The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Work and Employment

Stephen Edgell, Heidi Gottfried, Edward Granter, Stephen Edgell, Heidi Gottfried, Edward Granter

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781473943278
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Work and Employment is a landmark collection of original contributions by leading specialists from around the world. The coverage is both comprehensive and comparative (in terms of time and space) and each 'state of the art' chapter provides a critical review of the literature combined with some thoughts on the direction of research. This authoritative text is structured around six core themes:

• Historical Context and Social Divisions
• The Experience of Work
• The Organization of Work
• Nonstandard Work and Employment
• Work and Life beyond Employment
• Globalization and the Future of Work.

Globally, the contours of work and employment are changing dramatically. This handbook helps academics and practitioners make sense of the impact of these changes on individuals, groups, organizations and societies. Written in an accessible style with a helpful introduction, the retrospective and prospective nature of this volume will be an essential resource for students, teachers and policy-makers across a range of fields, from business and management, to sociology and organization studies.

1 Introduction: Studies of Work and Employment at the Global Frontier

Stephen Edgell, Heidi Gottfried and Edward Granter

I ask the political economists and the moralists if they have ever calculated the number of individuals who must be condemned to misery, overwork, demoralization, degradation, rank ignorance, overwhelming misfortune and utter penury in order to produce one rich man. (Almeida Garrett [1799–1854])¹

The Portuguese poet, playwright and politician, Almeida Garrett, lived during the heyday of classical liberalism, a period when the Manchester School of Economics was advocating and agitating successfully in the world's first industrial capitalist city for the adoption of a laissez-faire policy by the national government (Grampp 1960). It was an era when ‘collective bargaining by riot’ was prevalent – to use Hobsbawm's (1952) memorable phrase – since labour unions were not recognized as legal entities, the majority did not have the right to vote, and the state was relatively small but its armed forces large – ready to quell protest whenever it erupted (the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, for example). Punishment included execution or banishment to penal colonies for those who combined with other workers and/or damaged property (as with the Swing Riots of 1830), and the gap between the power and wealth of the owners of capital and the propertyless classes was a chasm. For a relatively short period in the twentieth century – the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s, often referred to as the Fordist era – the long-term trend of increasing inequality was interrupted, reversed even, due to a combination of special circumstances, notably a major depression and world war that provoked state economic intervention on a hitherto unknown grand scale and promoted an enhanced role for unions (Piketty 2014). Fast-forward to the beginning of the twenty-first century and the post-1970s era of neo-liberalism, during which the effectiveness of organized labour has been impaired, the social welfare function of the state much reduced, the power of capital and the free market expanded, and inequality increased markedly. It seems that Almeida Garrett's concern regarding the extent of exploitation and oppression of the underlying 99 per cent has a contemporary resonance that would have surprised and perhaps dismayed nineteenth-century reformers and revolutionaries.

The twenty-first century started somewhat inauspiciously with a crash in the value of technology shares (the so-called bursting of the dot.com bubble), followed by recessions in various major economies, affecting initially European Union countries such as France and Germany, and subsequently the USA. Meanwhile in Japan, after a short recession in the late 1990s, deflation returned and continued to defy government attempts to remedy the situation. These sporadic and localized economic problems culminated in the most severe global economic crisis since the late 1920s. In 2008–9 there was a ‘threefold crisis, with no end in sight: a banking crisis, a crisis of public finances, and a crisis of the “real economy”’ (Streeck 2014: 6, italics in the original). According to Streeck, these three dimensions of the current crisis are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, although the precise pattern of interactions varies from one country to another depending upon such factors as the policies adopted and the institutional framework. For example, a banking crisis makes it difficult for companies and consumers to obtain credit, which in turn reduces demand for goods and services and induces unemployment. Similarly, when a government favours fiscal rectitude over a Keynesian-style expansion of public expenditure, the consequent austerity and related social policies depress incomes of the middle and working classes, curtail economic growth, and weaken the employment protections for workers achieved over many years of struggle (Daguerre 2014; Heyes 2011). In other words, ultimately, the financial and fiscal dimensions of the crisis impact on the actual economy in terms of the nature and extent of employment and work – the focus of this Handbook.

The current global crisis therefore is not merely a monetary or a momentary phenomenon, but a sociologically significant process that involves social, political, cultural and ideological causes and effects (Granter and Tischer 2014). More specifically, in terms of the world of work and employment, the recrudescence of the values and practices of free market capitalism has contributed to the emasculation of trade unions, mass unemployment, mass underemployment, mass income insecurity, mass dispossession, mass incarceration, and mass poverty, even in the wealthiest industrial capitalist nation states. In short, the collective responsibility of risk has been transferred to individuals rather than shared between the state, employers and employees, and class inequality has been exacerbated with the ‘gap between rich and poor at its highest level in most OECD countries in 30 years’ (Granter and Tischer 2014: 1).

The neo-liberal project, imposed from above and resisted from below, has also had major gender inequality consequences for individuals, households and nation states (Gottfried 2013). For example, from the earliest years of the public spending cuts by the first Thatcher government in the UK, women were affected more than men, since most public sector workers are women, women are the main consumers of collective social provision, and women are the major care providers in the family (Edgell and Duke 1991). Unsurprisingly, the global economy in general, and the changing pattern of employment and work in particular, are rarely out of the news, whether it is record-breaking youth unemployment in countries of the global North such as Greece and Spain, persistent deflation and economic stagnation in Japan, or severe economic recession and prolonged wage stagnation in the UK and Germany for example. To these we can add bankrupt banks (Lehman Brothers) and national economies (Iceland), economic expansion (the USA), economic contraction (Russia), rampant/rising inflation in the global South (e.g. Venezuela/Brazil), and life-threatening mass migration on a transcontinental scale – from Africa to Europe. It is a febrile morass of economic instability and uncertainty on a global scale.

