The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker

by Steven Greenhouse

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 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short, the post–World War II social contract that helped build the world’s largest and most prosperous middle class has been replaced by a startling corporate profits, economic growth, and worker productivity have grown strongly while worker pay has languished and Americans face ever-greater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 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Labor, Business, Sociology, History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Amanda Austin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah I didn't get far with this one. So some New York Times writer with an Ivy League degree singles out the most down-and-out American workers and then writes a book saying this is how the entire American economic landscape looks like? There are definitely flaws in the way things are now, but maybe instead of some naive journalist offering some pat solutions toward the end of a biased book, he or she should visit countries where some of those solutions are in effect. Though he or she would probably just highlight the best examples of European style social welfare to make his or her point. I just can't stand this Barbara Ehrenreich style of journalism where one thinks they get the whole story by examining a very small sliver of life and then generalizing the experience for all of society. It's so obvious most of these authors have never had blue-collar jobs until they decided to write these books...and that the only reason they would ever associate with the trailer-park crowd would involve promoting some book that makes them appear enlightened and egalitarian.

[Anzelom]

I now read books mostly about unions. I went to a conference at Hofstra U. a week or so ago on Labor Studies, and I met the author there who signed my copy of his book.

Great book on understanding how the Labor Party in the USA and throughout the world has had its power gradually eroded by giant, American, mult-national corporations!

Nothing new there but fascinating reading in terms of knowing just how (in detail) this is done to workers.

I especially enjoyed the chapter on Walmart!

They still lock some of their workers in at night. Other tricks these copmpanies use include: erasing overtime, not counting any hours past a certain number, no real benefits, contingent workers, part-time and permatemps, outsourcing jobs overseas (cheaper labor costs), etc.

I sort of knew a lot of these tricks. So I am reading this book to find solutions.

One argument I can now make is this: study after study shows that happy workers produce more and feel a commitment to their work place. And happy workers result when you treat them fairly -- good pay, benefits, vacation, retirement, etc.

The solid argument for doing this is: keep the turnover rate low.

Turnover costs these companies more than it is worth to most of them!

I will write again when I finish this book.

I am 2/3 of the way done now!

He is a great person and a great writer.

He has worked for the NY Times as their Labor reporter for years and years. Most newspapers do not even have them anymore!

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a stellar read! This is a really in depth look at how American corporations and government are screwing the workers and it also provides methods to reduce this inequality that is growing by the day. (Don’t ask me what I think we should do to CEOs) SUPPORT UNIONS!

