Collective memory in labour identifications in the present. A study based on the case of young precarious workers

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of collective memory in labour identifications in the present, through the study of young precarious workers. It develops a theoretical approach on youth identifications, precarious work and collective memory, a thematic linking that is rare in Labour Sociology. Willing to fill such vacancy area, we conducted a case study focused on young precarious workers who did internships in the call center of a public office in the period 2008-2012. From a qualitative approach we analyzed the discourses of interns as space crystallization of their identity forms. As a result we found that the conditions of precariousness in which these young were built as workers did not lead to their naturalization, but instead their identifications were crossed by the imagination of a wage society past, with stabilities and labor securities, which mobilized their protests against precarious work.