Segmented Work, Divided Workers presents a restatement and expansion of the theory of labor segmentation by three of its founding scholars. The authors argue that divisions with the US working class are rooted in a segmentation of jobs since World War II. They explain the origins of job segmentation through a careful and systematic historical analysis of changes in the labor process and the structure of labor markets since the early 1800s. this analysis builds, in turn, upon hypotheses about successive stages in the history of capitalist development. Segmented Work, Divided Workers integrates this economics analysis with a careful historial appreciation of the complexity of working-class experience in the United States.

The Dynamics of Labour Market Segmentation is a collection of different papers about the importance of differentiation between groups of workers and the development of employer strategies for controlling the labor process in the market. The book is divided into five parts. Part I discusses the nature of segmentation, duality, the internal labor market, internationalization, and discrimination. Part II tackles the industrial transformation and the evolution of dual labor markets and the paternalism and labor market segmentation theory, and Part III deals with topics such as entrepreneurial strategies of adjustment and internal labor markets; artisan production and economic growth; and outwork and segmented labor markets. Part IV covers the construction of women as second-class workers and the social reproduction and the basic structure of the labor market; Part V explores the labor market segmentation and the business cycle and the relationship between employment and output. The text is recommended for entrepreneurs who wish to understand the labor market as well as social scientists who would like to know the implications of the labor market segmentation not only for the marketplace but also for society as a whole.

This book is an account of the political economy of labor relations in the U.S. automobile industry from the end of World War II to the 1970s. Zetka develops a sophisticated paradigm of hegemonic and competitive market conditions that challenges dominant theories of postwar industrial relations, linking rates of workplace militancy to product market fluctuations, variations in work organization, and differences in authority systems legitimated on the shop floor. He then uses this model to interpret in historical detail the complex market and workplace relationships that unfolded in the industry. Zetka traces the postwar struggles between management and militant auto workers over the definition of a fair day's work. He argues that management's selective use of a quota-based authority system for occupational groups that had been the most militant during the 1940s and 1950s was primarily responsible for the decline of wildcat strike activity in the auto industry, and that this system was made possible by the emergence in the 1960s of a distinctive market structure that regulated competition between the surviving auto firms.

Case studies capture the experiences, difficulties, and determination of immigrant workers.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book presents new theories and international empirical evidence on the state of work and employment around the world. Changes in production systems, economic conditions and regulatory conditions are posing new questions about the growing use by employers of precarious forms of work, the contradictory approaches of governments towards employment and social policy, and the ability of trade unions to improve the distribution of decent employment conditions. The book proposes a ‘new labour market segmentation approach’ for the investigation of issues of job quality, employment inequalities, and precarious work. This approach is distinctive in seeking to place the changing international patterns and experiences of labour market inequalities in the wider context of shifting gender relations, regulatory regimes and production structures.

A career-spanning collection of writings by the legendary labor historian One of American labor history's most prominent scholars, Melvyn Dubofsky curated an accessible style and historical reach that have long marked his work as required reading for students and scholars. This collection juxtaposes Dubofsky's early writings with scholarship from the 1990s. Selections include work on western working-class radicalism, U.S. labor history in transnational and comparative settings, and the impact of technological change on American worker’s movements. Throughout, the writings provide an invaluable eyewitness perspective on the academic and political climate of the 1960s and 1970s while tracing the development of labor history as a discipline. An exploration of important themes in labor history, Hard Work combines essential scholarship with the story of how past and present interact in the work of historians.

The essays in this volume enhance our understanding of Canadians on the job. Focusing on specific industries and kinds of work, from logging and longshoring to restaurant work and the needle trades, the contributors consider such issues as job skill, mass production, and the transformation of resource industries. They raise questions about how particular jobs are structured and changed over time, the role of workers' resistance and trade unions in shaping the lives of workers, and the impact of technology. Together these essays clarify a fundamental characteristic shared by all labour processes: they are shaped and conditioned by the social, economic, and political struggles of labour and capital both inside and outside the workplace. They argue that technological change, as well as all the transformations in the workplace, must become a social process that we all control.