| Chapter 2: | The Contingent Work Employment Relationship and Its Implications |
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seeing them as a means for exploiting workers and undermining their living standards’ (p. 3).
The social problem perspective is reflective of the conditions of the postwar period and welfare capitalism. It is generally concerned with the collective, with the welfare of workers (through legal protections such as labour legislation, unionisation, and welfare state policies), and by extension, with society (Kunda et al., 2002). From this perspective, contingent work is perceived as a threat to workers and to the stability of allied institutions (such as unions and labour legislation). For example, if, as theorists such as Beck (2000) have argued, work (in its traditional form) operates to organise society, then the spread of contingent work might be seen as a harbinger of the disintegration of society. Thus, the term ‘contingent work’ not only describes a type of employment arrangement, it also carries a set of cultural associations (Broad, 2000). Although its original conception was relatively neutral, from this perspective, it is largely synonymous with degraded work in a secondary labour market and with generalised worker insecurity. This view has led critics such as Broad (2000) to describe the spread of contingent work as reprehensible and to deem the term a euphemism that disguises human suffering.
In contrast to the social problem perspective, the social good perspective on contingent work is illustrative of globalised capitalism and the New Economy. From this standpoint, contingent work is seen as a boon for society—for the economy, workers, and employers. Contingent work is seen as a positive economic and labour market development that constitutes a mechanism for restoring the democratic freedom, entrepreneurship, and morality that, arguably, were lost under the welfare state (O’Brien & Penna, 1998). This view reflects a neoliberal perspective which emphasises free market relations and individual