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Гибкость = Прекаризация или Гибкость + Безопасность? Потеряные гарантии социальной безопасности
Flexibility = Precarity or Flexibility + Security? The Lost Guarantees of Social Security1
Получено 01.09.2018 Одобрено 13.09.2018 Опубликовано 08.10.2018 УДК: 331.5 DOI: 10.24411/1999-9836-2018-10023
ЮДИТ ЧОБА
Факультет социологии и социальной политики, Дебреценский университет.
Основные направления исследовательской работы: социология труда, социальная политика, политика в области занятости государств всеобщего благосостояния, социальные льготы, социальная экономика Email: csoba.judit@arts.unideb.hu
Аннотация
Объект исследования. Стратегия «гибкобезопасности» и неустойчивая занятость.
Предмет исследования. Изучение неустойчивой занятости и стратегия гибких нестандартных форм занятости (НСФЗ).
Цель исследования. Характерные черты «Стратегии гиб-козанятости» и социально-экономическое влияние гибкой и неустойчивой занятости в Европе. Основные положения статьи.
В связи с экономическими и социальными вызовами четвертой индустриальной революции и глубокими изменениями в процессах на трудовом рынке, риск отлучения от работы и социальных благ, добываемых трудом, сегодня не относится только к низкоквалифицированным или чернорабочим. Так как безработица стала широко распространённым явлением, основная парадигма распределения социальных благ и наличие безопасности существования, основанное на разделении труда, также подверглось огромной угрозе. При переходе к новому тысячелетию, с распространением гибких форм занятости, социальная безопасность нарушена не только по отношению к безработным, но и к широким слоям работающих. Стратегия гибкобезопасной занятости», направленная на преодоление кризиса занятости 1990-х годов, направленная на увеличение занятости за счёт использования активных инструментов рынка труда и гибкости труда, при усилении ответственности государства за предоставление социальных гарантий, похоже, провалилась. В последние годы основы социальной защиты трудящихся ослабевают, и всё более распространённым явлением становятся прекаризация и неустойчивая занятость и нестабильность доходов. В конечном итоге это вопрос правильный: гарантировать социальную защищенность работников можно только за счет сокращения гибких форм занятости или создания и гарантирования новых форм социальной защиты, вписывающихся в условия рынка труда XXI века, диктуемые цифровым миром.
CSOBA, J
Prof. Dr. habil.
Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Debrecen
Research focus: Sociology of Work, Social Policy, Employment Policy of the Welfare States, Conditional Benefits, Social Economy
Email: csoba.judit@arts.unideb.hu
Abstract
The Object of the Study: «Flexicurity Strategy» and Precarious Employment.
The Subject of the Study: Profile the Precarious Employment and the Strategy of flexible and non-standard forms of employment (NSFE).
The Purpose of the Study: Identifying the characteristics of the "Flexicurity strategy" and the social and economic Impact of the flexible and precarious employment in Europa. The Main Provisions of the Article:
Because of the economic and social challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the profound changes in the labour market processes, the risk of being excluded from work and from social goods divided by work is no longer just among the low-skilled, or manual workers today. As unemployment became commonplace, the basic paradigm of the distribution of social goods and the existence of existential security, based on the share of work carried out, is also jeopardized. Following the turn of the millennium, with the spread of flexible forms of employment, social security has been damaged not only for the unemployed but also for a wide range of workers.
The «Flexicurity strategy», designed to tackle the employment crisis of the 1990s - aimed to increase employment by using active labor market instruments and flexibility of work, while strengthening state responsibility in providing social guarantees - it seems to have failed. The pillars of social protection have been weakening among workers in recent years, and the precariat and precarious employment and income insecurity have become more and more widely known phenomenon. After all, the question is right: guaranteeing the social security of workers can only be achieved through the reduction of flexible forms of employment or the creation and guarantee of new forms of social security that fit into the 21st century labor market conditions, dictated by the digitized world.
Ключевые слова: нестабильность; гибкость; гигономика; со- Keywords: precarity; flexicurity; gig economy; social security. циальная безопасность.
