The New Realities of Working-Class Jobs: Employer Practices, Worker Protections, and Employee Voice to Improve Job Quality

• Author: Laura Dresser,Susan J. Lambert,Julia R. Henly
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162211028130
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Date: 01 May 2021
• Subject Matter: Institutional Outcomes

208 ANNALS, AAPSS, 695, May 2021

DOI: 10.1177/00027162211028130

The New

Realities of

Working-Class

Jobs: Employer

Practices,

Worker

Protections, and

Employee Voice

to Improve Job

Quality

By

JULIA R. HENLY,

SUSAN J. LAMBERT,

and

LAURA DRESSER

1028130ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYTHE NEW REALITIES OF WORKING-CLASS JOBS

research-article2021

Over the last 40 years, changing employer practices

have introduced instability and insecurity into working-

class jobs, limiting the voice that employees have in

their own employment and deteriorating overall job

quality. In the decade after the Great Recession, slow

but sustained economic growth benefitted workers in

terms of generally higher employment and wages and

reductions in involuntary part-time work. But we show

that in that same period, other aspects of working-class

jobs changed in ways that were less advantageous to

workers. We examine recent, troubling trends in non-

standard employment, precarious scheduling practices,

and employer labor violations, arguing that without the

introduction of policies that rebalance terms of employ-

ment toward worker interests, an economic recovery

alone is unlikely to reverse the overall trend toward

reductions in job quality. We argue for federal-level

policies that expand public insurance programs, estab-

lish minimum standards of job quality, and include

avenues for collective employee voice in employment

and public policy debates. Such strategies have poten-

tial to improve job quality.

Keywords: working-class jobs; employer practices;

work schedules; labor flexibility practices;

employee voice

Prior to the arrival of the novel coronavirus in

the United States, researchers lamented that

the strong economy emerging out of the Great

Recession yielded fewer benefits for workers

than previous economic recoveries. Individuals

with limited education and skills only saw slight

wage increases, if at all, in the early recovery

period after the Great Recession even as gross

domestic product (GDP) continued to rise

(Freeman 2013; Howell and Kalleberg 2019).

Julia R. Henly is a professor at the University of

Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy,

and Practice. Her research examines the economic and

caregiving strategies of low-income families, precarious

employment, and child care and other work-family

policies.

Correspondence: jhenly@uchicago.edu

THE NEW REALITIES OF WORKING-CLASS JOBS 209

The long and slow recovery did eventually deliver wage gains to the most disadvan-

taged workers and the working class1 in the latter recovery years (Shambaugh and

Strain, this volume; Groshen and Holzer, this volume). These gains are attributed

to both low unemployment rates and expanded local and state minimum wage laws

(Shambaugh and Strain, this volume; Nunn and Shambaugh 2020). Now, the

COVID-19 pandemic has erased even modest postrecession economic gains.2

This article looks beyond postrecession wage gains to examine other condi-

tions of work that are important to assessing job quality in the decade after the

Great Recession. First, we examine whether changing employer practices

preceding the Great Recession that introduced instability and insecurity into

working-class jobs and limited employee voice in the employer-employee rela-

tionship continued throughout the long and slow post–Great Recession recovery.

Our contention is that the preponderance of bad jobs across periods of growth

and contraction are not only the result of macroeconomic conditions. They are

also due to policy and institutional factors that have increased the power of

employers in the U.S. labor market to contain labor costs by externalizing risk

onto workers through destabilizing employer practices. We demonstrate that

such employer practices have continued in the period after the Great Recession.

Second, we consider the role of government stimulus efforts in improving job

quality after the Great Recession and now. Relief measures during the Great

Recession proved to be critically important to reducing poverty and hardship, but

they were not primarily designed to improve job quality. We argue that new

stimulus funding in response to the COVID-19 pandemic could serve as a base

for the expansion of existing programs and the creation of new ones that operate

to both relieve hardship caused by unemployment and underemployment and

also improve the quality of working-class jobs.

Third, we discuss the potential of some recent policy innovations targeted at

altering employer practices to improve working-class jobs. Policies that address

employer hiring and scheduling practices and employee access to paid time off

are designed to protect workers through the establishment of minimum stand-

ards for basic employment conditions related to wages, hours, and benefits. We

argue that these policies—which were attracting great interest prior to the

COVID-19 pandemic—may represent a promising path toward improving the

quality of working-class jobs by guaranteeing a quality floor. Their efficacy is,

however, contingent on the success of complementary initiatives to rebalance

power toward workers. We close with a discussion of the roles that workers them-

selves play through unions and other organizing efforts in moving employer

practices and public policy toward improved job quality.

Susan J. Lambert is a professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social

Work, Policy, and Practice. Her research examines how employer practices shape job quality,

worker well-being, and inequality in society.

Laura Dresser is associate director of COWS and a clinical assistant professor in the

Rosenbaum School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research and

practice focus on low-wage work, workforce development systems, and ways to build stronger

labor market systems.