Precarious, Informalizing, and Flexible Work Transforming Concepts and Understandings

TL;DR: The authors examines new ways of looking at the global economic system as a whole while focusing on the diverse experiences associated with precarious work and addresses prominent social movements and scholarly responses to changes in work and life, including transforming politics and policy initiatives.

Abstract: There is a considerable body of academic and activist research that studies the prevalence of precariousness in contemporary societies. It goes by many names that are often interchangeable, including precarious work, precarity, informalization, and casualization. These are typically rooted in emerging theories of labor and work that temporally correspond to the globalization of production, distribution, and consumption in the neoliberal era. This article examines new ways of looking at the global economic system as a whole while focusing on the diverse experiences associated with precarious work. We address prominent social movements and scholarly responses to changes in work and life, including transforming politics and policy initiatives.

Summary

Introduction

• Multi-tier Heterogeneous Network where massive number of small cells are deployed under the coverage of macro cell(s) have been identified as one of the major approaches to enhance the capacity of 5G networks [1].
• The temporal and spatial variation of traffic load in cellular networks due to varying user distribution and mobility patterns results in most BSs been either idle (i.e. serving no user) or under-utilized (i.e. serving very few users) for most part of the day which amounts to energy wastage.
• This is not the case in the HetNet with Control/Data Separated Architecture (CDSA) where the macro BS provides continuous coverage, signalling functions and low data rate services while the small cells handles high data rate transmissions.
• Therefore, the authors propose a reinforcement learning based cell switching scheme that employs vertical traffic offloading to turn off lightly loaded small cell(s) in a HetNet with CDSA during periods of low traffic load.
• The rest of the paper is organized as follows.

II. RELATED WORKS

• The design of efficient cell sleeping techniques with traffic offloading has attracted much research attention lately.
• In [6], an analytical model to determine the number of small cells that can be switched off with vertical traffic offloading was proposed using two sleeping schemes (random and repulsive scheme).
• In the random scheme, the small cells have equal probability of being turned off while in the repulsive scheme, only the small cell(s) closest to the macro BS are turned off.
• In [7], centralized and decentralized Q-learning algorithm was developed to optimize the traffic offloading and small cell switch off process.
• In addition, HetNet scenario with CDSA has never been considered in reinforcement learning aided traffic offloading techniques.

A. Network Model

• The authors consider a two-tier HetNet consisting of a macro cell and three small cells as shown in Fig. 1, with separated control plane and data plane where the macro cells and small cells operate in dedicated frequency bands.
• The macro cell is responsible for providing coverage, signalling as well as low data rate services while the small cells provide high capacity in hotspot locations and are linked to the macro cell using the backhaul.
• Small cells are switched off during low traffic load periods and their traffic offloaded to their associated macro cell provided there is enough capacity in the macro cell to accommodate the offloaded traffic load.

B. Power Consumption Model of HetNet

• The authors assume a network consisting of BSs (both macro and small cells) each having limited number of resource blocks (RB) and that both macro cell and small cell have the same number of RBs.
• The authors model the load profile of each BS as the proportion of RBs occupied per minute over a 24 hour period.
• The total power consumption of the HetNet is the sum of the power consumption of the macro cell(s) and all the smalls cells under its coverage.

IV. PROBLEM FORMULATION

• The aim is to determine the optimal strategy to switch off lightly loaded small cells during low traffic periods that will minimise the total power consumption of the HetNet while considering the QoS requirement of offloaded traffic which is availability of capacity.
• P ( ψ ) is the expected power consumption of the HetNet using any switching strategy ψ.
• The second constraint is the dynamic power (power consumption due to transmission) constraint which implies that the power consumption gain ∑.
• P ks-off obtained by switching off small BS(s) must be greater than the increase in power consumption in the macro cell, ∆Pm as a result of additional load from sleeping small BS(s).
• The authors develop a reinforcement learning based small cell switching and traffic offloading mechanism in the next session to optimize energy consumption in the HetNet.

V. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY

• The authors propose a reinforcement learning algorithm, a set of machine learning algorithms, to implement the small cell switching operation.
• As a illustration in their study, the macro cell interacts with the network environment, obtains information about the traffic loads levels of the small cells through its backhaul connection with them and then decide which combination of small cells to switch off per time.
• Q-learning is an off-policy method, meaning that it follows different policies in determining the next action and updating the action-value table.
• The state is related to their optimization constraint which is availability of capacity in the macro cell for traffic offloading.

