The modern socio-economic context, characterized by ever more rapid processes of economic and financial globalization, prompts unions to engage in renewal. Today, unions are called to act in new ways,673Cf. John Paul II, Address to the International Conference for Union Representatives (2 December 1996), 4: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 11 December 1996, p. 8. widening the scope of their activity of solidarity so that protection is afforded not only to the traditional categories of workers, but also to workers with non- standard or limited-time contracts, employees whose jobs are threatened by business mergers that occur with ever increasing frequency, even at the international level; to those who do not have a job, to immigrants, seasonal workers and those who, because they have not had professional updating, have been dismissed from the labour market and cannot be re- admitted without proper re-training. Given the changes that have taken place in the world of work, solidarity can be recovered, and perhaps with a firmer foundation in respect to the past, if the effort is made to rediscover the subjective value of work: “there must be continued study of the subject of work and of the subject's living conditions”. For this reason, “there is a need for ever new movements of solidarity of the workers and with the workers”.674John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 8: AAS 73 (1981), 597.
Pursuing “new forms of solidarity”,675John Paul II, Message to the Participants in the International Symposium on Work (14 Sepember 2001), 4: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 17 October 2001, p. 3. workers' associations must focus their efforts on the acceptance of greater responsibilities not only in relation to the traditional mechanisms for redistribution but also in relation to the production of wealth and the creation of social, political and cultural conditions which will permit all who are able and willing to work to exercise their right to work in full respect for their dignity as workers. The gradual obsolescence of organizational models based on salaried workers in big business makes it fitting to update the norms and systems of social security that have traditionally protected workers and guaranteed their fundamental rights. VII. THE “NEW THINGS” OF THE WORLD OF WORK