Industrial Homework, Economic Restructuring and the Meaning of Work‪.‬

Belinda Leach, "Industrial Homework, Economic Restructuring and the Meaning of Work," Labour/Le Travail, 41 (Spring 1998), 97-115. THE CLOTHING INDUSTRIES of the western industrialized countries have historically made use of subcontractors and homeworkers to permit flexibility and maintain a place in a highly competitive market. Industrial homework (1) is therefore by no means a new phenomenon in certain industries, and the historical conditions of its use have now been quite well documented. The recent "renaissance" of industrial homework in a number of countries has been seen by several analysts as a symptom of processes of economic restructuring. With rapid changes in the economic conditions for production there is increased pressure from offshore producers upon already struggling domestic industries. This has led to an increase in the use of homeworkers through the 1980s and 1990s in most of the industrialized countries. (2) As companies seek to improve their ability to compete on the world market, they utilize a variety of strategies, including flexible and cheap forms of labour. (3) An increasingly popular option is to subcontract certain tasks to a separate firm or to individuals working at home. Both labour and overhead costs are passed down the subcontracting chain, while the smaller subcontracted firms and homeworkers become dependent on the larger firms for work.