BUSINESSES RELYING MORE ON PART-TIMERS : DIVERSE AND DENIED?

Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Short-timer. Contingency worker. Underemployed.

By whatever name, roughly one American worker in six is employed less than full time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - up from about one in eight 30 years ago.

While most of that growth occurred before 1975, events this year have focused new attention on the nation's 23 million part-timers as Labor Day is celebrated.

``People are all of a sudden asking, why is it so many people work part time, and is it a problem?'' said Alec Levenson, a labor economist at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica.

To be sure, the Teamsters Union strike at United Parcel Service - in part over the company's reliance on part-timers - lent urgency to the issue. But in a quieter way, a booming stock market and shrinking unemployment, as well as the continuing dialogue over health care and welfare reform, have helped plant the issue in the nation's collective consciousness.

``It's something everyone can relate to and understand,'' said Sara Horowitz, executive director of Working Today, a national advocacy group for part-time employees.

While there is little consensus among economists, labor advocates and politicians on the significance of part-time work per se, it is agreed that such employment touches all levels of the business world. So part-timers could have a greater say than ever in the nation's evolving labor-management equation. But whether they will use that increased clout remains to be seen.

From short-order cooks to Ph.D.-wielding computer consultants, the nation's part-time work force in the 1990s has become as diverse as the population, according to Michael Yates, a professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh who studies part-time labor issues.

Women still tend to be overrepresented at all levels of part-time employment, Yates said, but the stereotype of the part-timer as someone who either can't hack it or can't find a place in the full-time world is outdated.

About 80 percent of the part-timers want to work less than 40 hours, according to government figures. And college-educated professionals form one of the fastest-growing segments of the part-time work force.

Six years ago, the payroll for technical temps, who tend to work on short-term contracts, was $335 million, according to the National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services in Alexandria, Va. In 1996, it topped $2 billion.

With the economy booming, more full-time jobs than ever are available to those in search of work. Unemployment is at a 24-year low of 4.8 percent, and a recent report by Manpower Inc., the nation's largest placement firm, found that 28 percent of U.S. firms plan to add full-time employees in the coming quarter.

But even as the job market grows, there is concern that the fruits of the country's post-recession boom are not being shared by part-timers.

The issue ``needs to be seen in the context of two-tier work force,'' said Working Today's Horowitz. ``For first-tier, full-time employees, the labor laws and benefits are for the most part in sync with the economy. But the second tier of short-term, part-time and temporary employees typically doesn't have any labor rights.''

At the heart of Horowitz's concerns are employee benefits, which are relatively new as a big factor on the American work scene.

During the near-full employment of World War II, firms competed for employees but were prevented by government-imposed wage freezes from bidding up pay. In response, they began offering noncash incentives such as health insurance, paid vacation and retirement plans. In subsequent years, such benefits came to be expected as part of the social contract between employers and workers.

But with rising global competition, benefits have dropped over the last 20 years for nearly all levels of U.S. employees, especially for part-timers.

In 1979, nearly 80 percent of all full-time U.S. workers had employer-sponsored health insurance, according to Working Today. In 1996, 61 percent of full-timers received it. Fewer than 20 percent of part-time jobs were covered last year.

On average, part-timers also receive hourly wages well below the pay of their full-time counterparts. And with real wages until recently stagnant for all employees, part-timers have particularly taken it on the chin, Horowitz and others say.

Possibility for action

With such economic disparity - and with concern that lower benefits for part-timers could exert downward pressure on benefits for full-time workers, unions have targeted part-timers for recruiting. And the Teamsters struck, in part, over the rights of part-time employees.

``Ironically, UPS is actually a pretty good employer. Most part-time workers aren't in a powerful union'' like the Teamsters, Yates said.

Yates believes that the outcome of the UPS strike could help galvanize part-timers into a force capable of political action.

``Often I'll be teaching college seniors, business students, and I'll be the first person ever to have discussed labor unions with them,'' he said.

Along with a lack of awareness, the nature of part-time employees can run counter to group action. Many part-timers do not view work as the focus of their existence, Yates said.

Growing numbers of young employees are demanding higher wages and better benefits from employers, including Starbucks, Borders Books & Music and Noah's Bagels - not the types of stores many expect to be hotbeds of labor activity.

Harley Shaiken, a professor at the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California at Berkeley, said unionization efforts at such stores is intriguing, since union membership overall has suffered in recent years.

Whether such action will spread to Southern California is uncertain.

While the expansion of part-time work may be a phenomenon of the 1990s in other parts of the country, ``in Southern California we're already sort of used to it,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County.

``The classic example is the motion picture industry, where so many professionals work as independent contractors,'' Kyser said. ``There's been a lot of hue and cry lately about a rise in part-time work, but we've always been sort of attuned to seasonality in industries.''

Ironically, it may be from one of the lowest-income tiers that such a movement arises locally, according to Yates. Farm workers, especially strawberry pickers, have made significant gains in recent years from agribusiness, he said, and are an example others might follow.

``These people are often seen as disposable, though they might in fact be highly skilled. I'd think they'd be prime candidates for unionization.''