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Work shattered, the book comes out

Written by Dario Banfi November 8, 2011 0 comments | Read 341 times

Last night comes the e-mail address of the organizer of " Work shattered ", an event which was held just over a year ago in Bologna:

Beloved, the book is finally ready Employment shattered. If I do have an address I am sending you a complimentary copy that is up to those who have contributed a piece.

Well, good. I had almost lost hope about the fate of this publication. See below now my intervention on the side of the essay by Andrew Ross (!) Is a nice surprise that puts me in a good mood. If you are interested, you will find information on the website of Shadows Court , the publisher. Below you will find a tab of the book:

Work shattered
Precarious condition, new conflicts and neo-liberal regime
edited by F. Grains and E. Leonardi
pp. 222
€ 20.00
isbn 978-88-97522-05-8

The book

What remains today of the work that we have known in the industrial modernity? Probably only a few fragments, which is not easy, and perhaps even useful, to try to reconstruct. The modern relationship between work and citizenship is today, in fact, shed completely under discussion. While it is the result of a persistent strategy of deregulation and humiliation of the work, whose main effect is a condition of generalized precariousness, on the other must be found within and against it, an escape capable encouraging the emergence of the upright surplus of subjectivity that the end of the Fordist work gives a glimpse. To understand the phenomenon in all its complexity it is then necessary to avoid reducing the analysis of the condition of the work in a both necessary and insufficient paradigm of affliction, and to study the relationship that in the post-Fordist capitalism and biopolitics is to be established between work, social production and appropriation of wealth. The book proposes, in particular transdisciplinary reflection on the way in which the different forms of work become part of the new process of value creation founded, now in a more direct, the whole life time and on social cooperation. The intent is to investigate the fragmentation and insecurity as one of the key elements, next to the processes of financialization, the new regime of capitalist accumulation. Only by linking the latter with strengths through it is possible to understand the elements that carattarezzano our society and the forces that can change the course.

The authors
A. Amendola, E. Armano, D. Banfi, S. Bologna, A. Cazzola, F. Chicchi, S. Cominu, A. Curcio, A. Fumagalli, M. Gray, E. Leonardi, S. Lucarelli, S. Mezzadra, C. Morini, A. Ross.

The editors
Federico beans teaches Sociology of Work and Organization and Company at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bologna. His publications include: Capitalism, labor and forms of subjectivity (Sapere2000, 2005), with Gigi Roggero, Labor and production value in the knowledge economy (Franco Angeli, 2009).

Emanuele Leonardi is a PhD candidate at the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, University of Western Ontario. His publications include: "Riches and limits of environmentalism" in Ottavio Marzocca (ed.), Governing the environment? (Mimesis, 2009).

Proposals to reform the Labour Renzi

Written by Dario Banfi October 31, 2011 0 comments | Read 394 times

At the end of the marathon at the Leopolda of scrappers led by Matteo Renzi these proposals are outputs (I limit myself to these, as I follow the theme of the work) to reform the question I work in Italy.

19. Reforming pensions to still have pensions. Pension you can, right away, equalize the retirement age of women with that of men, establishing a single window registry of 63-67 years to access the retirement allowance commensurate with the hope of life according to the actuarial coefficients updated annually. Accelerating the transition to the contribution system for all. Elimination of pension benefits as part of a pact between the generations. Part of the savings will be used to finance the elimination of social security contributions for newly hired young
20. New rules to prevent the overlapping of pensions.
26. Reforming professional associations. We must abolish unnecessary professional bodies and bring the rest to a function of market regulators and not of corporate protection for those already working. You have to get to the abolition of minimum fees and further reduction restrict advertising for professional studios, so that everyone has the opportunity to be known.
29. Liberalize the insurance of injuries and illnesses. The activities carried out by Inail, the public monopoly that takes care of the insurance for diseases and injuries of workers plays a typical function of any private insurance company. You then need to open access of insurance against accidents at work by private insurance or reinsurance undertaking.
35. Overcome the insecurity through a single contract protections progressive. In order to overcome the dualism of the labor market, which sees the workers with all the guarantees and others (young people) with no warranty, necessary to introduce a single contract to progressive protections that give greater certainty to the young.
36. Reforming the social security benefits. We need to move from layoffs, ordinary and extraordinary, to unemployment universal, applicable to employees of small and medium-sized enterprises and develop new approaches to the criterion of welfare to work on the Danish model.
37. The company contracts against poor wages. Today the Italian workers receive a salary on average lower than in our neighboring countries such as Germany and France. One way to get higher wages for Italian workers is to support corporate contracts that can, when business conditions permit, grow beyond the provisions of the collective labor agreements.
38. Rates rose. Italy has the lowest percentage of female employment in Europe. Even the female activity rate, ie the number of women that occurs in the labor market, is the lowest. A tax paid employment of women, and for a reasonable number of years can lead to realign the upper equality between men and women in the workforce.

