Minimum Wages, Pay Equity, and Comparative Industrial Relations, edited by Damian Grimshaw. Routledge, London, 2013, 272 pp., ISBN: 978 0 415 81881 0, £84.00, hardback.
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12101 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
proportion of businesses in the United States and global economy. The strengths of
this book lie not only in the author’s ability to clearly describe the complexities of
workplace fissuring, but also, and notably, in his objective analysis of the positive and
negative effects of fissuring for businesses, shareholders, workers and consumers
using concrete examples and statistical data.
There is, nonetheless, one area where the author’s analysis could be further devel-
oped. Throughout the book, Weil explores the consequences of business decisions to
make or buy different elements of the production and/or service process. The decision
to buy leads to a fissuring of the employment relationship while the decision to make
retains certain high value, core activities in-house. However, little attention is given to
firm decisions to both make and buy the same activities: for example, firms that both
manufacture component parts internally and source those same parts from external
suppliers, or, franchisors, such as McDonald’s and Wendy’s, that own and operate
restaurants alongside franchised units. Although the author demonstrates that
in-house operations provide better working conditions than external operations (for
instance, franchised restaurants are more likely to be found out of compliance with
wage and hour laws and owe higher back wages on average than comparable
company-owned restaurants), additional questions come to mind: Why do firms
choose to both make and buy the same activities, especially if fissuring is relatively
more profitable? What does the combination of similar in-house and externally con-
tracted activities mean for fissured employment? Moreover, and in light of variation
in workplace conditions, does the simultaneous use of in-house production and
external contracting for similar activities have implications for worker perceptions of
fairness and equity? The answers to these questions may hold additional insights for
mending the fissured workplace.
In sum, The Fissured Workplace is a timely and invaluable contribution that will
help researchers, practitioners and policymakers more fully comprehend the changing
nature of work in the twenty-first century. Firm decisions to shed activities have
important implications for business organization and employment. A successful path
forward can only come from a thorough understanding of the benefits and costs of
firm restructuring strategies and by promoting shared responsibility for outcomes in
fissured workplaces. Weil’s analysis and policy prescriptions provide the first essential
steps on the journey down the yellow brick road.
TASHLIN LAKHANI
The Ohio State University
Minimum Wages, Pay Equity, and Comparative Industrial Relations, edited by Damian
Grimshaw. Routledge, London, 2013, 272 pp., ISBN: 978 0 415 81881 0, £84.00,
hardback.
Minimum wage research has focused on an important, if narrow, range of issues,
including effects on employment, earnings, family income and income distribution.
The emerging, and possibly emerged, consensus is that moderate increases in the
minimum wage boost the earnings of the lower 15–25 per cent of the income distri-
bution without adversely affecting employment. Increases in the minimum wage
affect a larger proportion of women than men. Historic declines in the real minimum
wage have been an important cause of rising earnings inequality, particularly in the
United States.
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Book Reviews 171
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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