ABSTRACT
In recent decades the capital-labour relationship has undergone dramatic changes. Much has been written about this restructuring – worsening conditions of work, increase of flexible work regimes and casual jobs, loss of hard won rights (such as the right to strike, job security, social welfare programmes), lack of employment opportunities in times of jobless growth, flight of capital to low wage locations or the threat of flight as a means of winning labour compliance. Some writers have suggested that in a dramatic shift workers are being used as disposable commodities, without regard to their survival.1 State institutions that played a role in distributing a social wage, in the form of social security, health benefits and unemployment benefits, have also come under attack and there has been a worldwide rollback of social welfare programmes. While there seems to be a general consensus about the restructuring of the capital-labour relationship, there has been little said on the implications of this contemporary restructuring on the reproduction strategies of the labour force.
