REVAL
From internal devaluation to revaluation of work: the case of Portugal
Description

This project addresses the transformations of the employment regime that took place in Portugal in the context of global economic restructuring of the last decades and its onsequences in respect to employment and work. The deleterious impacts on work of the growing internationalization of production and concomitant financialisation have been salient in a country vulnerable to delocalization of production, macroeconomic imbalances and indebtedness. These impacts reached their zenith with the Global Financial Crisis and ensuing "troika" financial bail-out in 2011. At the time a reconfiguration of employment regime aimed at internal devaluation was spelled out in the troika's Memoradum and implemented, affecting institutions and rules governing employment protection, working time arrangements, unemployment benefits and collective bargaining. Building on previous research that characterized the institutional reconfiguration associated with internal devaluation as a regressive one that amounted to a transfer of income from labor to capital and to a change of power resources unfavorable to organized labor, the project intends to broaden this research in two different ways. First, it extends the assessment of devaluation of work to key dimensions of the quality of employment and working conditions that might have been directly deteriorated as a result of the reconfiguration of employment regime (in particular wages, working time and job security). Second, by analyzing actors' strategies and power resources at national, sector, and company level it pin points long term consequences of internal devaluation its drivers, and means to counteract them. The project conjectures that the institutional reconfiguration of the Portuguese employment regime and internal devaluation may have accelerated a process of cumulative devaluation of work involving loss of competences and skills, investment retrenchment, increasing inequalities, and demographic decay, whose relations and drivers are important to disentangle in order to understand the nature and consequences of devaluation (to be substantiated in WP2). This conjecture is also examined with focus on the variegated sectoral impact of internal devaluation looking at particular industries with different economic and industrial relations conditions (WP3). Eventually, the adaptation (and strategies) of firms to the new institutional environment is examined, researching the extent to which by exploiting new competitive advantages - in particular of its new labor regulatory conditions - their behavior is driving or counteracting the above mentioned cumulative trend (WP4). The REVAL project is ommitted to contribute to the conception of a strategy of revaluation of work that, by acting upon the critical leverages identified, may reverse the circular and cumulative process of devaluation of work.

Internal Partners
Research Centre Research Group Role in Project Begin Date End Date
DINAMIA'CET-Iscte Innovation and Labour Partner 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
External Partners
Institution Country Role in Project Begin Date End Date
Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra (CES-UC) Portugal Partner 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Project Team
Name Affiliation Role in Project Begin Date End Date
Maria da Paz Campos Lima Integrated Researcher (DINAMIA'CET-Iscte); Principal Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Abdul Kadir Suleman Professor Catedrático (DM); Integrated Researcher (BRU-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Ana Cristina Narciso Fernandes Costa Professora Associada (DEP); Integrated Researcher (DINAMIA'CET-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
António Velez Research Assistant (DINAMIA'CET-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-01-31
Fátima Suleman Professora Catedrática (DEP); Integrated Researcher (DINAMIA'CET-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Henrique Manuel Caetano Duarte Professor Associado (com Agregação) (DRHCO); Integrated Researcher (BRU-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Lídia Canha Fernandes Integrated Researcher (DINAMIA'CET-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2019-04-09
Maria da Conceição Torres Figueiredo Professora Associada (DMQGE); Associate Researcher (BRU-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Nuno Nunes Professor Auxiliar (DCSE); Integrated Researcher (CIES-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Paulo Marques Professor Associado (DEP); Integrated Researcher (DINAMIA'CET-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Sérgio Miguel Chilra Lagoa Professor Associado (com Agregação) (DEP); Integrated Researcher (DINAMIA'CET-Iscte); Researcher 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
Project Fundings
Reference/Code Funding DOI Funding Type Funding Program Funding Amount (Global) Funding Amount (Local) Begin Date End Date
PTDC/SOC-SOC/28811/2017 -- Contract FCT - -- - Portugal 97.468,75 97.468,75 2018-09-15 2022-06-14
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With the objective to increase the research activity directed towards the achievement of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the possibility of associating scientific projects with the Sustainable Development Goals is now available in Ciência_Iscte. These are the Sustainable Development Goals identified for this project. For more detailed information on the Sustainable Development Goals, click here.

From internal devaluation to revaluation of work: the case of Portugal
2018-09-15
2022-06-14