Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 2004 16

BOOK REVIEWS

FRAGMENTED FUTURES: NEW CHALLENGES

IN

WORKING LIFE

By Ian Watson, John Buchanan, Iain Campbell and Chris Briggs. Federation Press,
Sydney, 2003, xix + 236 pp., $49.50 (paperback)

ragmented Futures forms the seventh book in the ACIRRT series examining
the contemporary world of work. In line with the aims of the series, this
book presents the results of contract and policy research to a wide audience,
seeking to stimulate policy debates in industrial relations. Fragmented Futures
examines changes in working life, including the diminishing influence of the
‘Harvester man’ model, and rising earnings inequality, and analyses the associated
consequences for employees, firms, and society. In this respect, the book highlights the emerging social costs, which are often neglected or underestimated in
other works. In recognising and seriously examining these social implications, it
contributes valuable Australian evidence to international debates focusing on
policy formation, equity and social welfare.

The book draws upon the concept of the life-cycle and employees’ subsequent
labour market transitions. Its structure consists of various themes including working life and the changing nature of work, work–life balance, education and training, unemployment and under-employment, and retirement. Within each of these
themes, the authors combine statistical information, focus group interviews, and
workplace and industry case studies in order to illustrate contemporary developments in the world of work. The findings suggest that the demise of the
‘Harvester man’ has coincided with an increasing degree of differentiation (or
fragmentation) in employment opportunities, salary levels, skills, training and education, and superannuation and retirement benefits. In addition, the authors highlight that many employees are finding it increasingly difficult to balance their
work and non-work responsibilities.
From this perspective then, Fragmented Futures would make a very useful
text book for students, and provide a revealing insight into the implications
of policy reform for a wider audience. It presents a fascinating yet highly
concerning depiction of the present state of the Australian world of work.
Moreover, it is a very accessible book as the chapters are easily digested, in
well-sized chunks.
Aside from the first two chapters, the book contains little theoretical or
comparative analysis as it is designed to encapsulate the emerging issues in
Australian working life. This approach works extremely effectively. However,
within chapter 2 a more detailed examination of the ‘Harvester man’ model may
have been useful for readers who lack a thorough knowledge of this notion (such
as students). Although the book seeks to analyse the changes in employment that
have occurred since the demise of this model, the underlying principles of the

F

THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, VOL. 46, NO. 2, JUNE 2004, 242–257

243

BOOK REVIEWS

1907 Harvester decision would seem to be critical to understanding the events
that have followed.
The remaining chapters are almost purely composed of statistical information,
personal ‘stories’, and case studies. With respect to the use of ‘stories’ and case
studies, Fragmented Futures is not unlike the descriptive and personal works by
Ehrenreich (Nickle and Dimed. Granta, 1998) and Toynbee (Hard Work.
Bloomsbury, 2003), which examine policy reform, structural change and low-paid
jobs in US and UK contexts, respectively. In comparison, these characterisations
of contemporary work in Australia, the US and the UK are relatively (and
worryingly) consistent. Within each of these countries, policy reform and
individuals’ fragmented work experiences have subsequently produced a range

of economic and social problems across the respective communities.
This book is more valuable than the personal experiences described by
Ehrenreich and Toynbee however, because it utilises large-scale quantitative data
and then contextualises the findings by considering Australian workers ‘stories’.
In doing so, the authors reveal the social consequences and broader implications
of policy changes for both employees and the community. The ‘stories’ add a
nuanced depth and complexity to the raw statistics. Most importantly though,
the statistical data in Fragmented Futures enhance the representativeness of the
findings for Australia; Ehrenreich and Toynbee’s books lack this strength.
Given its aims, it is difficult to be critical of this book. A couple of minor and
somewhat trivial criticisms relate to the large number of typographical errors
scattered through the text, and the rather repetitive nature of chapter 9.
Additionally, it would be useful if the authors could provide some evidence to
justify their claims regarding the economic and social value of the ‘mixed
economy’, discussed in chapter 3. Finally, the conclusion could possibly contain
a fuller and more detailed summary of the book’s findings. In contrast, chapter
11, which focuses on superannuation, housing and household debt, is a
particularly welcome and interesting contribution as little similar information
is available in this context.
Overall, the authors deftly identify a range of very important and troubling

issues emerging in Australian working life and then go some way towards
developing potential responses for overcoming these contemporary problems.
As stated in the foreward to the book: ‘If the book informs, excites, or perhaps
even angers you, then it has made a valuable contribution’ (page v). Indeed,
Fragmented Futures makes a significant and necessary contribution.
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

THE WORK/LIFE COLLISION: WHAT WORK
AUSTRALIANS AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

ANGELA KNOX

IS

DOING

TO

By Barbara Pocock. Federation Press, Sydney, 2003, xi + 288 pp., $39.95 (paperback)

