User:Artemis gryllaki/Notes

San Precario

• Emerges as an iconographic figure within Italy in 2004
• Spreads awareness and critiquing the Government’s introduction of casual independent employment contracts
• Created as a faux saint, which mimics the many rituals of saint idolisation
• A reaction to the ‘flexiworker’ has particular resonance in Italy as the contemporary government policies reject the post-war traditionalism of il posto fis, or ‘permanent position’
• Italy has very little in the way of a social security system. Thus the plight of the casualised worker, who often falls into periods of unemployment, can become significantly disadvantaged
• Italy embraced the 1970’s movement of ‘free-flexibility’ which promoted freedom from salaries and capitalist control
• The Italian Government in recent years has used this concept of ‘flexibility’ to introduce exploitative individual contracts
• San Precario’s request is for Flexicurity, welfare which protects workers without rejecting their earlier independent ideals of ‘Flexibility’