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OCR for page 268
Restructuring Work:
Temporary, Part-Time, and At-Home
Employment
EILEEN APPELBAUM
This paper examines the extent to which women participate in
alternative work schedules and the relation of such arrangements to
the implementation and diffusion of computer-basec! technologies.
Alternative work schedules include temporary work, part-time
work, multiple jobholding, and at-home work. Each of these em-
ployment strategies predates the introduction of high-technology
products and production processes; this paper attempts to identify
the particular impact of developments in technology on the chang-
ing extent of these work schedules. This is not an easy task for two
reasons. First, while mainframe computers have been in use since
the early 1960s, it is only in the last few years that computer-based
technologies have altered the nature of the work process and the
way in which work is organized. Second, employment data by
occupation and industry, even when they are available, are rarely
disaggregated to the extent required for a definitive analysis of
the effects of technological change on work schedules. At best, we
can hope to find some trace of the impact of technological change
on the work options available to women. A limited number of
informal interviews have been conducted in order to obtain infor-
mation to supplement the published data, especially with regard
268
OCR for page 269
EILEEN APPELBA EM
269
to the relative importance of technological change in influencing
the work schedules of women.
The paper is organized as follows: the next section briefly dis-
cusses the transformation of internal and external labor markets,
changes in the opportunity structure facing women who work, and
the effects of technological change. The following sections discuss
temporary employment, part-time employment, multiple jobhold-
ing, and at-home work. The final section draws some preliminary
conclusions and implications from the available information.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF LABOR MARKETS
To a large extent, increased use of alternative work schedules
can be explained by developments over the last decade and a half
that have reduced the importance and undermined the existence of
internal labor markets. These developments include the spread of
microprocessor-based technologies, increased emphasis on reduc-
ing labor costs, and the growth of higher education. Companies
have adopted human resource strategies that increase their flexi-
bility in deploying their work forces. For workers, nearly 6 million
of whom are currently employed part-time involuntarily, this has
meant increasing difficulty in obtaining the security, fringe bene-
fits, and wages associated with permanent, full-time employment.
TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNAL LABOR MARKETS
The new microprocessor-based technologies currently being
implemented have the dual effect of reducing unit labor require-
ments and reorganizing the labor process. Their effect on worker
skills and occupational mobility depend critically on strategic de-
cisions by firms with respect to how they are implemented. At the
micro level, the crucial issue is job design. Computer and com-
munication technologies allow for considerable flexibility in the
design of the worker/machine interface and the associated skill
requirements of jobs (discussed at length by Albin, 1984~. At the
macro level the pattern of technical development that results from
job design choices will have its major impact on the functioning
of internal labor markets. In the last half century, internal labor
markets, through on-thejob training and promotion along well-
defined job ladders, have generated significant numbers of working
class jobs paying middIe-ciass wages. Though women and blacks
OCR for page 270
270
RESTRUCTURING WORK
were systematically excluded from these job ladders and often con-
signed to dead-end work in jobs in the secondary labor market,
internal labor markets did provide avenues of upward mobility for
many white male workers, thus contributing substantially to the
large size of the American middle class. Preliminary evidence sug-
gests that the pattern of implementation of the new production
technologies will reduce the ~rnportance of these internal labor
markets, with, in my view, potentially serious implications for the
broader institutional and social framework of society.
Familiarity with the intrinsic capabilities of the new technolo-
gies suggests that they are most efficiently utilized when they are
deployed so that tasks are integrated, job content is complex, and
decision making is decentralized (see, for example, Hirschhorn,
1984~. Implemented in this way the technologies would lead to in-
creased employment opportunities for skilled and educated work-
ers. Work would be highly adaptive with numerous opportunities
for learning by doing and for related improvements in productiv-
ity, and both the private and social returns to formal education
would increase. Initially, however, implementation of these tech-
nologies in the United States has often followed the older pattern
associated with Taylorism—specialization and fragmentation of
work. Despite the technology's capability for integrating work
processes, computers and telecommunications are sometimes used
to fragment work still further as the production process is un-
coupled and the stages physically dispersed. Another aspect of
computer-based technologies is that they automate the routine
aspects of skilled technical and professional work as well as less
skilled clerical work. In the process, these technologies eliminate
both entry-level positions and the jobs that traditionally formed
the rungs of career ladders from semiskilled to skilled work. Natu-
ral learning sequences are disrupted and the possibility of learning
more complex tasks on the job diminishes.
