"Soft Money", Hard Times: Contract Employment in University Research and Non-profit Social Services

Janet Dassinger, Wayne Lewchuk, and Sam Vranjulc

March 2013(Draft do not cite)

Abstract

This article compares and contrasts the impact of external or “soft money” on employment and social relations among fixed-term researchers and social service workers. It examines the experience of precarious employment amongst a group of relatively well-paid individuals and its impact on their households. It suggests that while “soft money” intensifies employment precarity in unique ways, fixed term workers in “contract culture” also improve their security and autonomy by developing skills at grant writing and administration. However, because “soft money” and its consequences are so prevalent in both sectors, mechanisms to regulate the terms and conditions of employment require far greater interest and attention.

Key Words

Precarious Employment/Academic Research/Non profit social services/contractualism

Introduction

Drawing on primary research conducted on precarious employment in Southern Ontario, Canada, this paper will explore the use of external funding or "soft money" to fund professional positions in both the non-profit social service (NPSS) and university research sectors. The use of "soft money" to fund university research and the social services delivered by non-profit organizations has become pervasive in recent years. Most jobs funded in this way are full-time and tend to be well paid, but are almost always fixed term contracts, with few if any commitments to workers beyond the end of the grant. The increased prevalence of "soft money" to fund employment has increased precarious employment amongst socio-economic groups that were largely immune from it in the past. In what follows we explore in detail how this form of employment uniquely shapes relations in and outside the workplace, and suggest the need for greater interest and attention to the importance of regulation.

Literature Review

The rapid growth of fixed term employment in Europe and in North America has attracted the attention of a number of researchers looking at employment in the university sector (Hey 2001; Collinson 2003; Hockey 2004; Hobson et.al. 2005). One strain of this research focuses on contract workers and examines why they accept employment conditions that rarely lead to permanent employment. Hey (2001) argues individuals accept contract research work as it continues to confer status despite its precarity. Others have examined how contract workers adopt strategies during periods of unemployment to increase their chances of getting more work

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(Hockey 2004). This can mean adopting behaviours when in work that make it more likely workers will be included in future grants. It can also lead to doing unpaid work during employment gaps to keep a hand in research. Collinson examined how contract researchers can successfully pursue careers under this form of employment arguing success is contingent on developing extensive networks, but also researcher skill in finding their own grants to fund their employment. Finally Hobson et.al 2005 explored the role of research assistants in the production of knowledge and noted that despite their centrality to the process, they suffer from lack of recognition and full compensation for their contributions. Together, this body of work points to the vulnerability of contract workers and how this might lead to overwork. They also indentify the need to construct a presentation of self that can lead to regular employment. There is agreement that this form of work has become highly feminized, something our own research confirms.

Limited term funding agreements have also become a fixture in non-profit social services. Researchers have noted the effects of neoliberal economic and social policy on both workers and organizations. Described by Peck (2001) as a shift from “welfarism to workfarism” social service organizations are increasingly governed by contractually bound terms and conditions that conform to neoliberal imperatives of narrow performance measures and outcomes and financial efficiency. The effects have been described as loss of organizational autonomy, increased surveillance by government officials, and constant lack of adequate resources (Aronson and Neysmith, 2006; Baines, 2004a, 2004, b, 2004c; Cunningham, 2009, 2010; Dominelli, 1996) Others have focused more specifically on changes to the work process, noting that workers are increasingly stressed, lack professional autonomy, and feel pressured to perform unpaid work (Baines, 2004b; Cunningham, 2008).

Less has been written on the impact of contract employment on household wellbeing or community participation.1 Chan (2011) briefly reviewed the relevant literature on this topic in Australia focussing on how casualization of academic employment creates stresses on family. Nikunen (2012) examined Finnish academics on short-term contracts and concluded that academic life created time pressure and stress that appears to delay female academics starting a family and limiting the size of their families. While most universities espouse family friendly policies, in an environment where productivity is the key to success, the time needed to raise families can slow success. In unpublished work on casual employment in Australia, Pocock (et.al) 2004 recount the stress casual employment creates for those trying to form relationships, and raise children. Casey and Alach (2004) offer a more positive view of temporary employment, arguing some women may prefer this form of employment given its flexibility and potential to combine other life goals.

