Precariousness
Precariousness denotes “all forms of insecure, contingent, flexible work – from illegalised, casualised and temporary employment, to homeworking, piecework and freelancing.”
“Precarious is [sic] person who is able to know nothing about one’s own future and therefore is hung by the present … We speak of precarious labor when labor is subordinated to a form of flexible and unregulated exploitation, subjected to daily fluctuations of the labor market, and forced to endure the blackmail of a discontinuous salary. The precarious worker is not formally employed, and still his [sic] existence is not at all free, the waged relationship is discontinuous and occasional, and still the dependence is continuous and full of anxiety. In the 1970s and 80s when the dismantling of the Fordist system and guaranteed wages tied to industrial production began, precarious working conditions appeared as a marginal and temporary phenomenon that concerned above all the young workers that entered into the labor market. Today it is clear that labor precariousness is no longer a marginal condition, but it is the black heart of the process of global capitalistic production.”
Franco Berardi, Precarious Rhapsody: Semiocapitalism and the Pathologies of the Post-Alpha Generation (London: Minor Compositions, 2009), p. 148.