Drawn from the 100 proposals Matteo Renzi (& Co.)

In a nutshell Renzi supports the reformist line of Pietro Ichino (35), with accompanying reform of the shock absorbers (36), but not for everyone, although there is talk of universality, an idea to be sure, already proposed by the Sacconi on Work and in Statute of Works. Renzi rates rose and then focuses on decentralized bargaining in derogation to national collective bargaining agreement (which is also present between the lines of the famous Article 8 of the operation of the Berlusconi government). On deregulation goes further than the philosophy of the Bersani Decree providing for the elimination of professional associations. On pensions think like Boeri on contributions for all but eliminate retirement pensions (!) Taking only 63-67 exit window the same for everyone, men and women and facilitating cash balances with the youth work with notional contribution, at the cost zero ie on the cost of youth work (a line for another similar to that of Montezemolo). Completely new and interesting hypothesis in paragraph 29 of liberalization of insurance of injuries and illnesses, but where there is no explicit reference to any possibility of opt-out from the public system.

In other words, nothing totally divergent from the party line, or at least of some of its members (preferring the reformism of the Ichino line Fassina), contaminated by heterogeneous positions and in some cases right. Still completely absent a speech on the universality of law (citizen's income and the like) or more elementary equalize between workers in general, which may include the self-employed and freelance, for example.

At Coworking Conference 2011

Written by Dario Banfi October 31, 2011 1 comment | Read 353 times

In a few days I will be in Berlin for the follow Coworking Conference 2011 (# hashtag on Twitter coworkingeu). Anyone else?

Pass me the notes via FTP?

Written by Dario Banfi October 31, 2011 0 comments | Read 208 times

Published by Linda Gratton of the London Business School on his blog The Future of Work , this particular impression and makes me feel a little 'old. I finished University in 1996, not so much :-) but I do not remember a single portable classroom in those years. Perhaps because it was more productive to look at her companions bench chatting on Facebook to find the love of life, perhaps because the laptops cost a fortune. What I wonder is who is the true appendix? The computer for the body learns, or arm and mind which governs it for machines that have invaded areas of learning?

University of Missouri

Between self-employment and coworking

Written by Dario Banfi October 25, 2011 0 comments | Read 443 times

Two more reviews by Freelance Life. Edited by A Radio Città Fujiko , who interviewed me on the occasion of the presentation of the book in Bologna on 11 October at Coop Bookstores.

Radio Citta Fujiko - Bologna

The journalist Alice Bellicioni, whom I thank, devotes a page of the cultural space of the site to our book and Mama Tandoori Ernest van der Kwast. At the tail end review public radio the audio of the interview that aired last Thursday, which I reproduce here for convenience. There is talk of freelance protections, independent journalists, future.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here . You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

GIOIA The second review (. PDF) is edited by Loredana Oliva, a friend, a journalist, twitter heavy urser :-) and published in the current issue of Joy (29 October 2011, p. 181). Thanks to Loredana. Here his beautiful piece:

Una vita da freelance - Loredana Oliva - GIOIA

Economics free, no thanks.