Methods

The data used in this paper are drawn from a five-year joint university community study titled, Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO). This study combines extensive quantitative and qualitative data, including a large population survey and extended interviews. This paper draws mainly on the latter. A total of 83 individuals in various forms of precarious employment were interviewed during 2011. The data analyzed for this paper includes ten

1 For an overview of this issue see, xxxx; xxxxx 2013.

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workers employed in the non-profit social service sector (NPSS) and in university research, all of whom were women. Workers in the NPSS held junior to executive level positions in Toronto agencies serving youth, immigrants, and the unemployed. Researchers worked primarily but not exclusively in health related areas and held positions such as managers, coordinators, and research assistants, sometimes simultaneously performing these functions in a non-formal and unrecognized way. Interviews were semi-structured and open-ended, and tape recorded. Participants were recruited through online postings, email lists provided by local unions, and community agencies.

The Social Relations of Work and "Soft Money"

Informants in our study reported that "soft money" shaped the day-to-day relations of work in three key ways. First, it intensified the need for informants to excel at work in order to motivate principal investigators and non-profit service sector (NPSS) managers to maintain their employment by securing funding or making “insider” referrals to other projects. Second, informants in both sectors viewed unpaid work as essential to their security, especially noting the demands of responding to funding deadlines and the pressures this created for family relations. Lastly, "soft money"" obscured the employment relationship, with workers confronting intersecting and frequently unclear accountabilities to funding bodies, grant-holding organizations and institutions, and direct supervisors.

Intensified Performance

Fixed term contracts based on "soft money" created unique job performance pressures in both sectors. Many viewed the ability to meet or exceed workplace performance expectations as a crucial means to motivate employers to include them in new or renewed grants, with one informant reporting that she was “very aware that [my supervisor’s] opinion of me and my work is very important in terms of my ability to get another job here or really anywhere.” Informants described these pressures by contrasting them to permanent employment in which:

In a permanent position there is less need for me to have to go above and beyond in order to prove myself. They’re always evaluating me as these contracts come to an end [to] see whether or not it’s worth keeping me.

The arbitrariness of creating, eliminating or reclassifying positions through grant writing was a particularly thorny issue in the research sector, with informants describing a feeling of continuous insecurity. Indeed, the ability to move flexibly and seamlessly between different roles and areas of research was seen as a distinct advantage in securing current and future positions. One researcher explained:

Often the grants have completely different topics so it’s a lot of work to relearn the whole literature behind the project … I’m doing a lot of reading, a lot of research… it feels almost like I am back at school again. I want to work in an area … where I can keep building on the knowledge I have instead of having to constantly relearn from scratch. Some of these projects have been wildly different.

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The need to perform flexibly and with excellence was even more acute due to the short duration of contracts. As one informant explained:

Twelve months is not a long time, so you really want … to demonstrate that you can work in different areas within that office or that role or whatever and go beyond what the job description says just to prove that you can and that you’re capable."

Informants also noted they were highly aware of the consequences of strained relations between supervisors and workers, stating they had witnessed supervisors withholding training opportunities or writing individuals out of grants as a form or discipline or punishment. A researcher offered this example concerning student researchers who had recently completed their PhDs and were looking for a full time faculty position:

Once [a student] said that she was looking for a new job [the supervisor] started to shift … the work he would normally call her about or ask her to do onto me because he knew I would be around … He kind of put her at a distance. One wasn’t even written in on the [new] grant. He definitely invests in whom he wants to stay with him and whom he can see potential in.

Social service workers described similar pressures to perform, often through an ability to attract grant money or introduce new programs and policies that would enhance the status and reputation of the agency. As one informant noted, “From 2002 to 2008 I was in a situation [where there] were yearly contracts that were funding based. If new money came, okay, your new job title is Dog and Pony Show Coordinator.” Another reported that her employer had told her “to produce certain things to consider renewing me. So for [one entire month] I was in heavy duty meetings to demonstrate why my role was necessary."

Unpaid Work

Unpaid work was widespread in both sectors, with informants explaining they viewed working during evenings, weekends, and vacations as intrinsic to “the nature of the job.” For one researcher, work spilled over into personal time stating she often found herself “daydreaming” about academic publications while watching TV. “Sometimes my mind is watching,” she said, “but my mind is thinking … of one very good sentence, so I quickly type it out on my email so I call follow it up.” A non-profit social service worker concurred, explaining that she was expected to be compensated for unpaid work and travel costs by reducing her workload in the following weeks. “The problem is,” she said, “that if I reduce the hours of work I cannot finish. There is [a lot of] writing and creative work and I find myself working overtime and going in on Saturdays.”