Thus, ~ would argue that by-products of the implementation
of computer and communications technologies include the disrupt
tion of natural learning sequences, a decline in the importance of
job ladders and internal labor markets for nonprofessional employ-
ees, the resulting weakening in internal labor market structures,
and the attendant reduction in occupational mobility for ordinary
workers. It would be a mistake, however, to attribute all changes
in the organization of work that undermine internal labor markets
to the direct effects of the way in which technological change is
OCR for page 271
EILEEN APPELBA EM
271
implemented. Other forces, some of them indirectly related to
technology, are at work here as well.
POISED FOR CONTRACTION
Internal labor markets play a special role in meeting the needs
of companies that are poised for expansion: they guarantee that
the company has workers already in the pipeline at every skill
level ready to move up the job ladder should an increase in de-
mand for the company's products warrant increases in production.
Under these conditions, assistant managers are not an unnecessary
and costly layer of bureaucracy; rather, they are a pool of work-
ers, loyal to the company, steeped in its culture, and possessing
the requisite skills to assume the position of manager should the
company decide to open additional branch operations. The cost
of having such workers on the payroll does not appear excessive
when weighed against the costs of quickly recruiting, hiring, and
training such workers from outside the firm in order to respond to
market opportunities in a timely manner.
Today, however, companies are poised for contraction antici-
pating a Toss of markets or market share or a decline in unit labor
requirements as the labor-saving potential of office automation
technologies are realized. In this context, a pipeline filled with
workers ready to move up appears to the company to be an un-
justifiable expense rather than an investment in its future. A
situation in which the competitive position of U.S. industry has
cleclined as a result of the combined effects of an overvalued dol-
lar and the movement of capital into export zones established in
cheap labor areas of the world and in which even domestic markets
are increasingly subject to foreign penetration dictates that firms
develop a lean profile. Deregulation and increased competition
among financial institutions and changes in federal payments to
hospitals have unleashed powerful pressures for cost containment
in these industries as well. Add to this the indirect role played
by technological change. Firms that expect a drop in unit labor
requirements do not need a pipeline filled with workers expecting
to advance. Moreover, with technology in flux, skills learned to-
day at company expense are likely to become obsolete before they
are ever used. It becomes clear to a company that a labor pro-
cess organized to provide a substantial number of nonprofessional
workers with successive jobs in which skills are upgraded through
OCR for page 272
272
RESTRUCTURING WORK
on-thejob training or employer-sponsored training programs has
become obsolete. While appropriate for the conditions of the 1950s
and 1960s, it appears wasteful and costly in the 1980s.
Moreover, a decreasing reliance on internal labor markets and
on-thejob training to provide business with skilled workers has
been facilitated by the growth of higher education (see Noyelle,
this volume). By 1980, nearly one-fourth of those between 25 and
29 years of age had 4 or more years of college education compared
with about 10 percent in 1960. Firms have shifted to outside hiring
to fill administrative, professional, and managerial positions that
until recently would have been filled from within. In the process,
they have used formal credentials to create significant barriers to
entry into these occupations and have required workers to obtain
vocational skills through formal schooling and higher education.
Traditional internal ladders are being disbanded, and the earlier
link between occupational mobility and training provided within
the industry or firm has been weakened.
Though these are recent developments, evidence is accumu-
lating that firms are adjusting to technology and these changes in
their environment by reorganizing on a core and ring basis, holding
to a minimum the number of workers who can expect to have a
future with the company and for whom the company is willing to
provide health and life insurance and retirement benefits these
workers make up the stable core, while other workers constitute an
ever-changing ring. Flexibility in meeting staffing needs and the
ability to retrench quickly increasingly take precedence over the
desire for a loyal, well-trained work force and low turnover rates.
Firms are experimenting with ways to shift the costs of fringe
benefits and the risks associated with a cyclical downturn or a
labor-saving advance in technology to their workers. Strategies
include the use of part-time workers, temporary employees, and
contract labor. This is a major reason for the explosive growth in
temporary work and subcontracting during the last few years.
