Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times » (New Edition)

Andrew Ross is Chair of NYU's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including No-Collar, Fast Boat to China, No Respect, Strange Weather, and, from NYU Press, Anti-Americanism and Real Love.

Combining detailed case studies with lucid analysis, Andrew Ross looks at what the new landscape of contingent employment means for workers across national, class, and racial lines-from the emerging "creative class" of high-wage professionals to the multitudes of temporary, migrant, or low-wage workers. Developing the idea of "precarious livelihoods" to describe this new world of work and life, Ross explores what it means-comparing the creative industry policies of the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union and by examining the quickfire transformation of China's labor market. He also responds to the challenge of sustainability, assessing the promise of "green jobs" through restorative alliances between labor advocates and environmentalists.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

With admirable timing, this volume examines a global workplace infrastructure that's as shaky as the economy would indicate. Taking a hard line against exploitation of workers in a variety of roles worldwide, Ross looks closely at workers on the verge, and those putting them there. In the chapter "China's Next Cultural Revolution?", he warns that "Beijing's rulers have nothing to worry about" so long as "the creative sector behaves like other industries... They can be groomed and promoted... to absorb foreign investment and foreign ideas, to exploit low production costs...." He tackles the Western world with the same nonplussed tone, as when discussing corporate PR tactics to deny ties to labor abuses by promoting social good, naming names like Nike, Reebok and the Gap. He also hits higher education, where much of the workplace is shaped, noting that it's "all too easy to conclude that the global university, as it takes shape, will emulate some of the conduct of multinational corporations." Rejecting the widely influential, free marketeer notion of a worldwide "playing field," Ross leaves no room for easy answers (or an "alternative, and equally snappy, image" to answer Thomas Friedman's or Richard Florida's). Though far from uplifting, this is a bold, pointed look at reality as it is, a far more valuable commodity.
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Acknowledgements vii

Introduction 1

I Creative Workers And Rent-Seeking

1 The Mercurial Career of Creative Industries Policymaking in the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States 15

2 China's Next Cultural Revolution? 53

3 The Olympic Goose That Lays the Golden Egg 77

II Sustainability and the Ground Staff

4 Teamsters, Turtles, and Tainted Toys 105

5 Learning from San Ysidro 131

III Instruments of Knowledge Capitalism

6 The Copyfight over Intellectual Property 161

7 The Rise of the Global University 189

Conclusion: Maps and Charters 207

Notes 215

References 219

Index 245

About the Author 264