On Time 24/7: New Dimensions of Work Quality and Social Well-Being. a Study of a Profession Carried out in Different Contexts: New Forms of Inequality and Poverty, Systemic Social Irresponsibility, and Possible Solutions.
The dissolution of boundaries between work and private life is observed to proliferate latently across all social and professional contexts but has become institutionalized in certain sectors of the 24/7 economy, where just-in-time availability is increasingly demanded.
To delineate this phenomenon, the study focuses on a specific profession (Bus Driver) which in Italy can be carried out in the "solid" context of “Local Public Transport”, which is still Fordist in structure, regulated, and strongly unionized, or within the "liquid" organizations of “Rental with Driver” Services, which are more exposed to unpredictable demand and marked by high flexibility, both in the use of atypical contracts and in the management of working hours, often communicated overnight.
The empirical section included the analysis of secondary data from Job Center databases to study quantitative flexibility, along with narrative interviews to explore the impacts of flexibility on the well-being of workers.
The dimensions investigated were identified by analyzing human needs theories, poverty studies, and institutional well-being measurement systems, such as BES project by Istat and Cnel.
The study confirmed the greater flexibility in the private transport sector and highlighted how the loss of power over time management inhibits the ability to satisfy basic human needs, such as the need for relationality and social participation, configuring itself as a new form of immaterial poverty awaiting recognition.
Moreover, the analysis of personal experiences highlighted the role of expressive work orientation in tolerating more flexible situations and unveiled a "systemic social irresponsibility" that contributes to creating and reproducing inequalities in the quality of work and life, with collective repercussions.