Unpaid work was especially related to funding cycles, with informants describing grant applications and renewals as frenzied periods of activity that took precedence over family relations. As one researcher noted, “I’m so glad [grants] are three year based [or] I would be dead. The psychological pressure and stress affects you mentally. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night getting nervous, will we get the grant?” Another described working toward a grant deadline with disappointing results:

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I knew that this grant needed to get done and I’m thinking, if it means I have a job, I don’t care, I’ll work through my vacation time. I brought my laptop with me … and spent 25 hours answering emails, writing documents for the grant and just as I’m about to send all these documents to my boss and one of my supervisors, I get an email saying the grants been cancelled because of the US budget.

The Obscure Employment Relationship

A final aspect to the social relations of "soft money" is an increasingly obscure employment relationship. Though the university officially held their grants, research informants viewed the principal investigator (PI) as “the boss” whose ability to attract and maintain external funding was directly linked to their job security:

It’s coming up again [contract renewal] so I sent an email to my boss [asking] what’s going on here? He said, ‘Yeah, I want to extend your contract. So I emailed another one of the supervisors in my office and said, ‘What about the paperwork?’ She said she’d go over it. I know its been extended but I don’t know for how long. I know they want me to lead on [an upcoming grant] … if we get money there, then my contract will be renewed.

Another informant described the obscuring of the employment relationship by observing that:

I’m officially a permanent employee [of the university] but I’m totally soft money. On one hand [the university] is saying, yes you’re an employee, but [is not] taking any financial responsibility. Everything’s on the researcher, out of their grant. How about [the university paying] vacation pay … and benefits… leave that out of the grant money.

This quasi-employment relationship was reproduced through working relations between researchers and their PIs. Though researchers were university employees whose terms and conditions of work were governed by a collective agreement, their day-to-day work was largely shaped by the working style, predilections, and demands of the PI. Vacation schedules, opportunities for training and promotion, and the organization of work were determined by the PIs, and were notably influenced by their personal relations with staff. The result was a mixed bag. For researchers whose PIs were rarely at the workplace and who expected their staff to work autonomously, this flexibility was viewed as a benefit. As one informant noted, her PI “works remotely a lot. It’s nice because you … don’t have to worry about [him] coming round the corner; you have freedom to do what you want. Even though he’s my superior he’ll let me make my own choices.” Informants with positive work experiences believed their PIs had a genuine stake in their security and professional development, helping them to remain employed and gain higher level positions.

Others were less fortunate, feeling their PIs had scant interest in their well-being and often asked them to perform unpaid work or perform extra duties. In these cases, informants were reluctant to challenge their PI even though they recognized the university was technically their employer, or that the terms of the collective agreement had been violated:

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I have to supervise students; I have to do all those things for no extra pay. It’s out of my job description but then, of course, if your PI asks you to do it, you do it. I need to keep my job. Once you get to the union level, then probably my supervisor will not be happy. She will ask why do you need a job description. It will cause more conflict at work.

Unlike our informants in social services, contract researchers were unionized, however few saw the union as having any positive effect on their job security. Instead, informants felt that PIs wielded enormous control over the recruitment and on-going employment of research coordinators, assistants and managers based on personal relations and preferences. The university was viewed not as an employer but an administrative “flow through” for external funds that PIs had almost complete authority to disburse, including on staff. These conditions amplified the personal and relational dimensions of the employment relationship and decreased standardization, resulting in very different work experiences and outcomes among informants.

This “flow through” of funds also obscured the employment relationship in the non-profit sector, though in different ways. One notable aspect to flow through was the use of third party ‘trustees’ to administer grants on behalf of smaller organizations who lacked the administrative capacity to house and supervise short-term contract staff. As one social service worker explained, for larger organizations capable of providing this service, administration trusteeship was “a cash grab [with a] million people working on a million projects.” For workers, the effect could be bewildering. One worker who was told to work until 6PM learned the third party organization closed its offices at 5PM. “They don’t even know the reality of the situation,” she commented. “They have no knowledge of me.” Since she was not viewed as an employee, there was no “accountability to me … other then the terms of references in the trustee agreement. We follow [the trustee organization’s policies [because] everyone is scared to mess anything up – it’s all about liability.” Other complaints included not knowing who to ask about program or administrative matters, and generally feeling isolated and disconnected. This “invisibility” could also have serious financial consequences, as one worker learned when she received a tax bill because the trustee had not withheld income taxes or other employer contributions from her paycheque. When she asked for funds to cover her payment:

They told me I was being very aggressive - this was an organization of three people [with whom] I had spent every day … for a year and a half! How could you sit down with me every day and not take on the responsibility! I [felt] totally betrayed.