Introduction
Technological modernisation dates back to the beginning of the humanity. Today, on the verge of the fourth industrial revolution, it seems that we are facing greater challenges than the previous industrial revolutions. As for long-term effects - regarding both the economy and society - we have only been able
to formulate assumptions and questions as to what a society without work would be like, and what the role of humans will be in a world where machines do all the work, or whether humankind would succeed in using technological modernisation to address the problems of the growing population - that have been considered fundamental for hundreds of years - or in other words,
1 The publication is supported by the EFOP-3.6.1-16-2016-00022 project. The project is co-financed by the European Union and the European Social Fund.
the five «Giant Evils»: want, disease, idleness, ignorance, and squalor [Beveridge, 1942, 4], and thus significantly improve peoples standards ofliving. Or quite the contrary: whether - through the concentration of the tools of modern technology (i.e. the means of production) and due to the growing number of poor individuals that do not have such means - previously unseen depths of social inequalities and conflicts would emerge. [Brynjolfsson -McAffee, 2014, 10; Schmidt, 2017, 48; Tegmark, 2018, 50] The answers are yet unknown, but we can clearly see that the effects of fast-paced technological improvement are inevitable and plenty of the problems to be solved are already noticeable. Furthermore, the economic and societal changes pose fundamental questions with regard to the realm of work as well:
a.) After the civil and political liberties that were established in the 18th and 19th centuries had been hardened, «social rights» had also solidified as third-generation human rights by the mid-20th century. [Marshall 1965, 37] The system of social rights that had worked as a pillar of the welfare states established after the Second World War - and that came to existence last, thus it is considered the weakest system providing liberties - started to gradually decline from the second half of the 1970s. The bastions of social protection that concern working conditions -that were claimed by the labour movements of the 19th century - have undergone a gradual weakening over the last few decades, and in certain cases, their existence has become endangered as well (i.e. the constant "deregulation" of labour rights, the regulation of the labour market, the transformation of the unemployment benefit system, but also the continuous deterioration of other important fields -accident, sickness, and old age - of social security) [Esping-Andersen, 1999, 22; Ferrera et. al 2001, 24; Bonoli, 2003, 7; Piketty, 2014, 46; Devlin, 2017, 16].
b.) The main paradigm of the distribution of social goods, remuneration proportional to the amount of work performed had been fundamentally questioned. The distribution of goods being produced today is no longer proportionate to the work performed, but to the means of production possessed instead. [Beck 2009, 3; Piketty 2014, 46; Csoba, 2017, 15; Schmidt, 2017, 48]
c.) «Decommodification» - the foundation of universal social security - is replaced by «recommodification» nowadays - which seems to be supported almost unanimously, and in most European countries, the provision of conditional welfare (that is mainly dependent on some form of work) has become common in the last ten years [Esping-Andersen, 1990, 20; 1996, 21; Hemerijck-Eichhorst, 2009, 29; Hemerijck, 2013, 27];
d.) Yet, the boundaries of social security are not to be drawn between «the employed» and «the
unemployed». There is an increasing degree of existential insecurity even among those who are employed. The groups of the underemployed, people with lower incomes, and those with insecure labour and social conditions are constantly expanding [Butterwege, 2007, 11; Standing, 2011, 49; Moreira-Lodemel 2014, 39; Hemerijck, 2017, 28].