VI. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

• The authors evaluate the performance of the proposed Q-learning based cell switching algorithm.
• For each simulation, the authors specify the maximum load level of the macro BS while the load of the small cells are continually varied.
• This is because Q-learning is able select the optimal set of small cell(s) to be switched off per time thereby enabling the HetNet to operate with minimal energy consumption.
• Fig. 3 presents the gain in energy consumption as well as the confidence levels of the results obtained when Q-learning is implemented.
• Initializing the action-value table at every episode could be an approach for this kind of abruptly changing environments; however, it comes with the expense of computational burden, since it makes Q-learning try to learn the environment at each episode.

VII. CONCLUSION

• The authors developed a Q-learning algorithm to minimize the total power consumption of a two-tier HetNet with CDSA.
• The Q-learning based cell switching algorithm is able to select the optimal set of small cells to be switched off in order to maximize energy saving in the HetNet.
• The increase in power consumption in the macro cell due to offloaded traffic from sleeping smalls cells was also considered when developing the switching mechanism.
• The result of the simulation reveals an energy savings gain of about 50% while ensuring that the QoS of users is maintained.

Figures

Figure 1. Classes of informal labor Source: Chang (2011).

Full text

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (http
s
://dare.uva.nl)
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)
Precarious, informalizing, and flexible work: transforming concepts and
understandings
Arnold, D.; Bongiovi, J.R.
DOI
10.1177/0002764212466239
Publication date
2013
Document Version
Final published version
Published in
American Behavioral Scientist
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
Arnold, D., & Bongiovi, J. R. (2013). Precarious, informalizing, and flexible work: transforming
concepts and understandings.
American Behavioral Scientist
,
57
(3), 289-308.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764212466239
General rights
It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s)
and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open
content license (like Creative Commons).
Disclaimer/Complaints regulations
If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please
let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material
inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter
to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You
will be contacted as soon as possible.
Download date:10 Aug 2022

http://abs.sagepub.com/
American Behavioral Scientist
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/57/3/289
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0002764212466239
2012
2013 57: 289 originally published online 7 DecemberAmerican Behavioral Scientist
Dennis Arnold and Joseph R. Bongiovi
Understandings
Precarious, Informalizing, and Flexible Work : Transforming Concepts and
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at:American Behavioral ScientistAdditional services and information for
http://abs.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://abs.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/57/3/289.refs.htmlCitations:
What is This?
- Dec 7, 2012OnlineFirst Version of Record
- Feb 14, 2013Version of Record >>
at Maastricht University on April 7, 2013abs.sagepub.comDownloaded from

American Behavioral Scientist
57(3) 289 –308
© 2013 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0002764212466239
http://abs.sagepub.com
ABS46623
9
ABS57310.1177/0002764212466239American Behavioral ScientistArnold and Bongiovi
© 2013 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
1
Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands
2
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Corresponding Author:
Dennis Arnold, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, Netherlands
Email: arnold.dennis@gmail.com
Precarious, Informalizing,
and Flexible Work:
Transforming Concepts
and Understandings
Dennis Arnold
1
and Joseph R. Bongiovi
2
Abstract
There is a considerable body of academic and activist research that studies the
prevalence of precariousness in contemporary societies. It goes by many names that
are often interchangeable, including precarious work, precarity, informalization, and
casualization. These are typically rooted in emerging theories of labor and work
that temporally correspond to the globalization of production, distribution, and
consumption in the neoliberal era. This article examines new ways of looking at
the global economic system as a whole while focusing on the diverse experiences
associated with precarious work. We address prominent social movements and
scholarly responses to changes in work and life, including transforming politics and
policy initiatives.
Keywords
precarious work, informal employment, flexibilization, informalization, casualization,
contractualization
A striking trend in global labor studies over the past two to three decades is the broad
array of terms and definitions used for different labor “types” or categories. Terms in
academic, activist, and other literature include precarious work or employment, pre-
carity, informalization, casualization, contractualization, flexibilization, nonstandard,
irregular, and contingent employment among others. Whereas some of these terms are
Article
at Maastricht University on April 7, 2013abs.sagepub.comDownloaded from

