Walking around the commercial streets of New York, San Francisco, Milan, London, or Paris and looking at the succession of multinational chain stores' windows, you can easily forget what country you are in. However, if you hear the small talk among the employees, you hear very different stories. In New York, a 30-year-old woman is worried because she does not know if she will work enough hours to make a living the following week-whereas, in Milan, a mother of the same age knows she will work 20 hours a week but is concerned about whether her contract will be renewed at the end of the following month. Following three years of fieldwork, which included 100 in-depth interviews with front-line retail workers and unionists in New York City and Milan, Front-Line Workers in the Global Service Economy investigates both the lived experiences of salespersons in the "fast fashion" industry-a retail sector made of large chains of stores selling fashion garments at low prices-and the possibilities of collective action and structured forms of resistance to these global trends. In the face of economic globalization and vigorous managerial efforts to minimize labor costs and to standardize the retail experience, mass fashion workers' stories tell us how strong the pressure toward work devaluation in low-skilled service sectors can be, and how devastating its effects are on the workers themselves.

Examines the ongoing process of how labor and work are understood in the contemporary marketplace Offers important sociological, political, and economic analysis of labor, management, organization, and work as a social phenomena Contributions from key scholars across an array of disciplines

Since the appearance of Braverman's "Labour and Monopoly Capital", the impact of labour process analysis has been experienced in the fields of industrial sociology, organization theory, industrial relations, labour economics, politics and business studies. The annual UMIST-Aston Labour Process Conferences have provided a regular forum for advancing empirical and theoretical analysis in these fields. By combining a selection of papers delivered at these conferences with specially commissioned contributions, the series examines various aspects of the employment relationship across the range of productive and service industries. In this review of the contribution of labour process theory to the study of work organization, various contributors explore the theoretical foundations of labour process analysis and suggest new directions for its development. The contriubtors include Gibson Burrell, Paul Edwards, Andrew Friedman, David Knights, Craig Littler, Dominic Strianti, Paul Thompson, Mark Wardell, Jackie West and High Willmott.

The diffusion of information and communication technologies is rapidly changing the structure of advanced economies, raising new problems of technological unemployment. The view that market forces can easily counterbalance the labour-saving impact of innovation is contrasted in this book with empirical findings on aggregate compensation effects and on the consequences of product, process and organizational innovation in industries and services. After examining several policy aspects, new employment-friendly economic and innovation policies are proposed.

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How do markets function? Who creates, shapes and organizes them? And what do they mean for the relationship between labor and capital? Marketization examines how the state and capital use markets to discipline the working class. Ian Greer and Charles Umney provide a comprehensive overview of the European political economy, from the European Commission to the workplace, to show how neoliberal principles translate into market mechanisms and reshape the lives of workers. Drawing on dozens of conversations with policymakers, administrators, businesses, workers, and trade unionists across many European countries, Greer and Umney unpack marketization. They go beyond liberal theories that see markets as natural forms of economic organization and broad-brush left critiques of neoliberalism, looking behind the scenes in the current European political economy to examine the practicalities of how markets are created and manipulated by employers, policymakers and bureaucrats in pursuit of greater profitability. Far from leading to greater freedom, these processes often override the rights of individuals, degrade the status and security of workers, and undermine democratic accountability.

The ABC of the projectariat contributes new thinking on and practical responses to the widespread problem of precarious labour in the field of contemporary art. It works as both a critical analysis and a practical handbook, speaking to and about the vast cohort of artistic freelancers worldwide. In an accessible ABC format, the book strikes a unique balance between the practical and the theoretical: the analysis is backed up by lived experience, the arguments are rooted in concrete examples and there are suggestions for constructive action. Roughly half of the entries expose the structural underpinnings of projects and circulation, isolating traits such as opportunism, neoliberalism, inequality, fear and cynicism at the root of the condition of the projectariat. This discussion is paired with a practical account of different modes of action, such as art strikes, productive withdrawals, political struggles and better social time machines. Just as proletarians had nothing to lose but their chains, the projectarians have nothing to miss but their deadlines. -- .

