Dinámicas de legitimación de la desregulación laboral en España

Resumen

In this thesis, we problematize the deregulation of labour relations from the point of view of the automatisms and predispositions exercised by the actors of the labour market, among which we include both the regulatory agents and the workers. That is, from the practical sense that the action of deregulation acquires in a context of neoliberal hegemony expansion, in which the mechanisms of domination are imposed by being hidden under an organizing language of flexibility, by which the workers end up thinking of themselves as deregulated workers. Two complementary and necessary theoretical approaches are used within the intentionally developed conceptual framework to inspire the analysis and interpretation of the results in the empirical phase. On the one hand, an approach is carried out from Luhmann's theory of systems by which, from the need for differentiation with respect to the world-system, the emergence of a communication system that satisfies a double need is determined. In the first place, that of providing a set of own and controllable codes within the emerging system that allows us to model the uncertainty around, in our case, employment opportunities. Secondly, that of coupling the Spanish economy in the European semi-peripheral position, as there is a correspondence between the pressure towards wage moderation exerted in this position and the set of restricted and selected codes to order labour relations in the context of moderation of the salaries. On the other hand, Bourdieusian inspiration is used to analyse the process by which the meanings around the employment relationship are reconverted, raising the volumes of capital that contribute to the predispositions and practical sense of the organisation and its relationship to autonomous, independent and individualised work. Thus, the communication system that emerges from the differentiation process is internalised and the deregulation of the labour relationship is reproduced legitimately. For empirical support, various triangulation techniques are used which, in addition to including the theoretical one, as can be deduced from the epistemological approach that is inspired by the combination of the two currents that we defined above, is also carried out on the data and the analysis techniques used since the methodological design includes qualitative and quantitative approaches. The main sources of data and information come, on the one hand, from the preambles of the labour reforms introduced since the Moncloa Pacts, the qualitative analysis of which will be used to support the interpretations of the emerging communication system as a process to reduce the complexity of the world system. On the other hand, the statistical operation of the CIS 3126 “Innovarometer” of June 2018 will be analysed with multivalent statistical techniques to establish the processes of reconversion of capital around deregulation, by which its volume rises and alters its configuration. The conclusions suggest the efficacy of the theoretical-reflexive approaches to capture the progression of deregulation of labour relations as a dynamic constructed both by the actors (workers and employers) and by the regulating agents of the labour market. In this dynamic, the normative changes express the expectations of the actors, while the predispositions towards the deregulation of labour relations, influenced by the context of expansion of global capitalism, are the main source of legitimation. The thesis begins with a block in which a chronological examination of the evolution of labour relations in Spain is made. In this section, the structural asymmetries and imbalances of the productive system are highlighted as the main explanatory source of the semi-peripheral position from which the Spanish economy and society face the process of neoliberal hegemonic expansion and its consequences on the legitimation of the new forms of unregulated and flexible work.