Written by Dario Banfi October 21, 2011 2 comments | Read 1,222 times

I will not stop repeating, and happens in these parts for years (try to do a search on Humanitech.it with keywords "work" + "free" ), which the free labor kills his professional dignity of the individual and the general working conditions . This is demonstrated by the recent correspondence (. PDF) between the editor of Flash Art and a young desinger now abroad, which has been awarded the sympathetic epithet "bitch" because there has done it and here in Italy to a high you would be stuck in fake paid jobs or internships free to poor (or no) training content. A sad story, plenty of commentary online .

The advice I repeat, is to avoid the free labor, if possible, because it does not hurt only those who are called into question, but to those who are on the right and look for a job. Mine is an invitation, but I have often tried to show its profound reasons in particular in the chapter "Working at what price?" Book of Life Freelance (Feltrinelli, 2011), written with Sergio Bologna and in many posts on this blog, some Sometimes even in a fun (see " Marcel Mauss gave his essays to editors "), because in the end work for free is part of this world and if we do not finish for reasons kidding hurt you.

In some insights published recently there have reasoned also two good journalists, Roberta Carlini at the beginning of August in L'Espresso (11/08/2011) realized the investigation, " We are forced to work for free "( here in. PDF) and then Loredana Saporito, who has published these days on Glamour (237 November 2011) an article critical of the same sign, titled " Just work for free! "(. PDF download). In both articles are given the arguments of Silvia Bencivelli , Eleanor Voltolina ( The Republic of Interns ) and myself [which makes me think that maybe we should talk a little 'more about these issues, because we think then, at a distance, in the same way]. Below is the article published in Glamour: »Read more ...

PCG's Guide to Freelancing

Written by Dario Banfi October 14, 2011 0 comments | Read 321 times

PCG's Guide To Freelancing The Guide to freelancing made in UK has reached its sixth edition. In my opinion it is quite useful to those who perform professional work alone in Italy and worth a look ...

Free can be downloaded from the website of PCG - Professional Contractor Group , the English counterpart of our ACTA .

The industrial revolution of our time

Written by Dario Banfi October 12, 2011 0 comments | Read 587 times

In an hour I will be at the Museum of 900 in Piazza Duomo in Milan to talk with Paul Perulli, Gad Lerner and Cristina Tajani (commissioner to work of the Municipality of Milan), the book that I wrote with Sergio Bologna. I have no idea what space and time will be. I like to listen more than talk, but if I had a way, this is more or less what I'd say.

The industrial revolution of our time

Sara Horowitz of the Freelancers Union writes in The Atlantic that "The Freelance Surge is the Industrial Revolution of our Time", the emergence of the phenomenon of freelancing is the industrial revolution of our time. I'm fully convinced. I write about it on a personal blog (this one) for six years, three before when The New York Times has noticed that there are the VAT, but after a ten work of Sergio Bologna and Andrea Fumagalli that led to the headlines of the research the social "second generation autonomous professional work."

This means that there is nothing new. Today everyone knows who is a freelance, maybe you have not quite clear how he manages to make a living. There is a lot of light on the fact that there are employees, plenty of shade on their social position. Identifying themselves have no problems, they have it in the claims. The consciousness of what it means to be a freelance is acquired quickly: I read, for example, the definition of a young 26 year old, found on a blog:

"But who is now a freelance? It is a worker who has no master, and that from time to time works for those who commissioned a project. A freelancer is an expert who knows how to do their job very well and has some specific skills that are specialized and continually updated. What, however, is not a freelancer? It's not a guy that you can afford to work less, from home, not a means worker. It is not a slacker who while working from the couch gave up a job so-called normal. "

There is a whole anthropology of freelance and some prejudice that surrounds him. He forgot the stereotypical Dodger, what they enjoy most ... more complex, however, understand the relationships that self-employment has with the culture and social status. What rights do they have? They are professionals or Quacks? You are an elite or intellectual proletaroidi? »Read more ...