UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Edited by Tom Juravich

Multiple perspectives on the changing environment of work and workplaces in the Bay State

Across Massachusetts, workers in virtually all sectors of the economy are facing reorganization, new technology, and the intensification of expectations and demands. With globalization, smaller employers are increasingly becoming part of large multinational companies, and workers are now forced to compete on a world stage. The result is that long-term, stable jobs are disappearing as work has become more temporary, part-time, and contingent. This volume offers a collection of original essays that explore the changing nature of work in the Commonwealth and its impact on workers, their families, and their communities.

Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the contributors examine the impact of offshoring and outsourcing and the growth of low-wage employment in the service sector, while also looking at the software industry and the future of high-tech jobs. The volume includes an overview of the economics of work in Massachusetts, an analysis of the experience of women and minorities in the workforce, and a case study of the fiscal crisis in Springfield and its relationship to employment issues. Several chapters address the challenges and prospects in the health care industry. Finally, a number of authors examine the complex ways in which these adjustments in the nature of work play out in families across the state, and how policy changes could help workers and their families adjust to these new environments.

In addition to Tom Juravich, contributors include Randy Albelda, Mark Brenner, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Heather Bourne, Alan Clayton-Matthews, Dan Clawson, Xiaogang Deng, Robert Forrant, Naomi Gerstel, Dana Huyser, Marlene Kim, Sarah Kuhn, William Lazonick, Stephanie Luce, Karen Meteyer, Maureen Perry-Jenkins, Steven Quimby, Pauala Rayman, Randall P. Wilson, and Lening Zhang.

"I highly recommend this volume. . . . I would hope to see it adopted in a wide range of academic settings, including undergraduate and graduate programs in economics, labor studies, and regional planning. It will also be very useful to policymakers and public advocates at the state and local level."

Michael Ash, Economics and Public Policy,
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Tom Juravich is professor of labor studies and director of the Labor Relations Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His books include Chaos on the Shop Floor: A Worker's View of Quality, Productivity, and Management; with William Hartford and James Green, Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions; and with Kate Bronfenbrenner, Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor.

Labor History / Massachusetts History
252 pp., 23 illus., 40 tables
$24.95s paper, ISBN 978-1-55849-607-1
$80.00s library cloth edition, ISBN 978-1-55849-606-4
September 2007

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