PRIN2017 - WORKING POOR N.E.E.D.S.: NEw Equity, Decent work and Skills

Nowadays, the issue of poverty amongst workers, which characterized the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, receives an increasing attention (Global Agenda 2030); this issue gives rise to the debate among the role of the work in the Italian legal system, which article 1 of the Constitution conceives as an individual and collective tool of emancipation, founding the civil and political order. From the European perspective, the Charter of fundamental rights of the European Union qualifies work just in terms of a right to engage in work, giving it equal weight as the other freedoms. Nevertheless, European Institutions focus their attention on work as a core element of democratic societies. Consequently, one of the main purposes of EUROPE STRATEGY 2020 is the implement of employment together with the fight against poverty and social exclusion. According to article 36 of the Italian Constitution, the right to work is closely linked to the right to a fair remuneration, which allows an existence worthy of human dignity to workers and their families and it gives them the opportunity to exercise consciously civil and political rights. For these reasons, Italy is designed as a democratic Republic founded on labour. However, when work causes poverty, the democratic system, which is based on labour, has to be rethought. From a value-based point of view, work has to be decent and, struggling against ‘WOORKING POOR’ and ‘in-work poverty’ phenomena, it should allow people to lead lives considered acceptable by society. Moving from the percentages on absolute and relative poverty, the aim of the research – which is exclusively focused on the ‘working-poor’ issue - is to find a possible solution to this main problem, in order to protect constitutional as well as European individual rights and to counter the increasingly phenomenon of poverty “despite” the work. Phenomena as the so-called ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and ‘platform/on-demand economy’ certainly provide new employment opportunities. Despite these advantages, they are hard to analyse from a judicial point of view, because of the difficulty to identify them in traditional categories, such are the employment and self-employment contracts. Equally hard is to track down the system of values in which these categories are included. Big changes in global economy together with the rise of in-work poverty, the develop of artificial intelligence, technologies and algorithms lead academics to consider new solutions in order to achieve the best workers’ allocation in labour market and to ensure new standards of decent work.

THE AIM of the research, which will be lead from a legal perspective, is to analyse possible remedies for a DECENT WORK in a fragmented market, according to the national, EU and international legislations and the collective bargaining. The analyse will be fairly focused, in particular, on SKILLS – including training and information requirements – as a response to the main problem caused by Industry 4.0, such are in-work poverty and submission of working poor to the digital platforms. Skills and training could be conceived as possible solutions to the issue. Because of their importance they have to be considered social needs, to fulfil in order to prevent poverty and promote employment. From this point of view, it is necessary to assess the role of workers’ skills in employment and self-employment contracts and the allocation of competences between State and Regions in the field of education and work-based Trainings. Furthermore, the research will focus its attention especially on the role of Training Bodies - firstly the Universities – their learning programmes and on lifelong learning activities. Skills of trainers will be also analysed in depth, because of their capacity to influence the labour market. PURPOSES of the research are: 1) to improve the judicial knowledge of this topic, which has been learnt from an economics, statistical and sociological point of view; 2) to suggest possible solutions to the main issues for social and political institutions.