Nice Work If You Can Get It

Life and Labor in Precarious Times

Andrew Ross

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780814776919
• eBook ISBN:
  9780814776353
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Labour Economics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

Index

Abu Dhabi, 200

academic professionals: contract-driven livelihoods, 205

deprofessionalization, 8, 172–173, 197

intellectual property (IP), 176

as “last good job in America,” 12

“adbusters,” 126

Adbusters (magazine), 128

Adidas, 120

Aeolian Music Company, 164–165

AFL, 51, 129

AFL-CIO, 111, 113, 118

Alfred the Great, 96

alienation, 5, 8, 127

Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, 177

“Alone Again (Naturally)” (O’Sullivan), 181

Alternative Law Forum Bangalore, 185

“alternative” sites/institutions, power to, 52

Althusser, Louis, 68, 71–72

amateurism, 21–22

American Apparel, 116–117

American Canvas (National Endowment for the Arts), 36

American cultural criticism, 65–66, 72–74

American Federation of Musicians (AFM), 163–164, 178

American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, 177

American Guild of Variety Artists, 177

American Institute for Free Labor Development, 118

American Maoists, 70

American University of Paris (AUP), 193, 195

Americans for the Arts, 39

Amsterdam, culture-driven revitalization, 32

anti-capitalism, 125–126

anti-consumerist movement, 126–129

“adbusters,” 126

alienation in the workplace, 127

anti-sweatshop movement, 108, 126–127, 128

Buy Nothing Day, 126

“culture jammers,” 126

ethical consumption, 108

fair trade, 115

freeganism, 114

global justice activism, 126

gospel of growth, 127

immorality of consumption, 128

individual acts of moral volunteerism, 129

internationally observed social marketing campaigns, 126

middle-class nutritional habits, 114

“pure church” advocates, 126

scavenging, 114

TV Turnoff Week, 126

workers’ livelihoods, 108, 128, 129

working less, appeal to, 113

anti-globalization movement, 108

anti-immigrant sentiments, 137, 146

anti-precarity movement, 34, 49

anti-sweatshop movement, 110–125

anti-consumerist movement, 108, 126–127, 128

anticapitalism, 125–126

boycotts of consumer products, 112, 122

brands targeted by, 116

co...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• I Creative Workers and Rent-Seeking
• II Sustainability and the Ground Staff
• III Instruments of Knowledge Capitalism
• Conclusion: Maps and Charters
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Author