[Melody Newby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Big Squeeze took me too long to read- I changed positions at work and suddenly had less time as I read during my hour-long lunch breaks, and I have been working through those lunch breaks...which brings me to this book! Why am I working through my lunch breaks? Well, that's because the worker- American or Canadian works more hours and makes less wages than ever before. 'Welcome to middle class poverty. '
Steven Greenhouse is correct when he states that the American (I would say North American) worker is on a much lower plane than three generations ago. While companies and the economy profits, there is now MORE POVERTY, MORE INCOME INEQUALITY, MORE FAMILY TENSION, MORE HOURS AT WORK, MORE TIME AWAY FROM KIDS, MORE FAMILIES WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE, MORE RETIREES WITH INADEQUATE PENSIONS, including, more demands on government and taxpayers to provide housing assistance and health coverage.
Over the years, the quality and the number of unions have diminished, countless jobs have been outsourced to overseas operations, health benefits, pensions and full-time work are scarce and the job market is primarily comprised of low-wage service jobs.
"Imports, recession, deregulation, the offensive against unions- all of these made the early 1980s a witching hour for American workers, especially blue-collar workers. The early 1990s brought the downsizing craze, which hit white collar workers hardest and the early years of the 21st century brought a sharp decline in factory jobs, as well as the offshoring boom." (pg 79)
Trends within the American business world greatly affected workers such as the shift in the early 90s from 'managerial capitalism' to 'investor capitalism' where shareholder rights and maximizing shareholder value was more important than taking care of workers. The high-tech revolution also hurt workers. For example, GM laid off 5,000 design engineers after new CAD software made it possible to use fewer engineers to design products. From there the high-tech revolution gave birth to reengineering, where companies use sophisticated software to increase efficiency and streamline workplaces by redefining jobs.
Globalization is another culprit in the decline of the American worker - throwing them into direct competition with hundreds of millions of workers in China, India, and other countries. Offshoring stagnates wages, period.
Greenhouse discusses the computer/technology and how it has been used in opposition to workers,
"Computers have been used to restrict workers' ability to think for themselves. Companies often use computers to gather sophisticated recording equipment to make sure that a call center representative or the counter server at a fast-food restaurant sticks to the script...Today's scientific managers are trying...to control the minds of their white-collar employees. That is what the whole superstructure of control, scripting, and surveillance along the digital assembly lines is designed to achieve." (pg.114)
Further, Americans used to have access to secure jobs and now, are forced to structure their family lives around precarious work. This kind of workforce is known as the just-in-time workforce, disposable workers that are brought in to fulfill a big order then let go, or contract. No job security, no pension, or benefits. This is America's new migrant worker.
"Corporations increasingly treat workers as independent contractors to save money, but they often skirt the law in doing so. Although independent contractors typically receive higher wages then regular workers, companies can often save 25% or more using them because companies pay no employee benefits for them." Microsoft is known for keeping 'permatemps', another strategy in which companies are seeking to avoid responsibilities to their workers.
Circling back to my comment on working through my lunch breaks, the conventional 40-hour work week has given way to a 60-hour work week, including, company cellphones, connecting workers to their jobs 24/7, hurting family relationships and glorifying workaholism.
Adding to this, post secondary education puts young people in debt to the point where it delays starting a family and often causes the young person to move back in with their parents.
On the other end of the spectrum, pensions and adequate retirement funds are impoverishing workers in their golden years. You almost want to ask what is the meaning of retirement if the only way you can live is to work?
This book wouldn't be complete without a chapter on Walmart and their corrupt business model. It’s probably my favourite chapter.
"Walmart has developed a business model based on being an employer of the working poor...Walmart's business model is undermining communities by pushing out locally owned retailers while driving employee wages down...Socially we're engaged in a race to the bottom." (pg. 139)
For example, Greenhouse writes about an incident wherein an American Walmart denied claims they gave newly hired workers forms to apply for food stamps and Medicaid.
Greenhouse compares Walmart to Cosco- a store that values its employees. Costco offers the best wages and benefits in general retail in America. Costco employees earn 70% more per hour than Walmart employees. They have a low turn over rate and the founder was a big believer in unions.
There are some positive movements happening. Greenhouse describes the advantages the culinary union gives MGM workers in Los Angeles.
The chairman of MGM has stated, 'In service business, the first contact our guests have is with the guest room attendants or the food and beverage servers, and if that person's unhappy, that comes across to the guests very quickly…"
The culinary union offers workers pensions, benefits and educational and training opportunities that would lead to higher paying jobs. Unions in N America lost membership in the 1980s as many new jobs began popping up in the service sector like banks, hair salons and law firms where unions have a difficult time organizing.
"Economic studies have found an unquestionable financial advantage for workers to join unions. Unions raise workers wages by 20% on average and when health coverage and other benefits are added they increase total compensation by 28%." (pg 24)
Unions are essential to the America worker as well as the need for new structures that will lead to more security for the ill and the elderly.
Something has got to give. I feel like I have worked hard to earn a livable wage and now that I am there, the cost of living is so high that it feels like I am still at square one. We all need to help in improving the number of unions so workers get the consideration they deserve.

[m · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good, not great.

I read this 2008 book in 2012, after having become familiar with Greenhouse via his New York Times reporting.

This is not a great book. When I first read it, I took one note, this great quote from François-René de Chateaubriand:

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determined whether he is working or playing."

Now that there’s an electronic version of The Big Squeeze at Library.org, taking notes from my most recent rereading was much easier.

Greenhouse says in his Introduction that he’s interviewed thousands of workers, which struck me as both very impressive and kinda hard to believe. But, then again, talking to workers was his job for 31 years (before accepting a buyout in 2014) so maybe it might be true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_...