Lacking union protection, this same informant asserted that certain forms of social service work should not be subcontracted because:

Contract workers have no rights. They are [precariously employed] and you cannot do strategic planning when you are going to be gone in four months. . . . [Can you] ethically partner with [an] organization when 80% of those people will not be there in a year? It is an exact contradiction of what you are doing [as an advocacy based group]: you hired all of these women to be a part of their [own] marginalization. It is unacceptable.

While PIs in the university sector played a central role in attracting funding to support researchers, among NPSS workers this was often a core responsibility that further complicated the employment relationship. It was common for organizations to pressure workers to source and

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negotiate external funding in order to be hired or keep employment, signifying a transfer of responsibility for one’s employment from management to the self. Paradoxically, the more adept workers became at grant writing, the more overt the pressures to fund their own work became. We take up this question of grant writing as a source of both managerial and worker power in the section below.

The Paradox of "Soft Money"

Growing use of external or "soft money" has been linked to neoliberal restructuring as austerity-driven governments reduce or eliminate core funding, shorten contracts, and demand marketized forms of accountability and managerial practices among third party contractors (Baines, 2004c; Carey, 2009a; Cunningham, 2008; Hey, 2001; Hobson et al, 2005; Munford and Sanders, 2001). However comparisons between the research and social service sectors should be drawn with caution. While tenured academics are increasingly compelled to secure external funding, their institutional and personal security is greater than non profit care managers whose jobs are almost entirely dependent on government funding and are consequently far more vulnerable to governmental shifts in funding criteria, spending levels, and increased surveillance and coercion by contract officials (Aronson and Neysmith, 2006; Baines, 2004c; Cunningham, 2008; Cunningham and James, 2009; Macintosh, 2000). As Cunningham and James (2009, 2010) have noted, this dependence creates enormous insecurity for staff at all levels: non-profit programs or even entire organizations can be shut down if they are unsuccessful within a highly competitive bidding process, particularly those that are pitted against larger, better-resourced agencies with greater capacity to build strategic relationships and negotiate contracts with government officials. In contrast, while block funding continues to be eroded, the “entrepreneurial” university (Ylijoki, 2010) that fails to secure external funding may face the loss of institutional prestige or reputation, but little jeopardy of being shut down. Nor are tenured researchers subject to a comparable threat of job loss or funder scrutiny, despite increased emphasis on performance based research outcomes (Hobson et. al. 2005; Hey 2001; Munford & Sanders 2001). Despite these distinctions, "soft money" has significantly altered the labour process in both sectors.

According to Hey (2001), “soft money” has expanded academic “knowledge work” in a highly gendered way, with predominantly male academics acting as principal investigators responsible for both grant writing and knowledge production. To accomplish both, “time poor” academics have become increasingly dependent upon the support of a highly casualized “reserve force” of female research assistants and coordinators to perform the less prestigious work that has been characterized as “the housework of the academy” (Oakley quoted in Hey 2001). Within this growing feminization of research, women’s work is devalued and delegitimized because it is viewed as “peripheral” to the core work of knowledge production. It is also highly precarious work that is almost entirely dependent upon the ability of the PI to secure research funding.

Other effects of feminized academic work include the absence of clear career paths, the constant threat of redundancy, and downward adjustments to wages when principal investigators are unwilling or unable to renew grants with comparable terms and conditions (Hobson et al. 2005). Informants verified these effects, complaining that efforts by the union to redeploy them or prevent wage reclassification when contracts ended were rarely successful. Moreover, despite

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their growing skills and experience, there was little hope of advancement. One informant explained that promotions were rare because:

A research assistant is a research assistant… the field is quite small. If you have been a research assistant for ten years, you’re still a research assistant. In [any] other field [you would] probably become a supervisor, a manager, a director … even though the money is pretty good, it’s more the satisfaction of achievement. So far the cycle is being laid off, go back, find another job in another lab, be laid off and then find another job …. [it’s] a vicious cycle.

Another commented:

The career path is totally lateral and it's partly because the funding is based per project. I totally understand from the PI’s perspective that [when there are] a limited amount of funds, why would you be funding temporary staff to do career development? It doesn’t make sense.

