Work and Occupations recent issues

The Public Turn: From Labor Process to Labor Movement

Burawoy, M. — 2008-10-21

The year 1974 marked a rupture in the study of labor. It was the year in which Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital was published, making a break with a moribund industrial sociology. It was a rupture inspired by the resurgence of Marxism, critical of the euphoric sociology of the 1950s. Since 1974, labor studies have undergone a mutation, shifting their focus from the examination of the labor process to an engagement with the labor movement. What explains this in light of the continuing assault on labor and the decline of overall union density? The answer lies with the transformation of the labor movement itself—the demise of the old industrial, business unionism and the growing strength of New Labor with its orientation to the service sector, to immigrant and vulnerable workers, and its invention of novel organizing strategies. In New Labor, sociologists have found a new public.

Counterframes and Allegories of Evil: Characterizations of Labor by Gilded Age Elites

Isaac, L. — 2008-10-21

Social movement scholars have increasingly focused on the importance of the cultural-symbolic dimensions of collective contention. Conceptual and empirical studies of mobilization (and countermobilization) employing a framing perspective have become a growth industry. In this article, the author expands our purview of the symbolic-representational repertoire employed in collective contention and conceptually distinguishes between counterframing, counternarrating, and counterimagining as strategic forms of symbolic characterization employed by oppositions against social movements. The author illustrates these ideas by focusing on the countercontention against labor during the Gilded Age. All three symbolic countering strategies—framing, narrating, and imaging— were employed by business and cultural elites against labor as it was becoming a national-level movement during the last several decades of the 19th century. However, extended narratives (e.g., novels and partisan quasi-histories) and pictorial art produced an intelligibility distinct from, if not unrelated to, frames because they have the capacity to feature (a) movement or active presentation over time; (b) detailed characterization of actors; and (c) collective representation in allegorical-political terms that specified the evils of important emergent categories, like the transformation of "the good worker" into "the bad worker." The author concludes that students of the labor movement (and social movements more generally) would benefit by augmenting analyses of frames to include allegorical-political uses of narrative and pictorial art forms as well.

Contingent Autonomy: Technology, Bureaucracy, and Relative Power in the Labor Process

Choi, S., Leiter, J., Tomaskovic-Devey, D. — 2008-10-21

The authors argue that autonomy in the labor process results from the contingent interaction of worker power and organizational practices. Focusing on the "core jobs" (i.e., most central to the production process) in 618 randomly sampled workplaces in Australia, the authors find that the influences of technology and bureaucratization on autonomy are conditioned by the relative power (skill and unionization) of employees. As the relative power of workers increases, both the technical organization of work and bureaucratization are less likely to undermine job autonomy. The findings underline the importance of local power relations for understanding the impact of organizational structures on workers and help resolve deep ambiguities in the literature on autonomy and the labor process.

Global Labor Solidarity Attempts and the Lessons Learned

Nissen, B. — 2008-10-21

This review essay uses recent books by Kate Bronfenbrenner and Gay W. Seidman to examine what types of transnational labor activism are most effective in defending the interests of workers. A number of themes are explored, including cultural distrust between unionists and activists in the Global South and Global North, the tension between reliance on international pressure and the need to build local organization, problems with global enforcement of labor standards, and above all, the important role of the state in enforcing worker rights and standards. Some conclusions are drawn, and the need for additional research is noted.

Shifts in the Employment Conditions of Mexican Migrant Men and Women: The Effect of U.S. Immigration Policy

Donato, K. M., Wakabayashi, C., Hakimzadeh, S., Armenta, A. — 2008-10-21

Prior studies suggest that the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 signaled deterioration in the labor market conditions faced by Mexican migrant men. In this article, the authors examine whether and how labor market conditions changed for migrant women after 1986, and the extent to which these shifts were comparable to those experienced by men. Using data about household heads and their spouses from the Mexican Migration Project, they examine sex differences in five employment conditions: hourly wages, hours worked, and the likelihoods of receiving wages in cash and paying federal and Social Security taxes. The authors find significant gender differences in the post-1986 period, especially after 1993 when most avenues to legal visas disappeared. These findings document negative policy impacts on the employment conditions of Mexican migrant men and women, and they suggest particularly precarious employment conditions for women since 1994.

