- Costello, Cynthia B. “The Clerical Homework Program at the Wisconsin Physicians Services Insurance Corporation”. In: Boris, Eileen and Daniels, Cynthia R., editors. Homework: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press; 1989; p. [198]-214.
- Costello, Cynthia B. “Home-Based Clerical Employment”. In: Christensen, Kathleen E., editor. The New Era of Home-Based Work: Directions and Policies. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press; 1988; pp. 135-145. Notes: This study looked at women who did clerical work in their home for the Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS), located in Madison, Wisconsin, from 1980 on. WPS required that the home-based workers be “housebound women with preschool-age children” (p.135). United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1444, which represented the clerical workers in the WPS headquarters building, did not also represent the home-based workers. As the book’s editor explains in the volume’s introduction, Costello “examines the day-to-day realities that a working mother faces when she tries to balance simultaneously the demands of a paid job and the demands of children in the home” (p. 10). The author conducted this study as part of the research for her doctoral dissertation.
- —. “‘On the Front’: Class, Gender, and Conflict in the Insurance Workplace”; 1984.Notes: Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984. 308 p.
- —. We’re Worth It!: Women and Collective Action in the Insurance Workplace. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press; 1991. 154 p. Notes: A sociological look at the process of collective action among the women clerical workers at three insurance companies in Madison, Wisconsin; all three companies had unionized workforces. The author analyzes the responses of the women workers to the different management philosophies of the three companies and the strategies employed by the women to make changes.The first workplace was at the Wisconsin Education Association Insurance Trust, which was formed by the Wisconsin Education Association, the state teachers’ union; there the union involved was the United Staff Union (USU), the state affiliate of the National Staff Organization, an independent union to represent employees of teachers unions. The author analyzes the strategies used by the clericals in this workplace from 1975 to 1985 to gain respect and dignity on the job, including a strike in 1979.The second workplace was at the Wisconsin Physicians Services Insurance Corporation; the union involved there was began as Retail Clerks Union Local 1401 and then became United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1444 due to a merger in 1979. The group of womeon at this site were followed from 1974 to 1982 and, in addition to the unionized clerical office workforce, the author looked at the strategies of the company’s non-unionized clerical homework force as well.
The third workplace was at the CUNA Mutual Insurance Society, which was formed by the Credit Union National Association; here the union was Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 39. Although the CUNA worksite was much more ‘benevolent’ than the other two worksites in this study, by the late 1970s a group of the women clerical workers had formed a Women’s Association to take collective action in the workplace beyond that of their union.
“An earlier version of chapter 2 appeared as “WEA’re Worth it!: Work Culture and Conflict at the Wisconsin Education Assocation Trust” in Feminist Studies 11, no.3 (Fall 1985): 497-518. … An earlier version of chapter 4 appeared as “Home-based Clerical Employment” in The New Era of Home-based Work, edited by Kathleen Christensen, c1988 Westview Press. …”–title page verso.
Chapter 4 has also appeared in a somewhat different form as “The Clerical Homework Program at the Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation,” in Homework: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home, edited by Eileen Boris and Cynthia R. Daniels (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1989), p. [198]-214 (Chapter 10).
Reviewed: University Press Book News, June 1, 1992.
- —. “‘WEA’re Worth It!’: Work Culture and Conflict at the Wisconsin Education Association Insurance Trust”. Feminist Studies. 1985; 11(3):497-518.
- Voelker, Keith Emery. “Financial Incentive Plans for Clerical Employes [sic]”; 1964.Notes: M.S. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1964. 167 leaves. In conjunction with the National Office Management Association (N.O.M.A.), a survey was conducted by the Center for Productivity Motivation of the School of Commerce at the University of Wisconsin to ascertain “the prevalence of clerical incentive plans in the United States and the effectiveness of such plans in practice” (p. 80). Financial incentives were divided into three categories: those financial incentives available to the individual clerical employee at the firm, based on that individual’s own work performance; those available to each clerical employee within a small group of the clerical employees at the firm, based on the work performance of their own small group; and, those available to the entire group of clerical employees at a firm, based on the financial performance of their firm as a whole. The study reports on the over-all experience of the 648 responding firms with the use of incentive systems for clerical work. A key finding of the study was that almost thirty-five percent of the businesses reported use of some form of financial incentive for clerical work.Copies of the survey developed for this study were distributed to all members of forty-five randomly-selected N.O.M.A. chapters, with each N.O.M.A. chapter representing a wide range of types and sizes of business firms. The Madison, Wisconsin N.O.M.A. chapter was included among the randomly-selected group and sixteen of the chapter’s 108 members completed and returned the surveys. As is typical of this type of survey, however, none of the survey’s responses are reported by city or state. The complete text of the survey developed for this study is included here in an appendix.