10 February, 2010Precarious work on the rise suggesting many companies who have begun hiring again are doing so with fixed-term or temporary workers.
GLOBAL: A second survey conducted by the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) on precarious work, contract and agency labour shows a continuing increase in the number of workers employed on precarious contracts. The results demonstrate the need to continue to fight against the rise of precarious work.
The rise occurred during an economic crisis that gripped many countries during 2009 and led to massive lay-offs of short-term contract workers, and could perhaps indicate that many companies who have begun hiring again are doing so with fixed-term or temporary workers.
A total of 66 per cent of ICEM and IMF affiliates that responded indicated that there has been an increase in temporary or part-time work in their sectors and in their countries in 2009. Only 22 per cent of affiliates reported that they had seen a decrease, with a further 12 per cent stating that there had been no change.
Two-thirds of the ICEM and IMF affiliates who replied indicated that the wage and benefit gap between direct, permanently employed workers and contract and agency labour workers had increased over the last year as a result of the global economic crisis. This growing wage gap between permanently employed workers and contract workers seems to be more pronounced outside of countries in the OECD area.
Another important factor is that unions are taking action against the proliferation of precarious jobs, with 40 per cent of ICEM and IMF affiliates saying that they are already taking measures to avoid an increase in precarious work once the economy begins to improve. Another 39 per cent are currently reflecting on how to take action on this issue. Only 14 per cent indicated that they had not yet taken any action, and a mere seven per cent of affiliates stated that this is not a problem for them.
Recruiting short-term or temporary agency workers into unions remains a challenge, with only 28 per cent of affiliates reporting that their union has more contract and agency worker members than it did last year. A full 37 per cent of ICEM and IMF affiliates indicated that the amount of members employed as contract and agency workers had remained the same, and 35 per cent said that there had been a decrease in membership of workers employed on a contract or agency basis.
A total of 252 ICEM and IMF affiliates responded to the multilingual survey. Responses were received from all regions, with Africa, Asia, and Europe each being responsible for about one third of all responses and a further eight per cent of replies came from the Americas. A more detailed visual representation of all the results is available here.