Books

• Date: 01 June 2000
• Published date: 01 June 2000
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2000.tb00411.x

Books 213International Labour Review, Vol. 139 (20 00), No. 2

Copyright © International Labour Organization 2000

BOOKS

Reviews

Ackerman, Frank; Goodwin, Neva R.;

Dougherty, Laurie; Gallagher, Kevin

(eds.). The changing nature of work.

Frontier Issues in Economic Thought

Series, Vol. 4. Washington, DC, Island

Press, 1998. xxxix + 417 pp. Tables,

indices. ISBN 1-55963-666-1.

Gallie, Duncan; White, Michael;

Cheng, Yuan; Tomlinson, Mark.

Restructuring the employment

relationship. Oxford, Oxford University

Press, 1998. xii + 354 pp. Figures,

tables, appendix, bibliography, indices.

ISBN 0-19-829390-9 (hardback);

ISBN 0-19-829441-7 (paperback).

Marsden, David. A theory of employ-

ment systems: Micro-foundations of

societal diversity. Oxford, Oxford

University Press, 1999. xvi + 298 pp.

Tables, figures, bibliography, index.

ISBN 0-19-829423-9 (hardback);

ISBN 0-19-829422-0 (paperback).

Estreicher, Samuel ( ed.). Employee

representation in the emerging

workplace: Alternatives/supplements

to collective bargaining. Proceedings

of New York University 50th Annual

Conference on Labor. Boston, MA,

Kluwer Law International, 1998.

xix + 734 pp. Tables, figures.

ISBN 90- 4110-637-5.

Verma, Anil; Chaykowski, Richard P.

(eds.). Contract and commitment:

Employment relations in the new

economy. Kingston (Ontario), IRC

Press, 1999. xiii + 354 pp. Figures,

table s. ISBN 0- 88886-520-1.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey. The human equation:

Building profits by putting people first.

Boston, MA, Harvard Business School

Press, 1998. Tables, figures, index.

ISBN 0-87584-841-9.

Siegel, Donald S. Skill-biased techno-

logical change: Evidence from a firm-

level survey. Kalamazoo, MI, W. E.

Upjohn Institute for Employment

Research, 1999. viii + 139 pp. Tables,

appendix, bibliography, indices.

ISBN 0-88099-198-4 (hardback);

ISBN 0-88099-197-6 (paperback).

This review takes advantage of the re-

cent receipt of seven books which essen-

tially explore various aspects of the same

question, namely, the nature and implica-

tions of changes in how people work in

advanced industrialized countries. Given

the broad consistency of their subject matter

and the interconnection of their arguments,

all seven of them are presented together

in the following pages with a selective cross-

section of their findings on the important

issues of the employment relationship,

214 International Labour Review

management practices and labour relations

and the role of technology and skills.

Technological innovation, globalization

and industrial relocation are leaving only

two broad types of paid work in the advanced

industrialized countries: technical jobs,

which centre on problem-solving, and

interpersonal jobs, which require “a human

touch”. From this premise, Robert Reich’s

foreword to The changing nature of work

(edited by Frank Ackerman et al.) goes on

to suggest a division of the workforce into

three groups. The first consists of highly

skilled (and highly paid) technicians and

providers of interpersonal services whose

work he describes as being “symbolic or

analytic” (e.g. lawyers, investment bank-

ers, software engineers, top sellers, market-

ers, management consultants). For these

people, recent changes in the way the

economy and the labour market work have

generated high demand, great flexibility

and opportunities. The second group com-

prises the lower paid technicians — “in-

stallers, repairers, and troubleshooters of

all types” — and the lower paid providers

of interpersonal services, e.g. teachers,

caretakers of children, the sick and the eld-

erly, etc. For people in these occupations

as well, “jobs” are taking on more varied

meanings, and the border between paid

work and unpaid work is blurring because

there is less and less “regular employment”

in the new economy.

The third group — “the bottom third”

— is made up of people who are without

the education, skills or connections needed

to become technicians or interpersonal

workers. In the United States, their real

average hourly earnings have dropped

sharply over the past two decades. “What

they ‘do’ requires exceedingly long hours

and, increasingly, multiple jobs.” The trade

unions that once gave them bargaining

power have declined because their organi-

zation had been “premised on large num-

bers of people working together at a single

place with similar tasks and predictable

routines”. And indeed, what people do for

a living is becoming increasingly unpre-

dictable, as is — perhaps even more so —

the institutional or contractual framework

within which they do it. But whereas workers

in the first and second groups are equipped

to take advantage of the opportunities this

offers, those in the third group merely en-

dure it. The result, Reich concludes, is “a

two-tiered society, composed of the ‘have-

mores’, who enjoy ever-greater choice over

the nature of the work they do, and the ‘have-

lesses’, whose choices are becoming more

constrained”. His reflections refer specifi-

cally to the United States, but the same is

more or less true of most industrialized

countries;1 while transformations in the way

people work have brought greater prosper-

ity and freedom to some, they have dealt

hardship and insecurity to others.