IMPLICATIONS FOR WOMEN WORKERS
The occupational changes brought about by office automation
technologies and the desire of many companies for immediate re-
ductions in employment have direct implications for career mobil-
ity for women within organizations. Internal labor markets—with
their opportunities for promotion and career advancement have
OCR for page 273
EILEEN APPELBA UM
273
only recently been opened to women, often as a result of suc-
cessfu] enforcement of equal employment opportunity laws. These
internal job ladders have played a significant role in enabling capa-
ble and ambitious clerical workers in industries such as insurance
and, to a lesser extent, retail sales, to work their way up through
lower-level supervisory or pare-professional jobs into management
or professional positions. The weakening of internal labor markets
is closing off opportunities for advancement for women that have
only recently become available.
The outcome for women is complex. In the last decade, firms
have begun to rely less on internal job markets to provide formal
and informal training for Tower-level employees and, instead, to
externalize training. Professional and managerial employees are
trained in colleges and business schools and then recruited directly
into upper-level positions. Even the more-skilled clerical jobs are
filled not through promotion from the typing or word-processing
pool but from the ranks of community college and vocational
school graduates. One effect of office automation technologies is
that the skills required of clerical workers in diverse industries are
becoming more homogeneous. There is considerable overlap in the
skills required of directory assistance operators, customer service
representatives, travel agents, library assistants, classified adver-
tisement takers, and so on. The replacement of on-thejob training
and occupational mobility within firms by extended formal school-
ing and job mobility through the external labor market increases
the probability that socioeconomic conditions will limit access to
training and hence to better jobs. The picture that emerges is one
of continuing advancement opportunities for professional women,
increased opportunities for lateral moves among firms but no up-
ward mobility for skilled clerical or sales workers, and severely
curtailed opportunities for employment or promotion for women
in traditional clerical jobs.
The erosion of internal labor markets has weakened the claim
of clerical workers to the protections and benefits afforded by
permanent full-time employment. Firms have relied on office au-
tomation technologies to facilitate their use of clerical temporary
workers and home workers. Women workers have, thus, been af-
fected disproportionately by these changes to date, though the
logic of organizing the labor market on a core and buffer basis
suggests that other occupations and workers, many of them men,
will be affected.
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274
RESTRUCTURING WORK
TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT
Of the four alternative work schedules examined in this pa-
per, temporary employment has shown the most dramatic changes
since the 1970s. Temporary employment in the United States is
booming. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employ-
ment growth in the temporary help services industry has averaged
11 percent a year over the last 13 years, compared with a 2.1 per-
cent growth rate for nonagricultural jobs throughout the economy
(Collins, 1985~. In December 1984 the industry placed 665,400
workers a day in temporary positions (Employment and Earnings
32~1), 1985:Table Bob. These figures do not include the growing
number of employers who are hiring workers on a temporary basis
directly, without requiring the services of a temporary help agency.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, for example, reports
that the federal government filled 244,692 jobs with temporary
workers in 1984 (data provided by Mary Ann Madison, Office of
Technology Assessment), and the number is expected to increase
sharply as a result of new regulations governing the employment
of temporary workers, which took effect in January 1985. The new
rules allow "temporary" jobs, which, unlike permanent jobs, carry
no medical or retirement benefits other than social security, to be
extended to higher skill categories and to last up to 4 years. These
developments in federal employment mirror changes already under
way in the private sector.
FORCES DRIVING THE GROWTH OF TEMPORARY WORK
Sam Sacco, executive vice president of the National Associa-
tion of Temporary Services, observes that employment is increas-
ingly being organized on a "ring and core basis with temporary
employment acting as a buffer for the economy (telephone inter-
view, February 1, 1985~. Thus federal officials publicly welcomed
the new rules on temporary employment because having more
temporary employees without civil service protection will make it
easier for them to adjust the size of the work force. They expect
to be able to use the temporary workers as a cushion to protect
permanent employees from being laid off first.