"Soft money" can also be linked to changes to the labour process for non-profit social service workers. Carey (2009b) has suggested Braverman’s theories of deskilling and managerial control in the manufacturing sector can be used to explain the growing trend among neoliberal welfare states toward standardization of practice, technological surveillance of staff and clients, and increased managerial control. “Soft money” intensifies and normalizes these practices by setting them within the terms and conditions of funding agreements between government and the sector. While Carey recognizes his critique does not sufficiently account for the complex “pro-market, non-market” (Baines, 2004c) nature of social service which neither creates a surplus nor ideologically undermines marketized and privatized care, it is more widely agreed that cost cutting and performance-based management schemes have led to the intensification, fragmentation and deskilling of care work, and the expansion of part-time, temporary and contract staff who can be more easily replaced, including by volunteers (Aronson and Neysmith, 2006; Baines, 2004a, 2004b; Cunningham, 2008; Cunningham and James, 2009). In other words, dependence on "soft money" ensures state control not only over the terms and conditions of service delivery but the deliverers as well.

In our research, workers in the non-profit sector confronted even starker expectations concerning their role securing “soft money”. Informants reported being pressured to find sources of funding to keep their own jobs, especially when contracts were due to lapse. As one non-profit sector worker noted:

They told me I needed to produce certain things so I was in constant, heavy-duty meetings to demonstrate why my role was necessary. It makes me angry. Where’s the fundraiser? Where’s the ED? There should be rules against that. I’m a glorified executive assistant and I’m wrangling together people for a meeting that I don’t lead, and propping up management so they’re prepared…. [and they are like] count your blessings, kid.

Others described developing new concepts for projects that could be used by non-profit managers to attract new “soft money”. “I ended up designing a social enterprise model to keep my job,” explained one worker. Yet even workers who brought strategic skills and contacts could

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never be sure their efforts would pay off, observing that organizational concerns other than their job security seemed to have greater priority. As one worker noted:

[Management] wanted me to grow the position, so I said, OK, let's write for Trillium [grants] in November. They said, “Why don’t we write it for March? Let's take our time and not rush the board. ” Well, if we write it in March it doesn’t come [to the agency] until August. That means a year and a half where I don’t have benefits [and] have to work five other jobs.

Overall, almost all informants seemed resigned to the fact their job security was tied to the success of their PI or manager as a grant writer, surrendering their own sense of control over work through both “pragmatic stoicism” (Aronson and Neysmith 2006) and “abbreviated thinking” in which life becomes organized around contract cycles (Ylijoki 2010). Many became enmeshed in the grant writing process as a survival strategy. Research coordinators and assistants readily identified themselves as sharing the pressures of and responsibility for attracting “soft money” alongside their PI, but performed a more subordinate role in grant preparation and writing. This subordination, suggests Hey (2001), only reproduces the hierarchical division of labour between academic researchers and contractors in a manner that devalues “the intellectual and material contribution of the [contract staff].” Moreover, “once a contract is awarded such displacements are invariably carried in the language and representation of who is doing what, who is going where and who publishes. Designating someone as 'my' researcher confirms the appropriation of another labour and constitutes a 'dependency' relationship (p. 77).

Social service workers shared researchers’ sense of responsibility for attracting “soft money”, but faced greater pressure to initiate and lead the grant writing process - often on their own time - and to share key contacts built up over their careers, reflecting what Baines (2004a) has described as an “unexpected bonanza in the form of highly skilled, often specialized social service workers who [can] be compelled or coerced to perform without receiving a wage.” (p.X) One informant captured this frustration by telling us:

There should be laws against people having to write their own grant proposals to keep their jobs … its complete bullshit! They act annoyed when I mention my other jobs, but they benefit from my networking. The only person getting screwed is me.

Within the paradigmatic shift to marketized social service and contract research, "soft money" can therefore be conceptualized as a mechanism of managerial control operating on multiple levels. For cash-strapped universities and non-profit organizations, "soft money" creates a broad continuum of dependence that enables the state to control all aspects of a funded project, including the labour process (Carey, 2009a, Ryan, 1999). While this control has been readily linked to work intensification and unpaid labour, the use of "soft money" to more flexibly hire, promote, redeploy and fire staff requires further theorization. It is clear from our research that for workers in both sectors, "soft money" is viewed as the force through which the state, the institution and the grant-writer are able to set the terms and conditions of their employment. Through "soft money", accountabilities embedded in a more standard employment relationship become shifted or shed entirely from an identifiable employer to a funding agreement in three key ways.