«Flexicurity» as a potential solution of labour market imbalances
The long-established and, even today, widely recognised definition of «work» became widespread in the 19th century, according to which, work is normally performed by individuals referred to as employees, and such work is carried out over a period of eight hours per day. In addition, or perhaps, as a result, work is a moral responsibility from a societal perspective, it is the path to individual success, since work determines one's social status as well as defines the meaning of life. The universal moral law of mandatory work applies to the whole of society, including its various layers and all of its memb Wacquant ers. [Csoba, 2015, 14; Torok, 2014, 51]
On the other hand, the presence of the social control aspect of work's definition is severely weakened if there is not enough work to do, if already existing work is not carried out with the inclusion of human resources, and if members of society are not granted access to the most important condition for the distribution of goods that determine one's status: work. [Wacquant, 2010, 53]
The large-scale unemployment resulting from the economic and labour market changes of the nineties conflicted with the universal rule of mandatory work and severely challenged the welfare states established after the Second World War that had been built upon the principle of full employment, and called for the creation of a new welfare model. One of the important milestones in the reform process leading to the new welfare model was the transformation of the old welfare system that was based on insurance funds and entitlement, and that mainly provided passive benefits; as well as the proliferation of conditional welfare. This last area included, for instance, the widespread application of the highly criticised mandatory, unpaid work [Offe, 2003, 43], and the promotion of means-tested benefits. [Fiszbein-Schady, 2009, 25; Barbier, 2010, 1; Eleveld, 2014, 18]
Another significant element of this reform process was the spread of flexible forms of employment - a grand promise of the nineties. The term «flexicurity»
- a portmanteau of the words flexibility and (social) security referred to a model that meant to guarantee
- through the extensive use of the instruments of active labour market policies and flexible forms of employment - the growth of employment, as well
as - through increasing state responsibility - social security. Around the millennium, - in order to further the realisation of the «flexicurity» model - social partners in certain member states of the European Union agreed one after another to make the labour market more flexible, and also expressed their demand that the state should not reduce welfare spending. The underlying assumption of the agreements was that even though the strict employment protection legislation reduces the number of dismissals, at the same time it also hinders the transition from unemployment to employment, and thus prevents the inclusion of those excluded from the labour market as well as the reduction of inactive social groups -e.g. the unemployed or individuals receiving social benefits [OECD, 1997, 41]. The «flexicurity» strategy
- announced in 2007 by the European Commission
- was a powerful way to thaw the «frozen landscape» [Esping-Andersen, 1996, 21] of the previous welfare model that was strictly regulated in order to guarantee social rights, promising flexibility and social security at the same time. The goal of the strategy was to proliferate a number of active labour market policies in order to expand employment as well as to activate inactive groups of society. The idea behind the extensive use of the effective instruments of active labour market policies is to help individuals cope with the rapid changes, to reduce the period of unemployment, and to smoothen the process of reemployment [Eichhorst, 2008, 17; Madsen, 2002, 35].
Considering the conclusions drawn from the use of the «flexicurity» model in Denmark in the 1990s, several potential risks of the model had already been apparent at the time of the millennium, yet, this did not affect the views of those who had become disappointed with the old model and were absolutely determined to reform it. The most prominent issues concerning the application of the model were already known back then: the «flexicurity» model has little to offer to the uneducated, those who suffer from medical conditions, and immigrants, and due to pressure of activating programmes having to serve as «indicators», organisers do not include the before mentioned groups in these programmes, but they accept the more advantaged individuals among the unemployed instead. Essentially, the most advantaged members of the unemployed will receive the best opportunities to be activated. According to the European Expert Group on Flexicurity [Flexicurity Pathways 2007, 26], an essential condition for the implementation and success of the flexicurity policy is the supportive and fruitful conversation between social partners and the state. [Viebrock - Clasen, 2009, 52] Since the millennium, however, there had been fewer and fewer good examples of effective
conversation among European countries, hence the chances of discussing social and economic interests and making mutually beneficial agreements between the parties had become lower and lower through the years.
Following the millennium, it was not entitlement (e.g. an individual had been formerly granted benefits) any more that counted when the welfare benefits of the unemployed were determined, but rather eligibility (e.g. dependent on the participation in work). The reputation of those receiving welfare benefits had changed entirely as well. These individuals were no longer considered victims of the changing economic system or subjects of welfare compensation, nor the subjects of social investment; instead, they became «items of expenditure» that put a burden on the welfare system and that inhibit economic growth. Instead of receiving support from the community, they could now only rely on their individual performance, and in addition, insurance systems based on solidarity saw a shift toward selective discretionary benefits and benefits based on the principle of equivalence. Most «out of work» benefits had become «in work» benefits, and the definitions of work capacity and «suitable work» had completely changed. Accountant mentality started to dominate welfare services: investments (e.g. welfare benefits and services) were initiated only if they were profitable (i.e. receiving some kind of service in exchange for the benefits).
