Half a Job: Bad and Good Part-Time Jobs in a Changing Labor Market. - book reviews

These books examine the two most common types of "contingent" work, that is, work in which the relationship between the employer and the employee does not assume any permanence or long-lasting character. Contingent work is usually taken to mean the sum of involuntary part-time workers, temporary employees, leased workers, independent contractors, and home workers. While exact data are not available, it is estimated that between one-fourth and one-third of all current employees are contingent, and the proportion is growing rapidly. Needless to say, the consequences of this growth are profoundly negative for the working classes. First, the growth of contingent work in and of itself lowers working class standards, since contingent workers make less money and enjoy fewer benefits than do permanent workers. And second, the absolute and relative increases in contingent workers must surely make the remaining permanent employees fearful that their jobs will soon change status.

While all labor market analysts agree that contingent work is accelerating, they do not agree on the reasons why. As might be expected, neoclassical economists believe that the increase reflects the individual preferences of a changing labor force. The labor force is increasingly comprised of women, and women have stronger preferences for contingent work than do men. That is, due to the special circumstances of women, such as child care responsibilities and second income earner status in families, they prefer working part-time or on a temporary basis, or at home. Employers, in turn, find it necessary to create jobs to match the preferences of the workers. A similar argument can be constructed for young workers, who are also over represented among contingent workers; they prefer greater flexibility because they are less committed to full-time employment, presumably the consequence of student status, late marriage, or smaller families. A variation on this theme is that fewer workers are now productive enough (poor schooling, inadequate parenting?) to hold permanent positions.

Both authors provide evidence against the neoclassical hypotheses. Just a Temp relies upon both the temporary work experiences of professor Kevin D. Henson and a set of structured interviews with a wide range of temporary employees. The responses of his informants buttress his own experience; the operation of the labor market is far from the neoclassical fantasy-land of free choices and optimal outcomes. Very few temporary workers freely choose this work. Rather, they become temps because their life circumstances force them to do so. Some are the refugees of corporate downsizing; some are divorced homemakers; many temp to earn a living while they seek permanent employment; and some temp to eat while they pursue risky careers such as acting and writing. Even those few who temp for many years do so for reasons other than free choice or personal shortcomings. As Henson describes the long-term temps he interviewed:

...those classified as lifers may be individuals who, though not unemployable, have experienced disappointments with the permanent labor market positions available to them. In other words, it's not that they choose temporary employment because it's wonderful and desirable, but that their permanent work alternatives are confining and unsatisfying. Long tenure may be a way of seeking horizontal variety, and thus tolerability, in otherwise unrewarding and low-status secondary labor market.

Henson's informants also give the lie to the alleged benefits of working on a temporary basis. For the most part, temps have little control over when they work or for whom. The uncertainty and vulnerability which temps face make it difficult for them to refuse assignments. While some jobs, especially those in which a temp covers for a full-time worker on vacation or ill, are interesting and challenging, most are not. Temps are typically unhappy with their work and use words such as "boring," "monotonous," "repetitive," "routine," "tedious," "mundane," "menial," "awful," "horrible," "terrible," and "lonely" to describe their jobs. So much for the propaganda of the big temp agencies like Kelly, Manpower, and Olsten, which, by the way, enjoyed nearly $6 billion in revenues in 1990.

One especially insidious inference which Henson's interviews suggest is that temporary work provides a mechanism through which women are forced to lower their economic aspirations. Female college graduates begin their job searches with the same high goals as men. But they often find that the only jobs available are temporary clerical jobs (most temps are female, and most temporary jobs are clerical). Employers often offer them full-time clerical work, which they resist taking until the misery of temping wears them down.

Chris Tilly's study of part-time employment also utilizes informants, but in this case, he interviewed management personnel, primarily in two industries (retail and insurance) in two cities (Boston and Pittsburgh). The industries are both in the growing service sector, in which most part-time employment occurs. Tilly also performed standard statistical analysis to support his arguments. His major finding is that the considerable increase in involuntary part-time employment is employer-driven (as is the related problem of involuntary full-time employment). He argues that employers strive for low costs, flexibility, and predictability. In many companies today, employers see these goals as best achieved through the use of part-time employment. Certainly it is true that part-timers are cheaper, and this acts as a powerful incentive for their substitution for full-time workers. In retail, for example, the lower cost of part-timers even outweighs the cost of their lower productivity.

