Annette Bernhardt

Working in the service society

Preface 1. The Service Society and the Changing Experience of Work Cameron Lynne Macdonald and Carmen Sirianni Part I: Management Control of the New Labor Process 2. Rethinking Questions of Control: Lessons from McDonalds Robin Leidner 3. The Politics of Service Production: Route Sales Work in the Potato-Chip Industry Steven H. Lopez 4. Consumers Reports: Management by Customers in a Changing Economy Linda Fuller and Vicki Smith 5. Service with a Smile: Understanding the Consequences of Emotional Labor Amy S. Wharton Part II: Gender, Race, and Stratification in the Service Sector 6. From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor Evelyn Nakano Glenn 7. Family, Gender, and Business in Direct Selling Organizations Nicole Woolsey Biggart 8. Reproducing Gender Relations in Large Law Firms: The Role of Emotional Labor in Paralegal Work Jennifer L. Pierce Part III: Worker Resistance, Organizing, and Participation 9. Invisibility, Consciousness of the Other, and Resentment among Black Domestic Workers Judith Rollins 10. Shadow Mothers: Nannies, Au Pairs, and Invisible Work Cameron Lynne Macdonald 11. Resisting the Symbolism of Service among Waitresses Greta Foff Paules 12. The Customer Is Always Interesting: Unionized Harvard Clericals Renegotiate Work Relationships Susan C. Eaton 13. The Prospects for Unionism in a Service Society Dorothy Sue Cobble Contributors

Women's Gains or Men's Losses? A Closer Look at the Shrinking Gender Gap in Earnings

The recent closing of the gender wage gap is often attributed to increases in womens human capital. This explanation neglects the effect of growing inequality in mens earnings. The authors develop a decomposition that allows them to test how distributional changes in mens and womens earnings combine to yield changes in womens economic status. Using Current Population Survey data from 1967 to 1987, the authors find that the striking polarization in white mens earnings has played a critical role in generating womens relative economic gains, though more for white women than for black women. For both groups, the results predict a future slowing of womens relative progress.

Trends in Job Instability and Wages for Young Adult Men

Data and measurement problems have complicated the debate over trends in job instability in the United States. We compare two cohorts of young white men from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS), construct a rigorous measure of job change, and confirm earlier findings of a significant increase in job instability. We then benchmark the NLS against other main data sets in the field and conduct a thorough attrition analysis. Extending the analysis to wages, we find that the wage returns to job changing have both declined and become more unequal for young adults, mirroring trends in their long‐term wage growth.

It's not just the ATMs: Technology, Firm Strategies, Jobs, and Earnings in Retail Banking

Using data from extensive on-site interviews conducted in 1997, 1998, and 1999, the authors examine trends in job content and earnings in selected jobs in two American banks. Firm restructuring and technological changes resulted in higher earnings for college-educated workers. The banks followed different strategies in implementing these changes for lower-skill jobs, with different effects on bank tellers in particular. The authors conclude that technological change can provide opportunities for workplace reform but does not determine its effects on jobs and earnings; these effects are contingent on managerial strategies. This focus on organizational processes and managerial strategy provides a complement to accounts of growing inequality that center solely on the role of individual skills and technological change.

In Search of the High Road in a Low-Wage Industry

When faced with rising wage inequality and large numbers of low-wage jobs, policy makers are increasingly looking to innovations in the business community for solutions. Advocates argue that “high performance systems” will both strengthen the competitiveness of American firms and improve the quality of jobs. But the proposed benefits for workers remain largely untested. Drawing on a series of case studies, we therefore examine the effect of firm restructuring on job quality, defined in terms of wages, benefits, and the opportunities for skill acquisition and promotion. The firms were chosen from the traditionally low-wage retail trade industry and each had implemented some level of reform in both the “production” and the service ends of their operations. Ultimately, however, it is unclear whether the high performance model holds much promise, at least in this sector. The reforms did create somewhat more interesting and varied jobs. But regardless of the extent of innovation and despite the strong performance of these firms, we found very little improvement either in wages or in the chances for upward mobility from entry-level positions. These findings question the simple delineation between an efficient “high road” and an inefficient “low road.” In some contexts, a highly rationalized and lowwage business strategy may be more efficient. And even where high-road innovations are implemented, low wages may still persist, because productivity gains are translated into price cuts instead of wage increases. In those firms where job quality was above average, employers turned to college students and experienced workers rather than investing in the training of lowskill workers. These points have several implications for public policy, which are taken up at the conclusion of the paper.

