Temp : how American work, American business, and the American dream became temporary
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-372) and index.

"Every working person in America today asks the same question: how secure is my job? In postwar America, business and government leaders embraced a vision of a workforce rooted in stability, and the 'bottom line' was about minimizing risk, not maximizing profit or shareholder value. Over the last fifty years, job security has cratered as the postwar institutions that insulated us from volatility--big unions, big corporations, powerful regulators--have been swept aside by a fervent belief in the market. In this surprising book, Louis Hyman explains the real origins of the gig economy: it was created not by accident, but by choice. A series of deliberate decisions by consultants and CEOs made as early as the 1950s--long before the digital revolution--upended the longstanding understanding of what a corporation, factory, or shop was meant to do, and led to the uneasy combination of opportunity and insecurity workers experience today. [This book] tells the story of the unmaking of American work through the experiences of those on the inside: consultants and executives, and the temporary (and often invisible) data processors, line workers, and migrant laborers. Drawing on the archives of companies such as Apple, HP, McKinsey & Company, and Manpower, Hyman shows how these firms helped corporations trade long-term stability for short-term profits. He also reminds us that the postwar workplace may have seemed idyllic for white men, but the work was often dehumanizing, backbreaking, and most importantly, soul-crushing. For women, people of color, and migrants, it was labor in a world with almost no protections. The end of the postwar job tempts us to imagine a productive life outside of the shop, office, or factory. [This book] explains one of America's most immediate crises and offers concrete ideas for restoring balance between prosperity and stability. Uber is not the cause of insecurity and inequality in our country, and neither is the rest of the gig economy. The answer goes deeper than apps, further back than outsourcing and downsizing, and contests the most essential assumptions we have about how our businesses should work. As we make choices about the future, we need to understand our past."--Dust jacket.