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First, organizations and supervisors retain maximum flexibility to fire or rehire existing workers or recruit new ones within a relatively short period of time by tying the duration of employment to the grant. This is true even in unionized workplaces where contracts try to put some constraints on employers. Second, the awkwardness of dismissing a permanent employee for poor performance, insufficient qualifications, or merely the desire to hire someone new is eliminated by tidily concluding a fixed contract, or shifting blame to an invisible and distant funder making arbitrary decisions about the terms and conditions of employees. Lastly, “soft money” enables managers to either partially or fully shift the responsibility for grant writing and networking to workers. Thus, while the appropriation of workers’ social and intellectual capital was crucial to their success, non-profit managers and PIs had no formal obligation to share the power or prestige associated with their projects, and defined institutional roles and knowledge ownership (Hobson et. al. 2005) according to funding agreements. Based on these factors, “soft money” can be conceptualized as an omnipresent and reified force that both obscures and defines the power relations of work, particularly in more hierarchical and gendered environments where workers’ status and contributions are invariably less valued in the first place (Hobson et. al. 2005).

Paradoxically, “soft money” can also be an advantage (albeit limited) for workers within the culture of increased dependency on external funding. As we have noted previously, the need to attract “soft money” has stretched the workload of academics and social service managers “beyond their capacity [leaving them with no option but to] buy into the culture of contract labour.” (Hey 2001; p77). However unlike other forms of precarious work that are considered lower skilled, researchers and social service workers with high levels of education and skill are crucial to the success of projects, and therefore more highly sought after and prized. Informants in our study who were able to write and manage grants certainly viewed themselves as intrinsic to the success of their PIs and managers in obtaining “soft money”. Thus, soft money -- or what Hey describes as “contract culture” -- can be seen as having a dual and contradictory effect on the social relations of work. On the one hand, contract workers experience heightened insecurity and deskilling because of contractual pressures to reduce labour costs through unpaid work, greater volunteerism, and the fragmentation of job tasks (Aronson and Neysmith, 2006; Baines, 2004a, 2004, b, 2004, c; Carey, 2009a; Cunningham, 2008, Cunningham and James, 2009). On the other, these same conditions create both time pressures and skill gaps among managers that make them increasingly dependent on contract staff who possess greater time, ability and flexibility to achieve institutional and contractual objectives (Cunningham, 2008; Hey 2005; Lipsky & Smith 1989). Our informants exhibited both these tendencies, complaining that their work was precarious and insecure, yet viewing themselves as having valuable skills and abilities that were essential to their ability to find and keep work.

Grant writing was clearly linked to job security by informants who described “writing themselves into” grants as a survival strategy with both current and potential employers. But grant writing also afforded the opportunity to design work that conformed to informants’ interests and abilities. This was particularly true for non-profit contract workers who conceptualized innovative projects to improve service delivery to the vulnerable groups, such as youth or people of colour. While this non-core “policy and service building work” (Baines 2004) would sometimes make informants feel “tokenized”, it was also an important way to build skills, reputation, and contacts while satisfying the need for altruism that is well documented for social service workers (Baines, 2004a; Cunningham, 2008). Though contract researchers had less direct

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influence over research project design, their ability to work skillfully and independently was highly valued by “time poor” PIs who trusted them to perform their work autonomously and flexibly. For both sectors, then, soft money” actually “offers a problematic freedom” from the usual control and accountabilities of the standard employment relationship (Hey 2001). In addition to greater flexibility to organize one’s own time – especially valued by women workers balancing work and family responsibilities – informants expressed little complaint about their work being low paying, boring, or lacking challenges or opportunities for growth. It was the conditions rather than the content of the work that disturbed them.

The Social Effects of "Soft Money"

As discussed above, working on "soft money" has significant effects on social relations at work, complicating the employer worker relationship and increasing worker insecurity. "Soft money" also has an impact on life outside of work. As noted above, the majority of those individuals identified in this paper as working on "soft money" were not low-income workers. Many earned incomes between 50,000-100,000 annually, sometimes supplemented by consultancy and additional contracts. While these earnings provided a middle-class standard of living, all informants expressed ongoing insecurity related to fixed contracts and resulting lapses in employment. For some, this insecurity prevented the achievement of important milestones such as home ownership:

I would like to get a house and I’ve been saving for a down payment, but I never know if my contracts ends will I be able to make those mortgage payments? If I don’t have a job in a couple of months, money I’ve saved for a down payment I now need to pay my rent and pay for food.

