Contingent work

Industrial Revolution

The concept of what we now consider to be a job, where one attends work at fixed hours, didn't become widespread until the Industrial Revolution. Before then, the predominant regular work was in agriculture. Textile workers would often work from home, buying raw cotton from a merchant, spinning it and weaving it into cloth at home, before selling it on.

In the 1770s, cotton mills started to appear in Lancashire, England, using Richard Arkwright's spinning jenny and powered by water wheels. Workers would often work in twelve hour shifts, six days a week. However, they would still often be paid on a piece work basis, and fines would be deducted from their pay for damage to machinery. Employers could hire and fire pretty much as they pleased, and if an employee had any grievance about this, there was very little they could do about it.

Trade Union movement

Individual workers were powerless to prevent exploitation by their employers. However, the realisation that all workers generally want the same things, and the benefits of collective bargaining, led to the formation of the first trade unions. As trade unions became larger, their sphere of influence increased, and started to involve political lobbying, resulting in much of the employment law that we now take for granted.

20th century decline in manufacture

Manufacture has declined during the 20th century in the Western world. Many manufacturing organisations that employ large numbers of people have relocated their operations to developing nations. As a result, whenever they do hire staff in Europe or North America, they often need to be able to fire them quickly and keep costs as low as possible, to remain competitive. As a result, some employers may look for loopholes in employment law, or ways of engaging staff that allows them to circumvent union-negotiated employment law, creating what is now known as contingent work.

Contingent work in culture

Contingent work jobs are widely referred to as McJobs. This term was made popular by Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, and stems from the notion that jobs in McDonalds and other fast food and retail businesses are frequently insecure, and that the hiring and firing is as fast as the food.

Critics of the concept

Many critics say that it's unfair to tarnish all employment agencies with the brush of contingent work. Some say that temporary work patterns such as self-employment, consultancy and telecommuting can bring benefits of flexibility not just to employers, but employees as well, and can improve work-life balance, and make it easier for workers to manage family responsibilities. Counter-critics argue, however, that such benefits are only realized in middle class jobs, whose entry barriers are too high for workers with below-average earnings.

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