David Gleicher and Lonnie Stevans present a theory of occupational wage rates that is a classical alternative to human capital theory. They introduce the net employment reserve, a novel explanatory variable that measures the bargaining power of employees in an occupation. An econometric model which includes net reserves is designed and tested. Results suggest standard empirical tests of human capital theory are misspecified. Other topics include: the origin of the firm, screening hypothesis, wage-efficiency, internal labor markets, and labor-market segmentation. This work offers insight into the theoretical and econometric modeling of labor specialization, as well as wage-rate differentials among occupations. It addresses researchers and graduate students in labor economics, classical price theory, and general political economy.

Gleicher and Stevans design an empirical study of the determination of occupational wage-rates, testing the net reserve against other hypothesized variables. Their first two chapters model relative wage rates within a broad classical conception: a simple model of relative prices is extended by incorporating relative wage rates according to occupation and training services. (The authors discuss the implications of these extensions with regard to the labor theory of value.) A testable hypothesis is put forth in Chapters 3 and 4. The fifth and final chapter presents econometric results.

What is 'cultural work'? How are we to understand the 'art-commerce relation'? "The Politics of Cultural Work" answers these questions through a wide-ranging study of labour in the cultural industries. It critically evaluates how various sociological traditions - including critical theory, governmentality and liberal-democratic approaches - have sought to theorize the creative cultural worker, in art, music, media and design-based occupations. It evaluates whether the cultural worker should be seen as a creative, autonomous subject - or as a mere victim of the 'culture industry'

This book studies unemployment and inflation in economic crises, first considering the scenario of a demand shock in Europe. In that case, monetary and fiscal interaction would cause widespread oscillations in European unemployment and European inflation. And what is more, there would be equally far-reaching fluctuations in the European money supply and European government purchases. These monetary and fiscal interactions would have no effects on the American economy. Second, it examines the scenario of a supply shock in Europe, in which monetary and fiscal interactions would have no effects on European unemployment or European inflation; there would also be an explosion of European government purchases and an implosion of the European money supply. Monetary and fiscal interactions would produce uniform oscillations in American unemployment and American inflation. Lastly, we would also see an implosion of both the American money supply and American government purchases.

An era of economic globalisation and inward investment has seen much interest in Japanese labour management techniques. The first English edition of this 1964 classic of Japanese economics corrects the misunderstandings which often prevail in this debate, by providing the necessary historical context from the Meiji restoration to the second world war. Professor Hazama debunks the myth that Japanese-style management is inherited from her feudal past, showing the impact of businesses imported from the west after reunification in 1867-68 and how these were amalgamated with a range of Japanese traditions.

Three important issues have recently attracted researchers to study the economics of disability. First with the availability of sophisticated "data sets," it has become possible to conduct highly quantative investigations of the relative economic impacts of various types of disabling health problems. Second, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1991, and the subsequent implementation of its employment provisions, focused national attention on the continuing scarcity of employment opportunities for disabled persons. The tools of analysis that have been developed over the past several decades to study racial and gender discrimination in labor markets are applied in this book to study the experiences of persons with disabilities. Third, the past several decades have witnessed a rapid growth in the public and private costs of disability support programs. Many economists recognize the need to design such programs that would provide continued economic security, without the work disincentives, high budgetary costs, and efficiency losses of existing programs.

A major purpose of this volume is to bring together empirical studies dealing with all three of the above issues in a single volume. By doing this we can illustrate the breadth of current research in the field and allow the reader to see the connections and common threads that underlie this scope of concerns and research objectives.

This collection of country studies explores changing relationships between the state, employers and labour in an increasingly internationalized world economy. It covers ten countries and examines the tensions and contradictions caused by neo-liberal market agendas. The authors express concern at the potentially ravaging effects of market deregulation on organized labour and present a critical account of state efforts to emulate desired models of national economic development. While the central core of the book concerns itself with changing labor relations, this is placed within the wider context of state and employer strategy, and covers issues such as labour market segmentation, welfare and taxation regimes and varying approaches to corporatism.

