In the world of work as it exists today, the old standards of fixed hours and location have been substantially weakened. Most employers, in fact, prefer to maintain a flexible system of work arrangements that gives them more control over rate of production, assignment of tasks, and economic circumstances. The global development of these new and extensive conditions of employment variously characterized as nonstandard, alternative, peripheral, contingent, or atypical has reached a point at which its significance for both employers and employees (as well as for society in general) can be...