Even though - according to the initial idea -the «flexicurity strategy» would have reinforced the European growth and employment strategy, which intended to reduce unemployment, create more and better jobs, and establish a new form of security for employees that would guarantee them labour instead of a particular job, and that would guarantee more and better jobs by making employment flexible [COM, 2007, 13], one of the most important objectives, the improvement of employees' social security, has not been met in the past 20 years. A study of the OECD (2006) had pointed out said risks prior to the adoption of the EU strategy, however this warning remained ignored. Similarly, the disapproval of trade unions and southern member states around the time of the conception of the strategy was futile. They expressed doubt whether dismantling social guarantees and making the labour market flexible was the right direction. They also objected that communication depicted the opposite of the direction of the happenings in reality. Some experts regarded the agreements concerning the flexibility of working conditions as the ultimate failure of trade unions. The trade unions - due to the existence of the unemployment insurance system that was generous to provide allowances and was subventioned by the state, yet primarily belonged
to trade unions - accepted the liberal employment protection rules that allowed the relatively easy hiring and dismissal of employees, thus, essentially the suppression of labour rights [Butterwegge, 2015, 11].
In July 2007, when Portugal, one of the biggest critics of flexible forms of employment, took over presidency of the EU, large protests were organised in Lisbon and Brussels against flexicurity as, according to the protesters, the way the transformation of labour market regulation in Europe was being realised went against all EU recommendations. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that the elements of the EU's social policy and employment strategy that guaranteed social security had been weakened just before the recession of2008 [Barbier, 2012, 2; Mailand-Arnholtz, 2015, 36]. Thus, with the repression of the exemplary role of the EU model supporting a Social Europe, the subordination of social and labour rights to economic interests continued in the member states, even after the recession. Emphasis was placed on austerity in the realm of welfare benefits, as well as the activation of inactive layers of society instead of the guaranteeing of social security. Following the recession, in autumn 2009, the president of the European Commission proposed that a much stronger social profile of the Lisbon Strategy should be established, but according to some experts, this was only a tactical move. There was no common consent, member states could continue to choose from economic and social indicators, and the only serious achievement was the fact that social and employment-related issues were included at all among the main objectives formulated by the Commission [Barbier, 2012, 2; Bonoli, 2012, 8].
The framework of flexible employment established as a result of the deregulation process on the one hand created an opportunity to integrate groups of the labour market that had not been able to participate in labour or generate income on their own during previous decades or that had been limited in such endeavours (e.g. women, young entrants to the labour market, people with disabilities). On the other hand, the «flexicurity» strategy guaranteed the possibility of employees breaking away from the limits of the «manufacturing industry» or leaving «conveyor belts» and enabled them to freely shape their working conditions depending on their circumstances and needs (working from home, part-time work, self-employment rather than being employed by someone else, etc.) In the labour market that is being divided, groups of society cannot equally enjoy the benefits of the changed conditions of work. It is primarily members of the youth, well-educated individuals, and those who have excellent employability who can benefit from the opportunities provided by a flexible labour market since they are already more advantaged
in the competition for jobs and income. Members of peripheral groups of society, women, individuals with lower education, and members of minorities are «potential losers» in said competition, thus they mainly experience the disadvantages resulting from their less and less certain livelihood, as well as the decline of their standard of living. In their case, remedying precarious existence, or precarity, and satisfying the job security needs of employees would only be possible through strengthening the welfare state's intermediary role between capital and labour, creating new forms of welfare redistribution in order to lessen inequalities, and strengthening the legal protection of employees.
According to the agreement that was reached when the «flexicurity» strategy was introduced, the role of labour market participants is to ensure flexibility and to guarantee the best conditions for an increase in the number of jobs. Providing social security, to those who take part in the unregulated or the flexible labour market as well, would be the responsibility of the state [Vierbrock-Clasen, 2009, 52].
The model based on the coordination of the market, the state, employment policy, and social policy can only survive in the long term if participants comply with the agreement. The «flexicurity» model can only function if social rights (i.e. security) are given at least as much attention as responsibilities regarding flexible employment (i.e. flexibility). The EU's «flexicurity» strategy did in fact pay significant attention to the importance of social security. «...The EU needs to strengthen the European social models that support social protection, social cohesion and solidarity. Employees need enough security to properly plan their lives and careers» [COM 2007, 13, p.6].
