THE METAMORPHOSES AND CENTRALITY OF LABOUR TODAY *

This text explores some of the meanings and dimensions of the changes taking place in the labour world, as well as looking at the consequences, theoretical and empirical, entailed by these transformations, such as the relevance and pertinence of the category of labour in the contemporary world. I As a result of the transformations and metamorphoses of the last decades, in particular in the developed capitalist countries and with significant repercussions in third world countries with intermediary industrialisation, labour presents a multiple process. On the one hand, we see a de-proletarianisation of industrial labour in the capitalist developed countries. In other words there has been a reduction of the traditional industrial labour class. In parallel, on the other hand there is a significant underproletarianisation of labour occurring in the diverse forms of partial, precarious, casual, subcontracted labour attached to the manufacturing industries, to the informal economy and to the private sector. Therefore, one can see a significant heterogeneity, complexity and fragmentation of labour. Empirical evidence from various research studies has not supported the thesis of the suppression or elimination of the working class under capitalism, especially in view of the increase of multiple forms of casual or precarious labour. This is not to mention the fact that substantial parts of the class-that-makes-a-living-from-labour is strongly rooted in intermediar