Today, at 56, White does similar work managing technology projects for a regional bank. And yet everything feels different. He is a contractor for a technology services firm that assigns him to the bank. He is paid less, and the bonuses and stock awards he once earned as a full-fledged employee are long gone.
At the same time, the gulf between CEO pay and median worker pay has widened . Publicly traded companies are increasingly plowing cash into stock buybacks and shareholder dividends. Half of working Americans in 2018 said they believe workers need strong unions, up from 40% in 2006. Among workers under 35, 60% favor strong unions at a time when union participation has been steadily dwindling.
He stuck with the pharmacy chain, working in several roles — technician, supervisor, assistant manager. He likes the company. But he says it's changed, and not for the better. CVS last year raised its minimum starting pay to $11 an hour and stepped up pay raises, and DeAngelis said turnover among pharmacy technicians has declined.
In some cases, work is further outsourced to still other companies. Sometimes, workers are hired as contractors, who are technically self-employed yet often report to the same workplace as full-fledged employees. Uber and Instacart are other examples of the fissured workplace. So are universities that increasingly rely on adjunct professors and distribution centers that depend on independent contractors.
Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor and labor movements at the City University of New York, said people most affected by such fissuring used to be blue collar workers without college educations. In recent years, the trend has crept up the income scale into tech jobs and others that require college degrees.
"They may or may not care about you too much, personally," White said of the tech services firm that is now his employer."You're filling a slot for them for that client. They're not as engaged." Lin's research has shown that a greater focus by companies on shareholders and share prices typically leads to a decline in employment, with blue-collar production and service workers hit hardest . Though many American workers are invested in the stock market, Lin said,"their reality is more tied to their role as a worker, and their reality is more tied to what's happened to their paycheck.
Shipments and store changes often came with little warning. It was clear, she said, that business wasn't doing well. The difficulties trickled down to workers. Shifts would sometimes be cut with less than a day's notice. A spokeswoman for Gap, Trina Somera, said that the retailer discourages making schedule changes in the same week but that it does happen occasionally. She also said most stores aren't hit by unscheduled deliveries and that Gap is listening to employees about how to improve that process.