Nice Work If You Can Get It

Is job insecurity the new norm? With fewer and fewer people working in steady, long-term positions for one employer, has the dream of a secure job with full benefits and a decent salary become just that -- a dream? In Nice Work If You Can Get It, Andrew Ross surveys the new topography of the global workplace and finds an emerging pattern of labour instability and uneven development on a massive scale. Combining detailed case studies with lucid analysis and graphic prose, he looks at what the new landscape of contingent employment means for workers across national, class, and racial lines -- from the emerging “creative class” of high-wage professionals to the multitudes of temporary, migrant, or low-wage workers. Developing the idea of “precarious livelihoods” to describe this new world of work and life, Ross explores what it means in developed nations -- comparing the creative industry policies of the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, as well as developing countries -- by examining the quick fire transformation of China’s labour market. He also responds to the challenge of sustainability, assessing the promise of “green jobs” through restorative alliances between labour advocates and environmentalists. Ross argues that regardless of one’s views on labour rights, globalization, and quality of life, this new precarious and “indefinite life,” and the pitfalls and opportunities that accompany it is likely here to stay and must be addressed in a systematic way. A more equitable kind of knowledge society emerges in these pages” less skewed toward flexploitation and the speculative beneficiaries of intellectual property, and more in tune with ideals and practices that are fair, just, and renewable.

"There are no easy answers in Ross’s often surprising case studies of work in the new millennium. His reach is global, from North America to Europe to Asia, as he teases out the contradictory character of contemporary employment.” Cary Nelson, University of Illinois "Ross takes us on a wide-ranging journey through the global economy to analyze the dynamics of precarious work in the twenty-first century. Along the way, he poses an urgent question: can creative-class professionals make common cause with low-wage laborers, based on their shared experience of economic insecurity?

" Ruth Milkman, University of California, Los Angeles "…illuminating...Who knows what will be on the table when the damage of the global crisis is told? At the very least, one may hope for a return to security, sensible financial regulation, and a renewed interest in economic equity. Other worlds are possible, and with luck thinkers like Ross can point the way to imagining them more fully.

" –Bookforum, April/May 2009 With admirable timing, this volume examines a global workplace infrastructure that’s as shaky as the economy would indicate. Taking a hard line against exploitation of workers in a variety of roles worldwide, Ross looks closely at workers on the verge, and those putting them there. In the chapter "China’s Next Cultural Revolution?”, he warns that

"Beijing's rulers have nothing to worry about” so long as "the creative sector behaves like other industries... They can be groomed and promoted... to absorb foreign investment and foreign ideas, to exploit low production costs....” He tackles the Western world with the same nonplussed tone, as when discussing corporate PR tactics to deny ties to labor abuses by promoting social good, naming names like Nike, Reebok and the Gap. He also hits higher education, where much of the workplace is shaped, noting that it's

"all too easy to conclude that the global university, as it takes shape, will emulate some of the conduct of multinational corporations.” Rejecting the widely influential, free marke teer notion of a worldwide "playing field,” Ross leaves no room for easy answers (or an

"alternative, and equally snappy, image” to answer Thomas Friedman's or Richard Florida's). Though far from uplifting, this is a bold, pointed look at reality as it is, a far more valuable commodity." Publisher's Weekly, May 2009

"According to Ross, job insecurity became commonplace long before the current financial debacle. As economies shifted from industry to information, the benefits and securities of the Keynesian era quietly gave way to a workforce of temps, freelancers, adjuncts, and migrants. Ross finds that city fathers are more interested in Olympic bids and stadium projects than in sustainable employment, while corporations spend more on "social responsibility” public-relations campaigns than on addressing worker complaints, and activists are too focussed on narrow concerns to find common cause with natural allies.” The New Yorker, 29th June 2009

"Economic liberalization, [Ross] demonstrates, has opened up a frenetic global traffic in jobs and migrants, uprooting people in a manner both useful and troubling to the managers of capital. In short, more people are available to exploit, but they are also harder to control. . . . A thorough and thoughtful study of global professional insecurity.” The Times Literary Supplement "With admirable timing, [Ross] examines a global workplace infrastructure that's as shaky as the economy would indicate. . . . Though far from uplifting, this is a bold, pointed look at reality as it is, a far more valuable commodity.” Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"According to Ross, job insecurity became commonplace long before the current financial debacle. As economies shifted from industry to information, the benefits and securities of the Keynesian era quietly gave way to a workforce of temps, freelancers, adjuncts, and migrants. Ross finds that city fathers are more interested in Olympic bids and stadium projects than in sustainable employment, while corporations spend more on ‘social responsibility’ public-relations campaigns than on addressing worker complaints, and activists are too focussed on narrow concerns to find common cause with natural allies.” The New Yorker "Illuminating. . . . Who knows what will be on the table when the damage of the global crisis is told? At the very least, one may hope for a return to security, sensible financial regulation, and a renewed interest in economic equity. Other worlds are possible, and with luck thinkers like Ross can point the way to imagining them more fully.” BookForum

Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Creative Workers and Rent-Seeking 1. The Mercurial Career of Creative Industries Policymaking in the UK, EU, and the US; 2. China’s Next Cultural Revolution?; 3. The Olympic Goose That Lays the Golden Egg Part II: Sustainability and the Ground Staff 4. Teamsters, Turtles and Tainted Toys; 5. Learning from San Ysidro Part III: Instruments of Knowledge Capitalism 6. The Copyfight Over Intellectual Property; 7. The Rise of the Global University Conclusion: Maps and Charters Notes; References; Index; About the Author