Another major force behind the growth of temporary employ-
ment the fundamental reason for its expansion according to Au-
drey Freedman, a labor economist for the Conference Board is
OCR for page 275
EILEEN APPELBA UM
275
the desire of firms to contain costs. As Freedman put it, "What
the companies are doing is organizing so they don't have to pay
for vacations, holidays, health benefits, or pensions. In addition,
they don't have to allocate money for training and for promo-
tion" (quoted in Collins, 1985:B1~. The savings can be large, and
some firms are now building temporary work into their employ-
ment strategies. According to Sacco, "companies are increasingly
pre-planning for the use of temporary workers and budgeting for
them at the beginning of the year." For example, Johnson and
Johnson Products, a health care supplier that is an affiliate of
the Johnson and Johnson Corporation, has built the use of 450
temporary workers during the year into its personnel plans. The
company is budgeting $500,000 for temporary clerical workers, sec-
retaries, lab technicians, data-processing clerks, accounting clerks,
and computer clerks to be hired through temporary help agencies
(Flamingo, 1984~. This use of temporary workers by companies on
a preplanned basis, rather than as an expedient for dealing with
an unforeseen situation, is a recent development.
Some companies have begun to staff certain of their facilities
with temporary help workers. They are staffing mad! rooms where
there is high turnover, or facilities that have peak periods, with
temporaries. Thus, an advertisement from Norrell Temporary Ser-
vices that appeared in May 1984 issues of Office Administration
and Automation and of Office magazines promises to solve the
turnover problem: "Facilities staking—using temporary employ-
ees as a group to tackle routine jobs permanent employees view as
unattractive or dull—Norrell guarantees performance by rotating
fresh, trained temporary employees into the job before burnout
occurs." The approach appears to be attracting business for the
temporary help agencies and increasing the number of long-term
arrangements. Western Temporary Services of Wainut Creek, Cal-
ifornia, reports that most of its contracts are for 1 year; some are
longer. Good People Office Automation Temporaries in New York
City reports that 80 percent of the assignments it receives are for
long-term temporaries. A typical Tong-term assignment for this
company involves providing experienced temporary workers to a
company changing from manual filing to a records-processing sys-
tem. The positions this temporary help agency fills usually require
6 months experience, though some positions may require a year
(Flamingo, 1984~.
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276
RESTRUCTURING WORK
Advances in technology have contributed to the rapid growth
of temporary employment. Companies turn to temporary help
supply agencies in order to handle temporary increases in work
load associated with the conversion from manual to computer-
based data management and filing systems. Some businesses are
turning to temporary help agencies to obtain workers experienced
with office-automation equipment to assist in training their per-
manent staff. Companies that face a monthly peak load problem
in sending updated reports or form letters to customers often turn
to temporary help agencies to obtain workers experienced with
word processing. In addition, firms that have made substantial in-
vestments in dedicated word-processing equipment or in personal
computers find that the equipment is too valuable to stand idle
when regular employees are ill and hire experienced temporary
workers to fill in for employees who are sick.
The nature of temporary work is changing. The temporary
help services industry has diversifies] far beyond the clerical work-
ers who were its mainstay 15 years ago. The industry currently
supplies temporary workers in four main areas: office clerical/office
automation (OA) operators, medical (with hospital distinguished
from nursing home and homemaking services), industrial, and pro-
fessional. The medical segment is the fastest-growing component
of the industry (Gannon, 1984~. By 1982, 46.2 percent of em-
ployment and 56.6 percent of total receipts were generated in the
non-office help components of the industry.
REVENUE AND EMPLOYMENT GROWTH
Between 1977 and 1982, the temporary help services industry
grew substantially. According to census data, industry receipts
more than doubled from $2.32 billion to $5.14 billion between
1977 and 1982, despite the fact that 1982 was a recession year
(see Table I). Revenue growth continues to be high. The leading
temporary services companies, Kelly Services Inc. and Manpower
Inc., each had revenue increases of more than 30 percent in 1984,
while a temporary agency based in Silicon Valley, Adia Services
Inc., had an increase in net income of 98 percent (~Business Week,
1985~. Industry sources report that the temporary help payroll
went from $431 million in 1971 to $3.48 billion in 1981, an annual
rate of increase in nominal receipts of 24 percent over the decade.