Book Review: Du Bry, T. (2007). Immigrants, Settlers, and Laborers: The Socioeconomic Transformation of a Farming Community. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing. 254pp. $65.00 (cloth)

Kandel, W. A. — 2008-10-21

Book Review: Bonacich, E., & Wilson, J. B. (2008). Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor and the Logistics Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 273 pp. $29.95 (paper)

Vidal, M. — 2008-10-21

Book Review: Odih, P. (2007). Gender and Work in Capitalist Economies. London: Open University Press (McGraw Hill). 223 pp. $55.95 (paper)

Deitch, C. — 2008-10-21

Book Review: Thomas, K. (Ed.). (2008). Diversity Resistance in Organizations. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum. 353 pp. $39.95 (paper)

Parks-Yancy, R. — 2008-10-21

Book Review: Lynch, C. (2007). Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka's Global Garment Industry. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. 281 pp. $19.95 (paperback)

Zaman, K. — 2008-10-21

Book Review: Constable, N. (2007). Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Migrant Workers (2nd ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 268 pp. $19.95 (paper)

Chiu, C. C. H. — 2008-10-21

The State of Work (and Workers) in America

Kalleberg, A. L. — 2008-08-15

Informed discussions of many important topics in the sociology of work and occupations—such as earnings and wealth inequality, employment and unemployment, gender and race differences in earnings and employment, and the situations of working families—have come to rely increasingly on data provided by the biennial volumes, The State of Working America written by economists from the Economic Policy Institute. These volumes tell us what is happening in the labor force and labor market, often evaluate explanations of trends, and indicate some of their policy implications. This article provides an overview of this series; discusses some of its main conclusions about trends in jobs, wages, and other important features of work and labor markets; and illustrates some ways that these volumes are useful (and could be made even more valuable) for the study of work and occupations.

Sexual Harassment in Organizational Context

Chamberlain, L. J., Crowley, M., Tope, D., Hodson, R. — 2008-08-15

This study sheds light on the organizational foundations of sexual harassment. The authors evaluated a theoretical model underscoring the influence of worker power, workplace culture, and gender composition using unique data derived from the population of English-language, book-length workplace ethnographies. The authors used ordered and multinomial logistic regression to test whether organizational explanations vary in their capacity to predict three distinct forms of sexual harassment: patronizing, taunting, and predatory conduct. The findings reveal that organizational attributes influence not only the presence of workplace sexual harassment but also the specific form in which it manifests. The result is a more conceptually refined model of sexual harassment in organizational context. The authors conclude with a discussion of the contribution of this study to sociological explanations of sexual harassment, including linkages to more recent qualitative work underscoring its complexity, and with implications for policy in light of current workplace trends.

Job Authority and Interpersonal Conflict in the Workplace

Schieman, S., Reid, S. — 2008-08-15

Using data from a 2005 sample of 1,785 working adults in the United States, the authors examine the association between job authority and the exposure to interpersonal conflict in the workplace and potential gender and age contingencies in that association. A positive association was observed between authority and conflict, but that association was more positive among men and younger workers. Moreover, the authors rule out occupation, job sector, role-set multiplicity, and work conditions as alternative explanations for these associations. These observations have implications for theoretical views about social status variations in job authority and its link to interpersonal stress in the workplace.

Use of Formal and Informal Work-Family Policies on the Digital Assembly Line

Wharton, A. S., Chivers, S., Blair-Loy, M. — 2008-08-15

This study compares work–family policy use among low wage, predominately female call center workers and their more highly paid managers. Both formal policies and the informal work–family arrangements that employees negotiate with their supervisors were examined. Consistent with the work devotion perspective, it was found that formal work–family policies are more widely used among hourly workers than managers, and those with better performance evaluations are less likely than their otherwise similar coworkers to use formal work–family policies. The ability to negotiate informal work–family arrangements and use them as a supplement to formal policies is also important to workers in this study, especially women with children and those providing care to people with special needs. Access to informal arrangements may be limited to the high performers, however. Overall, this research suggests that the work devotion framework, which derives from studies of elite workers, may be more broadly applicable than previously assumed.

