Both as an academic researcher and as President Obama’s head of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, the agency responsible for enforcing our nation’s most basic labor standards, I have watched what I call the “fissured workplace” unfold. In geology, a fissure in a once solid rock both deepens and spreads. Once an activity like janitorial services or housekeeping is shed, the secondary businesses doing that work often deepen the fissure even further by shifting those activities to other businesses.