The image of the spheres of work and life colliding is a powerful metaphor that
Barbara Pocock evokes in her new book. The collision metaphor reinforces the

244

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

June 2004

central message that the significant changes in work patterns and in family
structures that have occurred in Australia over the last 30 years have not been
matched by changes in labour market institutions, culture and practice. Further
extending the metaphor, Pocock concludes that the major fallout of this collision
is that the quality of life for women, men, households, children and communities
is being diminished.
It is the extensive and impartial research that this book is based on that makes

it stand out as a significant contribution to informed debate of work/life issues
in Australia. It is an important piece of social science research that alternates
between quantitative and qualitative research, to explore how work, gender
relations, community and family interact. The quantitative evidence draws on
the seminal Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS), the
Household, Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) survey, and a range
of Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys about work and households. The
qualitative evidence includes a series of focus groups and interviews among
163 (mainly) women in South Australia and also an extensive set of interviews of
workers in 12 industries or occupations across Australia. It is the effective
combination of both qualitative and quantitative data of demographic and social
trends that provides us with a new way of understanding the dynamic interplay
of work and family in Australian society.
The book is logically structured and takes the reader first through a discussion
of the broad context of work/life issues in Australia, then examines specific issues
where work and care collide, and is followed finally by an outline for the
way forward to resolving the dilemmas of the work/life collision. Chapter 2
provides a conceptual model of total labour and of work/care regimes that sets
a foundation for understanding how the relationship between market, work and
care intersect. Chapter 3 is an extremely important addition to the debate of

work/life issues because it analyses the implications for communities (often
negative) that the changes in social trends and workplace demography have made.
Under the title of the ‘Mother Wars’, chapter 4 examines the characteristics that
Australian society associates with motherhood and fatherhood and how many of
our cultural constructions of these roles have not changed in line with the changed
roles in paid work. Chapter 5 explores an issue that is often taboo: how work
affects intimate relationships. In chapters 6 and 7, two aspects of how the workplace and labour market institutions interface with work/life issues are discussed,
including an analysis of the impact of the increasing trend of longer work hours
and also part-time work on work/life issues. Chapter 8 examines how society
provides care for dependants and imparts a useful segue into the next chapter
that considers the role of leave from work for men, women and carers. The final
chapter argues the case for how to counter the work/life collision by arguing
the case for a new work/care regime based on a better alignment between
our institutions, preferences, and the patterns of work Australian households,
families and communities experience.
The stand-out chapter in the book is chapter 3, which considers the impact
of the ‘collisions and changes upon our community fabric’. The Australian
community has historically been home-centred and neighbourhood-based, and

BOOK REVIEWS

245

has placed importance on the extended family. However, as Pocock identifies,
the increasing trend for many paid workers to spend time away from home has
led to this form of community being replaced at the workplace. The cost of this
reconfiguration of community ‘from street to workplace’ has had a number of
effects, including the decline in street-based networks and those who spend time
at home have less opportunity for social connection. One feature of the book is
the inclusion of quotes from the interview data. These provide particularly vivid
images of the human side to these changes.
The qualitative data that informs much of the discussion adds an important
contribution to our understanding of work and family issues because it confirms
our intuitions about the pressures many individuals, families and communities
face. The qualitative information that has been derived from interviews and case
studies plays a distinctive role by giving the reader a feel for the human impact
of the dramatic social and demographic changes that relying solely on statistics
would not have provided. For example, it brings alive a topic rarely discussed in
academic writing of the impact of the work/life collision on our intimate relationships and the hidden costs of work on love and intimacy. As one women revealed,
‘a lack of intimacy is the result of being both a worker and a mother, there is just

no personal space’. It also provides significant insights into the twin issues of
overwork and underwork. In the case of the costs of long hours and overwork
another participant stated, ‘You get absolutely exhausted…You get to the point
where you are struggling to get out of bed in the morning to get there on time’.
Or as an example of underwork: ‘Part-time work makes you not very important.
You are viewed as not serious’.
However, Pocock’s analysis of quantitative data should not be underestimated
in providing a total picture of the issues surrounding work and personal lives.
The book is filled with a marvellous array of statistics to support why institutions
and public policy are lagging behind the reality for many Australians. In particular, her proposition that total labour is best understood in terms of a series of
labour/care transitions rather than static personal types such as those proposed
by the British researcher Catherine Hakim. Pocock argues that typing people
(for example, as career or home oriented) does not take into account the true
dynamic nature of most lives now as people move through a variety of life stages
and not always in a linear trajectory. The type and nature of these transitions
varies, and women and casualised part-timers are often likely to face exclusionary
transitions, which circulate them into peripheral employment or unemployment.
The concluding chapter is simply magnificent. It cuts to the heart of the issue
of resolving work/family conflicts, and draws upon the thorough qualitative and
quantitative analysis to conclude what we need to do in Australia to drive positive change to ‘counter the collision’. There are four cornerstones for Pocock’s

vision of a new work/care regime for the future. The first involves redistributing
working hours, which includes specific recommendations, such as reducing
ordinary hours in the full-time working week, giving greater rights to avoid
carer-unfriendly working hours, and increasing compliance mechanisms to ensure
regulations are implemented. The second cornerstone involves increasing the
status, security and conditions of part-time work by implementing national and