Payroll declined somewhat in 1982 because of the recession but
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EILEEN APPELBA EM
TABLE 1 Size of Temporary Help Supply Services, 1977 and 1982
1977
1982
Number of establishments
Total $ 4,235 $ 6,247
Office help supply 3,324
Other 2,923
Receipts (in thousands)
Total 2,323,676 5,143,132
Office help supply 2,230,926
Other 2,912,206
Payroll (in thousands)
Total n.a. 3,595,609
Office help supply 1,599,217
Other 1,996,392
Employment
Total n.a. 470,541
Office help supply 253,167
Other 217,374
SOURCE: Bureau of the Census (1980, 1985~.
277
recovered and reached $5.50 billion in 1984 (National Association
of Temporary Services, unpublished data). This is an annual rate
of increase in nominal receipts of 16.5 percent, despite the 1982
decline. Since inflation has been much lower in the 1980s than in
the 1970s, real growth in recent years has been higher than it was
a decade ago. The industry is expected to continue to grow rapidly
through the 1980s. According to the U.S. Department of Labor,
temporary help services will be the third fastest growing industry
during this decade, after computers and health care (Flamingo,
1984).
Since temporary employment now functions in part as an eco-
nomic buffer, it is not surprising that employment in the temporary
help services industry declines early in a recession and recovers
quickly at the beginning of an expansion. Nevertheless, the mag-
nitude of employment growth in this industry during the recovery
from the 1981-1982 recession was unexpected. The most accurate
employment data are probably the monthly establishment data
collected in the Current Population Survey (CPS) and reported
in Employment and Earnings. These are reported monthly for
the temporary help services industry beginning in 1982. Annual
average employment in temporary help services in 1983 increased
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RESTRUCTURING WORK
17.5 percent over the corresponding figure for 1982. For women,
temporary employment increased 18.3 percent between 1982 and
1983 (calculated from data in Table 2~. By comparison, annual av-
erage employment in nonagricultural establishments increased by
less than 1 percent between those 2 years, 1.9 percent for women.
In June, July, and November of 1983, employment growth in this
industry exceeded 10 percent of the number of nonagricultural
jobs added in the economy, despite the fact that temporary help
services accounted for less than 0.5 percent of total nonagricultural
employment in 1982 (calculated from data in Table 2~. The rise in
annual average employment that is, the increase in the number
of temporary help jobs every year between 1982 and 1983 was
equal to 12.6 percent of the number of jobs added in nonagricul-
tural establishments in the first year of the recovery. Employment
increases in the industry continued during 1984, but at a more
moderate pace. Nearly 86,000 temporary help jobs were added
between December 1983 and December 1984. This followed an
increase of about 176,000 jobs between December 1982 and De-
cember 1983 (see Table 23. Figures on temporary help jobs do not
tell the whole story, however. Sacco estimates that while the tem-
porary help services industry filled more than 600,000 jobs per day
on average in 1984, the number of people who held a temporary
job at some time during the year was about 5 million. Business
Week reports that the industry's giants, Kelly Services Inc. and
Manpower Inc., have more than 800,000 temporary workers on
their books (Business Week, 1985~. It should be remembered that
these figures refer only to jobs filled through temporary help agen-
cies. There are no estimates of the number of temporary jobs filled
directly by firms.
Increases in temporary work are outweighed by increases in
the number of year-round jobs for women. The proportion of
women with work experience during the year who worked full
time (50 to 52 weeks) increased from 36.9 percent in 1960 to 40.7
percent in 1970, 45.1 percent in 1981, and 48.0 percent in 1983
(Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, 1983; Bureau of
Labor Statistics, unpublished data).
IMPLICATIONS FOR WOMEN WORKERS
Temporary work does not appear to be viewed by most women
who do it as a stopgap measure until they can find permanent work.
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300
RESTRUCTURING WORK
interviewed by Pratt (1984) were critical of the poor organization
of their work by the companies employing them, which they felt
reduced their earnings.
Claims examiner is a skilled clerical position that Califor-
nia Western States Life Insurance Company now fills with home
workers hired as independent contractors. The company provides
computer terminals linked by telephone lines to the company's
data-processing center to the claims examiners. The claims ex-
aminers are independent contractors who are paid on a piece-rate
basis. They rent terminals from the company for $50 per month
~ ~ . ~ . ~ . i. ~ . . ma, .
and furnish their clown supplies and equipment. The company is
able to spot check the work of its at-home examiners as claims
payments are entered into the data system. "The task of auditing
and managing the at-home examiners is simplified by having all
their work instantly accessible in the home office via the com-
EAR ~~ ~ ~~ mC ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 ~
~ ..
purer system. one average at-nome claims examiner represents
more than $1,000 in reduced costs to the company each month"
(Mortenson, 1983:114~.
