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This book proposes the argument that job quality matters, contributing to economic competitiveness, social cohesion and personal well-being. Focusing on ‘bad jobs’, the book outlines debates, developments, issues and trends in job quality whilst asking the question are bad jobs inevitable? The chapters contribute to defining and measuring bad jobs, explaining variation and change in job quality, and identifying workplace practices and broader non-workplace strategies for making bad jobs better. The chapters are as follows: Job quality: scenarios, analysis and interventions / Francoise Carre, Patricia Findlay, Chris Tilly and Chris Warhurst; Part one ‘International overviews and comparative approaches’ includes: Identifying bad jobs across Europe / Jose-Ignacio Anton, Enrique Fernandez-Macias and Rafael Munoz de Bustillo; Job quality in the US: the myths that block action / Paul Osterman; Good jobs, bad jobs and the Australian experience / Barbara Pocock and Natalie Skinner; A framework for international comparative analysis of the determinants of low-wage job quality / Francoise Carre and Chris Tilly; Part two ‘Influences on job quality: sectoral approaches and workplace practices’ includes: At the altar of shareholder value?: corporate governance and conditions for better jobs in Swedish manufacturing / Tony Huzzard; Making bad jobs better: the case of frontline health care workers / Janette S. Dill, Jennifer Craft Morgan and Arne L. Kalleberg; When good jobs go bad: the declining quality of auto work in the global economy / Jeffrey S. Rothstein; Frontline managers matter: labour flexibility practices and sustained employment in US retail jobs / Susan J. Lambert and Julia R. Henly; Good or bad jobs?: contrasting workers’ expectations and jobs in Mexican call centres / Jose Luis Alvarez Galvan; Thirty years of hospital cleaning in England and Scotland: an opportunity for ‘better’ jobs / Anne Munro; Part three ‘Influences on job quality: the role of public policy’ includes: Unpacking the logics of labour standards enforcement: an alternative approach / Janice Fine and Jennifer Gordon; Under the radar: tracking the violation of labour standards in low-wage industries in the US / Nik Theodore, Annette Bernhardt and James DeFilippis with Ruth Milkman, Douglas Heckathorn, Mirabai Auer, Ana Luz Gonzalez, Victor Narro, Jason Perelshteyn, Diana Polson and Michael Spiller; Employment standards ‘modernization’ in Canada / Mark P. Thomas; Are skills the answer to bad jobs?: incentives to learn at the bottom end of the labour market / Ewart Keep and Susan James. Show less

This article focuses on demands and interventions to improve or maintain job quality. There is a need for better understanding of what can be done, by whom, and with what impacts. The article provides a framework for reflection focused on interventions within and outwith the workplace. Drawing on secondary data, it outlines the renewed policy and academic interest in job quality, examines the multilevel reasons for intervention and the factors that shape this intervention, and evaluates the loci of intervention. On the basis of the evidence to date, it argues that there is scope for intervention and that intervention can be effective.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less