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Nice Work If You Can Get It
Andrew Ross
Life And Labor In Precarious Times
NYU Press
April 2009
On Sale: April 1, 2009
264 pages ISBN: 0814776299 EAN: 9780814776292 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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.
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