2000 Nonstandard Work The Nature and Challenges of Changing Employment Arrangements

Abstract

Since the founding of the Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA), its members—institutionalists and labor economists alike—have been primarily preoccupied with “standard” labor–management relations.In this prototypical relationship, a firm and a worker have a mutually beneficial, long-term attachment. Workers enjoy employment security, benefits, training, and sometimes career mobility. Employers’ investment in workers’ good will and on-the-job training results in greater productivity and hence higher returns. During the three decades after World War II, a time when standard employment relationships came to be regarded as the norm, labor productivity and workers’ real incomes doubled.During the 1980s and 1990s, however, hallmark features of the postwar social contract, including long-term mutual attachments and well-structured internal labor markets, have been fading.