Category Books

Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition »

Authors: Kathleen Barker (Editor), Kathleen Christensen
ISBN-13: 9780801484056, ISBN-10: 0801484057
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Date Published: July 1998
Edition: (Non-applicable)

Author Biography: Kathleen Barker

Book Synopsis

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 Arrangements	1
Ch. 1	Historical Perspective: The Peripheral Worker (1969)	21
Ch. 2	Counting the Workers: Results of a First Survey	41
Ch. 3	Gauging the Consequences for Gender Relations, Pay Equity, and the Public Purse	69
Ch. 4	Countervailing Human Resource Trends in Family-Sensitive Firms	103
Ch. 5	Benefits and Costs to Employers	126
Ch. 6	New Systems of Work and New Workers	144
Ch. 7	The Interaction between Market Incentives and Government Actions	170
Ch. 8	Toiling for Piece-Rates and Accumulating Deficits: Contingent Work in Higher Education	195
Ch. 9	Sisyphus at Work in the Warehouse: Temporary Employment in Greenville, South Carolina	221
Ch. 10	Job Safety and Contract Workers in the Petrochemical Industry	243
Ch. 11	Making Labor Law Work for Part-Time and Contingent Workers	263
Ch. 12	Contingent Workers and Employment Law	281
Ch. 13	Charting Future Research	306
	References	321
	Contributors	337
	Index	343