Employers Gone Rogue: Explaining Industry Variation in Violations of Workplace Laws

Drawing on an innovative, representative survey of workers in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, the authors analyze minimum wage, overtime, and other workplace violations in the low-wage labor market. They document significant interindustry variation in both the mix and the prevalence of violations, and they show that while differences in workforce composition are important in explaining that variation, differences in job and employer characteristics play the stronger role. The authors suggest that industry noncompliance rates are shaped by both product market and institutional characteristics, which together interact with labor supply and the current weak penalty and enforcement regime in the United States. They close with a research agenda for this still-young field, framing noncompliance as an emerging strategy in the reorganization of work and production at the bottom of the U.S. labor market.

The Role of Labor Market Regulation in Rebuilding Economic Opportunity in the United States

In the search for policy solutions to rising inequality and precariousness in the United States, this essay argues for the central role of labor market regulation. It presents research and policy evidence for a three-pronged approach: (a) strengthening the floor of labor standards (wages, health and safety, and right to organize chief among them); (b) vigorously enforcing that floor; and (c) leveraging government contracting and grants to build a base of good jobs on top of that floor. The essay concludes that getting to scale in the current political climate will require ratcheting up from state and local policy campaigns to federal reform.

On the Character and Organization of Unregulated Work in the Cities of the United States

In this article, we analyze the routine violations of employment and labor laws—what we call unregulated work—in New York City and Chicago. In these jobs workers are paid less than the minimum wage, are subject to unsafe working conditions, and are fired for attempting to organize. These violations have become a routine part of the organization of production in industries that range from restaurants to construction to laundries to child care. Unregulated work has become a staple in U.S. urban economies and labor markets. In the context of deindustrialization in U.S. cities, these are the jobs that have grown in importance in metropolitan areas. And their role in providing the goods of collective consumption places them at the heart of what is producing the urban in contemporary capitalism. Despite this significance, not enough has been done to systematically document and understand unregulated work as it exists across diverse industries. This article begins the process of filling this significant gap in the literature.

Organizing for Good Jobs Recent Developments and New Challenges

Over the past several decades, there has been a remarkable surge of economic justice organizing across the country. The goal of this article is to examine these efforts and provide a framework for understanding their potential, their limitations, and their future. In what follows, the authors first describe five distinct organizing movements focused on low-wage work that have flourished in recent years. The authors then develop a framework for thinking about these movements. They distinguish among these efforts along the two dimensions of goals and strategies, assessing relative strengths and weaknesses. With these distinctions in hand, they then take up the question of the scalability of the movements and analyze the challenges they face in terms of growth strategy, sustainability, constituencies, and cohesion. This overall framework yields a picture of significant promise in America’s economic justice organizing—but one that will take equally significant resources and political power to realize.

Domestic Outsourcing in the United States: A Research Agenda to Assess Trends and Effects on Job Quality

The goal of this paper is to develop a comprehensive research agenda to analyze trends in domestic outsourcing in the United States — firms’ use of contractors and independent contractors — and its effects on job quality and inequality. In the process, we review definitions of outsourcing, the available scant empirical research, and limitations of existing data sources. We also summarize theories that attempt to explain why firms contract out for certain functions and assess their predictions about likely impacts on job quality. We then lay out in detail a major research initiative on domestic outsourcing, discussing the questions it should answer and providing a menu of research methodologies and potential data sources. Such a research investment will be a critical resource for policymakers and other stakeholders as they seek solutions to problems arising from the changing nature of work.