Labor Employment Relations Association (LERA) Annual Meeting

In 2003, the Russell Sage Foundation launched a comparative international study of low-wage jobs in five industries in several European nations as well as in the United States. Francoise Carre, a main researcher in the retail sector of this project, organized a symposium for the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) annual meeting to discuss the results of the project, specifically as they pertain to the retail sector. The symposium, “Institutions, Work Organization, Job Quality, and Worker Outcomes in Retail in the United States and Western Europe,” will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana from January 3-6, 2008. With support from the Foundation, a group of researchers from the RSF project will present papers on the cross-national results of the retail sector studies. The symposium will provide a systematic look at factors affecting retail job quality in different countries, paying particular attention to the relative role of national institutional context, technological environment, and corporate strategy in shaping job quality and worker outcomes. The comparative aspect of the project will allow researchers to narrow in on factors that significantly impact job quality.