290 American Behavioral Scientist 57(3)
descriptive, others are rooted in emerging theories of labor and work that temporally
correspond to the globalization of production, distribution, and consumption in the
neoliberal era. These processes and work practices have affected both less developed
and advanced industrialized countries. Yet meanings vary and shift significantly from
one national or subnational context to the next. Indeed, there is no singular experience
with precarious work, the term most commonly used in this special issue (see Kalleberg
& Hewison, 2013 [this issue]). Rather, there is a differential vulnerability based on
education, age, family responsibility, occupation, industry, welfare, and labor market
protections (Bacchetta, Ekkehard, & Bustamante, 2009). Furthermore, vulnerability
arising from precarious work is context specific and segmented by gender, race, eth-
nicity, citizenship status, and religion (Arnold & Aung, 2011). Accordingly, rather
than forward rigid analytical contours, this article engages different meanings and uses
of these terms and concepts in select literature.
Global scale transitions and transformations shape the increasing precariousness of
work. Globalization has been associated with increased social and economic instabil-
ity and crises (Harvey, 2010). Income inequality has grown substantially, as the
wealthier have become richer and those with lower incomes poorer, while the middle
sectors have remained relatively unchanged (International Labour Organization [ILO],
2005). Economic insecurity and inequality are strongly related, whereas economic
security is only weakly related to economic growth (ILO, 2005). Rapid GDP growth
has not led to reductions in vulnerable employment. Policy makers’ and development
organizations’ preoccupation with growth has numerous impacts for workers, in par-
ticular as they relate to the perceived need for greater flexibility (Kalleberg & Hewison,
2013). Since the 1980s, countries with relatively high levels of so-called formal labor
and socioeconomic development have reverted to precarious work (Kalleberg, 2009,
2011; Vosko, Zukewich, & Cranford, 2003). In developing and less developed coun-
tries, the picture is even bleaker. Wage labor and “working class exploitation” is
increasingly a privilege rather than a curse (Burawoy, 2010), and a growing array of
unremunerated activities are becoming essential to retain jobs, and even to ensure
basic survival (Bernstein, 2007).
The growing power and reach of global capital has exceeded the ability of nations
and labor movements to regulate it, exacerbating inequality and precarious work.
Numerous labor trends have been associated with neoliberal globalization, including
a decline in attachment to employers, an increase in long-term unemployment,
growth in perceived and real job insecurity, increasing nonstandard and contingent
work, risk shifting from employers to employees, a lack of workplace safety, and an
increase in work-based stress and harassment. The lack of public and private invest-
ment in skills and development is accompanied by a lack of access to schooling,
where women and ethnic and racial minorities disproportionally bear the brunt of
these disadvantages (ILO, 2005; Kalleberg, 2009, 2011; Standing, 2008; Vosko,
MacDonald, & Campbell, 2009).
These trends are not entirely new, and follow previous patterns. Capital is con-
tinually in search of spatial, technological, and product fixes, but with each phase of
improvement the intensity of capital investment and productivity requirements
at Maastricht University on April 7, 2013abs.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Arnold and Bongiovi 291
increases (Harvey, 2003; Silver, 2003). Not only have supply chains stretched across
national boundaries to cover greater geographic scope, lead times have become shorter
to respond to oscillations in consumer demand (Gereffi, 2005). As the geographies of
production continue to expand, the process is often reproduced with tighter margins
that provide lower remuneration for workers (Silver, 2003). One result is the increas-
ing difficulty for workers and their families to manage and maintain the social repro-
duction of labor (Arnold & Pickles, 2011; Lee, 2007). On the one hand, precarious
work is a response to competitive pressures from capital. On the other, capital’s
increased global mobility and need for flexibility is a reaction to the wave of struggles
and strength of labor in the industrialized countries in the 1960s and 1970s (Castells &
Portes, 1989; Hardt & Negri, 2001; Harvey, 2005; Silver, 2003). The saturation of
markets, along with the high levels of competition that introduced the process of
global outsourcing, obligated firms to develop techniques and technologies to enhance
or create mobility and flexibility, which also created new barriers to labor organizing
(Precarias a la Deriva, 2006). These processes have diminished workers’ bargaining
power and rights across different countries and contexts (Silver, 2003), and at the same
time generated new forms of struggle (Casas-Cortés, 2009; Hardt & Negri, 2001).
One of the most noticeable implications for labor is the rapidly diminishing trade
union density since the end of the 1970s. According to the ILO (2005), higher union
density is associated with more equality. The representational gap, or absence, is a
critical factor in global insecurity and inequality (ILO, 2005; Standing, 2008).
However, theorists and social movements have long recognized the central role that
trade unions have played in co-opting workers interests. Italian theorist Mario Tronti
(1966, p. 13) noted “the platform of demands that the trade union puts forward is
already controlled by those on whom it is supposed to be imposed: by the bosses who
are supposed to ‘take it or leave it.’” This suggests that trade unions are not a panacea.
On the other hand, a defining element of workers’ vulnerability is power relations in
favor of capital (Chang, 2009). Thus, the lack of workplace and social representation
is a central element producing, reordering, and perpetuating social, economic, and
political disparity, as well as marginalization and vulnerability. As later sections of
this article demonstrate, these issues are critical to both understand, and ultimately
eliminate, precarious work.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows. We first review the informal
economy and employment in that sector, as well as its ambiguous relationship with
both development and the formal economy. We then discuss flexibilization, informal-
ization, casualization, and contractualization of the formal economy. In the last two
sections, we discuss both precarity and precarious work, which are related but distinct
concepts.
Informal Economy Employment
Initially the term “informal sector” was based on the distinction between wage
employment and self-employment. “Informal economy,” on the other hand, covers
both the informal sector and the different forms of informal employment found in
at Maastricht University on April 7, 2013abs.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions in this paper?

