ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses changes in waged employment during the first seven years of democratic government, with particular regard to their relationships to workers’ access to social rights and citizenship and to evolving worker identities and responses. The relationships between work and social citizenship have provided a central theme for sociological and political analysis of labour movements in twentieth century industrialised capitalism. The theme of ‘decommodification’ rose to prominence in these patterns of institutionalised collective identity, as a consequence of the expansion of the social wage. Interviews conducted in three metal-engineering plants reveal that workers’ experiences are increasingly shaped by a link between employment uncertainty and the loss of rights and power. Restructuring trends and the associated job losses are generally received by workers with a sense of uncertainty that articulates a perceived threat that contrasts recent experiences of relative employment stability.