Runt Redux: The Rise of Human Resource Management as a Field of Study

Heery, E. — 2008-08-15

Over the past 20 years, human resource (HR) management has emerged as a major field of social science inquiry dealing with the employment relationship. In this review article, the author considers the nature of this significant field, arguing that it is marked by contention rather than a coherent program of work informed by shared theory and assumptions. Contention in HR management can be seen in divisions over the subject matter of the HR field, forms of explanation, normative positions, and understandings of the public role of HR scholars.

Historical Change, Technological Innovation, and Continuities of Gender in Three Occupations

Erickson, K. A. — 2008-08-15

The author reviews Matthew Desmond's study of risk in firefighting, Gary Alan Fine's study of weather forecasting, and Kevin Borg's study of the history of auto mechanics, identifying common themes related to the production of masculinity in a postindustrial economy, the negotiation of specialized knowledge and expertise, and finally the reproduction of social inequality against a backdrop of technological innovation.

Life Course Patterns of Career-Prioritizing Decisions and Occupational Attainment in Dual-Earner Couples

Pixley, J. E. — 2008-04-17

Couples' long-term pattern of favoring one spouse's career in major decisions is thought to affect occupational trajectories, but current research has looked only at short-term effects of single decisions. This article applies a new technique, the interpolated curves approach, to represent and compare life course patterns of major career-prioritizing decisions, using in-depth data from 51 couples. Five clusters of career hierarchy patterns are identified; the patterns predict income better than summary measures of career hierarchy, including average individual career gains to decisions and self-reported career priority. Findings are significant for wives, and are similar but weaker for husbands.

Professions and Their Work: Do Market Shelters Protect Professional Interests?

Timmermans, S. — 2008-04-17

Eliot Freidson introduced the concept of the "market shelter" to designate the unique institutional position that professions hold in society. A market shelter shields professional workers from competition, third party and government interference, and other market forces. Once put in place through legal mandates, however, it remains unclear how market shelters weather with political and economic changes and provide benefits for professionals, the state, and the public. This article reviews how clinical medicine and forensic medicine reacted to outside pressures to address the problem of practice variation to understand under which conditions stable market shelters may be professionally harmful and how less sheltered professions may instead use the fight against external challenges to solidify their professional position.

Understanding the Economic Consequences of Mexican Immigration to the United States: Much Done but More to Do

Donato, K. M. — 2008-04-17

Recent decades have witnessed dramatic increases in U.S. immigration, especially from Mexico. In a new book, Mexican Immigration to the United States, George Borjas continues a long line of research that articulates how this rising tide of immigration is linked to our national well-being. This edited book brings together a diverse set of articles written by some of the nation's best economists and presented in 2005 at a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. No doubt, it is an important book to read if one is interested in understanding the supply side concerns of economists interested in immigration. Yet despite my own keen interest in this topic, the book as a whole only narrowly addresses the economic effects of Mexican immigration because it fails to incorporate sociological and other perspectives. Such a missed opportunity suggests how much more needs to be done to understand the economic outcomes of immigrants in U.S. labor markets.

The Effect of Temporary Employment on Asset Accumulation Processes

McGrath, D. M., Keister, L. A. — 2008-04-17

Temporary employment in the United States has increased considerably in recent decades, but the financial well-being of temporary employees is not well understood. This article examines the effect of both recent and past temporary employment on asset accumulation and portfolio behavior. The authors find that temporary work reduces workers' assets and that this negative effect remains even after a worker has left the temporary position. The authors also show that suppressed or delayed homeownership substantially contributes to the reduction of assets among temporary workers. These results provide insight into the role that work status plays in creating and maintaining wealth inequality.

