This book explores the precarious margins of contemporary labour markets. Over the last few decades, there has been much discussion of a shift from full-time permanent jobs to higher levels of ...part-time and temporary employment and self-employment. Despite such attention, regulatory approaches have not adapted accordingly. Instead, in the absence of genuine alternatives, old regulatory models are applied to new labour market realities, leaving the most precarious forms of employment intact. The book places this disjuncture in historical context and focuses on its implications for those most likely to be at the margins, particularly women and migrant workers. Managing the Margins provides a rigorous analysis drawing on original qualitative and quantitative material. It innovates by analyzing the historical and contemporary interplay of employment norms, gender relations, and citizenship boundaries. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/management//toc.html
The rise of the gig economy is disrupting business models across the globe. Platforms’ digital work intermediation has had a profound impact on traditional conceptions of the employment relationship. ...The completion of ‘tasks’, ‘gigs’, or ‘rides’ in the (digital) crowd fundamentally challenges our understanding of work in modern labour markets: gone are the stable employment relationships between firms and workers, replaced by a world in which everybody can be ‘their own boss’ and enjoy the rewards—and face the risks—of independent businesses. Is this the future of work? What are the benefits and challenges of crowdsourced work? How can we protect consumers and workers without stifling innovation? Humans as a Service provides a detailed account of the growth and operation of gig-economy platforms, and develops a blueprint for solutions to the problems facing on-demand workers, platforms, and their customers. Following a brief introduction to the growth and operation of on-demand platforms across the world, the book scrutinizes competing narratives about ‘gig’ work. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, it explores how claims of ‘disruptive innovation’ and ‘micro-entrepreneurship’ often obscure the realities of precarious work under strict algorithmic surveillance, and the return to a business model that has existed for centuries. Humans as a Service shows how employment law can address many of these problems: gigs, tasks, and rides are work—and should be regulated as such. A concluding chapter demonstrates the broader benefits of a level playing field for consumers, taxpayers, and innovative entrepreneurs.
Making Choices, Making Do is a comparative study of Black
and white working-class women's survival strategies during the
Great Depression. Based on analysis of employment histories and
Depression-era ...interviews of 1,340 women in Chicago, Cleveland,
Philadelphia, and South Bend and letters from domestic workers,
Lois Helmbold discovered that Black women lost work more rapidly
and in greater proportions. The benefits that white women accrued
because of structural racism meant they avoided the utter
destitution that more commonly swallowed their Black peers. When
let go from a job, a white woman was more successful in securing a
less desirable job, while Black women, especially older Black
women, were pushed out of the labor force entirely. Helmbold found
that working-class women practiced the same strategies, but
institutionalized racism in employment, housing, and relief assured
that Black women worked harder, but fared worse. Making
Choices, Making Do strives to fill the gap in the labor
history of women, both Black and white. The book will challenge the
limits of segregated histories and encourage more comparative
analyses.
The number of women in positions of power and authority in Japanese companies has remained small despite the increase in the number of educated women and the passage of legislation on gender ...equality. InToo Few Women at the Top, Kumiko Nemoto draws on theoretical insights regarding Japan's coordinated capitalism and institutional stasis to challenge claims that the surge in women's education and employment will logically lead to the decline of gender inequality and eventually improve women's status in the Japanese workplace.
Nemoto's interviews with diverse groups of workers at three Japanese financial companies and two cosmetics companies in Tokyo reveal the persistence of vertical sex segregation as a cost-saving measure by Japanese companies. Women's advancement is impeded by customs including seniority pay and promotion, track-based hiring of women, long working hours, and the absence of women leaders. Nemoto contends that an improvement in gender equality in the corporate system will require that Japan fundamentally depart from its postwar methods of business management. Only when the static labor market is revitalized through adoption of new systems of cost savings, employee hiring, and rewards will Japanese women advance in their chosen professions. Comparison with the situation in the United States makes the author's analysis of the Japanese case relevant for understanding the dynamics of the glass ceiling in U.S. workplaces as well.
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