Social protection is a prominent element in the exemplary Danish model to this day. During the adoption of the model, however, labour rights had been gradually weakened in most countries, so that only the responsibilities had been kept. Thus, the model is now heading toward a dead end, the symptoms of which are already clearly noticeable.
Flexible employment and non-standard forms of employment (NSF), and their economic and societal effects
«Flexicurity», just like every buzzword and term deemed politically useful, has become obsolete. In recent years, it has been gradually replaced by the term «Non-Standard Forms of Employment» (NSFE). According to the ILO's definition, it is an umbrella term that includes forms of employment different from traditional employment, ranging from fixed-term and part-time employment to gig economy. It is worth mentioning that, compared to «flexicurity», NSFE is a flexible form of employment that is missing
the (social) security element. This is also noteworthy because according to the 2015 analysis of the ILO, NSFE is much more common among poorly educated employees, who can be quickly trained and are easily
The number of employees in NSFE is noticeably high. According to an international study completed in 2016, «throughout the world, more than 60 per cent of employees, mainly women, participate in temporary, part-time, or short-term jobs, for lower and lower remuneration - and this trend further deepens global income inequalities and poverty» [PRECARIR 2016, 47]. And according to the ILO, in 2017, 42 % of all employees in the world were labelled susceptible to losing their jobs, albeit a substantial number of them live in developing/emerging countries. [ILO, 2018, 34, p.1]
As for the description of NSFE employees' risk factors, the ILO pointed out the same elements as the critics of «flexicurity» revealed around the millennium. Employees do not have any influence in shaping work conditions e.g. the provision of balance between working time and free time, or work - life balance, and the reduction of security and health risks; furthermore, they hardly have any opportunities to participate in training or the welfare services provided by their workplaces, and their career prospects are undeniably limited [ILO, 2017, 33].
NSF employment has transformed working conditions in several ways - see Table 1.
The legal/organisational framework of work has been changed. Most businesses today do not follow the model of the factory - the organisation
replaceable, than among employees with higher education, who have stronger leverage, and where the establishment of social security is not as challenging as in the case of peripheral groups. [ILO, 2015, 32, p.4]
characteristic of industrial society that employs a great number of individuals. More and more small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as sole proprietors have started to emerge. The roles of employers and employees today are nowhere near as clear-cut as they used to be a few decades ago - think of the various forms of self-employment ranging from individual, (bogus) self-employment to community enterprises (e.g. social cooperatives). Furthermore, in the last five years, we have seen the rise of «clients» and «freelancers», who can use online platforms to hire or offer a variety of services. The two largest websites are Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Upwork. The former has more than 500,000 registered freelancers from more than 190 countries, and according to the latest estimates, it employs ten million freelancers in 180 countries. This market is growing so quickly that it is almost impossible to keep track of the exact number of individuals working through these platforms all over the world. According to McKinsey's estimates, by 2025, more than 540 million individuals will have used such platforms. Also, the contribution of «gig economy» to global GDP will be 2,7 trillion by 2025, and meanwhile, it will have created the equivalent of 72 million full-time jobs [McKinsey, 2015, 38].
In this virtual labour market, where individual workers - and in many cases, even workers and employers - do not or cannot get to know each other,
Table 1
The most common non-standard forms of employment (NSFE) today
Typical forms of employment Atypical forms of employment
the legal and organisational framework of work employment status self-employment, false self-employment, sole proprietorship, community business, "crowdwork", outwork, simplified employment, temporary work, „gig economy" work
daily timeframe of work 8 hours per day part-time employment (4-6 hours per day), flexible work arrangements
duration of employment contract indefinite duration employment fixed-term employment, seasonal employment
place of work fixed workplace telework (working from home or a coworking space), temporary work, different locations depending on instruction
Source: Author's own work
it is much more difficult to establish organisations that can effectively serve the representation of interests than in the case of workplaces where the same jobs are carried out by large numbers of employees, or in the case of industrial companies that employ workers represented by trade unions or other labour associations. Due to this fragmentation, trade unions - which used to play a significant role in the fight for labour and social rights - have become insignificant, and other associations protecting labour rights, as well as profession-based communities have been paralysed or suppressed. Workers are left alone most of the time - against the often well-organised and powerful employers, and when it comes to the representation of their interests, social dialogue is often impossible, and there is barely any professional and legal protection guaranteed.
