Legal Protections and Advocacy for Contingent or “Casual” Workers in the United States: A Case Study in Day Labor

Contingent, non-standard or “casual” work is present in large numbers in virtually every sector of the United States economy. Staffing strategies that use subcontracted or contingent work – strategies that once characterized only some low-wage workers such as garment and agriculture – have now spread to virtually every area of industry, including high tech and finance. United States law is a patchwork of provisions in separate federal statutes – and sometimes in each of the 50 states – governing whether a particular individual is an “employee.” Day laborers in the United States have particular challenging enforcing their limited rights. To address the issues of vulnerable low-wage workers being locked out of labor protections, activists have developed a number of strategies, including litigation and legislative campaigns. These strategies have more recently been broadened to facilitate developing leadership in a new social movement. In this article I draw a portrait of the day labor workforce from city- and state-based surveys of day laborers themselves. I then discuss strategies employed by day laborers to advance their workplace rights.

Pathways from Casual Employment to Economic Security: the Australian Experience

Casual employment is extensive and has been increasing for more than two decades in Australia. The concept of casual employment used in the Australian context is unusual, but it is directly linked to benefit and rights exclusion within the regulatory framework governing employment. The expansion in casual employment has spread across all sectors, industries and occupations. Casual employment is associated with various forms of insecurity including income and employment insecurity. There are a number of ways in which the insecurity associated with casual employment could be reduced.

农民工的就业选择:零工抑或长工——基于沈阳市的调查

近年来,很多城市出现自发形成的马路劳务市场,虽然在一定程度上缓解了农民工的就业压力,但也给城市管理带来难题。因此,研究农民工的就业选择机制,了解马路劳务市场的形成原因,对城市管理具有重要借鉴意义。通过对沈阳市多个马路劳务市场的零工及其他职业农民工(长工)的调查,获得320份样本数据,采用二元Logit模型研究农民工就业选择的影响因素。结果表明:男性相对女性来说更有可能选择打零工;年龄越大,农民工打零工的概率就越高;受教育程度与农民工打长工的概率正相关;没有接受过培训的农民工选择打零工的概率较高;兼业的农民工会更愿意在农闲时进城打零工;社会关系网成员的数量和职业声望都会对农民工的就业选择产生影响。     

新生代农民工就业的特点及其对策

新生代农民工在社会经济建设中扮演了重要的角色,但他们的主动离职现象却非常频繁,导致很多大城市出现"民工荒"。以新生代农民工为一个新兴群体,对比传统的农民工,分析当代新生代农民工的就业特点,将有利于企业更好地留人。文章从新生代农民工离职的特点出发,并提出相应的对策,以期为解决新生代农民工离职问题提供决策参考。     

女大学生择业观存在的问题及对策

随着我国社会主义市场经济不断向前发展,高校毕业生就业制度改革不断深入,当代女大学生的择业观发生前所未有的变化。在女大学生就业难的社会背景下,高校教育工作者不仅要重视对社会因素进行分析,还应对女大学生择业观做深入的研究,如果择业观不能适应社会主义市场经济发展的需要,与社会需求之间存在矛盾。就会造成择业错位,加大就业难度,势必出现“有人无业就、有业无人就”的现象。     

新时期大学生就业压力分析及其措施

随着我国高等教育制度的改革,高校毕业生的数量逐年猛增,一定程度上增加了大学生的就业压力,其中最主要的原因是现行教育体制、高校人才培养模式、就业制度、大学生择业观与市场经济的不相适应,而不断推进教育改革,引导学生做好个人生涯职业规划,树立正确的择业观是解决当前问题的具体措施。     

积极推行竞争上岗切实加强干部队伍建设——以云南民族学院为例

推行竞争上岗是事业单位干部人事制度改革的一项重要内容 ,也是切实加强干部队伍建设的重要举措。本文仅以云南民族学院为例 ,对推行干部竞争上岗进行了分析 ,探究了在此次改革过程中存在的困难和问题 ,并提出了几点建议。     

新形势下高校毕业生如何自主择业

文章分析了现阶段社会对大学生毕业生的要求和毕业生自主择业中出现的问题,并从高校、毕业生两个不同角度提出了实现自主择业的对策.     

高等师范院校毕业生的择业定位探讨

在指出高等师范院校毕业生明确择业定位必要性的基础上,给出了择业定位应遵循的基本原则,并阐述了正确定位应把握好的几个问题。     

The value of improved road safety

We report the results of a contingent valuation study for finding a conservative estimate of the value-of-statistical-life in an urban road safety context in Sweden. We estimate the value of both a private-good device and a public-good safety program. The reduction of risk is communicated with a “community analogy” representation of the “Vision Zero” target of the national traffic-safety policy. According to this target, the road-traffic system should be designed so as to prevent accidents when they happen to lead to fatalities or severe injuries. We use the “certainty approach” for ex-post correction of results to remove or mitigate hypothetical bias of responses. As expected we find insensitivity of responses in the full sample to the size of the risk reduction being valued. By our approach we can compute a conservative estimate, based on answers from fully confident respondents, of the value of the largest possible safety enhancement (i.e. fulfilment of the “Vision Zero”). This lower bound estimate indicates a higher average willingness-to-pay for public safety-improving measures than currently assumed in benefit-cost assessments. We also find that the willingness to pay is considerably lower within a public-good than a private-good framework and a weak indication of sensitivity to scale among the most confident respondents. JEL Codes H43 · I18 · Q51