Abstract
This text is part of a series on key concepts published by Polity Books. The book has three aims: to draw together the ‘disparate strands’ of recent scholarly thought about work; to critically engage with recent scholarly thought about work; and to open up the study of work to engage with public debate.
Vallas first sketches approaches that shape the field of sociology of work. He introduces ‘three rules of thumb’, which he suggests should underpin the study of work: that work is important for individuals and society; that it is embedded in ‘social and institutional settings’ and that work has a ‘hidden underside’ (p. 6). These might seem relatively obvious starting points for sociologists but they need to be made because, as he points out, economic, organizational or management studies of work often overlook these perspectives.
Having sketched the outlines of a sociological approach to work, Vallas briefly reviews contemporary ‘key schools of thought’: Marxist, interactionist, feminist and institutionalist approaches to understanding work. He highlights the historical context within which these approaches developed and draws attention to their points of convergence and divergence. In the second chapter he reconsiders labour process theory ‘warts and all’ (p. 38). He suggests that, despite its limitations, the value of this approach lies in its challenge to ‘the myth of classlessness that anaesthetizes so much of everyday life’ (p. 38). He then charts the rise of flexibility, which he describes as a ‘real, material development’ because of its break from the Fordist domination of workers (p. 62). Vallas covers a lot of ground in this chapter, reviewing flexible specialization, flexible work organizations, networks and the rise of the precarity movement in Europe, which he casts as an ‘action-critique of the new flexible work regimes’ (p. 85). He concludes that while the precarity movement is unlikely to spread – to the US, at least – its value is in challenging and attempting to redefine workplace flexibility. For me, what’s missing here is an analysis of the social policies that shape and support the rise of precarious work – for example, the increased conditionality of income support and the development of active labour market approaches (Standing, 2011). Vallas mentions flexicurity as an aside (p. 84 and later p. 164), but without any discussion of how employment, unemployment, non-employment and income security policies intersect to shape employment.
The intersections of work with unpaid work are touched on when he discusses gender inequalities at work in chapter 4 and globalization in chapter 6, but the focus is squarely on paid employment. As an applied researcher, I’m interested in how the construction of work (paid and unpaid) reflects and reinforces inequalities – and how work could be redesigned and redistributed. Vallas characterizes the book as ‘something of a user’s guide or manual’ (p. 6) for what he describes as the ‘peculiar trade’ of the sociologist of work. And it does seem a peculiar trade, because while he acknowledges the embedded and related nature of work, strangely his discussion of work seems removed from any real consideration of social policy.
In the fourth and fifth chapters Vallas addresses what he calls ‘ascriptive inequalities at work’ (p. 87), first gender and then ‘race’, ethnicity and diversity at work. I found the brief discussion of diversity management and the re-inscription of inequalities especially interesting, given increased interest in ‘diversity’. He sees some hope in the development of more engaged socio-legal research, and in research that recognizes intersectionality but does not devote much space to exploring these perspectives, which is a pity because there is some excellent socio-legal research, such as Nakano Glenn (2010) or Busby (2011).
The sixth chapter looks at globalization at work, with very brief reviews of neoliberalism, globalization and a brief discussion of global capitalism and regulatory movements. This chapter balances the at times US-centric focus of the book with a broader discussion of research about work in developing and developed nations.
Work provides critical insight into various approaches to sociological studies of work, but I couldn’t help feeling a little frustrated by its narrow construction of work as paid employment and its lack of discussion of social policy, even in its discussion of the rise of precarious work. That said, it is a useful introductory text with extensive references and a relatively slim index. For students of the sociology of work this book provides a theoretically grounded overview, with some hopeful suggestions about how sociological understandings of work could inform public debate and further research.