Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T16:22:37.132Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Enforcing Labour Standards in Fissured Workplaces: The US Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

David Weil*
Affiliation:
Boston University School of Management; Transparency Policy Project, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The employment relationship in a growing number of industries with large concentrations of low wage workers has become ‘fissured’, where the lead firms that collectively determine the product market conditions in which wages and conditions are set have become separated from the actual employment of the workers who provide goods or services. Instead, the direct employers of low wage workers operate in far more competitive markets that create conditions for non-compliance. We examine this evolution in employment and its implications for public policy in the US, discuss the factors driving fissured employment and sketch its main features and outcomes. We then look at the traditional methods used for labour standards enforcement in the US and discuss why they are poorly suited to address fissured workplaces. Finally, we survey how public policies might better address the realities of the modern workplace, including efforts in this regard by the Obama administration.

Type
Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011

References

Abraham, K., Tyler, S. (1996) ‘Firms’ use of outside contractors: Theory and evidence’, Journal of Labor Economics, 14(3), pp. 394424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arlen, J., MacLeod, B. (2005) ‘Beyond master-servant: A critique of vicarious liability’, in Madden, S. (ed.) Exploring Tort Law, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 111142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashenfelter, O., Smith, R. (1979) ‘Compliance with the minimum wage law’, Journal of Political Economy, 87(2), pp. 333350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bardach, E., Kagan, R. (1982) Going by the Book: The Problem of Regulatory Unreasonableness, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, A., Boushey, H., Dresser, L., Tilly, C. (2008) The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market, Labor and Employment Relations Association, Champaign, IL.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, A., Milkman, R., Theodore, N., Heckathorn, D., Auer, M., DeFillipis, J., Luz Gonzalez, A., Narro, V., Perelshteyn, J., Polson, D., Spiller, M. (2009) Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment in Labor Laws in America’s Cities. Center for Urban Economic Development, University of Illinois Chicago/National Employment Law Project/UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.Google Scholar
Blair, R., Lafontaine, F. (2005) The Economics of Franchising, Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Brown, C., Hamilton, J., Medoff, J. (1990) Employers Large and Small, Harvard Unviersity Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Carré, F., Ferber, M., Golden, L., Herzenberg, S. (2000) Nonstandard Work: The Nature and Challenges of Changing Employment Arrangements, Industrial Relations Research Association, Champaign, IL.Google Scholar
Carré, F., Wilson, R. (2004) The social and economic costs of employee misclassification in construction, Report of the Construction Policy Research Center, Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Estlund, C. (2008) ‘Who mops the floors at the Fortune 500? Corporate self-regulation and the low-wage workplace’, Lewis and Clark Law Review, 12(3), pp. 671693.Google Scholar
Fung, A., Graham, M., Weil, D. (2007) Full Disclosure: Perils and Promise of Transparency, Cambridge University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
General Accounting Office (2009) Employee Misclassification: Improved Coordination, Outreach and Targeting Could Better Ensure Detection and Prevention, GAO-09-717, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Glynn, T. (2011) ‘Taking the employer out of employment law? Accountability for wage and hour violations in an age of enterprise disaggregation’, Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, 15(1), pp. 101135.Google Scholar
Goldstein, B., Linder, M., Norton, L., Ruckelshaus, C. (1999) ‘Enforcing fair labor standards in the modern American sweatshop: Rediscovering the statutory definition of employment’, UCLA Law Review, 46(4), pp. 9831106.Google Scholar
Ji, M., Weil, D. (2011) Does ownership structure influence regulatory behavior? the impact of franchisee free-riding on labor standards compliance, Working paper, Boston University, Boston MA.Google Scholar