This book analyzes the status and position of African American men in the U.S. labor market prior to, during, and after the Great Recession. Using a model of occupational crowding, the book outlines how the representation of African American men in major occupational categories almost universally declined during the recent recession even as white non-Hispanic men were able to maintain their occupational representation in the face of staggering job losses. Using US Census Bureau data, this book illustrates how African American men sought to insulate their group from devastating job losses by increasing their educational attainment in a job market where employers exercised more leverage in hiring. However, this strategy was unable to protect this group from disparate job losses as African American men became further marginalized in the workforce during the Great Recession. Policy approaches to address high African American male unemployment are outlined in the final chapter.

Feminising the Market discusses the role of the European Community, in particular the Single European Market, and shows how it is having an important impact on women's working lives. As well as documenting women's employment throughout Europe, the book addresses issues of key importance for women in Europe. These include how the European Community has developed policies that positively benefit women, the way that women are influencing change at the European level, and the impact that this is having at the national level.

Written by the leading and most respected experts, academics, and scholars working in the field of global political economy, the book provides detailed studies of the gig economy's roots, goals, methods, and impact around the world. Addresses and analyses the fundamental debates around precarious labour and the gig economy that are emerging within the social sciences. A significant feature of the book is an examination of the gig economy and labour in major world territories, which will provide a comparative investigation of the transformation of labour and the gig economy in key global regions, continents and countries. This volume will become a classic and state-of-the-art text on the subject of the gig economy and neoliberalism for many years to come.

This book explores the dynamic process of International Division of Labor with constant development and changes. The process reflects not only the development level of productivity, but also relations between countries. What would be the evolution path for the International Division of Labor? How to improve China's and emerging economies' competitiveness to meet the new industrial revolution? The book aims to answer the questions under the global context. China would explore the innovation in new economic forms to strengthen international cooperation and avoid the intensified trade frictions brought about by its industrial upgrading.

In a much-publicized and much-maligned 2003 New York Times article, "The Opt-Out Revolution," the journalist Lisa Belkin made the controversial argument that highly educated women who enter the workplace tend to leave upon marrying and having children. Women Who Opt Out is a collection of original essays by the leading scholars in the field of work and family research, which takes a multi-disciplinary approach in questioning the basic thesis of "the opt-out revolution." The contributors illustrate that the desire to balance both work and family demands continues to be a point of unresolved concern for families and employers alike and women's equity within the workforce still falls behind. Ultimately, they persuasively make the case that most women who leave the workplace are being pushed out by a work environment that is hostile to women, hostile to children, and hostile to the demands of family caregiving, and that small changes in outdated workplace policies regarding scheduling, flexibility, telecommuting and mandatory overtime can lead to important benefits for workers and employers alike. Contributors: Kerstin Aumann, Jamie Dolkas, Ellen Galinsky, Lisa Ackerly Hernandez, Susan J. Lambert, Joya Misra, Maureen Perry-Jenkins, Peggie R. Smith, Pamela Stone, and Joan C. Williams. Listen to Bernie D. Jones on WPYR Radio: Mothers and the delicate work-family balance

This book explores the role of capital and labor migration in the expansion of the capitalist world-system. It presents comprehensive case studies on various historical periods of hegemony recognized by world-system theory: the Dutch hegemony (1625-1675), British hegemony (1815-1873), and US hegemony (1945-1970). Moreover, the book identifies an earlier period of economic dominance in Western Europe when merchant-bankers from Florence dominated the regional wool trade in the early thirteenth century. In these four intervals of dominance, i.e., from the medieval period to the late twentieth century, capital and labor migration formed the basis of capitalist development in the hegemonic core states as well as in peripheral regions under their economic and political influence. In turn, the book analyzes the migration patterns associated with the rise of hegemony from the perspectives of class relations between employers and workers, technological advances at the workplace, economic cycles, and state policies on labor migration. It concludes with a projection that heightened migration will continue to characterize the capitalist world system, especially as many poor and displaced populations in peripheral regions resort to migration for survival. Accordingly, it appeals to scholars in the fields of politics, sociology, history, anthropology, and economics who are interested in globalization and world-system analysis.

