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Ideas From The CBC

Tuesday, November 6 at 2:00 pm - Election Day

The Disappearing Company Job

For most of the 20th century, everyone — from the janitor to the CEO — was employed by "the company."  But increasingly, large corporations are outsourcing work to small companies, often abroad. For workers, this change means lower wages, fewer benefits and an intensified widening of income inequality, with huge financial gains going to the top one percent.

A fissured workplace is becoming our new norm, and having a radical impact on widening income inequality, according to scholar and Obama-appointee, the former Labor Standards Regulator, David Weil.  Professor Weil coined the term to explain how many large companies — Apple, The Marriott Hotel, Amazon — are no longer direct employers of the people behind their products and services.

David Weil served as head of President Obama's Wage and Hour Division in the U.S. Department of Labor. He is currently the Dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, Boston. His book The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad, For So Many and What Can Be Done To Improve It is published by Harvard University Press.

Please join Paul Kennedy and scholar and Barack Obama appointee, David Weil, in their discussion about precarious work and the disappearing company job.

To listen to the audio of “The Disappearing Company Job” on Ideas From The CBC online, please click HERE.