Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition
The successful 1997 strike by the Teamsters against UPS, and the overwhelming support the American public gave the strikers highlighted the impact of contingent work-an umbrella term for a variety of tenuous and insecure employment arrangements such as temping, independent contracting, employee leasing, and some self-employment and part-time or part-year work. This new book contends that contingent work represents a profound deviation from the employment relations model that dominated most of...
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The successful 1997 strike by the Teamsters against UPS, and the overwhelming support the American public gave the strikers highlighted the impact of contingent work--an umbrella term for a variety of tenuous and insecure employment arrangements. This book examines the consequences of working contingently for the individual, family, and community.
Introduction: Controversy and Challenges Raised by Contingent Work Arrangements1Ch. 1Historical Perspective: The Peripheral Worker (1969)21Ch. 2Counting the Workers: Results of a First Survey41Ch. 3Gauging the Consequences for Gender Relations, Pay Equity, and the Public Purse69Ch. 4Countervailing Human Resource Trends in Family-Sensitive Firms103Ch. 5Benefits and Costs to Employers126Ch. 6New Systems of Work and New Workers144Ch. 7The Interaction between Market Incentives and Government Actions170Ch. 8Toiling for Piece-Rates and Accumulating Deficits: Contingent Work in Higher Education195Ch. 9Sisyphus at Work in the Warehouse: Temporary Employment in Greenville, South Carolina221Ch. 10Job Safety and Contract Workers in the Petrochemical Industry243Ch. 11Making Labor Law Work for Part-Time and Contingent Workers263Ch. 12Contingent Workers and Employment Law281Ch. 13Charting Future Research306References321Contributors337Index343
\ From the Publisher"This multidisciplinary collection of first-rate papers-dealing with contingent workers, flexible workplaces, and their institutional contexts-will be an indispensable resource for anyone concerned with the changing nature of employment relations as we begin the twenty-first century."-Arne Kalleberg, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill\ "Barker and Christensen bring together an outstanding collection of essays on the transformation of American employment. This interdisciplinary volume provides the theoretical, historical, and legal contexts for understanding the reemergence of contingent work, and offers empirical research on its extent and its consequences for workers and their families. This volume will be useful for scholars and students interested in work in America; it is a must for policymakers, unions, and personnel specialists."-Barbara Reskin, Harvard University\ "Temping, independent contracting, employee leasing, part-time jobs without job security or medical benefits-is this the new American workplace? If so, what does that mean about the social worlds we build at home and at work? This volume gathers some of the best and latest thinking on an issue critical to us all."-Arlie Hochschild, University of California, Berkeley\ "This book does a simply masterful job of helping us understand contingent work arrangements-numbers, consequences, and public policy concerns. In an area plagued by rhetoric and ideology, it offers facts and analysis, a dose of reality that grounds this important issue."-Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford University\ "The authors argue that growing numbers of contingent workers have permanently altered labor relations and the so-called employment contract, with employers coming to regard workers as 'disposable' and employees abandoning notions of organizational loyalty."-Booklist\ "This volume . . . offers a many-faceted look at the work and the workers at the lower end of the contingent work continuum. . . . Readers of this volume will gain increased appreciation for how most contingent employment arrangements benefit the firms much more than the contingent workers they employ in usually undesirable jobs. This informative book examines an important labor market phenomenon and will appeal to all students of the labor market regardless of discipline."-Choice\ "An informative, insightful, and multidimensioned view."-Juliet F. Brudney, Boston Globe\ "Interesting and diverse."-Judith Stein, The Journal of American History\ "A quick and accessible read for policymakers and students alike. Its challenge to contemporary liberal thinking about poor women's work makes it a provokative text for courses in public welfare policy, women's labor history, and recent feminism, as well as a needed reminder to activists for social justice."-Anne Brophy, Georgia State University, Labor History. November, 1999.\ "Barker and Christensen's well-organized, interesting and useful book takes us on a tour of the downside of changing employment relations. This book is a compelling introduction to the human issues of the downside of contingent employment. It is written at a level that should be accessible and interesting to most undergraduate students."-Ted Baker, American Sociological Review\ \ \