Book Review: Korczynski, M., Hodson, R., & Edwards, R. (Eds.). (2006). Social Theory at Work. New York: Oxford University Press. 502 pp. $49.95 (cloth)

Gonos, G. — 2008-04-17

Book Review: Freeman, R., Boxall, P., & Haynes, P. (Eds.). (2007). What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo-American Workplace. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. 244 pp. $19.95 (paper)

Brimeyer, T. M. — 2008-04-17

Book Review: Neumark, D. (Ed.). (2007). Improving School-to-Work Transitions. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 302 pp. $35.00 (hard)

Ainsworth, J. W. — 2008-04-17

Book Review: Furaker, B., Hakansson, K., & Karlsson, J. (Eds.). (2007). Flexibility and Stability in Working Life. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 288 pp. $85.00 (cloth)

Fullerton, A. S. — 2008-04-17

Book Review: Matanle, P., & Lunsing, W. (Eds.). (2006). Perspectives on Work, Employment and Society in Japan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 284 pp. $85.00 (hard)

Skipper, W. — 2008-04-17

Nonstandard, Not Substandard: The Relationship Among Work Arrangements, Work Attitudes, and Job Performance

Broschak, J. P., Davis-Blake, A., Block, E. S. — 2008-01-23

The authors investigate how nonstandard work arrangements shape work attitudes and behaviors. They find that attitudes and behaviors vary across different types of nonstandard work arrangements. As expected, retention part-time workers have more positive and agency temporary workers more negative attitudes toward their work arrangements than do standard workers. But contrary to conventional wisdom about temporary work arrangements, agency temporary workers who have opportunities to transition to standard employment arrangements have more positive attitudes toward supervisors and coworkers and are better performers than their peers in standard work arrangements. Part-time arrangements designed to retain valued workers do not produce increased commitment or other attitudinal benefits consistent with retention. The authors discuss the implications of the findings for the study of nonstandard work and the management of nonstandard workers.

Tracing the Timing of "Career" Acquisition in a Contemporary Youth Cohort

Mortimer, J. T., Vuolo, M., Staff, J., Wakefield, S., Wanling Xie, — 2008-01-23

Contemporary youth typically experience considerable floundering and uncertainty in their transition from school to work. This article examines patterns of schooling and working during adolescence and the transition to adulthood that hasten or delay an important subjective marker of transition to adulthood: acquiring a job that is recognized as a "career." We use Youth Development Study data, obtained from a prospective longitudinal study of 9th graders. Estimation of discrete-time logit models shows that adolescent work patterns during high school, as well as the cumulative investments they make in work and schooling in the years following, significantly influence this milestone. Time-varying predictors, including job characteristics and parenthood, also affect the process of movement into "careers."

Does Inequality Increase Productivity?: Evidence From U.S. Manufacturing Industries, 1979 to 1996

Kim, C., Sakamoto, A. — 2008-01-23

Wage inequality was investigated using the Current Population Survey combined with data on industrial productivity from the Center for Economic Studies of the U.S. Census Bureau. The research objective was to estimate the net effect of wage inequality on productivity in U.S. manufacturing industries from 1979 to 1996. Using fixed-effects panel models that control for unobserved differences in productivity across these industries, the results do not support the skill-biased technological-change argument, which assumes that increasing wage inequality has enhanced productivity in recent decades. In contrast, results from the regression analyses in this study clearly indicate that wage inequality has not had a positive net effect on productivity. Interpretation of these results suggests that organizational restructuring associated with the New Economy has increased labor market inequality but is less associated with increasing efficiency than is commonly assumed.

Book Review: Barry, B. (2007). Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. 280 pp. $27.95(cloth)

Meyers, J. S. M. — 2008-01-23

Book Review: Shulman, D. (2007). From Hire to Liar: The Role of Deception in the Workplace. New York: Cornell University Press. 214 pp.

Banks, M. — 2008-01-23

Book Review: Stevis, D., & Boswell, T. (2008). Globalization and Labor: Democratizing Global Governance. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield. 219 pp. $ 23.76 (paper)

Collombat, T. — 2008-01-23

Book Review: Aguiar, L., & Herod, A. (Eds.). (2006). The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy. London: Blackwell. 263 pp. $39.95 (cloth)

Holgate, J. — 2008-01-23