Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times

by Andrew Ross

Overview

2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

A survey into an emerging pattern of labor instability and uneven global development

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 labor 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 quickfire transformation of China’s labor market. He also responds to the challenge of sustainability, assessing the promise of “green jobs” through restorative alliances between labor advocates and environmentalists.

Ross argues that regardless of one’s views on labor 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814776919
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	10/03/2010
Series:	NYU Series in Social and Cultural Analysis , #8
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Andrew Ross is Professor of American Studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including No-Collar, Fast Boat to China, No Respect, Strange Weather, and, from NYU Press, Anti-Americanism and Real Love.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction 1

I Creative Workers And Rent-Seeking

1 The Mercurial Career of Creative Industries Policymaking in the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States 15

2 China's Next Cultural Revolution? 53

3 The Olympic Goose That Lays the Golden Egg 77

II Sustainability and the Ground Staff

4 Teamsters, Turtles, and Tainted Toys 105

5 Learning from San Ysidro 131

III Instruments of Knowledge Capitalism

6 The Copyfight over Intellectual Property 161

7 The Rise of the Global University 189

Conclusion: Maps and Charters 207

Notes 215

References 219

Index 245

About the Author 264

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“[Ross'] discussion of many topics is clearly informed by his own history as an activist who played a role in supporting the unionization movement of grads and non-tenure-track faculty at New York University. His respect for those doing the work on the ground is most welcome.”
-Labor Studies Journal

,

“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

“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

“Are culture workers the labor aristocracy or new proles of contemporary capitalism? Andrew Ross tracks the growth of creative industries, from the West to China and beyond, and the deepening contradictions between place and creativity, skills and commerce, intellectual rights and the edu-factory. In this wide-ranging account, Ross persuasively argues that the livelihood of creative workers is more precarious than proletarian, shaped by a regime of work casualization and flexible self-management, of labor discipline and fugitive cunning. An exciting exposition that sustains the relevance of political economy in an age for outsourcing talent.”
-Aihwa Ong,author of Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty

“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

Editorial Reviews

"Nice Work If You Can Get It, is impressive for its extraordinary range and sweep, and for asking questions about the kinds of transnational and cross-class alliances that might be made, the kinds of solidarities that might be forged, between differently positioned members of the global & precariat: sweatshop labourers, janitors, academics, and creatives. In doing so it offers a passionate, humane critique of contemporary capitalism."

Times Higher Education Supplement

"Nice Work If You Can Get It, insists that the combination of transnational capitalism and globalization has eliminated stability and security from the lives of working people."

The New Leader

"Though Ross favors ironic twists on cliches like Nice Work If You Can Get It, he might also have titled the book Working Absurd. And though he would probably resist the high handed aspect of the public intellectual, he has fleshed out the precarious and inequitable terms of contemporary labor, meeting people where they are.""

The Chronicle Review

"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

"What is compelling about Rosss analysis of precarity is recognition that the & movement of these part-time workers is loaded with a host of internal contradictions. The concept of precarity has been deployed by academics and organized labor to describe the & condition of social and economic insecurity associated with post-Fordist employment and neoliberal governance (p. 34). [] As Ross asks: & Even if this concept is theoretically plausible, does it make sense to imagine cross-class coalitions of the precarious capable of developing a unity of consciousness and action on an international scale? (p. 6). Indeed, this remains a pertinent question considering the debates emerging as a result of the international Occupy phenomenon."

Critical Sociology

"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

" Nice Work provides insight into a sea change in labor markets and work lives that has occurred over the past forty years. It is an intelligent work that raises thought-provoking questions about contingent labor."-Steven T. Sheehan, Enterprise and Society

“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

“This excellent and, in places, brilliant book should be read by anyone interested in a timely and astute analysis of the malaise of life and work in neoliberal postmodern society. . . . Highly recommended.”
• Choice

“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

“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

“ Nice Work If You Can Get It , is impressive for its extraordinary range and sweep, and for asking questions about the kinds of transnational and cross-class alliances that might be made, the kinds of solidarities that might be forged, between differently positioned members of the global ‘precariat’: sweatshop labourers, janitors, academics, and creatives. In doing so it offers a passionate, humane critique of contemporary capitalism.”

- Times Higher Education 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

"Though Ross favors ironic twists on cliches like Nice Work If You Can Get It , he might also have titled the book Working Absurd. And though he would probably resist the high handed aspect of the public intellectual, he has fleshed out the precarious and inequitable terms of contemporary labor, meeting people where they are."

- The Chronicle Review

“ Nice Work If You Can Get It , insists that the combination of transnational capitalism and globalization has eliminated stability and security from the lives of working people.”- The New Leader

“What is compelling about Ross’s analysis of precarity is recognition that the ‘movement’ of these part-time workers is loaded with a host of internal contradictions. The concept of precarity has been deployed by academics and organized labor to describe the ‘condition of social and economic insecurity associated with post-Fordist employment and neoliberal governance (p. 34). […] As Ross asks: ‘Even if this concept is theoretically plausible, does it make sense to imagine cross-class coalitions of the precarious capable of developing a unity of consciousness and action on an international scale?’ (p. 6). Indeed, this remains a pertinent question considering the debates emerging as a result of the international Occupy phenomenon.”- Critical Sociology

From the Publisher

Starred Review.

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 marketeer 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

"This excellent and, in places, brilliant book should be read by anyone interested in a timely and astute analysis of the malaise of life and work in neoliberal postmodern society. . . . Highly recommended."

Choice

"Nice Work provides insight into a sea change in labor markets and work lives that has occurred over the past forty years. It is an intelligent work that raises thought-provoking questions about contingent labor."

Enterprise and Society - Steven T. Sheehan

"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

"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