The timeframes of work have changed as well. Instead of performing 8 hours of work per day laid down in an indefinite duration employment contract, employees are working in more and more flexible timeframes now. Regarding both contract durations and daily work timeframes, there are substantial changes occurring today. Employment law has seen the rise of flexible work arrangements, there is an increasing number of part-time employees -especially among women - the range of seasonal jobs is expanding, and most labour market entrants enter the labour market on fixed-term contracts. It is not uncommon today to work during the weekend -think of employees working in the retail, catering, and hospitality sectors, or areas connected to recreational activities that might be enjoyed during weekends, or seasonal work (e.g. construction, agriculture). The laws concerning the protection of rest periods are continuously loosening, and due to the availability required by atypical forms of employment, the boundaries between working time and free time are slowly fading. The protection of the 8-hour work -8-hour rest system is becoming as uncertain as prior to the 18th century.
There have been significant changes regarding the place of work as well in the recent period. One of the characteristics of industrial society - besides the separation of working time and free time - was the separation of the workplace from home. The most typical places of work in the industrial society were the factory and the office. These provided safe and steady working environments to the generations of today's parents and grandparents. In the 21st century, among a significant percentage of employees, work is no longer limited to a single physical location on the employer's premises. With the emergence of atypical and temporary work, employees may work at a different location every day; with the expansion of the service
sector, clients' homes become places of work; and telework transforms workers' homes into workplaces as well. The barriers built by industrial society between the home and the workplace are now being abolished. Mobile phones and the Internet have made it possible to complete tasks from literally any location, and even the concept of traditionally workplace-related, physical co-workers has started to fade, since 21st-century employees - due to the fact that they grew up using computers, as «digital natives» - establish their own, virtual communities with all of their advantages and disadvantages. Personal living space, relationship stability, trust, and mutual responsibility all vanish in the virtual realm. In said virtual realm of our fast-paced world, everything becomes practical, temporary, consumable, and replaceable, concerning human relationships as well. Stability and reciprocity, crucial elements of the solidarity that guarantees the protection of individual and community interests> also disappear. Employers become susceptible to the highly personalised manipulation by anonym systems.
To sum up the risks of NSFE-type employment, it is worth noticing that employees - even if they choose to participate in these new forms of employment -are in many ways disadvantaged compared to those who work in traditional forms of employment when it comes to the satisfaction of their security needs. They receive much lower incomes, but at the same time they take more risks in their employment. According to the ILO's analysis, NSFE employees earn 30-60% less in developing countries and 1-34% less in developed countries compared to traditional employees [ILO, 2015, 32, p.26]. Besides this significant wage gap, they are granted no or little access to social services (training, bonuses, benefits in kind, healthcare services, etc.) by the company/employer, they have limited labour rights (the right to bargain collectively and the right to strike), and the stress and sense of hopeless future they are experiencing due to the special forms of employment indicates the gradually lower extent of social protection they can enjoy. A meta-analysis carried out at the turn of the millennium already concluded that NSFE employees clearly have significantly poorer mental health indicators than individuals working in traditional forms of employment [Bohle et al., 2001, 6, p.39].
According to Standing - who was the first to perform a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of uncertain employment, and who refers to the concerned workforce as the «precariat» - the appearance of existential insecurity is not due to individual behavioural issues, but rather a product of neoliberal economy, which greedily exploits the defenceless employees [Standing, 2011, 49]. The report of PRECARIR, an international research
project studying the phenomenon, described the created situation as having «a lack of proper labour, security, protection, and rights», and according to the report, in such conditions, wage dumping becomes inevitable and the exploitation of employees is gradually escalating [PRECARIR 2016, 47].
