The Flexibility Debate: Part Time Work

Abstract Part time workers constitute an important element in the currently fashionable advocacy of a flexible workforce. Unions, in response, have feared the displacement of full time workers and the undermining of hard won job conditions and security. Both sides have ignored the entrenched nature of existing, gender-split mechanisms for responding to market fluctuations and the diverse forms and functions of part time work. Neither flexibility in general, nor part time work in particular, are unitary concepts: they may have contradictory implications and serve quite different interests, depending on how, and by whom, they are initiated and controlled. Union attempts to block them may actually reinforce the negative effects, as well as alienating members. An alternative strategy of regulating, integrating and raising the status of part time work is already producing some positive results.