246

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

June 2004

state legislative change, amendments to awards and enterprise initiatives. This
is extremely relevant in an Australian context because Australia has the second
highest level of participation in the part-time labour market in the Organisation

of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Third, Pocock argues that
we also need to reform our system of leave from paid work. She provides fuel to
reignite the debate about the importance of providing a national paid maternity
leave scheme in Australia, but also identifies other areas of need, such as
reinstating access to holiday and sick leave for all employees who are not casual.
The final part of the cornerstone is to build a comprehensive system of support
for families.
Pocock’s proposals for a new work/life regime are particularly important in
order to bring back some balance in our lives and halt the work/life collision. At
the risk of some oversimplification here, the book finds a role for strong public
policy in pushing our public institutions, laws, and social conventions to create
workplaces that are responsive to the needs of contemporary society. The book
builds a strong case for the vital role government has in developing social and
community structures, and workplace practices and attitudes that are conducive
to employees balancing their work and family lives. The model outlined by Pocock
is not a French, Scandinavian, British or North American model, but an Australian
model which augments its place as a significant contribution to understanding
the complex area of how profound social changes influence the way Australians
work and care for their families.
The book is relevant to a wide audience including human resource managers,
policy makers, social researchers and students. The Work/Life Collision would be
an essential starting point for anyone researching the spheres of work, family and
gender in Australia and would make a valuable addition to the reading list of both
general and specialist human resource management courses. This is a landmark
book because it transcends the ‘old’ debates about work and family issues often
trotted out in the popular press.
MONASH UNIVERSITY

CULTURE

AND THE

ANNE BARDOEL

LABOUR MARKET

By Siobhan Austen. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 2003, xii + 152 pp., £45
(hardback)

In Culture and the Labour Market, Siobhan Austen provides a highly interesting
and innovative attempt to both discuss the meaning of culture (non-market
influences such as customs, conventions, social norms, conformism, language,
morals, envy and beliefs), and to address its possible consequences for economic
processes and outcomes. The book provides a specific focus on labour market
issues, mainly regarding wage differentials, income inequality, labour productivity
and occupational choice. The empirical aspects of the study are of particular
interest.

BOOK REVIEWS

247

Austen is critical of mainstream, neoclassical (and new institutionalist)
approaches to economics in which human action is typically defined by
objectives that are independent of cultural factors. As such, the emphasis in the
book is in the tradition of ‘old-institutionalists’ who interpret observed patterns
of economic behaviour as arising out of particular cultural environments that
evolve over time. Alternatively, much of what is being emphasised in the book
is also heavily integrated into the rapidly developing areas of behavioural
economics, experimental economics and cognitive science. Indeed, experimental
research has uncovered many factors that affect behaviour in social situations,
including concerns for equity and so-called ‘framing effects’—when the
behaviour of agents depends systematically on what appear to be nonessential
aspects of their situation.
The author argues coherently and with some vigour that it is important to
consider social factors that are normally lacking in economic models and that
this is of particular importance in the labour market. Of course we should not
forget that much of what is often seen as novel in such approaches to analysing
culture and social dynamics has been at the heart of sociology for a long time.
Sociologists prefer to categorise various phenomena, providing straightforward
yet informative taxonomies. On the other hand, it is the desire of economists,
particularly neoclassical economists (including new Keynesians), to model
highly complex economic and social systems in as simple and mathematically
sophisticated ways as possible. As such, consideration of many of the issues raised
under the banner of culture are often seen by mainstream economists as
including too much complexity; a lot of which is perceived to be of second-order
importance, or as being incorporated in an inherently ad hoc manner into both
theoretical and empirical research by those who attempt to do so.
Much of the early part of the book is devoted to defining culture and to
categorising its economic effects. The ideas that culture both constitutes
economic agents, by providing them with a framework by which to attach value
and significance to economic processes and outcomes, and regulates economic
agents in their pursuit of their culturally defined self-interest, are clearly
developed. Particular emphasis is placed on the existence and role of social
norms. The possible origins of social norms and conventions are discussed as
well as the different modelling approaches used to capture the effects of social
norms. However, little discussion is provided on the welfare implications of social
norms. Social norms may regulate individual behaviour, but non-conformity can
also have significant negative externalities on others in society. How we measure
or value these effects is clearly a challenge for behavioural economists wishing
to do welfare analysis. Also, what are the optimal policy responses to such
non-conformity?
Chapter 4 of the book develops a modified efficiency wage model in which
social norms imply workers base their evaluation of the fairness of their wage on
existing wage relativities and the profit incentives faced by employers. The model
helps to explain why earnings differentials are so persistent both over time and
across countries, despite changes in economic conditions that would merit
convergence.