Jin, G., Leslie, P. (2009) ‘Reputational incentives for restaurants hygiene’, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 1(1), pp. 237267.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, P., Lafontaine, F. (1994) ‘Costs of control: The source of economic rents for McDonald’s francisees’, Journal of Law and Economics, 37(2), pp. 417453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, K. (2008) Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, Third edition, Pearson/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.Google Scholar
Leonard, J. (2000) Hot goods temporary restraining orders under the Fair Labor Standards Act in the agricultural sector of the economy: A manual for legal assistance programs, Manuscript. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Manning, A. (2003) Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Office of Management and Budget (2010) Open Government Directive, available: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-06.pdf [accessed 6 June 2011].Google Scholar
Osterman, P. (2008) ‘Improving the quality of low-wage work: The current American experience’, International Labor Review, 147 (2–3), pp. 115134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pizza Hut, Inc. (2009) Pizza Hut Franchise Disclosure Document, 25 March. Filed and accessed through the California franchising database, available: http://134.186.208.228/caleasi/Pub/Exsearch.htm [accessed 28 April 2010].Google Scholar
Rebitzer, J. (1995) ‘Job safety and contract workers in the petrochemical industry’, Industrial Relations, 34(1), pp. 4057.Google Scholar
Rogers, B. (2010) ‘Toward third-party liability for wage theft’, Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, 30(1), pp. 164.Google Scholar
Ruckelshaus, C. (2008) ‘Labor’s wage war’, Fordham Urban Law Journal, 35(2), pp. 373404.Google Scholar
Shulman, B. (2003) The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans, New Press, New York, NY.Google Scholar
Stark, O., Hyll, W. (2011) ‘On the economic architecture of the workplace: Repercussions of social comparisons among heterogeneous workers’, Journal of Labor Economics, 29(2), pp. 349375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, K. (2004) From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taco Bell Corp. (2009) Taco Bell franchise disclosure document, 24 March. Filed and accessed through the California franchising database, available: http://134.186.208.228/caleasi/Pub/Exsearch.htm [accessed 15 May 2010].Google Scholar
US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (2008) County Business Patterns: USA, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
US Department of Labor (2010a) Strategic Plan 2011–2016, available: http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/StrategicPlan.pdf [accessed 10 June 2011].Google Scholar
US Department of Labor (2010b) A new approach to measuring the performance of U.S. Department of Labor worker protection agencies, available: http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/newapproach.pdf [accessed 10 June 2011].Google Scholar
US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division (2011) FY 2012 Congressional Budget Justification, available: http://www.dol.gov/dol/budget/2012/PDF/CBJ-2012-V2-03.pdf [accessed 8 June 2011].Google Scholar
US Securities and Exchange Commission (2009) Form 10-K: Burger King Holdings, Inc. FY 2009, available: http://www.sec.gov. [accessed February 2010].Google Scholar
US Securities and Exchange Commission (2009) Form 10-K: Burger King Holdings, Inc. FY 2009, available: http://www.sec.gov [accessed February 2010].Google Scholar
Webb, S., Webb, B. (1897) Industrial Democracy, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Weil, D. (2005) ‘Public enforcement/private monitoring: Evaluating a new approach to regulating the minimum wage’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 52(2), pp. 238257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weil, D. (2008) ‘A strategic approach to labor inspection’, International Labor Review, 147(4), pp. 349375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weil, D. (2009) ‘Rethinking the regulation of vulnerable work in the USA: A sector-based approach’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(3), pp. 411430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weil, D. (2010) Improving Workplace Conditions through Strategic Enforcement, Report to the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weil, D., Mallo, C. (2007) ‘Regulating labor standards via supply chains: Combining public/private interventions to improve workplace compliance’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 45(4), pp. 805828.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, R. (2009) ‘Industry output and employment projections to 2018’, Monthly Labor Review, 132(11), pp. 5281.Google Scholar
Zatz, N. (2008) ‘Working beyond the reach or grasp of employment law’ in Bernhardt, A., Boushey, H., Dresser, L., Tilly, C. (eds) The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market, Labor and Employment Relations Association, Champaign IL, pp. 3164.Google Scholar