This book seeks to understand the precarious margins of late-capitalist labour markets. Its point of departure is the prevailing view that the full-time continuous job or the standard employment relationship (SER) is being eclipsed by part-time and temporary paid employment and self-employment. To the extent that such a shift is taking place, what are its implications for precarious employment and those struggling against it? Addressing this question, the book examines the construction, consolidation, and contraction of the SER, taking as its focus the contested emergence--within, amongst and across different nation states--of regulations on?non-standard? forms of employment. These regulations?see? the problem of precarious employment in?non-standard?, which leads them to seek solutions minimizing deviations from the SER. Managing the Margins labels such approaches?SER-centric? and illustrates how they leave intact the precarious margins of the labour market. The book employs three conceptual lenses--the normative model of employment, the gender contract, and citizenship boundaries. Chapters 1 to 3 sketch the gendered development of regulations forging the SER in parts of Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and the US, and its evolution in the International Labour Code. Chapters 4 to 6 examine post-1990 international labour regulations responding to precariousness in employment--focusing on the ILO Convention on Part-Time Work, EU Directives on Fixed-Term and Temporary Agency Work, and the ILO Recommendation on the Employment Relationship. To assess their logic, these chapters use illustrations of the regulation of part-time employment in Australia, temporary employment in the EU 15, and self-employment in OECD countries. The book concludes by assessing alternatives to SER-centrism.
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