248

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

June 2004

The empirical part of the book (chapters 5–8) concentrates mainly on wages,
both in terms of community attitudes towards income inequality and wage equity
and the impact they have on the wage structure within and across countries, and
also in terms of community attitudes towards minimum wage controls in Australia.
The empirical work is novel and uses interesting survey-based data sets. The
analyses largely support the theoretical postulates of the early part of the book,
in particular that the prevalent wage structure acts to inform community
perceptions about what is fair in terms of inequality. The author also finds that
greater inequality was tolerated, at least in part, in the six countries surveyed
over the period 1987–1992. The empirical research in chapter 8 finds strong
normative support for minimum wage controls in Australia, both among likely
beneficiaries of such controls and those who might lose out from their imposition
(i.e. business), suggesting that a significant lowering of the minimum wage is
unlikely in the foreseeable future.
The almost exclusive emphasis on wage structures is somewhat narrow in focus
for a book with this title. A chapter broadly outlining other areas of (labour)
economics where this approach might be relevant would have been useful. Perhaps
a discussion of attitudes towards and measurement of poverty (absolute versus
relative deprivation) over time would have been a useful supplement to the
discussion of both inequality and norms of need relating to minimum
wages. Differences in, or changes over time in cultural attitudes towards
unemployment, female participation in the labour force, the importance of
education, discrimination, family structure and so on are all potentially fruitful
areas in labour economics alone for further application of the approaches used
in this book.
Overall, the book is well written and clearly motivated. I would definitely
recommend the book as an excellent introduction to the economic analysis of
culture, particularly to labour economists and other economists with research
interests in behavioural and social economics. Incidentally, readers interested in
further material on formal economic modelling in this area should definitely look
at Steven Durlauf and H. Peyton Young’s edited book, Social Dynamics, The
Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2001.
UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

RETHINKING

THE

LABOUR MOVEMENT

PHILIP BODMAN

IN THE

‘NEW SOUTH AFRICA’

Edited by Tom Bramble and Franco Barchiesi. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2003, xii + 258 pp.,
£52.50 (hardback)

This edited collection brings together accounts by activists and scholars, and
focuses on the politics of unionism in post-liberation South Africa, as well as
organisational challenges. A brief introduction by the editors, locating the
volume within the existing literature, is followed by an opening chapter by
Lesley Catchpowle and Carole Cooper. The latter authors argue that South Africa
is characterised by what they refer to as ‘neo-liberal corporatism’, with the

BOOK REVIEWS

249

Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) being accorded a voice in
political structures in return for acquiescing to ‘marketisation’. This, Catchpowle
and Cooper suggest, is likely to result in a situation where the COSATU leadership are increasingly forced to defend neo-liberal policies, and, in doing so,
become isolated from their grassroots; thus weakened, the labour movement is
opening itself to renewed attacks by capital. However, it could be argued that
COSATU has made real gains through engagement—both in terms of the
provision of basic social services and in developing an essentially progressive
body of labour legislation. While not without contradictions, this has yielded
richer dividends than isolationism.
The following chapter, by Oupa Lehulere, argues that COSATU has
gradually drifted to the right since liberation. Periodic bouts of ‘rhetorical
radicalism’ represent little more than attempts by the COSATU leadership to
defend their place in the ruling power bloc; rank and file members remain
weakened both by ideological contestations and the aftermath of repression
during the apartheid era. This profoundly pessimistic chapter does downplay
the persistence of internal democracy within the Congress, and the richness of
internal debates. In chapter 4, Dale McKinley argues for COSATU to exit the
Tripartite Alliance with the African National Congress (ANC) and the South
African Communist Party. This is a potentially interesting chapter but one that
ignores key debates in the area, most notably those contained in the University
of Natal journal, Transformation.
In chapter 5, Georgina Murray provides a critical overview of the limits of
black economic empowerment initiatives. While there have been some significant
developments in this area, most notably the transfer of the Johnnic conglomerate
to a black empowerment consortium, gains have been modest with, in many cases,
white interests retaining a significant say. Indeed, the principle benefactor of
black empowerment, Murray, argues, has been Afrikaner capital, a grouping
that emerged through the patronage and largesse of the apartheid regime. This
segment of capital has now taken advantage of the empowerment process to access
new black markets, gain political rehabilitation, and capitalise on the reduced stake
of Anglophone capital on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
In chapter 6, Andrew Nash provides an interesting overview of the impact of
competing strands of Marxism in South Africa. Unfortunately, this is a greatly
abridged version of a very much longer paper, making for a fragmented central
line of argument. Again, it is somewhat dated, in that it does not cover the
crucial debates within the South African left in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Influenced by the theoretical writings of Hardt and Negri, in chapter 7 Franco
Barchiesi looks at the consequences of the increasing instability of wage labour.
He argues that this has weakened the labour movement, but also limits the extent
to which the state can politically incorporate the masses. In the following
chapter, Liesl Orr provides a valuable overview of the problems of persistent
sexism in the labour movement, and possible ways for making the representation
of women more effective.
In chapter 9, Gilton Klerck and Lali Naidoo look at the problems of organising
farmworkers, which, inter alia, include a lack of union resources, spatial dispersal,

