For thirty years, municipal governments have restructured their workforces. An increasing number of public services once performed by regular city employees are performed through contracting to nonprofit and for-profit firms, volunteer and national service labor, and through welfare-to-work programs. In New York City, all of these types of labor are used in combination with standard public employment to maintain parks and public areas, administer social services, and perform clerical duties. This study focuses on the mix of formal and informal work in maintenance operations in New York City's parks, and asks how the diversity of working arrangements affects their management, workplace relationships, institutional labor relations, and the career paths of their workers. The study probes first, what the various kinds of workers employed in the parks actually do, how they understand their work, compare it to others' work, and manage relations within the workplace among peers and supervisors. Second, the study asks how and why the composition of the parks maintenance workforce changed, and who the institutional stakeholders are in the changes in the maintenance workforce. Third, the study investigates how the changes in the parks maintenance workforce affect the careers, mobility and workforce development of low- and semi-skilled workers. Are there potential workforce development benefits-e.g., the broadening of job-finding networks or increased training opportunities-for low- and semi-skilled workers, or are there mainly drawbacks as contracting-out, job-training, welfare-to-work and volunteer programs expand? Each set of questions will involve different methods for gathering and analyzing data, including ethnographic fieldwork, extensive interviews, and documentary and archival research.
The broader impacts of the research include fostering intra- and interdisciplinary dialogue among sociologists of work, urban sociologists, and students of urban policy, political science, and political economy. It will result in a book and several scholarly articles across several disciplines. The research project is also designed to expose master?s level policy students and doctoral-level students to multi-method research. Because the research will be carried out with the collaboration of a French researcher, it will both foster international dialogue on the issues germane to the study, and may begin the process of a larger comparison of urban public work. Finally, the study results will inform stakeholders from city government, labor unions, community organizations, and antipoverty groups about the similarities and differences in the needs of the diverse public workforce, and the challenges in managing it.
