From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace [Paperback]

Katherine V. W. Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 26, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0521535999 | ISBN-13: 978-0521535991

Although existing labor and employment laws were built on the assumption of long-term, stable relationships between employees and firms, this book explores the changing nature of the employment relationship and its implications for labor and employment law. The current challenge of labor regulations is to find a means to provide workers with continuity in wages, ongoing training opportunities, sustainable and transferable skills, unambiguous ownership of their human capital, portable benefits, and support structures to enable them to weather career transitions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Written by an internationally renowned labor scholar, this book documents the evolution of the employer-employee working relationship through three eras (artisanal, industrial, and digital production) and articulates the impact and policy implications of these changes...This is an insightful, readable, carefully researched resource likely to be of considerable interest to professionals and scholars across a wide range of disciplines."
T. Gutteridge, University of Toledo, Choice

"This is a formidable book. Katherine Stone has showed yet again that she is one of America's leading labour law scholars. What she has to say is imaginative and original, relevant, carefully researched and easily accessible to professions and scholars right across the spectrum of disciplines."
Harry Arthurs, York University

"Contemporary employment practices no longer fit the legal models that are supposed to regulate them. Katherine Stone, one of our most thoughtful and articulate labor scholars, shows in this book how the situation came about and what should be done to improve it. It's hard to imagine a sharper or more readable account of these issues."
William H. Simon, Columbia University

"An insightful, readable, carefully researched resource likley to be of considerable interest to professionals and scholars across a wide range of disciplines."
Choice

"From Widgets to Digits speaks to a [broad] audience, and indeed represents that rare effort that will serve as a university textbook ... as well as a challenge to the profession and to policymakers. Widgets is the best synthesis we now have of where we have been, where we are now, and where we might go with respect to the regulation of employment in the United States. Widgets to Digits is a work of grand synthesis. While other books have talked about the "new deal" imposed on workers by corporate employers, Stone has theorized and drafted what could realistically be put forth as a "New Deal" for workers in the larger political sense, should that needed organizational change "mechanism" appear, or should economic collapse once again force political change."
Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

"This is a detailed and insightful work, which t houghtfully describes and contrasts the old and new workplace.' - Julissa Reynoso, Layer at a private litigation firm in New York City

Book Description

FROM WIDGETS TO DIGITS is about the changing nature of the employment relationship and its implications for labor and employment law. The existing labor and employment laws were built on the assumption of long-term, stable relationships between employees and firms. Today's challenge is to find a means to provide workers with continuity in wages, on-going training opportunities, sustainable and transferable skills, unambiguous ownership of their human capital, portable benefits, and an infrastructure of support structures to enable them to weather career transitions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 314 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (July 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521535999
• ISBN-13: 978-0521535991
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,100,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential guide to the new world of work, May 22, 2005

By 

Jeremy Brecher - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace (Paperback)

Amid the endless hype about the "new workplace," it is difficult to grasp the enormous changes that have occured in the world of work over the past quarter century. Katherine Stone's FROM WIDGETS TO DIGITS is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to understand or to affect the character of labor in the globalizing economy.

The author starts be presenting the historical shift from 19th century artisanal production to 20th century industrial production and the social, political, and legal changes that emerged in response to it. Her presentation of that history provides a model for understanding what she calls "digital production" -- and, even more important, for addressing the issues it poses for the social, political, and legal regulation of work.

The book's power results in part from the fruitful combination of the insights of a labor historian with those of a legal theorist. It also grows from the author's underlying conviction that work relations must be considered not just from the point of view of economic efficiency, but from the point of view of justice.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional Analysis of Present Situation, December 3, 2004

By 

Richard Feller "Co-author of Knowledge Nomads... (Colorado State University) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace (Paperback)

The best and most authoritative analysis of why so many workers feel "nervously employed". A scholarly work of great value to all including those eager to take responsibility for their place in a turbulent workplace. It brights attention to the fact that productivity gains have gone to owners of capital not workers creating wealth...a must read!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable book, November 8, 2004

By 

Joel F. Handler (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace (Paperback)

This is a truly outstanding book. The author, a renowned expert in labor relations, discusses the transformation of the workplace, the increased risks to workers with the changes in health insurance, pensions, and low wages, the decline in unions and the new forms of discrimination. She has lots of good suggestions for reform. It is extremely well-written and thought-provoking.