book review: fragmented futures: new challenges in working life

8/16/2019 Book Review: Fragmented futures: New challenges in working life

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Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

DOI: 10.1177/10384111060721942006; 44; 381Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

Ashly PinningtonBook Review: Fragmented futures: New challenges in working life

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Ian Watson, John Buchanan, Iain Campbell and Chris Briggs. 2003.

Fragmented futures: New challenges in working life.

ISBN 1 86287 471 9; A$49.50; Annandale, NSW: The Federation Press

DOI: 10.1177/1038411106072194

Fragmented futures is valuable reading for anyone interested in understandingrecent changes to working life in Australia. It provides a detailed analysis of contemporary developments in employment, workplace skills, rewards and thebalance between paid work and people’s lives. The book is clearly written andtechnical data are presented in a manner that is accessible to an interested generalaudience as well as to readers directly concerned with matters of employment,

training and education. If you live in Australia, you can be confident that in justover 200 pages of reading you will find out about how policy, political andeconomic developments have affected or sought to influence your own and other’swork.

Its thirteen chapters address changes in working life over the last twodecades, examining in depth how it has become more fragmented, unequal anddiverse. In exploring these issues the authors adopt Schmid’s life-cycle perspectiveon labour-market transitions. This attends to ways that policy manages the costsand benefits of paid work, in particular its links with education and training,unemployment, private households and retirement.

The introduction in chapter 1 contests the viability of ‘market regulation’noting that its recent increased implementation has deepened inequality in labour

markets and accorded greater power to employers often with negative conse-quences for their employees.

Chapter 2 commences with the historical context of the ‘Harvester man’ ideaof work which is deeply associated with a now outmoded institutionalisation of the single male breadwinner. The chapter concludes that there is no sense indemocratic society returning to this model of paid work. Harvester man fails tofacilitate gender equality and employee diversity even though in its time it wasmore progressive and supportive of universal labour-market policies than were anumber of the alternatives expressed by opponents. The authors suggest that amajor challenge therefore facing the twenty-first century is to create newstandards for flexibility, observing that nowadays there are many ways forwardwhich can more effectively accommodate people’s working preferences. Chapter3 examines what people want from work arguing that most want income, soci-ability and purpose, but these advantages have been denied to a large number of workers.

From chapter 4 to the penultimate chapter 12, the evidence for and againstthe fragmentation thesis is presented. The picture of fragmentation is developedwith pace and interest, sustaining a persuasive line of argument. In summary, itproposes Australia is undergoing a variety of changes which serve to increaseemployers’ prerogative and exploit different segments of the labour market. Theresult has been the creation of an elite group of winners bolstered by shiftinggroups of comparatively disadvantaged labour. The evidence marshalled in favour

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of this interpretation is substantial, although I would have liked slightly more

exposition on common alternative positions. These are mentioned quite frequentlythroughout but the assumption is that the reader is already familiar with them.Here, in these next three paragraphs – at the risk of oversimplification – is anoverview of some of the findings that are discussed in depth in fragmented futures.

Unemployment and underemployment mean that some people get system-atically more opportunity to work than others. However, the recent decline in full-time permanent waged jobs has been accompanied by growth in part-timeemployment and an overall increase in the skills of the labour force. Typically,during this same period those workers who are less skilled have faced deteriora-tion in the quality, earnings and skill content of their jobs. The increases in non-standard work arrangements (e.g. fixed-term, casual, dependent contractor,labour-hire) have benefited specific groups of workers such as the new appren-

tices engaged in group training schemes involving varied on-the-job placements.Notwithstanding such advantages, non-standard work has in the main tended tohold negative connotations of insecurity for the majority of employees.

In regard to the question whether people are now working harder and longerhours but for less rewards and opportunity, it is apparent that competition andexcess capacity in the private sector combined with cash constraints in the publicsector have each contributed to the intensification of work. Intensification hasindeed meant increased pressure, stress and excessive hours of work for manyworkers. Moreover, the authors say, the current system of working unfairlyrewards market power through excessively paying those occupying the top decileof median earnings while at the same time discriminating against low wageworkers who have a poorer quality of working life. Paid work, they suggest, has

become undermanaged to such an extent that the majority of people in Australiaare failing to balance paid work and other aspects of their lives. Part-time employ-ment has expanded rapidly from 10 per cent of the workforce in 1996 to 29 percent in 2002, which has contributed to significant improvements, for example, inthe gender division of labour. Unfortunately, working part-time has too often beenaccompanied by a number of negative attributes such as fewer hours of work thanwhat employees seek, an inappropriate degree of irregularity in work timeschedules, job insecurity and poor career prospects.

After two decades of increasing educational participation and trainingreforms, the evidence suggests Australia’s labour markets now contain largepockets of underutilised skills. The authors argue that this is partly explained byemployers’ pursuit of low skills related business strategies. In short, their interesthas been in concentrating on the full deployment of labour leading to a neglect of long-term skills development. Long-term provision for retirement incomes has bycontrast improved due to the superannuation guarantee contribution (SG) andpersonal superannuation contributions. By the year 2000, 95 per cent of theworkforce (8.5 million people) had some superannuation whereas in the mid-1980sless than 40 per cent had superannuation coverage. The age pension still remainsthe fundamental component of retirement income, with 68 per cent of people agedover 65 drawing their pension in 2002. Superannuation has extended wealth tolow income groups but not so far as to prevent life-time savings and housing frombecoming major problems. Here, the unemployed, underemployed, casual

382 Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 2006 44(3)





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workers and people with intermittent job histories (particularly women) are most

often the hardest hit.Chapter 12 considers some of the theoretical explanations for the fragmenta-tion and greater diversity in working life. Excess capacity and the ascendancy of finance are seen as central to the overall long downturn (1970 to the present day)in Australia and other countries such as the US, Japan and Germany. These devel-opments have been characterised by growing wage inequality and low wagesectors contributing to brief periods of unsustainable economic growth followed byrecession. The final chapter advances a reasoned plea for more pluralist andsearching debate on ways of intervening in the macro dimensions of economicsand working life. Overall, Fragmented futures provides a worthwhile collectionand insightful interpretation of recent empirical data on work in Australia andthus is an important contribution to our understanding of trends within the

OECD countries.

Ashly Pinnington, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland

Thomas A. Kochan. 2005.

Restoring the American dream: A working families’ agenda for America

ISBN 0 262 11292 2, 272 pages; US$27.95. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

DOI: 10.1177/1038411106072195

Professor Thomas Kochan is a renowned academic and researcher from MIT,holding directorships at the Institute of Work and Employment Research and theMIT Workplace Centre.

Kochan’s basic premise in the book is that in order to return to the dreamof ‘good jobs, fair pay and opportunities for all’ based on the foundation oftraditional American values of justice, fairness, family and work, the onus is onindividuals within the workplace to stand up and be counted.

He describes the multitude of factors impacting on workplaces – includingdemographic changes in workers and their families, the diminishing power of theunion movement, the impact of globalization and the trend to offshore/outsourcejobs, the business case for flexibility, the growing importance of the knowledgeeconomy, and the significance of education and life-long learning as a concept thathe argues must be embraced. Ultimately he claims all of these factors have lead tothe emergence of the ‘working poor’ who earn lower ‘real’ wages than they did20 years ago. He argues that the gap is widening between those who ‘have’ andthose who ‘have not’ to the point where he calls for individual workers and theirfamilies to take action.

He outlines the perspectives of various stakeholders – workers, their families,business, government, unions and academics. His writing style is easy to read andhe includes personal recollections and actual business cases to exemplify his message.

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book review: fragmented futures: new challenges in working life

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