Current challenge on the struggle for decent work and sustainable livelihood for new generations.

One characteristic feature of this age of neoliberalism and its contemporary crisis is the continuous

condition of destroying the possibility of decent work and sustainable livelihood for the working people.

The destruction of all sorts of socialist or welfare political mechanism everywhere is believed by the

proponents of neoliberalism to be the vital requirement to push for more economic innovations and

competitions needed for immediate growth globally. The consequences following that setting is massive

implementation of global labor flexibility, informalization of works, and privatization of social life.

The”new” agent in this setting is Precariat – precarious proletariat.

Group of middle class young people almost globally, including those in Europe and Asia, now face a highly

precarious everyday life which in Zygmund Baumann's article (http://www.social-

europe.eu/2012/05/youth-unemployment-the-precariat-is-welcoming-generation-y/) is mostly described

with working conditions and work perspectives. If we compare this situation with the situation of the

Welfare States (with high growth rates, a strong social system that was based on full employment) in the

60s, 70s and 80s, we can see that nowadays a precarious everydaylife is becoming something more normal,

also in the middle classes. In Europe, there have always been people who lived a precarious life, migrant

workers for example, but now this happens to a broader group of society. Consequently, there are also new

mechanisms of disciplining society and make them work for capitalism, one important aspect here is the

individualization of work.

In many places the leftist movements are discussing how to find appropriate forms of organization of the

precairous classes because these are groups that are not represented by the traditional workers' unions.

Creating collectivity is a new challenge because of the very different realities within the precarious classes

(you could say they consist of different class segments: migrant workers, precarious workers who work as

care workers or as cleaners, workers in the construction sector, workers in the industry, intellectuals etc.),

and in many times there's a lack of a place where this collectivity can emerge.

Now, what is happening in North Africa and in Spain is of much interest to the disucssion of leftist

movements in Europe because the movements of the young preacrious generations that emerged there

show the contradictions of current forms of capitalism quite clearly. The forms in which they organize are

very interesting in terms of the above mentioned questions. But movements like in North Africa and Spain

do not emerge evervywhere.

One of the challenges is to create cohesion between groups who have lived in different realities. The new

precarious middle class groups have had a different outlook in the world from the traditional members of

unions. Generation Y youth in Europe, especially those who enjoyed a higher education, have lived with an

atomized, individualist outlook on society. Creating some form of shared identity, some form of a new class

conscious, a new narrative on what binds these groups who have shared very little in the past and who now

find themselves in the same precarious economic situation would be in my eyes the challenge of the

leaders of our generation. My thoughts would be that traditional forms of worker organization will not

suffice. Evolved in a different age, when one held a job for a life time, the new identity of 21th century

unions needs to find new common identity markers. Solidarity of working people across the world,

including Asia-Europe, is timely important at this moment of capitalist crisis and the age of the precariats.

The understanding of this new dynamics is basic requirements to build new vision of alternative livelihood

that sustainable and drive by the new generations.