WORK AND USEFULNESS TO THE WORLD

No debate on the role of work in social integration - and least of all a debate on the role of today's wage employment - can be truly meanin gful without reference to law. Tracing the emergence of the modern con cept of work, the author shows that at every stage of the concept's hi storical development, it was law which gave workers their dignity and recognition for their social utility. He appeals for an overhaul of la bour law to prevent the current individualization and growing precario usness of employment relationships from translating into that form of social uselessness called exclusion.