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The stated goal of the nation's largest workfare program, New York City's 'Work Experience Program' (WEP), is to provide welfare recipients with adequate training and relevant job experience so that they can successfully compete for work in the private sector. When it became apparent that the program was not living up to its stated ideals, the workfare workers began a union organizing drive late in 1996. However, the city administration formally opposed the unionization campaign on economic grounds and by arguing that workfare workers were not employees per se. In this article, I argue that workfare workers are a type of contingent public sector employee, discuss and analyze the New York City WEP worker unionization campaign and provide recommendations how this drive could have used the idea that workfare workers are contingent public sector employees in pursuit of a potentially more successful outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from a large-scale national survey of employers and employees in Britain, we examine the impact of the presence of contingent employees on work attitudes of standard (full-time, indefinite-term) employees. Drawing on differing explanations for the increased use of contingent employment arrangements, we derive competing hypotheses about how this use affects standard employees' work perceptions and attitudes, and explore the impact of a number of potentially intervening factors. We find that contingent employees have little effect on standard employees' perceptions of work overload, but strongly reduce perceived job security, which in turn, mediates the negative effects of contingent employees on job satisfaction and organizational loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past few decades, hundreds of empirical investigations have examined the construct of “workplace commitment”. Much of this research is based on the assumption that commitment is tied to longevity within a given organization. However, work patterns, particularly in many leisure delivery systems, are inconsistent with the longevity model. Leisure settings often rely, not on full-time lifelong employees, but on contingent employees, those working part-time, seasonally, or on a temporary basis. This study used qualitative methods to explore the experience of contingent leisure workers. The goal was to discover the level and type of commitment they experienced and to determine variables that most influenced that commitment. Twenty-four contingent employees took part in a semi-structured interview. Critical incident technique was used to examine specific incidents and their subsequent influence on commitment levels and types. Their commitment was based very strongly on enthusiasm and passion for various components (the organization, supervisor, occupation, workgroup, and client) of the work setting. However, participants' attention was focused primarily on the client and on their respective supervisors. Interactions with either could have dramatic implications for their commitment levels. We found too that these employees could be profoundly influenced by the setting in which the work took place and by the activities that dominated their workday. This is the first time setting and activity have been identified in commitment research. We speculate that both may be most salient in leisure contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]