The organization and reorganization of work is a longstanding theme in economic literature. It experienced a major reinvigoration in the context of the integrated corporation with Harry Braverman's critique, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (1974), and the many analyses that followed. David Weil's important new book does not cite Braverman in its bibliography, but it shifts that tradition to a new environment. Part 1 begins with the large, vertically integrated center firms that formed the basis for so much of Chandlerian business history. Weil acknowledges, of course, that subcontracting is not new in American capitalism; women's clothing manufacture, construction, and film production were built on the practice. But he examines recent transformative disaggregation and disintegration, or fissuring. Lead firms have spun off, outsourced, and offshored work seen as peripheral to core identities and competencies. These changes came from the push-pull of competitive pressures, demands from capital markets, and new production, transportation, communication, and record-keeping technologies. Trade union decline and a reduction in enforcement of worker-friendly legislation accelerated this process. Firms shed these components while socializing costs and liabilities of negative externalities and retaining core value elements such as quality control, brands, design systems, and in some cases, production.

Given the risks of excessive disintegration, fissuring “does not reflect an either/or strategy, but rather a careful balancing act” (p. 60). Still, it has reshaped power, authority, and responsibility and affected the lives of millions of workers. Although total numbers are, unfortunately, unclear, it creates situations such as that in which Apple's 63,000 workers represent only a tiny portion of the 750,000 working “for” the firm. In contrast to previous reward systems, fissuring tends to flatten wage growth among workers and shift wage and rewards to capital, encouraging greater wealth inequality.

Part 2 of the book examines the impact of subcontracting, franchising, and the evolution of complex supply chains. Subcontracting is not new in American capitalism, as Weil acknowledges. More recently, however, it has entered industries that previously saw unionized workers employed by lead firms, such as coal mining: numerous subcontractors now bid to work for portions of their mines at a cut rate with reduced wages, benefits, and safety. Comparable patterns prevail in other industries, such as telecommunication-tower construction, offshore oil rigging, and cable service. Even Hershey's chocolates shifted work to firms harvesting labor from international students seeking an American experience and from small confectioners bidding for a piece of the candy pie. In all these cases, lead firms disclaimed responsibility and liability.

Meanwhile, franchising lets firms in “fast food, hotels, car rentals, home health care and janitorial services . . . focus on the gains of branding while using fissured employment to lower labor costs” (p. 122). Consistent practice and quality requires systems and brands marketed to franchisees while lead firms monitor product, if not labor practices. Paying franchisors, loans, and other costs, franchisees often cut labor costs—legally or illegally—to increase or sustain profitability. Corporate-owned fast-food facilities, notes Weil, have fewer regulatory compliance issues than franchised operations. Similarly, smaller janitorial franchisees are themselves exploited by franchisors who determine clients, rates, and income. Finally, most hotels are themselves brands that are owned, worked, and managed by franchisees; they, in turn, frequently subcontract management, housekeeping, food preparation, etc., to specialized firms, many of whom operate in highly competitive markets. This encourages lower pay, reduced benefits, and union busting as firms reduce labor costs and enhance managerial authority.

Subcontracting the supply chains furthers fissuring. Technology facilitates diffused production and distribution, although timing and quality control remain issues. Competition among contractors decreases costs, resulting in reduced wages, benefits, and safety. Meanwhile, on-board computing and computerized inventory control allows for tracking, coordination of materials, speedup, and loss of worker autonomy, while distribution firms further reduce costs by subcontracting drivers who, although rated as independent subcontractors, nonetheless wear the lead company's uniform. Such cost cutting frequently increases work hours and worker stress.

Part 3, “Mending the Fissured Workplace,” walks us through efforts and possibilities—it is often not a pretty scene. In addition to lower-paid workers, this section also considers skilled but increasingly fragmented intellectual work such as law, journalism, and high finance and banking. There are moves to force lead firms and contractors to take responsibility for the behaviors of their subcontractors or franchisees, but these often seem insufficient to deal with power imbalances in a system morphing faster than law or administration can. Such controls are especially difficult to implement in this increasingly globalized, neoliberal environment. Smaller and more competitive businesses have been especially hostile to interventions.

Efforts at enforcement are often hampered by government agencies’ limited resources. Acknowledging this, Weil advocates warning shots that make examples of large, egregious scofflaws. He points to several successful cases in industries as diverse as construction, muffler shops, clothing manufacture, mining, and even gunpowder manufacturing. Effective monitoring or agreements can result from such interventions. Citing several agreements in agriculture targeting food processors and purchasers, Weil argues that alliances with labor, immigrant, and religious groups can also force lead companies to improve monitoring of suppliers. In international settings, however, weak voluntary arrangements unsupported by formal governmental intervention are less enforceable.

In all, these changes represent the effects of technology, neoliberalism, and the shifting matrix of political power. Recent calls to reverse Obama-era restrictions mandating lead-firm liability for franchisee behavior demonstrate the fragility of efforts to control abuses in these fissured workplaces. Noting that some lead firms do supervise their subcontractors, franchisees, and suppliers, Weil argues for “requiring lead business to incorporate these social costs of shedding employment into the standards they use to monitor” their “network” of fissured workplaces (p. 289). The ability to protect wages and working conditions within this framework, however, will depend on the collective political and economic power that can be marshaled to rein in firms attempting to further remove themselves from workplace liability and control while shifting returns to capital upward. This mobilization is more difficult, of course, in the absence of mass-based, politically engaged organizations committed to protecting workers’ rights. Unless there is realignment on that front, it is just as likely that competition will drive those already controlling these complex systems toward the bottom-feeders with state acquiescence.