Others, who took advantage of their higher earning to purchase a home, now had to worry if they would be unable to make payments and cover other costs if contracts were not renewed. One researcher stated that:

We have to worry about paying the mortgage. Not paying off, just paying on time. Sometimes I wake up in the night and start calculating how much I can afford for groceries, for gasoline, for whatever. It’s psychological pressure. We talk about it but even when we talk about it we won’t solve the problem.

For some, prolonged or frequent lapses in work had even more serious financial consequences such as eviction or large amounts of credit card debt. In some cases, the inability to afford rent or mortgage payments led to living arrangements that proved stressful. One non-profit worker who was forced to sell her own condominium avoided rent payments by taking a job as a live-in caregiver for a group home. Though this arrangement allowed her to save money, she admitted:

I don’t feel settled like my friends [who have] gone home, cooked dinner… they fed somebody, now they’re watching TV and then they go to bed. At 11:30 PM [I am still in] the office turning out lights and turning alarms on [before] going to bed. I feel like my life is totally different from most of my friends.

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Precarious income also produced feelings of dependency and shame, particularly among younger informants who felt the ability to live independently was an important part of the transition to adulthood. Feeling compelled to live with intimate partners out of financial necessity was especially problematic for several informants. One social service worker stated that:

I moved in with my partner but …I had to move out when his mother came to visit even though we’re both in our thirties and grown adults. The strain this has put on our relationship has been considerable. You can hide from the debt collector but you can’t hide from a partner. I think he is watching my spending… it creates a lot of mental gymnastics in my head. It’s complicated because it’s emotional … my independence feels compromised. It’s complicated because it's emotional.

Another young researcher echoed the involuntary aspect to such choices, noting:

Contract work creates a lot of turmoil and drama. My boyfriends great: he’s always said I could be a refugee and live at his place if I need. If I have to, I’ll handle that. But … I might find another job and then I have to get another apartment [with a] yearlong lease. I’m locked into paying for an entire year when I’d like to buy a house [instead].

Another common complaint among younger workers in both sectors was the inability to satisfy parental expectations, explaining that their families did not understand the nature of their work and in some cases encouraged them to seek alternative employment:

My parents don’t know the situation I am in… When I was working in [an agency] for four years they were like, ‘we don’t understand. Why don’t you just leave? Go back to school and become a teacher.’ At the time, I was like, ‘this is my career starting.’ Now it’s like, ‘What the fuck’s going on?

Some workers who had married and purchased homes expressed other challenges related to precarity, most notably decisions about childbearing. These researchers explained:

We have been married now for three years. It’s actually a good time but due to our financial situation we are not really sure whether we should try to conceive now. If I got pregnant, and didn’t have a job that means I cannot collect any maternity benefits… so that is one of the biggest reasons affecting our family planning.

The pressure to do unpaid work affected personal and family relations in a number of ways. A researcher complained that because she regularly works from home her children have grown up “feeling disappointed.” She stated:

For their entire lives [they’ve been] used to me having to say, ‘Well, give me a couple hours to work on this and then we’ll go out and play in the park’ [or] ‘I can’t cuddle with you at night… I have to go downstairs and sit behind the computer.’

A social service worker experienced similar tensions with her spouse who felt that her need to be available to her employer during evenings limited their time together:

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Many times I find myself [working] and he does not understand that I am trying to do a good job so I can advance myself. Our different work schedules have quite an impact on our relationship. [We tried] to find a class we could both attend since we were growing apart, but search and found nothing that would fit with our work schedules.

In sum, though informants earned middle to high incomes, contract work represented a constant source of tension that pervaded all aspects of their lives and led them to make choices they felt were not entirely voluntary. For younger workers, the fear of interrupted earnings not only shaped decisions about financial commitments, but also produced feelings of shame and guilt because they were unable to satisfy their parents’ expectations of employment stability and status. Older more established workers also expressed feelings of anxiety related to contract work, and based crucial decisions including childbearing on their employment status. These findings suggest that in the absence of secure and predictable patterns of employment, middle to high incomes are insufficient to create the conditions that allow workers to make the financial and personal choices of their choosing, and forces them to “bracket” the future in a way that does not extend beyond the next contract (Ylijoki 2010). The growing prevalence of “soft money” can therefore be seen as a force in post-industrial economies that governs not only organizational choices, but intimate and personal ones as well.