The characteristics of part-time jobs conforms closely to those of temporary jobs. In a few cases, notably in the insurance industry, employers do accommodate the wishes of workers who want to work part-time. This is because the employers do not want to lose certain highly skilled and expensively trained employees who cannot or will not work full-time. In most cases, however, part-time employees have what the author calls "bad" jobs. Most part-timers "have jobs involving less skill, responsibility, and training than their full-time co-workers.... [They] have lower fringe benefits than full-timers and in some cases lower hourly wages as well." They also have higher turnover and not much hope of moving up any sort of job ladder.

II

Both of these books do a good job of describing the two most important types of contingent work. Both argue persuasively that these kinds of employment are going to increase and that this bodes ill for working people and for society as a whole. And both suggest a variety of public policies to reverse the trend toward contingent employment or at least to make it better able to support a decent standard of living. They recommend that fringe benefits such as health care and child care be publicly funded and that legislation guarantee contingent workers the same access to all benefits provided by employers and by the state to full-time workers. Full employment policies would give all workers meaningful choices; the spread of inferior jobs can occur only in an economy which generates so much underemployment. The labor laws should be changed to give equal protection to contingent workers; for example, the National Labor Relations Board should not be allowed to arbitrarily deny contingent workers membership in bargaining units. Unions must adapt themselves to the reality of the modern workplace. They must make much greater efforts to organize temporary and part-time workers and they must tailor their organizing and bargaining to the needs of contingent workers. Geographical and occupational organizing will have to supplement or replace employer organizing if temporaries, who move from job to job, are to be unionized.

There are, of course, many obstacles to improving the lot of temps and part-timers, most of which are well-known. Not since the 1920s has the state been so thoroughly dominated by capital, and since the proliferation of contingent work serves capital's needs, it is not likely that public policy will suddenly become solicitous of the needs of contingent workers. The labor movement, despite signs of rejuvenation, is hardly in a position to aggressively organize groups of workers who are, in the best of circumstances, inherently difficult to reach.

Other obstacles are not so obvious. In Just a Temp Henson points out that the use of temporary workers creates a serious division in the workforce. The way in which temps are used and how they are treated by employers encourages full-time workers to feel superior to them. This, in turn, creates a natural resentment by temps toward permanent workers. Further, the dismal position of temps dictates that they develop "identity management strategies" to help them cope. Thus they try to "pass" as permanent workers; they tell cover stories to convince others that temping does not represent their true identities; and they lie to themselves by saying things like "at least I'm not a secretary" or "it's only for the day." These devices may salve their spirits, but their individualistic nature inhibits collective action.

III

The one major weakness shared by both books is the lack of a coherent theoretical perspective. Henson attributes the growth of temporary employment to the end of the long post-Second World War expansion and the ensuing corporate assault on labor costs. The "labor accord" between corporations and unions ended and employers gained a free rein to restructure labor markets to suit their cost-cutting mania. Tilly, on the other hand, places part-time employment within an institutional theoretical perspective. Firms are presumed to have multiple and not always compatible objectives. There are a number of types of labor markets available to the firms, and they choose among them to achieve their goals. Changing market conditions compel firms to place different weights on their objectives, and this, in turn, leads them to hire from different labor markets. For example, the shift in production from goods to services has made cost minimization more important because of the greater competitiveness of the service industries. The secondary labor market, dominated by contingent workers, then becomes more attractive to employers.

The problem with Henson's explanation is that it, is incomplete; it is not fitted into any larger theoretical framework. Perhaps this is understandable since the focus of Just a Temp is more on the interaction between temporary work and the consciousness and behavior of the workers. Still, Henson seems amenable to a Marxist perspective, and it is a shame that he did not elaborate one in his book. With Tilly the problem is somewhat deeper. Capitalist markets are inherently competitive, and competition among capitals would appear to force firms to try as best they can to maximize profit and accumulate capital as rapidly as possible. Why not start from the premise that firms must accumulate capital, instead of from the rather murky proposition that they have multiple and potentially independent objectives? In addition, how is it that multiple types of labor markets come into being? Why not examine the capital-labor relationship and the need of capital to control the labor process to produce surplus value? Clearly in the use of contingent workers this is the case, so why not just say so? Institutionalists, from the time of Veblen, have provided many insights into the operation of capitalist economies. But they have no coherent theory of capitalism, one which begins with fundamental assumptions and generates empirically verifiable predictions. Tilly says that he is eclectic in matters theoretical. Unfortunately, while eclecticism may be fine in matters of taste, it usually leads to muddled theorizing.

Michael Yates teaches economics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, and is the author of Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs: Employment and Unemployment in the United States, (Monthly Review Press, 1994).

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