On precariousness
In the early 1970s, the economic assumptions underpinning the typical employment relationship underwent profound changes, with widespread recourse to atypical forms of work since the last quarter of the 20th century. However, this widespread use of atypical forms of work has not contributed to the regulation of these forms of work, with the aim of removing them from commercial discretion and providing legal protection for workers. The right to job security is a structuring principle and its constitutional enshrinement includes the recognition that the right to work has a human dimension, of personal fulfillment and, as such, removes from the arbitrary availability of the employer, not only the free termination of the employment relationship, but also any and all substantial changes to the content of the employment relationship.
The Decent Work Agenda should not ignore the fact that the strategy to combat precariousness - which has different expressions - benefits from a framework in the constitutional objective of promoting job security, which, not limited to merely combating precarious employment relationships, extends to other aspects of the employment relationship, thereby reinforcing the broader meaning of the concept of precariousness. Furthermore, there is still to be an in-depth reflection on the limitation of fixed-term contracts, on the subsidiarity of temporary work (as well as its limitation to functional areas that do not constitute the company's corporate purpose), on the essentiality of economic dependence as a key aspect in the delimitation of the employment contract.
Keywords: Employment relationship, precariousness, job security, Decent Work Agenda, Labor Code, labor reform.
Authors:Filipe Lamelas, Pedro Rita
