On the road to employment, listening to the radio, the CAV employment advisor has pointed out the lack of talent, the lack of qualified staff, which is one of the most serious problems in the labour market. It is worth noting the use of the same idea promoted by local business organisations, reiterated in various reports, round tables and press releases. Around the labour market, talent (and lack thereof) seems to be the main problem.
However, this lack of talent is far from the reality of most workers, daily problems are other. By way of example, I will take the cases I've known last week. The first is a measure to facilitate the reconciliation of work and family life. Teleworking is possible without technical problems. Although legislation provides that it is a right, we must go to court. The company accepts what the worker asked for in the court, but when the measure is implemented, the company makes a new adaptation and transforms what was agreed. The worker must go back to court.
The second case is the usual practice of a public institution. Termination of employment contracts for casual workers, but the official date of dismissal on the papers is earlier than the one passed, illegal. It also calls for a refund of part of the salary and corresponding Social Security.
In the third, after requesting compliance with the employment agreement, the hospitality company has given the worker a disciplinary dismissal. The company knows that it will be considered unfair in the courts, but the layoffs are cheap and the possibility of returning to work depends on the company.
When the lack of talent is put at the centre to address labour problems, the needs and problems of producers are being put in the background or on the sidelines
If any worker is randomly consulted, cases would be inexhaustible. The daily bread of workers, the main feature of the local labour market. When the lack of talent is put at the centre to address labour problems, the needs and problems of producers are being put in the background or on the sidelines. When referring to labor relations, when putting talent at the heart of the debate, the risk is to assume the employer’s mindset that the worker (human) is a resource or (human) a capital. Following this mentality, it is logical that the department of labor government should be named Human Capital, as an ultraliberal government has done. The words used have an obvious and underlying meaning, and bring forth the attitude towards the conflict of capital and labor.
These business logics are extended to all areas and public administrations are key players in this respect. New models of labor relations, concepts like talent, build an ideology in favor of the former in the conflict between capital and labor. If we take this base, let us not frighten administrations when they are part of the Human Capital Division.
However, to deal with attacks on workers, there is a path that has the capacity to revolutionize this issue and goes beyond the use of words: the labor organization, capable of making conflict a collective. One of the main problems in these cases is the individual response, a generalized attitude in society itself. In other territories, trade unions have deployed strategies to drive the organization and affiliation of workers, with the aim of changing the wrong direction of the years of working conditions and fighting companies like Amazon, Tesla or Google. Organization and hope of work in the face of pessimism.