250

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

June 2004

and the ability of farmers to persistently defy labour law. While Klerck and Naidoo
highlight a number of possible ways in which day-to-day organisation may be
improved, the plight of farmworkers is only likely to be resolved if taken up by
the labour movement as a whole. In the following chapter, Bridget Kenny explores
consequences of the casualisation of employment in the retail sector.
In the penultimate chapter, Tom Bramble assesses COSATU’s social movement
role since the fall of apartheid. He suggests that the unions face contradictory
pressures, towards incorporation from above, and towards a more critical stance
driven by the persistence of poverty and inequality. The final chapter consists of
interviews of two union activists.
There are two major schools of thought in contemporary South African labour
studies. While both are firmly committed to the cause of working class organisation in South Africa, the first, the ‘critical institutionalist’ school, has advocated
strategic engagement with business and the post-apartheid state, and effective
collective bargaining from firm to corporatist levels. The second, the ‘ultra-left’
or ‘rejectionist’ camp, has held that worker interests are best advanced through
non-collaboration, participation in grassroots campaigns, and the development
of an alternative mass movement committed to an explicitly socialist future. The
editors of (and most of the contributors to) this volume firmly belong in the
latter camp. However, while the limitations of the COSATU-ANC-South African
Communist Party Alliance have become increasingly evident, and there have been
encouraging signs of the emergence of a new critical community activism, the
ultra-left remain politically marginalised. Radical breakaway unions that have
promoted the ultra-left line have generally failed to make headway. Again, the
new community organisations that have emerged since the ending of apartheid
remain fragmented and, in many cases, have yet to move beyond a kind of ‘antipolitics’ following an agenda driven purely by reaction to specific government
policies. Moreover, the ultra-left intellectual tradition in South Africa is one sadly
marred by debilitating infighting and factionalism. Nonetheless, the ultra-left have
undoubtedly been correct in pointing to the need to organise marginal categories
of labour, and in highlighting some of the limitations of the Alliance, issues
supporters of the critical institutionalist school have increasingly acknowledged.
There is little doubt that there is increasing room for a rapprochement between
these traditions; however, the viability of a meaningful left alternative to the
Alliance remains contingent on prevailing realities both on the shopfloor and in
the broader polity.
MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
UNCERTAINTIES

GEOFFREY WOOD

IN JAPAN:

CHANGES

AND

By Philippe Debroux. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2003, 253 pp., £50 (hardback)

This publication fills an important gap in the literature, but will not satisfy
those who are seeking simplistic answers to the question of how the Japanese

BOOK REVIEWS

251

corporate world is reacting to ongoing global and domestic pressures to revamp
its management, and in particular, its human resource management (HRM)
systems. There are no simple answers to this question, but Debroux has done a
creditable job in bringing us up-to-date on a process of change.
In summary, the international management literature of the 1970s and 1980s
laid out in detail the reasons why the collectivist Japanese management and HRM
systems were successful in their own environmental context, and why Western
systems would not be successful in that context. The overall economic success
of Japan during this era gave strong credibility to this logic. The general gist of
this writing and research was that management and HRM systems were
essentially culture-specific, and that convergence theories were not appropriate
in the Japanese context. Some of this literature even extended to asserting that
Japanese corporatist welfare approaches were inherently superior to the Western
market-oriented individualism as a basis for business management; in some cases
inferring that certain aspects of Japanese culture were preferable to Western
culture, although, understandably, robust debate ensued around these points,
especially in the 1980s.
Following the bursting of the Japanese bubble economy in the late 1980s,
and the subsequent relative economic stagnation since that time, the prevailing
mood of the literature changed, and previously lauded aspects of the Japanese
management system, for example Japanese managerial leadership, auditing and
control systems, and approaches to innovation, fell into disfavour. Key aspects
of the previously widely respected HRM system (for instance, long-term employment guarantee, seniority based remuneration and promotion, and company
unionism) were also now routinely described as anachronistic and inefficient.
Thankfully, Debroux rises well above this polemic and provides a well researched
and highly detailed account of how the Japanese HRM system is dealing with
the pressures for change. This process is a work in progress, and there are few
definitive outcomes at this point. It is here that those seeking a neat reversal of
Japanese management and HRM systems towards a Western model will feel a
measure of frustration. There is no neatness about the current situation, but a
good deal of detail to absorb and understand.
It is in the area of providing this detail that Debroux has excelled, and his book
provides a strong background to the development of the post-war Japanese HRM
system, an excellent summary of emerging trends and issues, and discusses some
possible future scenarios. The introductory section summarises the trends in the
literature when Japanese economic success of the 1970s and 1980s was fuelling
speculation about the inherent superiority of Japanese management systems, as
well as the period following the stagnation of the Japanese economy from the
1990s onwards in which the same management systems received considerable
negative comment.
Chapter 1 provides an explanation of how the concept of organisations as
‘communities of fate’ emerged from the ashes of the Second World War, in
which management and trade unions accepted an ideology centred around
stability and cooperation; an arrangement in which the interests of parties
external to the corporation (for example, shareholders) received less attention

