The Liminal Worker by Manos Spyridakis

Author:Manos Spyridakis [Spyridakis, Manos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9781317025429
Google: D_OqCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-03-03T02:52:54+00:00

The Informal Mode of Production as Cultural Process

The way workers in the zone approach the notion of employment and struggle to get it, is one of the determining factors of their personal behaviour and attitude towards life in general. Intra-working relations during the labour process and after it create webs of significance, constituting the cultural organisational map in the zone, according to which workers regulate the position to which they believe they deserve to be allocated. The idiosyncratic self is manifested in all aspects of employment or unemployment in the zone. The antagonistic spirit of the capitalistic ethic in the workplace regarding material survival is manifested in the ‘back door’ attitude; that is, in terms of what is accepted by the majority of society which delineates the social category of the ‘sneak’.

However crude the meaning of this word might be it connotes an extremely widespread conception among workers and comprises a category of person existing and acting at all levels of social interaction. In general terms, for zone workers, sneaks are those who act against an established ethic and way of practice through unfair means. From this point of view, the category of the sneak includes ship-owners, politicians and all those who in one way or another ‘sabotage’ working class interests and undermine solidarity.

Although belonging to such a category is a social stigma, metalworkers believe that everyone can do so depending on circumstances, especially during the current recession. People of the zone believe that the category of the ‘sneak’ is the result of social and economic constraints that everyone could experience. Being a sneak is not an inherent value, but rather an imposed reality whose social vibrations in the microcosm of the zone are difficult to ignore.

The best example of a sneak is someone who accepts a job with a ‘broken day’s wage’. This means to imply that he is willing to sell his labour power at a lower rate than the legal minimum wage. The massive redundancy and scarcity of jobs have made a mockery of the workers’ fights over issues regarding economic demands, according to Panagiotis, the ex-president of the syndicate. The local employment agreement about general working conditions, signed by the contractors’ and workers’ representatives, defines specific daily wages for the workforce including net compensation, insurance stamps and the agreed salary during leave from work, benefits and the Christmas/Easter bonuses.

Panagiotis says that rules in Greece are treated with an inherent paranoia. Although they exist, they are followed by neither side. The local wage agreement constitutes something like a guise which covers what is happening in reality rather than what ought to have happened. Indeed, in the local discourse, the law is a mere idea, a fantasy that disguises the real illegality stemming from both sides.

Contractors operating in the zone exploit the economic crisis to the full when recruiting workers. They try to make personal agreements with each worker instead of conforming to the law and making a collective agreement according to the signed deal. In this way

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