The labor agenda in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean
Coordinators: Cecilia Senen Gonzales. Antonio Aravena Carrasco.
Authors: Didimo Castillo Fernández. Emilia Castiblanco Moreno. Valeria Solano Chavarría. Daniel Cerdas Sandi. Leslie Lemus. Giancarlo Roach Rivas. Saira Johanna Barrera. Ana Laura Fernández. Mariela Quiñones. María Julia Acosta. Raquel Rojas Scheffer. Roberto Véras de Oliveira. Felipe Bustos Velázquez. Dasten Julián-Vejar. Cristian Alister Sanhueza. Jonathan Xavier Báez Valencia. Luis Fernando Castro. Alejandra del Carmen Rivera Alvarado. Héctor Lucena. José Llopis.
CLACSO Working Group on Work, Production and Service Configurations, and New Labor Subjects
History has shown that there is no such thing as the end of work, that work remains the structuring center of social life, the source of value production, and the articulator of social relations in current and modern societies, such as those in Latin America and the Caribbean, which remain capitalist societies. What has changed, in any case, is the way in which the relations between capital and labor are presented today, a modification that impacts the characteristics that work assumes today, but which does not imply its end; on the contrary, it reinforces its abstract character, inherent to capitalism. Hence the ever-increasing drive, boosted during the pandemic, toward digitalization, toward the growth of platforms. Contradicting expectations of improvement, the post-pandemic period worsened all previous indicators related to the social, and even the political and cultural spheres, accelerated and deepened the precarization of labor activity, and severely deteriorated working conditions. In a context like this, our Latin American and Caribbean societies need to understand—in the aftermath of the pandemic—how capitalism generates its processes of integration and exclusion in order to reproduce itself. This understanding will undoubtedly help to place these new problems on the agenda so that we can consider how to overcome them and act accordingly. This, in essence, is the subject of this collective work presented by the CLACSO working group “Work, Production Models, and Social Actors.” We welcome this new publication, congratulate its authors and editors, and celebrate the working group's indispensable contribution to the current debate on the complex labor reality of Latin America and the Caribbean and its alternatives.
From the Prologue
Working Groups Collection.
978-987-813-510-6
CLACSO. GETSUR.
Buenos Aires
July 2023
