La sociedad del trabajo: debates actuales. Materiales inestables para lanzar Ia discusiÓn.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]