Between Old and New Paradigms of Precariousness: From Farm Workers to Riders. Where Is the Quality of Work Going?

The law 29 October 2016, no. 199 containing «Provisions to counter the phenomenon of undeclared work, exploitation in agriculture and wage realignment in the agricultural sector», reformulated the crime of illegal hiring introduced for the first time in our system with the law of 14 September 2011, no. 148, with the sanctioning of the employers in cases they hire or employ workers in conditions of exploitation, including through intermediaries, taking advantage of the workers’ state of need. The law, however, may affect a wider area than just the agricultural sector: labor exploitation is widely present in construction, manufacturing, care services and, more recently, in the so-called gig economy. In this latter case, these are extremely fragmented work services managed through IT platforms, where, behind the apparent autonomy of the worker, there is often an activity with tight delivery schedules and little or no protection. The article aims to relate the exploitation of farm workers, with an archetypal character, with that, apparently more modern, of riders. Both phenomena, widespread throughout our country, result in an entrapment effect on workers in conditions of poverty, which often go beyond what ILO defines as «decent work», leading to the widening of the range of the so-called bad jobs.