NET WORKING: Work Patterns and Workforce Policies for the New Media Industry

This report, based on a study of a group of highly accomplished professionals in New York City, is one of the first to take up labor market issues in the new media industry. It describes the challenges faced by professionals and employers alike in this important and dynamic sector, and identifies strategies for success in a project oriented environment with highly complex skill demands and rapidly changing technology. Our findings suggest three central issues

Labour Market Segmentation Revisited: A Study of the Dutch Call Centre Sector

Employment in the call centre sector in the Netherlands, similar to the trend in other European countries, is expanding greatly. In 2001, Datamonitor (2002) estimated that 1,266 call centres were operating in the Netherlands. This number is expected to have risen to roughly 2,000 in 2006. An estimated 188,000 people work in this sector at the moment, representing 2.5% of the entire working population in the Netherlands. This represents the highest percentage in Europe with the exception of Ireland. The call centre workforce is employed by in-house and subcontractor call centres. In-house call centres are part of the firm for which they handle customer contacts, whereas subcontractor call centres, which provide customer contact services for other firms or institutions. The call centre sector features a large number of employees working in so-called atypical employment contracts, in particular ‘agents’ who handle the actual customer contacts (De Grip, Hoevenberg & Willems, 1997). Agents are often hired into temporary appointments, part-time contracts, irregular shifts, stand-by contracts, et cetera. The use of such atypical contracts is closely related to the great need for flexibility in the deployment of staff (Kalleberg, 2000). Such workforce flexibility is necessary in order to negotiate peaks and valleys in call volumes. In addition, many call centres prioritize on cost reduction, and this approach constrains investment in personnel. Call centres are therefore often classified as ‘electronic sweatshops’ offering only ‘dead-end jobs’ (Taylor, et al., 2002; Deery & Kinnie, 2004).The labour market for call centre agents could thus be characterised as a ‘secondary labour market’ of insecure, poorly paid jobs without any career opportunities (see e.g. Dekker, De Grip & Heijke, 2002). However, the call centre sector is heterogeneous with respect to employment conditions. For example, agents who work in in-house call centres have better employment conditions than their counterparts in subcontractor call centres. The Dutch industrial relations system offers one explanation for this difference. Agents working in in-house call centres have protections defined by the collective labour agreement (CLA) of the firm the call centre agents work in. In contrast, the subcontractor call centres did not have any comparable protections or their own CLA until 2003. The establishment of a CLA that covers agents employed in Dutch subcontractor call centres in 2003 is a unique phenomenon in the European call centre market (Roland, 2000b).The difference in working conditions between in-house and subcontractor call centres raises the following research question addressed in this paper: To what extent is the labour market for call centre agents a dual labour market, with a secondary segment in the subcontractor call centres, and a primary segment in the form of a ‘professional labour market’ in the in-house call centres?To answer this question, we analyze survey data collected from a national survey of call centre managers in the Netherlands. Moreover, we investigate whether the aforementioned need for workforce flexibility may provide an explanation for the labour market segmentation in the call centre sector and if this segmentation is embedded in Dutch industrial relations. We begin with a brief overview of labour market segmentation theory. Next, we describe the dataset, and provide some brief background about the Dutch call centre sector and its workforce. Then, we investigate the differences between employment conditions in in-house and subcontractor call centres, to determine whether there is a segmented labour markets. Finally, we assess the influence of industrial relations in the call centre sector, and determine whether these reflect the labour market segmentation.education, training and the labour market;

The Temporary Staffing Industry in Protected Employment Economies: Germany, Japan and the Netherlands

The paper addresses how the temporary staffing industry secures social security and a degree of employment stability in three non-liberal market economies with a well developed temp work sector and several decades of industry regulation. Until the 1980s unions in Germany, Japan and the Netherlands effectively opposed the deregulation of the staffing industry. Restrictions placed on the temporary staffing industry institutionalized an “employment-type” alternative to the US-style form of “registered” and “on-call” temp staffing. In the face of high unemployment in the 1990s unions participated in de-regulatory drives aimed at expanding the role of the industry in troubled national labor markets. In most cases, de-regulation dismantled key dimensions of the “employment type” of staffing, and unions shifted their efforts to securing equal treatment of temporary staff. To date, legislation has fallen short of mandating equal treatment, and in the best cases (Germany and the Netherlands) collective bargaining has taken on the role of securing equal wages for temporary staff. Japan, Germany and the Netherlands represent three different degrees of industry de-regulation, with the best case of equal treatment of temps in the Netherlands, and the deepest segmentation of temporary and regular workers in Japan. In comparison to Germany and Japan, Dutch unions early on engaged in regulating temporary staffing services. The early experience of regulating rather than rejecting contingent labor and the density of neo-corporatist institutions for social bargaining in the Netherlands means that Dutch unions have developed stronger capacities for regulating contingent employment despite the weak organization of contingent workers. Unions in Japan and Germany have only recently developed capacities for representing contingent labour, but the significant weakening of social bargaining in both countries is associated with growing labor market segmentation between temporary and regular employees

Living Alone, Patient Sex and Mortality After Acute Myocardial Infarction

BACKGROUND: Psychosocial factors, including social support, affect outcomes of cardiovascular disease, but can be difficult to measure. Whether these factors have different effects on mortality post-acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in men and women is not clear. OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between living alone, a proxy for social support, and mortality postdischarge AMI and to explore whether this association is modified by patient sex. DESIGN: Historical cohort study. PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: All patients discharged with a primary diagnosis of AMI in a major urban center during the 1998–1999 fiscal year. MEASUREMENTS: Patients’ sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were obtained by standardized chart review and linked to vital statistics data through December 2001. RESULTS: Of 880 patients, 164 (18.6%) were living alone at admission and they were significantly more likely to be older and female than those living with others. Living alone was independently associated with mortality [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0–2.5], but interacted with patient sex. Men living alone had the highest mortality risk (adjusted HR 2.0, 95% CI 1.1–3.7), followed by women living alone (adjusted HR 1.2, 95% CI 0.7–2.2), men living with others (reference, HR 1.0), and women living with others (adjusted HR 0.9, 95% CI 0.5–1.5). CONCLUSIONS: Living alone, an easily measured psychosocial factor, is associated with significantly increased longer-term mortality for men following AMI. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm the usefulness of living alone as a prognostic factor and to identify the potentially modifiable mechanisms underlying this increased risk

Variants in GNAI1 cause a syndrome associated with variable features including developmental delay, seizures, and hypotonia

Purpose: Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) encompass a spectrum of genetically heterogeneous disorders with features that commonly include developmental delay, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorders. We sought to delineate the molecular and phenotypic spectrum of a novel neurodevelopmental disorder caused by variants in the GNAI1 gene. Methods: Through large cohort trio-based exome sequencing and international data-sharing, we identified 24 unrelated individuals with NDD phenotypes and a variant in GNAI1, which encodes the inhibitory Gαi1 subunit of heterotrimeric G-proteins. We collected detailed genotype and phenotype information for each affected individual. Results: We identified 16 unique variants in GNAI1 in 24 affected individuals; 23 occurred de novo and 1 was inherited from a mosaic parent. Most affected individuals have a severe neurodevelopmental disorder. Core features include global developmental delay, intellectual disability, hypotonia, and epilepsy. Conclusion: This collaboration establishes GNAI1 variants as a cause of NDDs. GNAI1-related NDD is most often characterized by severe to profound delays, hypotonia, epilepsy that ranges from self-limiting to intractable, behavior problems, and variable mild dysmorphic features