La Sociedad del trabajo

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Abstract

In this article, a general review is made of the basic contributions of present-day sociology to
the topic of the crisis of the labour society and the transformations experienced in labour
biographical cycles. And so, it starts by reviewing the changes in the environment of industrial
society and in the meanings attributed to work and employment within it. Next, it makes a statement
about the most characteristic approaches to the sociological study of the labour process, placing
special emphasis on the theoretical contributions that study the role of the strategies of the various
social individuals and protagonists involved in the development of this process. Lastly, it tackles an
appraisal of the polemic points of the new (and contradictory) discourses on the formalization of
conventional mechanisms of social representation in working life. The article closes with a general
consideration about the new trends for restructuring of the salary ratio and the labour biography, a
restructuration that even affects the very concepts of labour, activity and competence, thereby
advocating a necessary and fertile specific sociological view in the approach made to these topics.