Abstract
In this well-researched and illuminating study of labor in Chicago’s food retail and construction industries, Marc Doussard argues that the widespread patterns of low-wage and irregular employment, poor working conditions, employer violations of labor laws, and declining union influence are not merely the static end result of economic processes such as deindustrialization, capital flight, and globalization. Instead, “degraded work” is the result of employers’ efforts to innovate, that is, to actively develop labor markets and work conditions that will ensure profitability in a given economic sector. Based on more than fifty interviews and other sources, Doussard explains that “place-bound” industries such as grocery markets and residential construction present significant challenges to activists who mean to help low-wage workers, but at the same time yield opportunities. Manufacturing firms could flee urban areas, but service industries depend upon economic ties to specific locations—and are thus vulnerable to pressure from activists. Degraded Work brings into focus the struggles of low-wage laborers and provides recommendations for activists to engage employers around these issues.
Numerous factors combine to produce degraded work. In food retail, the emergence of independent grocery stores in communities that were historically underserved by larger chains depends upon a business model that emphasizes (1) the maintenance of low costs for high-quality meats and produce, which draws in cost-conscious customers, and (2) the sweating of laborers at low wages as the pathway to profit. In urban areas, grocery profits are more uncertain since the original formula for success was continual growth in store size and expanding sales volume, both of which were outgrowths of post-1945 suburbanization. In fact, independent urban grocers cultivate with care antiunion, low-wage, and sweated working conditions in order to guarantee their profitability.
At the same time, narrow profit margins in construction lead employers to nurture a labor market that is low wage and temporary. With limited capital and fluctuating cycles of activity, contractors developed “street-corner shape-ups” in order to guarantee flexible access to laborers (p. 144). As Doussard points out, the disenfranchised status of undocumented immigrants, who predominate in the casual labor market, puts them in a position where they have little legal recourse from workplace injustices.
What can be done about the problem of degraded work? Significant political and structural problems impede the efforts of policy makers and activists to intervene on behalf of low-wage workers. Structurally, the “atomized” and shifting workplaces of construction sites and small stores make it difficult for outsiders to fully appreciate the problems on the ground and to pursue actions that will address them (p. 146). The influence of conservative politics and the decline of union clout has led government officials to underfund and neglect regulatory agencies that are supposed to help workers and enforce labor laws.
To begin remedying the imbalance of power among workers and employers in place-bound businesses, Doussard urges activists in Chicago to engage aldermen and other local officials who oversee the issuing of permits that determine the economic uses of urban space. Also, local activists might discover that taking on wage theft by employers (a major problem for undocumented workers) offers an issue platform that would likely garner sympathy from the public and city officials as well as embarrass those employers who have avoided providing restitution.
While Doussard’s book is full of rich detail on the challenges facing workers, its focus on labor markets neglects the important role of domestic arrangements and family life in shaping the political and personal feelings of undocumented workers, who in this book are presented as entirely male. How do notions of family obligation shape working men’s feelings about taking action to change working conditions? At the same time, what circumstances do undocumented women confront in their jobs? How do they contend with the double bind of gender and class power imbalances at work and at home?
Despite these caveats, Marc Doussard’s excellent study provides labor educators and community activists with a very useful analysis of the market conditions and institutional problems that give rise to degraded work.