252

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

June 2004

than would normally be the case in the West. Chapter 2 describes the emergence
of the post-war Japanese HRM system based upon staff rotation and so-called
‘late selection’, internal competition for promotion, lifetime employment, longterm ‘in-house’ training and development, and status (skill and ability) based
remuneration. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the changing landscape for HRM in
Japan, first describing the antecedents for change, including the rapidly ageing
workforce and necessity for increased labour productivity, and the inherent
challenges to the established Japanese business model.
The next four chapters really represent the core of the book, providing much
of the detail about how the Japanese HRM system is slowly but inexorably
moving towards change. Chapter 5 focuses on industry based proposals to develop
new corporate HRM systems centred on the contemporary need to provide
incentives, control costs, and acknowledge individual differences in aspirations
and abilities. Chapters 6 to 8 record general organisational responses to the
current business and social environment, related shifts in public policy, and the
emerging role and status of small company employees and ‘non-regular’ workers.
The final chapter of the book canvasses a possible new labour management
compromise. The conclusion introduces a note of caution about prediction in
this context, since the dismantling of a very well established system based on
paternalism, long term approaches and trust between labour and management,
towards one focused on economic efficiency, rationalism and market mechanisms,
could never be entirely smooth. Therefore, Debroux suggests that the outcome
is, to a considerable extent, unpredictable.
The book makes a considerable contribution to the literature on Japanese
management and HRM, not least because the author assiduously avoids the
polemics which have often characterised the comparison and contrast of
Japanese and Western management and HRM systems. Instead, Debroux has
provided a highly detailed and objective account of the development, current
challenges and prospects for an HRM system at the heart of an economy and
society currently facing considerable international and domestic pressures. Of
course, no one can reliably predict the future, and Debroux, perhaps reflecting
the inherent conservatism of Japanese management thinking, makes no such
attempt, instead canvassing the possibility of a new accord between labour and
management to accommodate the current environmental conditions.
CURTIN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

HOW THE OTHER HALF WORKS: IMMIGRATION
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF LABOR

RICHARD GRAINGER

AND THE

By Roger Waldinger and Michael Lichter. University of California Press, Berkeley,
2003, xiv + 285 pp., US$19.95 (paperback)

‘We need to have an immigration policy that helps match any willing employer
with any willing employee’ President George W. Bush said recently, discussing
an amnesty for some of the US’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants

BOOK REVIEWS

253

(The Washington Times, 16 December 2003). How the Other Half Works presents
the findings of survey research among 230 Los Angeles ‘willing employers’ of
legal and illegal immigrants in six low-wage industries: furniture manufacturing;
hotels; retail outlets; restaurants; hospitals; and printing shops. These are
industries traditionally thought of as comprising mainly ‘unskilled’ jobs. The
researchers examined the way employers incorporated immigrant labour, by
looking both at what employers said (about the different groups in their
workforce) and what they did, when seeking out, selecting and managing
their workers.
Their initial problematic was the apparent US paradox of growing Hispanic
or immigration and workforce penetration in the face of declining native and
Afro-American employment in low-wage labour markets. As Waldinger and
Lichter put it: ‘In an era in which the marketability of America’s less educated
urbanites has plummeted how can immigrants find even minimal success?’ (page
6). Yet—‘poorly schooled, unfamiliar with American ways, and lacking in English
fluency, [immigrants] are nonetheless finding work and maintaining remarkably
high employment rates’ (page 32). This problematic (which standard human
capital approaches are unable to explain) guided Waldinger and Lichter’s choice
of industries, which offer instructive contrasts in terms of the degree of both
immigrant and Afro-American density.
However, although the Hispanic versus Afro-American theme receives
attention in the book, the authors admit to having been swept up more than
they had imagined in other debates—those about the very nature of ‘skill’, labour
process requirements, and also migrant studies debates about language use and
the operation of social networks in employment. It is the first set of issues in
particular that transform the book from a story about immigrant workers into a
fascinating contribution to industrial relations, including to contemporary labour
market theory.
Perhaps the freshest perspective the authors offer is that employers favour
immigrant workers over others because of the qualities they possess—a concept
the authors claim is more useful than the more task-specific concept of skill.
Qualities, in the book, are defined as
any skill, experience or attribute deemed relevant by employers, whether having to do with
specific proficiencies required by the job, or communicative skills, experience, education, and
the somewhat more personal attributes of appearance or attitude (page 45).

