The New Realities of Working-Class Jobs: Employer Practices, Worker Protections, and Employee Voice to Improve Job Quality

Over the last 40 years, changing employer practices have introduced instability and insecurity into working-class jobs, limiting the voice that employees have in their own employment and deteriorating overall job quality. In the decade after the Great Recession, slow but sustained economic growth benefitted workers in terms of generally higher employment and wages and reductions in involuntary part-time work. But we show that in that same period, other aspects of working-class jobs changed in ways that were less advantageous to workers. We examine recent, troubling trends in nonstandard employment, precarious scheduling practices, and employer labor violations, arguing that without the introduction of policies that rebalance terms of employment toward worker interests, an economic recovery alone is unlikely to reverse the overall trend toward reductions in job quality. We argue for federal-level policies that expand public insurance programs, establish minimum standards of job quality, and include avenues for collective employee voice in employment and public policy debates. Such strategies have potential to improve job quality.

Health Care Executive Perceptions of Hiring and Retention Practices of People With Disabilities: Results From Executive Focus Groups

The supply-side approach to providing services without taking into account employer practices has not been effective in achieving meaningful, competitive, and integrated employment outcomes for people with disabilities. This focus neglects the fact that disability and employment is a two-way process with businesses being accountable for such demand-side factors as establishing better hiring, retention, and advancement practices. To initiate the identification of effective employer practices, this article shares the results of two executive focus groups that were conducted in a large health care organization, across four individual hospitals, with a documented success rate of hiring and retaining people with disabilities (PWDs). The purpose of the focus groups was to explore executive perceptions of their organization’s success at integrating PWDs throughout their work force. Results are explored through five identified themes: (a) organizational mission guided decision-making concerning the employment of PWDs, (b) executives living the mission through their daily inclusive behaviors led to employing PWDs, (c) organizational values were important to employing PWDs, (d) the organization benefited from employment of PWDs, and (e) employing PWDs benefited organization staff and the surrounding community. The results of these executive focus groups provide an initial glimpse into the culture and practices of a highly effective organization.

Regulating Workplace Technology

The development of workplace technology has tended to reflect the interests of employers in promoting profitability, whereas worker concerns have been acknowledged in legislation that restricts the most egregious of employer practices. This chapter explores that history and the current legal and regulatory framework, which is explicable with reference to resistance. However, it is suggested that we could also view technology in the workplace as potentially enabling of workers, enhancing their capabilities in overcoming disability, building voice, and accessing learning opportunities. Extending the agenda for regulation in this way has the potential to offer a more positive picture of possibilities in relation to technology in the workplace and more could yet be done to realize these.

Rehabilitation-Related Research on Disability and Employer Practices Using Individual-Based National and Administrative Data Sets

Objective:It is useful to examine workplace factors influencing employment outcomes of individuals with disabilities and the interplay of disability, employment-related, and employer characteristics to inform rehabilitation practice.Design:A number of large national survey and administrative data sets provide information on employers and can inform this inquiry.Results:Provides an overview of 9 national survey and administrative data sets that can be used to investigate the impact of employer practices on employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities.Conclusions:Provides specific examples of disability and employment research, which can be performed with these data sets and implications for rehabilitation policy, practice, and research.

Employer Practices for Employment of People With Disabilities: A Literature Scoping Review

Purpose:Research on employment for people with disabilities has focused on the perspectives of people with disabilities and service providers. Empirical evidence about employer practices and their outcomes would inform the development of more targeted interventions.Method:Scoping review was conducted of literature discussing employer-focused research.Results:Research heavily concerned with employer attitudes and culture. Reports of studies of attitudes and behavior are primarily being published for an audience of service providers and advocates; much less is targeted at employers.Conclusions:Results point to need for empirical evidence of employer practices and behaviors and publication outlets reaching broader employer audience.