An award-winning sociologist reveals the unexpected link between overwork and inequality. Most Americans work too long and too hard, while others lack consistency in their hours and schedules. Work hours declined for a century through hard-fought labor-movement victories, but they've increased significantly since the seventies. Worked Over traces the varied reasons why our lives became tethered to a new rhythm of work, and describes how we might gain a greater say over our labor time -- and build a more just society in the process. Popular discussions typically focus on overworked professionals. But as Jamie K. McCallum demonstrates, from Amazon warehouses to Rust Belt factories to California's gig economy, it's the hours of low-wage workers that are the most volatile and precarious -- and the most subject to crises. What's needed is not individual solutions but collective struggle, and throughout Worked Over McCallum recounts the inspiring stories of those battling today's capitalism to win back control of their time.
“Brigid Schulte is a vital voice on the future of work, and her carefully researched book lights the way to fewer hours, less stress, and more meaning.” ―Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the podcast WorkLife From the New York Times bestselling author of Overwhelmed, a deeply reported exploration of why American work isn’t working and how our lives can be made more meaningful Following Overwhelmed, Brigid Schulte’s groundbreaking examination of time management and stress, the prizewinning journalist now turns her attention to the greatest culprit in America’s quality-of-life crisis: the way our economy and culture conceive of work. Americans across all demographics, industries, and socioeconomic levels report exhaustion, burnout, and the wish for more meaningful lives. This full-system failure in our structure of work affects everything from gender inequality to domestic stability, and it even shortens our lifespans. Drawing on years of research, Schulte traces the arc of our discontent from a time before the 1980s, when work was compatible with well-being and allowed a single earner to support a family, until today, with millions of people working multiple hourly jobs or in white-collar positions where no hours are ever off duty. She casts a wide net in search of solutions, exploring the movement to institute a four-day workweek, introducing Japan’s Housewives Brigade—which demands legal protection for family time—and embedding with CEOs who are making the business case for humane conditions. And she demonstrates the power of a collective and creative demand for change, showing that work can be organized in an infinite number of ways that are good for humans and for business. Fiercely argued and vividly told, rich with stories and informed by deep investigation, Over Work lays out a clear vision for ending our punishing grind and reclaiming leisure, joy, and meaning.
As a key staffer on the House Ways and Means Committee, Haskins was one of the architects of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. Here, he portrays the political battles that produced the most dramatic overhaul of the welfare system, since its creation as part of the New Deal.
A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth—the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries—from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete—Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work. As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.
The fastest growing segment of the workforce is women age sixty-five and older. Women Still at Work draws on national survey data and in-depth interviews to show the many reasons why women are working well past the traditional retirement age. The book is filled with profiles of real working women, with a focus on women in the professional workforce.
Great leaders are driven to win. Yet career wins can come at great cost to your health, relationships, and personal well-being. Why does it seem impossible to both win at work and succeed at life? Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller know we can do better because he's seen it in his more than four decades as a successful executive and a loving and present husband and father. Today Michael and his daughter, Megan Hyatt Miller, coach leaders to live the double win. Backed by scholarly research from organizational science and psychology, and illustrated with eye-opening case studies from across the business spectrum and their own coaching clients, Win at Work and Succeed at Life is their manifesto on how you can achieve work-life balance and restore your sanity. With clarity, humor, and plenty of motivation, Win at Work and Succeed at Life gives you - an understanding of the historical and cultural forces that have led to overworking - 5 principles to rethink work and productivity from the ground up - simple but proven practices that enable you to slow down and reclaim your life - and more Refuse the false choice of career versus family. You can achieve the double win in life.
Many workers are caught in a spiral of longer hours, growing job insecurity, work stress and family conflict. Many want to spend more time with their family but fear being labelled uncommitted. The War Over Work is a bold and authoritative account of work patterns and the labour market in Australia. As Edgar sees it, the future workplace is a battleground, with struggles between corporate need and private greed, unions and employers, men and women, old and young. The re-election of the Howard Government promises to make these battles even more contested. In this accessible and engaging book Edgar argues that we cannot continue to focus narrowly on 'the work-family balance' as though it can be achieved through simple programs within individual Australian workplaces. The War Over Work provides a blueprint for how we can win the war to get a life that works. Dr Don Edgar is a sociologist and influential public commentator. He was foundation Director (for 14 years) of the Australian Institute of Family Studies. Since then he has directed the innovative New Links Workplace Project and acted as consultant to governments and business on work-family policies and programs. His publications include Men, Mateship, Marriage and The Patchwork Nation: Rethinking Government, Rebuilding Community.
The future of work in advanced industrial democracies is the subject of intense debate and public concern. Despite predictions that working hours would fall and leisure time would rise as society progressed, the opposite has in fact occurred. This new book contains a twofold investigation into 'the end of work' with theoretical and policy angles contributing to the growing research field on the boundaries of economics and sociology.
Private equity firms have long been at the center of public debates on the impact of the financial sector on Main Street companies. Are these firms financial innovators that save failing businesses or financial predators that bankrupt otherwise healthy companies and destroy jobs? The first comprehensive examination of this topic, Private Equity at Work provides a detailed yet accessible guide to this controversial business model. Economist Eileen Appelbaum and Professor Rosemary Batt carefully evaluate the evidence—including original case studies and interviews, legal documents, bankruptcy proceedings, media coverage, and existing academic scholarship—to demonstrate the effects of private equity on American businesses and workers. They document that while private equity firms have had positive effects on the operations and growth of small and mid-sized companies and in turning around failing companies, the interventions of private equity more often than not lead to significant negative consequences for many businesses and workers. Prior research on private equity has focused almost exclusively on the financial performance of private equity funds and the returns to their investors. Private Equity at Work provides a new roadmap to the largely hidden internal operations of these firms, showing how their business strategies disproportionately benefit the partners in private equity firms at the expense of other stakeholders and taxpayers. In the 1980s, leveraged buyouts by private equity firms saw high returns and were widely considered the solution to corporate wastefulness and mismanagement. And since 2000, nearly 11,500 companies—representing almost 8 million employees—have been purchased by private equity firms. As their role in the economy has increased, they have come under fire from labor unions and community advocates who argue that the proliferation of leveraged buyouts destroys jobs, causes wages to stagnate, saddles otherwise healthy companies with debt, and leads to subsidies from taxpayers. Appelbaum and Batt show that private equity firms’ financial strategies are designed to extract maximum value from the companies they buy and sell, often to the detriment of those companies and their employees and suppliers. Their risky decisions include buying companies and extracting dividends by loading them with high levels of debt and selling assets. These actions often lead to financial distress and a disproportionate focus on cost-cutting, outsourcing, and wage and benefit losses for workers, especially if they are unionized. Because the law views private equity firms as investors rather than employers, private equity owners are not held accountable for their actions in ways that public corporations are. And their actions are not transparent because private equity owned companies are not regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thus, any debts or costs of bankruptcy incurred fall on businesses owned by private equity and their workers, not the private equity firms that govern them. For employees this often means loss of jobs, health and pension benefits, and retirement income. Appelbaum and Batt conclude with a set of policy recommendations intended to curb the negative effects of private equity while preserving its constructive role in the economy. These include policies to improve transparency and accountability, as well as changes that would reduce the excessive use of financial engineering strategies by firms. A groundbreaking analysis of a hotly contested business model, Private Equity at Work provides an unprecedented analysis of the little-understood inner workings of private equity and of the effects of leveraged buyouts on American companies and workers. This important new work will be a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the informed public alike.
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the authors of the New York Times bestseller Rework, are back with a manifesto to combat all your modern workplace worries and fears.