For while Waldinger and Lichter found some employers who were looking
for job-specific skills, and some who emphasised cognitive skills such as text and
computer literacy, they found many more who stressed ‘a good work ethic’,
‘friendliness’, ‘the right attitude’ and ‘pleasantness’. Are these simply allusions
to what the human resource management literature calls ‘soft skills’, or to the
‘emotional labour’ Arlie Hochschild found to be at the core of interactive
service work? Waldinger and Lichter say no, and in distinguishing their
account from the other service skills literature, return to some of the basic
tenets of labour market segmentation theory.

254

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

June 2004

For they find that underlying all the employer talk of attitude, the ability to
get along with people and so on, was something else—a trait sought precisely
and only because of the politics of the employer–worker relationship; that is, the
authority relations of the low wage workplace. This is a worker’s suitability for
subordination—the likelihood that they will uncomplainingly cooperate—and
therefore, the ease with which they can be managed in low pay jobs characterised
by poor working conditions and unsocial hours. In the authors’ words
employers discriminate in favour of those workers seen as most likely to get the job done
on the employers’ terms. High among the employers’ preferences and hence, among their
criteria for selection, rank workers who are accepting of their situation (page 143).

Both the stereotypes and the realities of the Hispanic migrant experience,
Waldinger and Lichter lucidly document, makes them more likely than AfricanAmericans to satisfy this particular employer requirement. In the words of
one employer ‘The attitudes of immigrants and blacks are different. One’s
appreciative and one is ‘you owe me’’ (page 175). Another observed ‘Immigrant
men are going to work much harder and take more crap than any black man . . . will
take’ (page 76). No prizes for guessing which group is more popular.
In the rest of the book, the authors return to themes more conventionally
treated in the sociology of migration literature. A key focus is social-network
theory: the body of work by Douglas Massey, Alejandro Portes and others who
emphasise the strength of migrant ties in providing conduits for newcomers into
the host society and the workforce. Waldinger and Lichter certainly find
evidence of the strength of migrant networks, and argue that they not only
help many get in, but are also effective in keeping other groups out.
They also develop a critique of the theory that picks up some key management literature concerns. In brief, their argument is that too little attention has
been paid to the downsides of social network recruitment from the employers’
point of view. Although employers in ‘high-churn’ areas of the workforce clearly
benefit from cheap, efficient ways of recruiting workers whose behaviour can
hopefully be controlled by their sponsors, Waldinger and Lichter found that
employers had other interests to balance. To different degrees, they need to
maintain legitimacy amongst their clients and workers—most starkly when
government contracts requiring affirmative action measures were involved, but
also in other cases where the customer base is diverse, or where there are competing demands from existing workers to hire their family and friends. Employers
also found that tight networks among their workforce could create solidaristic
relations that strengthened shopfloor resistance, or alternatively led to
divided camps that in turn became involved in potentially disruptive conflicts.
So employers in the sample tried to perform a balancing act. As well as
pursuing, or at least acquiescing in ‘internal recruitment’ through the ties of
their existing workers, they attempted to maintain some formal, bureaucratic
recruitment and selection practices that could counter the penetration of
immigrant networks—with varying degrees of success.
In How the Other Half Works, theoretical chapters alternate with more empirical ones, although all chapters are written in a colloquial, almost non-academic

255

BOOK REVIEWS

style. This means that quite complex ideas are presented simply with lots of vivid
detail. The downside is an occasional lack of precision in the concepts presented.
In other words, there is a certain slipperiness where it is not always clear exactly
what the authors are arguing.
A more substantial problem is that the book’s arguments rest on the surveyed
views of and information from employers only—workers and workers’ representatives were not included in the research. The limits this imposes are most
obvious in the discussions of black/Hispanic and inter-ethnic conflict at work
where relying on employers’ understanding of shopfloor relations seems risky.
But this is a minor issue. For anyone studying labour markets, the account of
employer practices that the book provides is invaluable. The common concerns
that unite employers operating in largely ‘low skill’ labour markets are described.
So too are the very particular considerations employers have in each sector, as a
result of their specific product markets, labour processes, technology, size and
scale. Employer strategies developed in this context are presented in dynamic
interplay with the ‘supply side’; the strategies and interests of different groups
of workers in a highly multicultural labour force. Starting with questions about
immigrant workers, the book ends up shedding light on fundamental issues in
work and organisational studies.
ACIRRT, SYDNEY

