
protection to workers, particularly regarding the purpose of their withdrawal from the subject of mercantile discretion.
The right to job security is a structuring principle and its constitutional consecration includes the recognition that the right to work has a human dimension of personal fulfillment.
Labour, employment and social protection were conceived politically in the post-war period within the framework of economic policies aimed at full employment and social policies based on the mutualisation of risk protection (with public guarantee) linked to unemployment, illness and ageing.
Nowadays, in a context of further economic, technological, and demographic changes, heightened international economic and financial integration the correlation between work, employment, and social protection as we know it seems to be at risk. The concomitant vulnerabilities of the employment and social protection regimes with the ensuing reshaping of inequalities and the appearance of new societal risks, constitutes the problem which motivates and justifies the creation of CoLABOR.
CoLABOR aims to:
- Mobilise and expand the knowledge that is now spread across different types of organisation in order to devise (public and organisational) policy responses to the current and emerging problems in the fields of work, employment and social protection;
- Capacitate public administration, companies, and social and solidarity economy organisations, strengthening analytic and intervention tools, instruments to help anticipate technological and socio-economic changes, and tools to support decision-making both on a micro level – regarding technological reconfigurations, management and organisation methods – and on a macro level – on institutions that regulate new technologies, labour relations, and social protection;
- Qualify employment by training managers and creating scientific employment, directly through engagement in CoLABOR activities, and indirectly at organisations where CoLABOR is asked to intervene.