This anthology honors the life and work of American economist John E. Murray, whose work on the evolution of the standard of living spanned multiple disciplines. Publishing extensively in the areas of the history of healthcare and health insurance, labor markets, religion, and family-related issues from education to orphanages, fertility, and marriage, Murray was much more than an economic historian and his influence can be felt across the wider scholarly community. Written by Murray's academic collaborators, mentors, and mentees, this collection of essays covers topics such as the effect of the 1918 influenza pandemic on U.S. life insurance holdings, the relationship between rapid economic growth and type 2 diabetes, and the economics of the early church. This volume will be of use to scholars and students interested in economic history, cliometrics, labor economics, and American and European history, as well as the history of religion.

This book examines the role of trade unions vis-a-vis management in the People's Republic of China from 1949 to the present day. It deals with the evolution, reform and consolidation of the Chinese labour movement and, particularly, the role of the main arm of Chinese organized labour, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) at both the apex and grass-roots levels. It not only covers the recent history of Chinese trade unions but also assesses their strategy and structure and membership as well as their legal context. After this, it goes on to consider their role vis-a-vis management in both the State-owned as well as the foreign-funded sectors. Last, it compares their activities with organized labour in three Overseas Chinese societies, namely Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

"Regulating for Decent Work" is a response to the dominant deregulatory approaches that have shaped labour market regulation in recent years. The inter-disciplinary and international approach invigorates current debates through the identification of new challenges, subjects and perspectives.

This open access book addresses the important and neglected question of older workers who are excluded from the labour market. It challenges post-capitalist discourses of active ageing with a focus on restrictive end-of-career and retirement measures. The book demonstrates how a paradigm shift is generating real processes of exclusion for important sectors of the population. By providing strong empirical evidence from different contexts, the impact of different life course trajectories on the risks and the opportunities at the end of career are demonstrated. The organisation of workplace and institutional frameworks which reinforce inequalities are also presented. As such the book is an essential reading for students, academics and policy makers who seek to understand how exclusion processes operate to the disadvantage of older workers in the labour market.

Like many countries in the world, India is mired in bureaucratic rigidities and hierarchical structures of exploitation and oppression, leading to a well-known problem of clogged pipes in the complex system of public welfare services. It is widely recognised that this clogged system requires innovative intervention, via transparent policies that are able to avoid political capture. This book reports on three overlapping pilot schemes in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, including a special project in tribal villages, in which over 6,000 people were provided with a modest basic income paid monthly over 18 months. The project was funded by UNICEF and UNDP and implemented by SEWA (The Indian Self-Employed Women's Association). Written by Guy Standing who designed the pilot schemes and Renana Jhabvala, the head of SEWA, who implemented them, the book examines the effects of these pilot schemes at the individual, family and local economy levels. The pilots are discussed in the context of the new Food Security Act, the government's job guarantee plan, MGNREGA, and ongoing debate over the efficacy of the Public Distribution System and its ration shops disbursing rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene.The authors look at a number of alternative options for addressing rural poverty, including subsidies, targeting, selectivity and conditionality, contrasting them with the basic income model. They argue that the provision of basic incomes not only provides economic security but has many knock-on effects, allowing families to escape the debt trap, enrich food consumption and unlock constraints to schooling and healthcare. Above all it may enable individuals, including women, the disabled, the elderly and those in excluded castes or tribes, to engage more effectively in wider society.

This book is a commanding assessment of labour market theory across the social sciences. It provides a radically original critique of labour market theory, which draws constructively but critically on existing literature. The work:
* contributes to the debates on key issues in labour economics such as unemployment, gender, equal pay and the minimum theory
* illustrates the policy implications in empirical studies
* supplements existing orthodox labour market theory texts.