This article examines new ways of looking at the global economic system as a whole while focusing on the diverse experiences associated with precarious work. 

Q2. Why do the salariat feel detached from the state social protection system?

Because of high incomes and identification with management, employers, the elite, and proficians, members of the salariat feel detached from the state social protection system, seeing their future security in terms of private insurance benefits, and earnings from judicious investment. 

Q3. Why is precarious work being studied in the academy?

In the process, precarious work, as opposed to a more general social and existential precarity, is being studied in ways similar to flexible and casual labor. 

Q4. What is the main contribution of Standing to the study of precarious work?

4 Standing’s (2008, 2011b) primary contribution to studying precarious work is the introduction of seven categories that serve as an alternative to the traditional working class-capitalist divide that is ill-equipped to accurately represent the complex layers of social-labor formations in contemporary global capitalism. 

Q5. What is the meaning of the term precarious work?

The growing power and reach of global capital has exceeded the ability of nations and labor movements to regulate it, exacerbating inequality and precarious work. 

Q6. What is the impact of precarious work on workers?

Policy makers’ and development organizations’ preoccupation with growth has numerous impacts for workers, in particular as they relate to the perceived need for greater flexibility (Kalleberg & Hewison, 2013). 

Q7. What is the meaning of the term “precarious work”?

Standing’s typology pushes the conceptualization of precarious work beyond relation to social security, pension benefits, and other state-backed social protections. 

Q8. What does the author try to do to minimize the uncertainty for the employer?

What individualizedat Maastricht University on April 7, 2013abs.sagepub.comDownloaded from298 American Behavioral Scientist 57(3)contracts often attempt to do is to tighten the conditions to minimize the uncertainty for the employer and to maximize the capacity to impose penalties for abrogation of the terms of the labor agreement. 

Q9. What is the result of the neoliberal offensive on labor?

As discussed in the introduction, a result of the neoliberal offensive on labor is that the barriers to the free movement of capital were removed (Harvey, 2005). 

Q10. What is the need to understand the precarious labor movement?

there is a need to better understand the ambitions, desires and strategies of precarious workers’ efforts in organizing and the broader implications of social struggle for alternatives to the dominant development paradigms. 

Q11. Why is precarity used in the academic literature?

Precarity has most prominently been used as an accusation against the reduction or elimination of certain, primarily state backed social protections common among formerly Keynesian states (Arnold & Aung, 2011). 

Q12. What are the main reasons for the lack of public and private investment in skills and development?

The lack of public and private investment in skills and development is accompanied by a lack of access to schooling, where women and ethnic and racial minorities disproportionally bear the brunt of these disadvantages (ILO, 2005; Kalleberg, 2009, 2011; Standing, 2008; Vosko, MacDonald, & Campbell, 2009). 

Q13. What was the prominent argument for the informal economy?

It was particularly prominent when support for Western-led approaches to economic development, or the “Washington Consensus,” was strong. 

Q14. What is the result of the unifying view?

A consequence of this unifying view is that the debate among certain scholars and institutions has shifted towards an assessment of the relative size of the different segments and the factors that influence them (Bacchetta et al., 2009).