BLACK FREEDOM FIGHTERS
DEMOCRATIC UNIONISM

CAROLINE ALCORSO

IN

STEEL: THE STRUGGLE

FOR

By Ruth Needleman. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003, xiii + 305
pp., US$19.95 (paperback)

Thousands of African Americans arrived in north-west Indiana in the 1920s in
what was the beginning of the great black migration from the South. Many of
them found work—of the dirtiest, most dangerous and low-paying kind—in the
steel industry there. Yet ‘slavery hadn’t ended, at least not at the Inland Steel
Company’, said Bill Young, who had fled Mississippi. When the new industrial
union movement came to the region in the mid-1930s, there was a ready
audience for it among African Americans. Grassroots black organising signed
up thousands of workers within months.
This book had its origins in 1984 when Needleman began collecting ‘stories
about how workers benefit when they oppose discrimination and unite across
racial lines’ (page 7). Eventually she concentrated on the stories of five men, mainly
in the period from the 1920s to the 1960s. In Needleman’s words, ‘[t]his book
examines the movement for democratic unionism from the bottom up, through
the lives and experiences of grassroots African American steelworkers in
northwest Indiana (page 2).
The book is organised around biographical chapters based on extensive interviews of the five activists, followed by a second, thematic, section comparing
the men’s experiences in different ways of organising and of participating in the

256

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

June 2004

full-time union staff. A final section attempts to bring the story up to the
present, by recording a roundtable discussion between two of the pioneers and
five current black union activists. The conclusion attempts to draw together the
threads of what has gone before.
There are differences between the men’s approach to organising, but also some
very important commonalities. All of them made the union central in the fight
against racism, and saw in the way they organised an inseparability of issues of
class and race. Often they were the most outspoken opponents of racism on the
job and off it, helping to organise concerts, or speaking at anti-lynching rallies.
Their stories are a timely reminder that despite problems, no organisation has
done more to raise the living standards of black workers than unions.
Needleman is influenced by the work of oral historian Alessandro Portelli on
the importance of looking at individual lives in order to understand the working
class. The best feature of the book is the description of the activist lives led by
the five veteran freedom fighters. Their own characters, and the enthusiasm
for unionism that sustained them over decades of activity, are allowed to shine
through the narrative. As in all the best ‘history from below’, forgotten things
are unearthed. For example, the 1919 steel strike is usually remembered for
African-American workers being brought in to scab. But there is also a history
of inter-racial unity in the strike itself, initiated by black militants, and brought
to light by these interviews. In fact, the book shows that the most successful
organising in the steel industry was always a collaborative effort between AfricanAmerican militants, immigrant workers and the radical left with practical experience of inter-racial organising. These men’s fights for promotion by seniority
instead of favouritism, equal pay for equal work, and democratic unionism were
based on an understanding of racism as an institutionalised phenomenon, not as
a character flaw—and therefore on the idea that people could be broken from it.
Those who feel the difficulties of union organising in the twenty-first century
would do well to remember the early years of organising referred to here, when
activism was sometimes literally underground. Bill Young got involved in the
1920s when the ‘core group of eight people gathered secretly in the basement
of an undertaker’ (page 41). Yet during World War II, Young led nine
wildcat strikes in his own department. Young called himself a socialist, and this
underlay all his activism.
There were always political divisions amongst African-Americans, as in the
wider community. While the local black newspapers backed the union drive in
the 1930s, the Chicago Defender and the Negro Press Association did not. In the
climate of the Cold War, some African-Americans advanced what they claimed
was a black agenda by allying themselves with the right-wing forces in the union.
Of the union activists interviewed for this book, some opposed separate black
organisation and special positions for African-Americans in the union, while
others were in favour.
It is the issue of separate organising that illustrates a weakness in the book.
While Needleman says ‘it is our conversations rather than definitive narratives
that I offer in this book’ (page 6), there is a tendency in the book’s conclusion to
shoehorn those conversations into a framework that doesn’t fit them. In both the

BOOK REVIEWS

257

introduction and conclusion, Needleman claims that her research shows the
necessity of independent organisation for African American representation. Yet
this is a conclusion drawn only by some of those she interviews, and explicitly
denied by others.
Needleman’s conclusions do not seem to flow from the material, but are more
shaped by a contemporary political agenda. There are unfortunate lapses into
another, more modern language of ‘networking’ and ‘coalition building’. There
is also a contemporary approach to ‘diversity’, arguing that it was the diversity
of approaches that contributed to the success of the struggle for black rights in
the un