Market, Class, and Employment - Hardcover

This book significantly advances knowledge and it will doubtless become required reading for anybody interested in debates over the changing nature of work and employment. (Colin C. Williams, American Journal of Sociology)

Market, Class and Employment is essential reading for those interested in how experiences of work changed in Britain in the 1990s and sits well alongside other large-scale surveys such as Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) series. (Industrial and Labor Relations Review)

Taken as a whole, McGovern and his colleagues have given us a clearly written, provocative analysis of recent changes in employment relations in Britain. As such, this book makes a useful and significant contribution to the debates on this important topic. (Arne L. Kalleberg, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Overall, we have here a treasure for anyone who likes to see general theses about trends in modern capitalism submitted to the verdict of high-quality representative survey data... We need more books like this if we are to understand what is happening in the modern history of the workplace. (The British Journal of Industrial Relations)

Much of the received wisdom about the world of work emphasizes the marketization of the employment relationship; the decline of class-based forms of inequality, and the individualization of employment relations. Non-standard forms of employment, the delayering of organizational hierarchies, and the use of individual performance-based payment systems are all held up as examples of a new neo-liberal order in which employers and employees no longer feel a sense of obligation to each other.

Drawing on a range of employee and employer surveys, including the authors own Working in Britain 2000 survey, this ambitious study presents a comprehensive examination of the conditions, attitudes, and experiences of British employees from the mid-1980s to the early years of this century. The authors' analyses provides a compelling critique of the received wisdom, while also providing an original, alternative account of recent developments in work and labour markets. Along the way, the book covers such topical issues as the changing nature of trade union membership, the consequences of Britain's 'long hours' culture', and the apparent inability of women to ask for pay rises. Significantly, the authors seek to reposition debates about the future of work by restoring the concepts of contracts and social class to the analysis of the employment relationship.

Based on the ESRC funded Future of Work research programme this book is destined to shape our understanding of employment in Britain for the foreseeable future.