<![CDATA[The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker]]>

false <![CDATA[The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker]]> 3192448 2 The Big Squeeze takes a fresh, probing, and often shocking look at the stresses and strains faced by tens of millions of American workers as wages have stagnated, health and pension benefits have grown stingier, and job security has shriveled. Going behind the scenes, Steven Greenhouse tells the stories of software engineers in Seattle, hotel housekeepers in Chicago, call center workers in New York, and janitors in Houston, as he explores why, in the world’s most affluent nation, so many corporations are intent on squeezing their workers dry. We meet all kinds of workers: white collar and blue collar, high tech and low tech, middle income and low income; employees who stock shelves during a hurricane while locked inside their store, get fired after suffering debilitating injuries on the job, face egregious sexual harassment, and get laid off when their companies move high-tech operations abroad. We also meet young workers having a hard time starting out and seventy-year-old workers with too little money saved up to retire. The book explains how economic, business, political, and social trends—among them globalization, the influx of immigrants, and the Wal-Mart effect—have fueled the squeeze. We see how the social contract between employers and employees, guaranteeing steady work and good pensions, has eroded over the last three decades, damaged by massive layoffs of factory and office workers and Wall Street’s demands for ever-higher profits. In short, the post–World War II social contract that helped build the world’s largest and most prosperous middle class has been replaced by a startling contradiction: corporate profits, economic growth, and worker productivity have grown strongly while worker pay has languished and Americans face ever-greater pressures to work harder and longer. Greenhouse also examines companies that are generous to their workers and can serve as models for all of corporate America: Costco, Patagonia, and the casino-hotels of Las Vegas among them. Finally, he presents a series of pragmatic, ready-to-be-implemented suggestions on what government, business, and labor should do to alleviate the squeeze. A balanced, consistently revealing exploration of a major American crisis. 3225478 15 4 2008 The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker total:69|5:17|4:31|3:17|2:3|1:1| 69 267 143 29 1 1 false false Fri Oct 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 27 19:14:31 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 23 07:48:29 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 1 false false Fri Nov 14 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 05:39:07 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 05:56:40 -0800 2008 once
Great book on understanding how the Labor Party in the USA and throughout the world has had its power gradually eroded b...more...]]> 5 0 true false Sun Nov 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 19:13:12 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 19:27:12 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Nov 23 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 02 18:42:45 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 16:53:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jun 08 02:02:55 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 08 02:07:53 -0700 2009
A perfect storm is battering the American worker. Blue-collar and white-collar jobs are moving overseas while America’s economy lags and its immigrant population expands. Given the quality of this report, getAbstract surmises that few individuals are mo...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Dec 24 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 24 11:56:33 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 24 11:56:33 -0800 2008 1
I don't think that the stories told in this book are mer...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 14:19:57 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 09:59:06 -0700 2009
It has the tone of a NYT journalist: a tone that is scrupulous about facts and statistics, but that is not above usi...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 29 12:22:54 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 08:23:01 -0700 2009
Times are tough and getting tougher for the American worker. It used to be that for an honest day's work you'd get a decent day's pay, a deal that in the three decades after World War I...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Sep 30 11:52:42 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 01 16:46:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 25 14:22:06 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 15 18:08:53 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 06 18:56:31 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 08:39:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jun 17 20:38:25 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 17 20:46:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jun 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 15 16:39:59 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 15 18:22:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 20:19:16 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 24 10:31:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 20:01:31 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 21:07:41 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Jan 24 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 13:22:21 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 10:14:39 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 27 22:33:41 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 27 10:27:05 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 08 08:04:02 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 08 08:10:53 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jul 15 16:33:17 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 19 09:26:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jun 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 12:07:16 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 12:13:16 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=3192448