Regulating "soft money"

While informants in our study could be regarded as comparatively advantaged in terms of income and skill levels, they expressed similar frustrations as more highly precarious workers in our study employed on short-term contracts or through temporary employment agencies. Insecurity, anger, and an inability to plan family and community life were common themes. All informants agreed there should be greater regulation of their work. Though they were not always clear what form this regulation should take, they clearly viewed the problems associated with “soft money” as deeply systemic and beyond the control of any single institution.

The regulation of “soft money” employment has been discussed in the literature from two key perspectives. The first is the ability of organizations to work collectively within a sector to substantially alter the terms and conditions of funding agreements. This approach has been of particular interest in analyses of non-profit social services where organizational size, resources, and capacity to deliver has created divergent “zones of vulnerability” and an unwillingness to “proactively manage” relations with funders (Cunningham, 2008). For many organizations, outright refusal to comply with contractually required wages and benefits set by funders simply entails too much risk (Lipsky & Smith, 1989). The effect has been to intensify competition among organizations and dampen interest in working collaboratively through umbrella organizations to influence public policy, or negotiate sector-wide agreements that would establish minimum sectoral standards for wages, benefits and working conditions (Cunningham 2007; Munford & Sanders 2001). However there is some evidence that organizations are beginning to challenge contractualism, pressing for more say over employment relations; demanding core rather than project-based, short-term contracts; and agreements on a broader, more socially responsive framework for measuring results (Ryan 1999; Cunningham 2007). Through these efforts, it is claimed, organizations working together can shift from internecine competition toward a “growth strategy” for the sector (Cunningham, 2007).

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Unionization has also been seen as a mechanism to mitigate against the harsher effects of “soft money." By appealing to social service workers’ sense of altruism, unions are better able to overcome the challenges of organizing a transient and fearful workforce and negotiate improvements to wage, benefits and job security (Baines, 2010a, 2010b; Cunningham and James, 2010). However, there remain considerable challenges, and unions in the NPSS have thus far been unable to significantly alter “contract culture” in the non-profit social service sector.

In contrast to our NPSS informants, contract researchers interviewed were unionized. However, many believed collective agreements within an academic setting provide scant protection, particularly since hiring is highly discretionary with seniority, education, and experience factors carrying little weight in these decisions. Moreover, many reported PIs routinely disregarded collective agreement provisions intended to provide a measure of employment security for workers facing layoff. Instead, and as we have emphasized repeatedly, a researcher’s ability to secure and maintain contract work was far more dependent on an informal, highly individualized and personalized process rooted in positive “word of mouth” and internal recommendations rather than seniority, experience, and qualifications. Our findings suggest this complex relationship constitutes a highly problematic form of dependency that aligns worker loyalties vertically, and undermines the potential for broader solidarity and collective action among contract staff. Indeed, informants often expressed a sense of isolation and estrangement from co-workers, seeing them as competitors for future contract jobs rather than potential workplace allies with common interests distinct from those of their employer. Moreover, several contract workers reported collective agreement mobility and hiring provisions often favoured full-time employees and impeded their ability to capitalize on their experience, training, and relationships with PIs to renew or secure new employment. These issues further exacerbated a sense of alienation from coworkers and the union among contract workers. Conclusion

Low earnings are often seen as closely associated with precarious employment. But as fixed contract employment has become more prevalent, it has spread to socio-economic groups who were immune from precarity in the past. The "soft money" contract workers discussed in this paper earned middle to upper income salaries often supplemented by income from consultancy or contracts. However, periodic - and often frequent - lapses in income disrupted informants’ lives in multiple ways, uniquely shaping day-to-day relations in and outside of academic and non-profit social service contract work. In this article we suggest that “soft money” may therefore be considered as an emerging form of managerial power. Paradoxically, as dependence on “soft money” increases in universities and non-profit agencies, contract workers with expertise in grant writing and administration are able to secure and maintain employment and exercise comparatively greater professional autonomy and skill than is commonly associated with precarious work, though these contributions were often under-valued and gendered (Hobson et. al. 2005; Hey 2001). However, while permanent employment insecurity has become an accepted part of organizational practice and a “way of life” for workers in both sectors, mechanisms to regulate the terms and conditions of employment require further interest and attention.

Notes

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. For an overview of this issue see, xxxx; xxxxx 2013.

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