Clerical home work is attractive to firms because of its poten-
tial for reducing labor costs. The strategies adopted are a cause
for concern to organizations such as 9 to 5, the National Asso-
ciation of Working Women, which opposes electronic home work
because it shifts overhead costs, including machinery rental, to
employees; it reduces hourly wages by switching to piece rates; it
shifts costs of health and life insurance and social security and re-
tirement income to individual workers; and it provides employers
with workers whom they can easily release (Gregory, 1983~. Pro-
ductivity is also an issue. Home workers, professional as well as
clerical, have reported working during, outside of, and in addition
to normal business hours and have complained about the pressures
on them to work overly long hours (Kingston, 1983; Pratt, 1984~.
And 9 to 5 is concerned that employers are "experimenting with
productivity measures . . . to develop benchmarks as leverage to
increase pressures and intensify control over the main office work
force" (Gregory, 1983~.
Though there are little data available on the productivity
effects of teleworking, corporate experiments with electronic home
work indicate that it results in productivity increases among both
clerical and managerial teleworkers (Kraut, 1985~. In reviewing
the evidence from these pilot projects, one researcher tentatively
concluded that "the productivity gains associated with telework
OCR for page 301
EILEEN APPELBA EM
301
are probably the result of highly motivated, volunteer workers
putting in more time on their jobs when they were working at
home than when they were working in a conventional office. The
gains may not be sustained with more general use of teleworking by
less-motivated workers who have no choice but to work at home"
(Kraut, 1985:6~.
ADVANTAGES OF TELEWORKING
The major advantages of electronic home work to employers
have already been discussed. In the case of managerial and pro-
fessional employees, firms turn to home work in order to retain
or attract qualified workers with skills that are in short supply-
computer programmers and other skilled data-processing employ-
ees, for example. Firms undertake clerical home work to reduce
labor costs. This is often accomplished by setting piece-work rates
so that the employee receives no compensation for time spent set-
ting up work, collecting work, delivering work, discussing work
with supervisors, or for difficulties encountered and time lost in
completing it satisfactorily. The limited data available suggest
that while professional home workers are usually permanent, full-
time employees receiving full salaries and benefits, clerical home
workers are rarely in this position. Instead they are usually part-
time employees earning hourly wages or piece rates with reduced
fringe benefits or no benefits at all (Olson, 1983b). The costs
shifted from companies to workers as a result of the reduction in
fringe benefits, especially health insurance, can be substantial. In
addition, as in the case of temporary workers, firms have substan-
tial flexibility in scheduling home workers to meet high demand
and not using them in off-peak periods, without incurring the costs
associated with layoffs and unemployment compensation.
In addition, some firms have achieved cost savings by shifting
overhead costs and equipment rental to home workers. Workers
may be required to lease terminals or maintain their own comput-
ers, provide office furniture, install dedicated telephone lines, and
pay for higher telephone, heating, cooling, and electricity bills.
Finally, as another advantage to companies, if the home work
involves the use of a company's mainframe, it can be scheduled
during times of low computer utilization. The company realizes
savings both from more intense use of computer resources and
from a decreased need to expand computer capacity.
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RESTRUCTURING WORK
The advantages sought by workers who take jobs as electronic
home workers include the opportunity to control their own time
and a reduction in child care costs. Control over the scheduling of
work is an important benefit to some women who are balancing
home responsibilities with paid employment. In practice this ben-
efit accrues mainly to professional employees, since professional
work is less closely supervised and allows for more freedom in
scheduling particular tasks. For some who cannot find affordable
quality day care, teleworking may provide the only opportunity to
work at all. Another benefit is that home workers save commuting
time and expenses as well as outlays for clothing, dry cleaning, and
restaurant meals. These savings, however, need to be compared
with the costs that companies have shifted to employees working
at home in assessing the benefit to home workers. Finally, tele-
working increases employment opportunities for those who cannot
easily work away from home on a daily basis the handicapped,
the elderly, and, to some extent, mothers of young children.
