不稳定劳动的多样性:液化劳动和受挫的韩国福利国家的劳动者保护

Varieties of Precarity:Melting Labour and the Failure to Protect Workers in the South Korean Welfare State

尽管韩国的经济和福利制度有所发展,但新形式的不稳定劳动仍然普遍存在。本研究将“液化劳动”概念化,并将其视为一种现象,在这种现象中,传统的劳动形式和工作场所之间的界限变得模糊,标准的雇佣关系被消解。本研究提出了一个理论框架,解释了各种不稳定劳动群体是如何在“液化劳动”和劳动者制度保护的交叉点上出现的。研究的主要论点是,由于福利制度无法适应液化劳动所带来的经济和社会结构的变化,加之“传统形式”僵化,使得福利制度正逐渐“褪色”。本研究采用了新开发的理论框架,分析了本应保护劳动者的法律制度如何以及为何未能保护劳动者。该研究基于对包括外包制造业劳动者、平台劳动者等在内的80多名韩国不稳定劳动者的深度采访,描述了他们在劳动力市场上丧失对自己生活的控制力从而经历不稳定性的过程。在液化劳动的扩张中,福利制度“漂移”导致劳动者保护受挫,暴露出各种不稳定的劳动力群体。最后,本研究将不稳定劳动分为“旧的失败者”“新的失败者”和“逐渐显露的失败者”,并为福利制度改革和新阶级理论研究提出了团结和联盟策略。

Despite recent achievements in the South Korean economy and development within welfare institutions,new forms of precarious work continue to prevail.This study conceptualizes and introduces"melting labour"as a phenomenon in which the boundaries between traditional labour forms and workplaces are blurred and standard employment relationships are dismantled.It presents a theoretical framework that explains how various precarious labour groups emerge at the intersection of melting labour and institutional protections for workers.The main argument is that the welfare system has failed to adapt to the changed economic and social structure and melting labour,and has become rigid in its traditional form and is gradually becoming obsolete.This paper utilizes a newly developed theoretical framework to analyze how and why the legal system,which is supposed to protect workers,has proven inadequate.Based on indepth interviews with over 80 precarious workers in South Korea,spanning subcontracted manufacturing workers to platform workers,this study describes the process by which workers lose control over their lives and experience precarity in the labour market.As melting labour expands,the welfare system"drifts"and fails to protect workers,and various precarious labour groups are identifi ed.Finally,this study categorizes precarious labour into"old losers,""new losers,"and"slowly revealing losers,"and suggests solidarity and alliance strategies for welfare system reform and new class studies.