Lavoratori e cittadini

[Autom. eng. transl.] Being workers and being citizens: two experiences that are deeply intertwined with one another, even if their bond is almost always under the trace. We are aware of this, however, in the moments in which we happen to change life conditions, perhaps due to a sudden loss of a job. Then we become acutely aware of how employment affects our legal and working status, opens or closes us access to certain social protection rights, builds or modifies our social and family role. Being employed or unemployed, employees with permanent employment contracts or atypical workers, stuck between irregular work, committed to looking after their children and following the house: on each of these occasions we discover that between work and citizenship there is a tight bond, but that this bond does not always come about in the same way. This link is so important that we find it inscribed in the text of the Constitution in Italy. Over time, however, the pillars on which it is founded have been thrown into crisis by the transformations that have taken place in the economic, political and social structures of the most advanced Western countries, including ours. Globalization, outsourcing and digitalisation of the economy, flexibilisation and feminization of employment, intensification of international migration are just some of the transformations that have eroded the 'pact' between work and citizenship, making it urgent for a creative rethinking of forms and ways. The result is challenges that need something more than simple subsidies, which risk guaranteeing pure survival and making people forget that work is also a person's dignity. And that being a citizen and a worker means living the social bond concretely, contributing to the construction of collective well-being, but also of a shared meaning and sense.