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The Shadow Workforce: Perspectives on Contingent Work in the United States, Japan, and Europe Upjohn Press Upjohn Research home page 11-29-2006 The Shadow Workforce: Perspectives on Contingent Work in the United States, Japan, and Europe Sandra E. Gleason Pennsylvania State University Follow this and additional works at: https://research.upjohn.org/up_press Part of the Labor Economics Commons Citation Gleason, Sandra E., ed. 2006. The Shadow Workforce: Perspectives on Contingent Work in the United States, Japan, and Europe. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. https://doi.org/10.17848/9781429454889 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. This title is brought to you by the Upjohn Institute. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Shadow Workforce Gleason.indb 1 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Gleason.indb 2 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM The Shadow Workforce Perspectives on Contingent Work in the United States, Japan, and Europe Sandra E. Gleason Editor 2006 W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research Kalamazoo, Michigan Gleason.indb 3 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The shadow workforce : perspectives on contingent work in the United States, Japan, and Europe / Sandra E. Gleason, editor. p. cm. Includes bibligraphical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-88099-288-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-88099-288-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-88099-289-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-88099-289-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Temporary employment—United States. 2. Temporary employment—Japan. 3. Temporary employment—Europe. 4. Part-time employment—United States. 5. Part-time employment—Japan. 6. Part-time employment—Europe. 7. Contracting out—United States. 8. Contracting out—Japan. 9. Contracting out—Europe. I. Gleason, Sandra E. HD5854.2.U6S53 2006 331.25'729—dc22 © 2006 W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research 300 S. Westnedge Avenue Kalamazoo, Michigan 49007-4686 The facts presented in this study and the observations and viewpoints expressed are the sole responsibility of the author. They do not necessarily represent positions of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Cover design by Alcorn Publication Design. Index prepared by Diane Worden. Printed in the United States of America. Printed on recycled paper. Gleason.indb 4 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Dedicated to Daniel H. Kruger (1923–2003) Distinguished Professor School of Labor and Industrial Relations Michigan State University A true friend and colleague who inspired students and faculty throughout his 43 years of service to Michigan State University. Gleason.indb 5 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Gleason.indb 6 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction 1 Sandra E. Gleason Part 1: The Shadow Workforce in the United States 2 Operationalizing the Shadow Workforce: Toward an 29 Understanding of the Participants in Nonstandard Employment Relationships Courtney von Hippel, Venkat Bendapudi, Judith Tansky, David B. Greenberger, Stephen L. Mangum, and Robert L. Heneman Part 2: Workplace Policy Issues for Employers and Unions in the United States 3 Employer Perspectives: Competing through a Flexible Workforce 65 Douglas J. Miller and Jay B. Barney 4 Union Responses to the Challenges of Contingent Work 99 Arrangements M. Catherine Lundy, Karen Roberts, and Douglas Becker Part 3: U.S. Public Policy toward the Shadow Workforce 5 No Safe Harbor: A Review of Significant Laws Affecting 135 Contingent Workers Thomas A. Coens and Alvin L. Storrs 6 Public Policy and Contingent Workers 169 Jeffrey B. Wenger Part 4: Perspectives on the Shadow Workforce from Japan and Europe 7 Japan’s Growing Shadow Workforce 203 Cynthia Ozeki and Akira Wakisaka vii Gleason.indb 7 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM 8 Employment Policies and Labor Union Activities for Part-Time 241 Workers and Dispatched Workers in Japan Kazunari Honda 9 Temporary Agency Work in Europe 269 François Michon Part 5: Challenges for the Twenty-First Century 10 Where Do We Go from Here? 307 Sandra E. Gleason The Authors 329 Index 331 About the Institute 349 viii Gleason.indb 8 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Acknowledgments Most of the work on this book was completed after I joined the Office of the Dean of the former Commonwealth College of Pennsylvania State Uni- versity. I want to thank the three deans for whom I worked for their support: Joseph Strasser, John Leathers, and Diane M. Disney. The authors in this volume wrote interesting chapters that introduce the reader to nonstandard employment. I am very appreciative of their hard work. Several other individuals also helped with the development of this book. Richard N. Block, Lonnie Golden, and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments. My assistant, LeAnn Anderson, prepared some of the tables and figures. Allison Colosky, for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, provided helpful editorial guidance. ix Gleason.indb 9 