The deprivation and elimination of the privileges of trade unions that guarantee the protection of employee rights, the constant impairment of the employment protection legislation, the weakening of welfare states' social protection systems and the deliberate destruction of their institutions, the complete deregulation of the labour market, and finally the termination of the welfare consensus between employer and employee are all characteristic phenomena of both voluntary and involuntary forms of NSFE-type employment [Csoba, 2017, 15; Eber, 2017, 23]. Even though flexible employment provides a great amount of freedom and it offers undeniable advantages in the case of several groups of employees, through its expansion, the social guarantees (income sufficient for a livelihood, paid sick leave, extensive healthcare services, guaranteed elderly pension) previously connected to steady jobs are disappearing.
The main problem does not seem to lie in the flexibility of work, but rather in the lack of those extensive strategies, rules of modern labour law, and social security systems that, regardless of the changed circumstances, are capable of guaranteeing the protection, livelihood, and social security of employees - even the most disadvantaged employees of the labour market - while providing flexible employment. Instead of aggravating social exclusion and expanding the layer of the working poor, the right objective would be to establish the framework of «secure flexible employment» [Ferrera et al., 2001, 24, p.120] where the welfare state could/would fulfil its basic protective duties again.
The crisis of third generation liberties
Following the millennium, several new risks have emerged due to the spread of atypical forms of employment, the disintegration of the employment protection system, the withdrawal of welfare guarantees, and the elimination of social security. The spread of digital employment has boosted the expansion of segmented labour markets, which contain the employment and livelihood insecurity, while said labour markets are spreading the paradigm of distribution based on wage labour that is clearly dysfunctional in the era of technological modernisation. Employees with atypical contracts suffer the loss of rights and privileges in many areas, such as reduced income, limitations in career, and the unavailability of training opportunities, which hinders productivity as well [Viebrock - Clasen, 2009, 52].
The expansion of groups deprived of social security does not only bring social risks [Standing, 2011, 49], but due to the decrease in production and purchasing power, it could also hinder economic growth [OECD,
2016, 42; Codagnone - Abadie - Biagi 2016, 12; Devlin
2017, 16; Schmidt 2017, 48].
The intensifying critiques following the millennium point out that only one pillar of the Danish «flexicurity» model had been elaborated during its adoption in national strategies, namely «flexibility». With the gradual weakening of the welfare state, the (social) security element was getting less and less attention, and finally, social security ceased to be an important element of the central range of the transformed labour market strategies. Since 2008, the term «flexicurity» itself has become obsolete as well. The reasons are rather complex:
■ due to the spread of liberal values, which put economic interests before social interests, and the gradual withdrawal of the institutional guarantees of the welfare state, flexible employment is no longer accompanied by the welfare state's promise of social security. Current labour market reforms are not followed by welfare reforms that adapt to the changing circumstances and that secure participants' social rights;
■ the ever weakening welfare state is less and less capable of preventing the birth of a low-income segment of the labour market («the working poor», the underemployed) where social rights are fundamentally violated;
■ even though the «flexicurity» model can only be successful if it is based on extensive social dialogue, organisations representing employees are getting weaker and weaker, and in most countries, the chances of establishing social dialogue are becoming lower and lower. There are no interest groups that would be able to pressure the state or market participants into the provision of third-generation rights that protect employees and adapt to the changed labour market conditions.
Conclusion
To sum up, we can state that the problem does not lie in flexible or NSFE types of employment, as tailoring working conditions to personal needs, abolishing monotonous jobs and supporting creative jobs that are not limited to physical location instead can in fact have clear advantages. The main issue is that during the expansion of flexible working conditions, social security guarantees were not strengthened. What is left of the mid-nineties' promise of «flexicurity» is the «flexibility» element only. There are no widely accepted alternatives to the restoration of social rights, and there is no social consensus
regarding the replacement of the work paradigm with an alternative paradigm guaranteeing social rights. The definition of work continues to denote wage labour, even though the possibility and necessity of voluntary, socially useful activity is being discussed more and more frequently. In such cases, work is not performed to make a living but rather to help the
community and to enjoy the moral reward of their work. Thus, the most important question nowadays is how third-generation social rights can be guaranteed - even regarding the future - in the age of accelerated technological improvement, and how the increasing gap between groups of society - the powerful vs. the powerless - could be reduced.
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