The changing nature of work (edited by

Ackerman et al.) explores the causes and

effects of those transformations. Aside from

offering an excellent introductory over-

view of the highly complex range of inter-

related issues involved, its main originality

is that it does so by presenting sum-

maries of 86 articles previously published

by leading authorities in their respective

fields. Following Ackerman’s opening

chapter on “the history of work”, the sum-

maries — fully referenced to the sources

of the original articles — are arranged under

eight thematic headings: new directions

in labour economics, globalization and

labour, new technologies and work organi-

zation, employment flexibility versus se-

curity, emerging patterns of industrial re-

lations, difference and diversity in the

workplace, the household economy and

caring labour, and human value in work.

Each of these sections opens with an over-

view essay by one of the editors.

1Even some low-income countries, such as

India, are beginning to witne ss elem ents o f

this m odel.

Books 215

Although most of the material summa-

rized in this book is the product of economic

analysis (including a fair amount of theor-

etical work), many of the authors of the

original articles are from other backgrounds,

including sociology, history, industrial en-

gineering and business management. In

assembling this collection of writings, the

editors’ declared intention is twofold. They

aim first to show what contemporary eco-

nomics can contribute to an understand-

ing of the changing nature of work and,

second, to encourage economists them-

selves to explore the frontiers of their own

discipline and cast the odd glance over the

fence at the relevant work of neighbour-

ing disciplines.

Readers of the International Labour

Review will perhaps be reminded of this

journal’s 1996 special issue entitled “Per-

spectives on the nature and f uture of work”

(Vol. 135, No. 6). Apart fr om the subject

matter, the common ground includes not

only a central concern with the value of

work beyond its strictly economic func-

tion, but also the notion that the under-

lying issues need to be explored from a

variety of different angles if they are to be

properly understood. To quote from

Ackerman’s opening taunt to narrow eco-

nomic orthodoxy: “Over time, thanks to

productivity increases, the same amount

of disutility at work leads to more consump-

tion, which is the definition of progress.”

Of course, anyone inclined to agree might

be better off shelving the book and m ak-

ing alternative plans for the day. But read-

ing on, they just might change their mind

about the definition of progress and a few

other things as well.

The employment relationship has been

a major focus of recent changes in many

countries, but also one of policy concern

and research because of the problems of

instability and inequality those changes

pose. In Ackerman et al., the ten articles

summarized under the heading “Restruc-

turing employment: Flexibility versus

security” offer an interesting mix of theor-

etical and empirical insights into the emer-

gence of non-standard or “contingent” em-

ployment. These include the explanation

offered by Eileen Appelbaum and Ronald

Schettkat — based on a productivity-

related dynamic endogenous to economic

development — and Peter Cappelli’s ar-

gument that what is happening may not

be anything entirely new, but simply an

efficiency-driven reversal of the manage-

ment logic that leads to the domination of

internal labour market systems — a return

to the market-mediated employment rela-

tionships of the nineteenth century, albeit

through new institutional channels. As a

result of downsizing, restructuring and

reorganization of work in today’s highly

competitive business environment, sim-

ple entry-level jobs and clear job ladders

that offer new workers a place to start are

disappearing. What used to be known as

“ports of entry” into internal labour mar-

kets are being replaced by temporary em-

ployment, Cappelli argues. But this and

other “flexible” employment relationships

are fraught with contradictions between

the interests of the parties, particularly in

respect of employee commitment, train-

ing and skills — not to mention the much

wider social implications of the shift away

from steady employment with steady in-

come. Alternative arguments include those

put forward by Paul Osterman — who sees

the system of internal labour markets as

“fraying at the edges” but still intact — and

Thierry Noyelle, who interprets the growth

of less stable forms of employment in terms

of labour market segmentation.

That discussion closes with the summary

of a more visionary article written for the

OECD by Martin Carnoy and Manuel

Castels. The strategies of the industrialized

countries in response to the crisis in work,

they argue, are fundamentally flawed by

their failure to recognize that the work

system is changing “away from permanent

jobs as the locus of work towards a