Unequal Time

Unequal Time
Author: Dan Clawson
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2014-07-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 161044843X

Life is unpredictable. Control over one’s time is a crucial resource for managing that unpredictability, keeping a job, and raising a family. But the ability to control one’s time, much like one’s income, is determined to a significant degree by both gender and class. In Unequal Time, sociologists Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel explore the ways in which social inequalities permeate the workplace, shaping employees’ capacities to determine both their work schedules and home lives, and exacerbating differences between men and women, and the economically privileged and disadvantaged. Unequal Time investigates the interconnected schedules of four occupations in the health sector—professional-class doctors and nurses, and working-class EMTs and nursing assistants. While doctors and EMTs are predominantly men, nurses and nursing assistants are overwhelmingly women. In all four occupations, workers routinely confront schedule uncertainty, or unexpected events that interrupt, reduce, or extend work hours. Yet, Clawson and Gerstel show that members of these four occupations experience the effects of schedule uncertainty in very distinct ways, depending on both gender and class. But doctors, who are professional-class and largely male, have significant control over their schedules and tend to work long hours because they earn respect from their peers for doing so. By contrast, nursing assistants, who are primarily female and working-class, work demanding hours because they are most likely to be penalized for taking time off, no matter how valid the reasons. Unequal Time also shows that the degree of control that workers hold over their schedules can either reinforce or challenge conventional gender roles. Male doctors frequently work overtime and rely heavily on their wives and domestic workers to care for their families. Female nurses are more likely to handle the bulk of their family responsibilities, and use the control they have over their work schedules in order to dedicate more time to home life. Surprisingly, Clawson and Gerstel find that in the working class occupations, workers frequently undermine traditional gender roles, with male EMTs taking significant time from work for child care and women nursing assistants working extra hours to financially support their children and other relatives. Employers often underscore these disparities by allowing their upper-tier workers (doctors and nurses) the flexibility that enables their gender roles at home, including, for example, reshaping their workplaces in order to accommodate female nurses’ family obligations. Low-wage workers, on the other hand, are pressured to put their jobs before the unpredictable events they might face outside of work. Though we tend to consider personal and work scheduling an individual affair, Clawson and Gerstel present a provocative new case that time in the workplace also collective. A valuable resource for workers’ advocates and policymakers alike, Unequal Time exposes how social inequalities reverberate through a web of interconnected professional relationships and schedules, significantly shaping the lives of workers and their families.

The Fair Labor Standards Act

The Fair Labor Standards Act
Author: Ellen C. Kearns
Publisher: Bna Books
Total Pages: 1675
Release: 1999
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781570181085

Beginning with background perspective on the Fair Labor Standards Act--and ending with specific litigation issues & strategies--here is your one-source reference to the FLSA & its complex legal applications in today's workplace. A team of eminent specialists from the ABA Section of Labor & Employment Law's Federal Labor Standards Legislation Committee gives you insights & tactics including: . history & coverage of the FLSA . what constitutes a violation of the Act . exemptions to the law--including white-collar jobs & other statutory exemptions . how to determine compensable hours, minimum wage, & overtime compensation . special issues for federal & state workers . proper recordkeeping procedures . consequences for retaliation by employers . enforcement of the law--and remedies for violations . emerging & volatile topics including child labor, homework, hot goods violations, & much more . plus specific litigation strategies to meet nearly any challenge you may face in handling cases affected by the FLSA.

Working Time in the Employment Relationship

Working Time in the Employment Relationship
Author: Lonnie Golden
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:

The consequences of hours of employment for a worker's work-life interface depends not only on the number of hours of work but also whether a worker perceives that they have some discretion over the setting and timing of their work hours and schedule. When a worker perceives to lack such discretion, this may have at least as much adverse effect on work-life balance as working long or extra hours. This research analyzes data from a large nationally representative survey in the US that permit observation of six indicators of employee-centered flexibility, discretion or control that may or may not be available to workers. Three types of flexibility include the extent to which the employee sets their own scheduled hours, can vary their daily starting and quitting times of work and can take time off during the work day. Three types of inflexibility include whether their overtime hours of work are required by their employer, work shift times are irregular and actual hours of work are longer than their preferred number of hours. Multinomial regression analysis finds that a longer duration of weekly hours, extra days worked per month and working full-time work hours enhances both conflict and fatigue. When controlling for these effects of longer hours, however, having discretion in setting their own work schedule, an ability to vary their own starting and quitting times of work and to take time off during the work day are all associated with lower work-life conflict. Similarly, an inability to refuse overtime work or to realize a preference for part-time hours, and working irregular shift times, are all associated with greater work-family conflict. Having discretion over schedule, ability to take time off during the day and flexible start and end times are all associated with less daily fatigue among full-time workers and salaried workers, however, not among hourly paid workers. Having mandatory overtime work is associated with greater frequency of fatigue, but working irregular shift times has no relation to fatigue. The analysis suggests that an employment relationship of the future that features the type of flexibility which permits better integration of work with non-work time, will promote better daily work-life balance. In particular, granting employees more autonomy to set and adjust the timing of their work schedules will help counter the deleterious effects of longer work hours on the daily well being of workers. The implications for collective action through public policy or collective bargaining, in countries such as US and Australia, are that creating more individualized working time structures and options for more workers would better facilitate daily work-life balance.

No More Work

No More Work
Author: James Livingston
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2016-10-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1469630664

For centuries we've believed that work was where you learned discipline, initiative, honesty, self-reliance--in a word, character. A job was also, and not incidentally, the source of your income: if you didn't work, you didn't eat, or else you were stealing from someone. If only you worked hard, you could earn your way and maybe even make something of yourself. In recent decades, through everyday experience, these beliefs have proven spectacularly false. In this book, James Livingston explains how and why Americans still cling to work as a solution rather than a problem--why it is that both liberals and conservatives announce that "full employment" is their goal when job creation is no longer a feasible solution for any problem, moral or economic. The result is a witty, stirring denunciation of the ways we think about why we labor, exhorting us to imagine a new way of finding meaning, character, and sustenance beyond our workaday world--and showing us that we can afford to leave that world behind.

Part-time Job Growth and the Labor Effects of Policy Responses

Part-time Job Growth and the Labor Effects of Policy Responses
Author: Linda H. Levine
Publisher:
Total Pages: 28
Release: 1998
Genre: Equal pay for equal work
ISBN:

Examines trends in part time employment from 1969 to 1997 and identifies reasons for the growth in involuntary part time employment. Analyses the potential impact on workers were the government to prohibit wage discrimination based on hours worked and to require benefit eligibility for part time workers. Also considers the effects of a mismatch between the qualifications of part time workers and the heightened skill requirements of jobs.