Precarity (also precariousness) is a precarious existence, lacking in

predictability Predictability is the degree to which a correct prediction or forecast of a system's state can be made, either qualitatively or quantitatively. Predictability and causality Causal determinism has a strong relationship with predictability. Perf ...

job security Job security is the probability that an individual will keep their job; a job with a high level of security is such that a person with the job would have a small chance of losing it. Many factors threaten job security: globalization, outsourcing, ...

material Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologi ...

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...

welfare. The social class defined by this condition has been termed the ''

precariat In sociology and economics, the precariat () is a neologism for a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmant ...

''.

Catholic origins

Léonce Crenier Léonce Crenier (1888 – May 10, 1963) was a Catholic monk who promoted the theological-political concept of precarity. Early years Léonce Crenier was born in Ceton, a small village of the diocese of Séez, in Savoie, France, July 31, 1888. Acc ...

, a Catholic

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

who had previously been active as an

anarcho-communist Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains resp ...

, may have established the English usage. In 1952 the term was documented by

Dorothy Day Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...

, writing for the

Catholic Worker Movement The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the United States in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus ...

In Europe

It is a term of everyday usage as ''Precariedad'', ''Precariedade'', ''Précarité'', or ''Precarietà'' in a number of European countries, where it refers to the widespread condition of temporary, flexible, contingent, casual, intermittent work in

postindustrial In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy. The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to si ...

societies. While

contingent labor Contingent work, casual work, or contract work, is an employment relationship with limited job security, payment on a piece work basis, typically part-time (typically with variable hours) that is considered non-permanent. Although there is less jo ...

has been a constant of capitalist societies since the industrial revolution,

Michael Hardt Michael Hardt (born 1960) is an American political philosopher and literary theorist. Hardt is best known for his book ''Empire'', which was co-written with Antonio Negri. Hardt and Negri suggest that several forces which they see as dominat ...

and

Antonio Negri Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic- Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of ''Empire'' and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political ...

have argued that the flexible labor force has now moved from the peripheral position it had under

Fordism Fordism is a manufacturing technology that serves as the basis of modern economic and social systems in industrialized, standardized mass production and mass consumption. The concept is named after Henry Ford. It is used in social, economic, and ...

to a core position in the process of capitalist accumulation under

Post-Fordism Post-Fordism is the dominant system of economic production, consumption, and associated socio-economic phenomena in most industrialized countries since the late 20th century. It is contrasted with Fordism, the system formulated in Henry Ford's aut ...

, which is thought to be increasingly based on the casualized efforts of affective, creative,

immaterial labor Immaterial labor is a Marxist framework to describe how value is produced from affective and Cognition, cognitive activities, which, in various ways, are commodification, commodified in capitalism, capitalist economies. The concept of immaterial lab ...

Global justice movement

Around 2000, the word started being used in its English usage by some

global justice movement The global justice movement is a network of globalized social movements demanding global justice by opposing what is often known as the “ corporate globalization” and promoting equal distribution of economic resources. Movement of movements ...

(sometimes identified with

antiglobalization The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...

) activists (''Marches Européennes contre le chômage la précarité et les exclusions'' - European Marches against unemployment, precarity and social exclusion), and also in EU official reports on

social welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet Basic needs, basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refe ...

. But it was in the strikes of young part-timers at

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

and

Pizza Hut Pizza Hut is an American multinational restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by Dan and Frank Carney. They serve their signature pan pizza and other dishes including pasta, breadsticks and dessert at d ...

in winter 2000, that the first political union network emerged in Europe explicitly devoted to fighting precarity: Stop Précarité, with links to AC!, CGT, SUD, CNT,

Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...

ists and other elements of the French radical left.

"San Precario"

February 29 is the

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context d ...

of San Precario, the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

of precarious workers, who – together with his feast day – was created by the Chainworkers at the

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

ese space Reload where the 2004 EuroMayDay was organised with others, including the

Critical Mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fissi ...

group. The Milan Critical Mass already had its own patron saint, "Santa Graziella" (''

Graziella ''Graziella'' is an 1852 novel by the French author Alphonse de Lamartine. It tells of a young French man who falls for a fisherman's granddaughter – the eponymous Graziella – during a trip to Naples, Italy; they are separated when ...

'' is the brand name of a popular Italian

folding bicycle A folding bicycle is a bicycle designed to fold into a compact form, facilitating transport and storage. When folded, the bikes can be more easily carried into buildings, on public transportation (facilitating mixed-mode commuting and bicycl ...

). San Precario was originally conceived as a male saint (Romano, 2004). The saint's first public appearance was at a Sunday supermarket opening on February 29, 2004:

A statue was carried in the streets, preceded by assorted clergy including a cardinal reciting prayers over a loudspeaker, and followed by pious people.Marcello Tarì and Ilaria Vanni
"On the Life and Deeds of San Precario, Patron Saint of Precarious Workers and Lives"
''The Fibreculture Journal'' 5, 2005. Retrieved March 1, 2009.

ChainWorkers then performed a hoax during the 2005

Milan Fashion Week Milan Fashion Week ( it, Settimana della moda) is a clothing trade show held semi-annually in Milan, Italy. The autumn/winter event is held in February/March of each year, and the spring/summer event is held in September/October of each year. It ...

, creating a fictive stylist, Serpica Naro, whose name was an anagram of "San Precario". The groups claim that the name functions like a multiple user name or myth such as

Luther Blissett Luther Loide Blissett (born 1 February 1958) is a former professional footballer and manager who played for the England national team during the 1980s. Born in Jamaica, Blissett played as a striker, and is best known for his time at Watford, ...

and quote the

Wu Ming Wu Ming, Chinese for "anonymous", is a pseudonym for a group of Italian authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett community in Bologna. Four of the group earlier wrote the novel '' Q'' (first edition 1999). Unlike the open nam ...

collective in giving theoretical coherence, although it is mostly seen as a

détournement A détournement (), meaning "rerouting, hijacking" in French, is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),''Report on the Construction of Situations'' (1957) that ...

of the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

concept of patron saints.

Precariat

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

, ''precariat'' refers to the

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...

formed by people with no

, or no prospect of regular employment, distinct from the

lumpenproletariat In Marxist theory, the ''Lumpenproletariat'' () is the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary a ...

. The term is a

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

obtained by merging ''precarious'' with

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...

. The precariat class has been emerging in advanced societies such as Japan, where it includes over 20 million so-called "

freeter In Japan, a is a person who is unemployed or lacks full-time employment, excluding housewives and students. Freeters average 15 to 34 years of age. Freeters may also be described as '' underemployed''. These people do not start a career after ...

s". The young precariat class in Europe became a serious issue in the early part of the 21st century.Press Europe: Sept 15, 2011: The "Youthful members of the full-time precaria

/ref>

References

Bibliography

* Standing, Guy (2011) ''The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class'' (Bloomsbury Academic) * Thörnquist, Annette & Engstrand, Åsa-Karin (eds.) (2011) ''Precarious Employment in Perspective. Old and New Challenges to Working Conditions in Sweden''. Work & Society. Vol. 70. Bruxelles: Peter Lang. * Lorey, Isabell. (2015) {{Organized labor Precarious work Community organizing Corporate crime Economic sociology Feminism and social class Labor disputes Labor relations Working conditions de:Prekarisierung