THE FUTURE OF HOME WORK
Despite its attractiveness to employers, explosive growth in
the number of home workers does not seem likely. Substantial
institutional and managerial commitment is required to establish a
home work program. Employers express strong reservations about
the ability to maintain standards and adequately supervise workers
(Cole, 1981; Sample, 1981~. Professional employees are afraid that
working at home will limit their career mobility since visibility
remains essential for promotion (Chin, 1984; Olson, 1983~. Of
Pratt's respondents, no one thought telecommuting was beneficial
to his or her career. Women were certain that working at home was
detrimental to their careers, but they viewed it as an alternative
to dropping out completely (Pratt, 1984~. Low wages and lack of
job security are critical issues for clerical telecommuters. Finally,
federal, state, and local laws and restrictions currently regulating
home work are slowing the adoption of telecommuting. These
constraints may be weakened if pilot programs prove successful.
Still, given the apparent cost advantages to firms of electronic
home work, these reasons do not seem sufficient to explain why
teleworking is not more widespread. A perceptive analysis of the
lack of substitution of home work for office work is given by Kraut
(1985~. He argues that the current office structure is highly stable
OCR for page 303
EILEEN APPELBA AM
303
and provides a resistant barrier to the spread of telework because
"conventional, 9-to-5 office arrangements support a large number
of activities critical to the functioning of any work organization.
Radical changes in the conventional office have the potential to
disrupt these other activities" (Kraut, 1985:14~. Among the ac-
tivities that Kraut identifies are socialization of new workers to
the workplace, transmission of job skills, informal communication
and information flows, communication of organizational norms
and information collaboration among individuals, structuring of
workers' time, and the spatial and temporal segregation of de-
mands of work and family life. In addition, as Kraut observes,
employers have ways other than home work of utilizing computer
and communications technologies to reduce costs. These include
the relocation of back-office work to suburban or foreign locations
where cheaper labor is more abundant, as well as the reduction
of both production and information workers through productivity
increase.
In light of the advantages to organizing clerical and profes-
sional work in a more conventional office setting, the potential
cost savings associated with teleworking suggests that a steady
but not explosive expansion in the still-small trend toward home
work is likely to continue. Work at home as an adjunct to work
in a conventional office location may increase and may even be
encouraged by employers. A 1982 AT&T study found that 30
percent of those employed outside the home brought work home
with them (cited in Kraut, 1985~. Most of the work done at home
did not require sophisticated equipment but was done with tele-
phone, paper, pencil, and calculators. This may change as more
households own personal computers and other new technology.
The result would be an increase in telework at home as workers
with conventional jobs used telecommunications to complete some
tasks at home, rather than a rapid increase in electronic home
work and the clerical cottage industry.
CONCLUSION
Management's interest in implementing alternative work
schedules and using temporary workers, part-time workers, and
home workers especially in clerical occupations appears to be
more closely related to management's desire to reduce labor costs
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RESTRUCTURING WORK
than to the requirements of office automation technologies. Com-
puter and communications technologies do not require that clerical
office work be fragmented and the separate stages of the produc-
tion process be physically dispersed while decision making and the
work process continue to be controlled from corporate headquar-
ters. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that the technology
is most productive when it is combined with skilled workers who
have a knowledge of the overall production process and when it is
used to integrate tasks and decentralize decision making (Albin,
1984; Appelbaum, 1984; and Hirschhorn, 1984~. Initial training
costs are higher when the technology is implemented in this man-
ner, but the potential for productivity gains over the long term
are substantially increased (Albin, 1984; Hirschhorn, 1984~.