Thus, capitalism is in crisis (the latest of many, we accept) and the contours of work and employment are changing dramatically, almost certainly to the benefit of a few at the cost of the many. This Handbook is intended to increase our sociological understanding of the causes of the major current trends in paid and unpaid work and employment, and their impact on individuals, groups, organizations and societies. The coverage is both comprehensive and comparative with respect to time and space, and each of the original contributions by leading specialists combines a critical and up-to-date review of the literature with some thoughts on the future directions of research. Considered as a whole, the Handbook represents a strong argument for the view that, contrary to the claim by Offe, work remains the ‘key sociological category’ (1985: 129).² In fact, the neo-liberalization of work and employment globally over the past 40 years, an issue that features prominently in many of the contributions to this volume, has arguably increased rather than diminished the sociological and ethical centrality of work and employment at all levels of society.

THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK AND EMPLOYMENT: CONTOURS OF A DISCIPLINE

This Handbook, which readers will find both authoritative and timely, is divided into six core themes:

1. Historical Context and Social Divisions
2. The Experience of Work
3. Work and Organization
4. Non-standard Forms of Work and Employment
5. Work and Life Beyond Employment
6. Globalization and the Future of Work

The first part, Historical Context and Social Divisions, traces the emergence of sociology as an autonomous academic discipline with special reference to the impact of capitalist industrialization, which transformed societies in general, and work and employment in particular. Indeed, for the majority of social scientists and sociologists the classification of different types of societies was and continues to be based on the predominant form of work prevailing at specific times and places, such as the familiar distinction between agrarian and industrial societies, and the more recent industrial and post-industrial dichotomy. The social divisions that accompanied the rise of industrial capitalism, notably those based on class, gender and race/ethnicity, persist to this day in the neo-liberal global era. The purpose of this first section of the Handbook is to consider how sociologists, since the classic contributions of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, have theorized and analysed the changing nature of work/employment and related social divisions. This opening part of the Handbook also addresses the strengths and weaknesses of this historically important sociological specialism and introduces the issue of intersectionality.

In the first chapter in this section (Chapter 2), Tim Strangleman discusses the development of the sociology of work from its pre-classical origins to the present day with special reference to the UK and the USA, and the classic contributions of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Among the many issues covered in this chapter, the challenges and impact of Marxism and feminism on the sociology of work and employment are highlighted. He focuses on the historical context of sociological interests and emphasizes the continued need for theoretically informed empirical research via a secure disciplinary base, yet makes a plea for greater inter- and multi disciplinary research.

In Chapter 3, Tracey Warren's account of work and social theory advances the historical theme in her wide-ranging review and critique of the classical canon from the standpoint of the pervasive influence of Marx, Weber and Durkheim on the sociology of work and employment. Her analysis emphasizes the contested meaning of the concept of work and identifies some of the key concepts, such as alienation, that have informed social theories of work. It also reveals the relative neglect of research on gender and elites that is being addressed at last by contemporary sociologists in this sub-discipline, but she suggests that more research is needed, especially on the post-economic-crisis role of dominant groups.

The historical dimension of the sociology of work and employment is developed by Barry Eidlin's chapter (Chapter 4) on the core concept of class and work. He discusses how sociologists have conceptualized and operationalized class in relation to work since the founding classics up to and including recent societal changes, notably post-industrialism. The continued relevance of class, objectively and subjectively, is examined, and the ‘class is dead’ thesis is evaluated critically. He suggests that in view of the widely documented increase in economic inequality, the issue of class and work is likely to be debated by sociologists and policy makers into the foreseeable future.

In Chapter 5 Harriet Bradley notes that in the immediate post-World-War-II period male workers were the main focus of attention, but this changed gradual...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustration List
• Illustration List
• Notes on the Editors and Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Studies of Work and Employment at the Global Frontier
• Part I Historical Context and Social Divisions
• 2 The Disciplinary Career of the Sociology of Work
• 3 Work and Social Theory
• 4 Class and Work
• 5 Gender and Work
• 6 Race, Racialization, and Work
• Part II The Experience of Work
• 7 Good Jobs, Bad Jobs
• 8 The Origins of the Idea and Ideal of Dignity in the Sociology of Work and Employment
• 9 Capital and Labour: The Shifting Terrains of Struggle and Accommodation in Labour and Employment Relations
• 10 From Management to Leadership
• 11 Unruly Subjects: Misbehaviour in the Workplace
• 12 Rediscovery of the Labour Process
• 13 The Skill Debate: Concepts, Measures and Evidence
• Part III Work and Organization
• 14 From Bureaucracy to Networks
• 15 Organizational Culture and Work1
• 16 Fordism and the Golden Age of Atlantic Capitalism
• 17 Beyond Fordism
• 18 Interactive Service Work
• 19 The Organization of Service Work
• Part IV Non-Standard Forms of Work and Employment
• 20 Employment Uncertainty and Risk
• 21 Destandardization: Qualitative and Quantitative
• 22 Informal Employment: Theory and Reality
• 23 Precarious Work
• 24 Unpaid Domestic Labor
• Part V Work and Life Beyond Employment
• 25 Unemployment
• 26 Volunteering and Unpaid Work
• 27 Work-Life Balance
• 28 Working Time
• 29 Work and Social Policy
• Part VI Globalization and the Future of Work
• 30 Global Value Chains, Organizations and Industrial Work
• 31 Globalization and Outsourcing
• 32 Globalization and Labour Migrations
• 33 Critiques of Work
• 34 Global Labour Politics in Informal and Precarious Jobs
• 35 The Future of Work: Escaping the Current Dystopian Trajectory and Building Better Alternatives
• Author Index
• Index