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Gleason.indb 10 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM 1 Introduction Sandra E. Gleason Pennsylvania State University As early as the mid-1970s, observers of private sector employment practices in the United States commented on an emerging new phenom- enon: the increasing use of nonstandard workers—that is, employees who are hired under a variety of nonstandard arrangements without a permanent connection to an employer. These include part-time employ- ment; hiring through temporary help employment agencies, such as “Kelly Girl” clerical services; self-employed consultants; employees leased, contracted, or subcontracted from business service firms such as advertising or janitorial firms; multiple-job holders; and day laborers.1 Although companies historically have used nonstandard workers, the relatively rapid growth rate of these workers in a wide range of in- dustries and occupations has become pervasive (see Nye [1998] for ex- amples). At the time the change was identified, the available data made it difficult to measure exactly what was occurring, although the trend appeared to be similar in both the private and public sectors (see Light [1999] for examples in the federal government). Today we have better data but they provide disparate estimates of the extent of nonstandard employment. Nonstandard employment arrangements have received increased at- tention due to several factors. First, ongoing changes suggest that the trend toward greater use of nonstandard employment is likely to con- tinue. The restructuring of the economy in the post–World War II era in an increasingly global economy has continued. The pace of this change has been heavily driven by technological advances and the “informa- tion age,” and encouraged by the increase in the share of total compen- sation (i.e., wages and fringe benefits) represented by legally required benefits such as Social Security and nonwage benefits such as health care. These economic forces have encouraged employers to seek more options to control or reduce labor costs. Illustrative examples include 1 Gleason.indb 1 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM 2 Gleason the use of temporary workers during a short period of peak demand and long-term strategies to improve productivity by subcontracting the pe- ripheral activities of the firm to companies specializing in services such as accounting. Several terms are used interchangeably to identify these employment arrangements, including nonstandard work or nonstan- dard employment, atypical employment, contingent work, alternative staffing strategies, flexible work arrangements, as well as the phantom workforce and the shadow workforce (Belous 1989; Carré et al. 2000; Delson 1995; Light 1999; Nollen and Exel 1996; Nye 1988; Polivka, Cohany, and Hipple 2000; Reilly 2001).2 Second, while nonstandard employment provides for many employ- ers a buffer for market changes, it often provides relatively unstable employment for workers due to their dependence on the varying needs of the employer. Also, wages can be lower, and many workers do not receive benefits such as health care and pensions. Consequently, the perceived movement away from the twentieth-century model of “good jobs,” defined as full-time employment with a continuous attachment to one employer, has raised questions about how “good jobs” will be defined in the future.3 Finally, it has become apparent as we have learned more about the nonstandard workforce that it is disproportionately staffed by women, younger workers, and minorities (see Fagan and O’Reilly [1998] and Zeytinoğlu and Muteshi [1999] for further discussion). Indeed, early research in the United States particularly stressed the negative impact on women.4 Furthermore, not all of these workers are voluntarily in contingent employment. Some would prefer full-time employment in a standard work arrangement. Our understanding of the growth of nonstandard employment and its impact on employers, employees, the labor force, and public policy has evolved over the past two decades. In the 1980s much attention was focused on the identification of the dimensions of the change and trying to explain why it was occurring. During the 1990s, more sophisticated explanatory models were developed and tested. These models explained the advantages and disadvantages of nonstandard work from the per- spectives of both the employer (the demand side of the labor market) and employee (the supply side of the labor market). This was a depar- ture from previous research, which tended to focus primarily on either the demand or the supply side of the market, and treated this workforce Gleason.indb 2 11/13/2006 9:06:40 AM Introduction 3 as a relatively homogeneous group without appropriate attention to the multiple forms of nonstandard employment arrangements. Not surpris- ingly, different authors with varying foci reached different conclusions about the positive, negative, or neutral impact of these arrangements. For example, those studying the implications for unions typically saw the impact on the labor force as highly negative, while those analyzing the benefits for employers generally concluded that there were many positive benefits.
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