Concern with reducing labor costs and, in some cases, with
realizing savings from office automation immediately rather than
over a longer time horizon appears to have led some firms to imple-
ment alternative work schedules. These schedules function mainly
to increase the flexibility of employers in varying hours to meet
periods of high demand and, in some instances, to eliminate fringe
benefits to employees. Full-time employees in most medium- and
large-size firms have won substantial benefits, including paid holi-
days, vacations, health insurance, life insurance, and pensions (see
Table 11~. Office automation technology has enabled some firms
to rearrange work schedules on some jobs so that hours of work
fall below full time and the job no longer carries some or all of
the benefits. The savings to companies of shifting health insur-
ance and other costs to employees are substantial. Concern with
quantifiable improvements in productivity sometimes leads to the
fragmentation of tasks and to the assembly-line pacing of work,
factors which also contribute to the use of part-time or tempo-
rary workers because jobs have become subdivided. Productivity
concerns may, for example, lead to an increase in remote working-
clerical employees located in satellite processing centers or in their
own homes doing repetitive and easily measured tasks linked to
the firm's central offices via communications lines and with the
computer performing the task of electronically reintegrating the
work process and producing a finished product.
At the same time, a substantial minority of women workers
have expressed a preference for flexible work schedules in order
to meet both work and home responsibilities. Flexible full-time
schedules are not widely available, and these women have opted
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EILEEN APPELBA AM
TABLE 11 Percent of Full-Time Employees by Participation in Employee
Benefit Programs, Medium and Large Firms, 1983
305
Professional Technical
and Adminis- and
Employee Benefit All trative Clerical Production
Program Employees Employees Employees Employees
Paid:
Holidays 99 99 100 98
Vacations 100 100 100 99
Personal leave 25 31 35 17
Lunch period 11 4 5 17
Rest time 74 58 76 80
Sick leave 67 92 91 42
Sickness and
accident insurance 49 29 34 67
Long-term disability
insurance 45 66 58 28
Health insurance for
employee 96 98 95 96
Health insurance for
dependents 93 95 91 92
Life insurance 96 97 95 95
Retirement pension 82 66 84 79
NOTE: Participation is defined as coverage for time off, insurance, or
pension plan. Benefits for which the employee must pay the full premium are
excluded. Only current employees are counted as participants.
SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics (1984c).
for part-time, temporary, or home work arrangements rather than
leave the labor force entirely. But the negative effects of these
arrangements on career mobility and/or earnings growth are a
concern even to those who choose these options (Pratt, 1984~.
There is no evidence of an increased desire for such alternative
work styles by women. At-home work, while a discernible trend,
involves only a tiny fraction of workers. Temporary work is in-
creasing rapidly at present, but it is not certain that this increase
reflects the preferences of women, especially when the initiative
comes directly from the employer as in the case of the new federal
regulations on temporary work. The increase in temporary help
services does appear to represent an effort by women, particularly
those who are skilled workers, to achieve flexibility in scheduling
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306
RESTRUCTURING WORK
work (Gannon, 1984~. It shouIc! be noted, however, that the in-
creases in home work and temporary help services since 1982 have
been more than offset by the decline in voluntary part-time work
between May 1982 and March 1985 (see Table 4~. This suggests
caution in attributing the trends in home work and temporary
work to the desires of women.
Alternative work schedules are, however, clesired by many
employers who see increased flexibility in scheduling workers as
an important way to keep labor costs down. Companies that
anticipate cyclical slowdowns in business or expect automation to
reduce employment needs are staffing at less than full strength
even during periods of economic recovery and expansion. Human
resource strategies include the use of temporary workers, part-
time workers, and home workers to supplement a smaller staff
of permanent full-time employees when employment needs are
high in order to avoid rayons later. The cost savings to firms are
substantial and include ease in scheduling work and in cutting back
employment, as well as savings on fringe benefits and pensions.
Often, there are savings from paying part-time workers lower wages
or home workers on a piece-rate basis as well.
The reduction of labor costs has been the main driving force
behind the development of these work schedules. Nevertheless'
office automation technologies have played an important role in
encouraging and facilitating their use and women workers have
been very much affected by the changes. However, it should be
noted that both the analysis of the reasons for alternative work
schedules and the growing use of temporary workers in non-office
sectors of the economy, such as hospitals and light industry, suggest
that men as well as women are finding it more difficult to obtain
the benefits of permanent, full-time jobs. The combined growth of
involuntary part-time work and temporary employment for both
men and women, while small in relation to the total labor force,
is nevertheless significant. Concern centers on the fact that these
trends may signal a restructuring of employment opportunities
and the extension of supper working conditions to sectors of the
economy where full-time work and benefits have usually prevailed.
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EILEEN APPELBA UM
307
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RESTRUCTURING WORK
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
temporary workers