His book retails personal stories and lots of statistics (circa early 2000s) describing the increasing immiseration of workers.

In Chapter 3, he recites both bleak facts about worker pay and a hypothesis to explain it:

For workers with just a high school diploma, average hourly earnings slid nearly 2 percent between 1979 and 2005, after adjusting for inflation. The decline was far worse for those without a high school diploma, with their real wage slipping 18 percent. For those with a college degree, real wages climbed 22 percent, and for those with advanced degrees, real wages rose 28 percent. One explanation for this wage stagnation among the less educated is that since 2000 the United States has lost 3.5 million manufacturing jobs, good paying jobs that often went to workers without college degrees. The transfer of factories overseas and new technologies, like factory robots, have wiped out many of these jobs. The flood of immigrants has depressed wages for the group they most compete with: American-born workers with limited educations. Deunionization, competition from imports, the decline in the value of the minimum wage, and the rapid expansion of low-wage service sector jobs have also hurt this group of workers. All these factors go far to explain why the earnings gap between college graduates and those with just high school diplomas has climbed to 74 percent from 40 percent in 1979 [p. 39].

The book recounts many horror stories. I believe his muckraking resulted in policy changes at Wal-Mart & other companies, but I'm too lazy to search my files for evidence of such.

The ground Greenhouse covers is well tread. I've read (and maybe even reviewed) several other similarly-themed books that I think superior, such as Robert Putnam’s Our Kids, George Borjas's We Wanted Workers, Thomas Edsall’s Building Red America, Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, and David Stockman’s The Great Deformation.

[Note to self: read Ed Luttwak’s Endangered American Dream (1993), Robert Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy (2000), and Mark Jendrysik’s Modern Jeremiahs: Contemporary Visions of American Decline (2008) to make sense of all these accounts of impending doom.]

Miscellany:

On page 18 Greenhouse says of one of his informants: “[Kathy] was also happy that most of the workers were young women like herself—about half of them were single mothers.”

The notion that there might be a correlation between single-parent-headed households and declining household wealth does not warrant another mention in this book’s 365 pages. It's not that kind of book.

In Chapter 3 readers learn about Chuck, a devoted Wisconsin family man & machine operator at Tyson Foods, who after 22 years on the job makes $13.10 an hour, $27,000 a year, plus a possible bonus of five or ten thousand dollars.

The Tyson strike sounds bad, wrenching. The reader eventually learns that after losing the strike Chuck is forced to sell his 22-foot fishing boat and his family's summer vacation cabin—two facts that didn't quite fit the picture of hardship I had envisioned. Greenhouse doesn't comment on the man's inability to continue owning his vacation home, I suppose because it doesn't accord with his theme.

In chapter 5 he recounts how labor practices and the social compact have changed since WWII. In chapter 12 he briefly describes a longstanding, high-profile debate between David Card and George Borjas, two prominent economists who’ve long disagreed about the effect of immigration's impact on wages. Greenhouse doesn’t endorse either man's argument, but I’ve read & considered both and believe Borjas—who argues immigration does depress natives' wages (We Wanted Workers, 2016)—is the clear winner.

Greenhouse repeatedly (4 times) invokes the name of Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson as a skeptic of free trade. Although he doesn't explicate Samuelson's argument, I presume Greenhouse cites it repeatedly because it’s Greenhouse’s skepticism too.

I take him to be one who doubts the merits of free trade (like Samuelson) but agnostic about the effect of immigration on natives' wages.

Elizabeth Warren is flatteringly mentioned twice, though no idea attributed to her struck me as worth mention.

Greenhouse cites a FRONTLINE episode on retirement benefits that I watched (it's good) that also gave a major speaking part to Warren. Watch it here:

https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-c...

This book's footnotes (20,000 words) are informative.
——————————————————

Greenhouse’s final chapter (6,300 words) proffers recommendations that he avers “might be wishful thinking.”

. . . it is of course vital to tackle the problem of languishing incomes. Fortunately, there are many strategies to address this problem, among them [1] a higher minimum wage, [2] greater unionization, and [3] keeping unemployment low to increase workers’ bargaining power. Continued [4] productivity growth is, of course, important, too.

Notice that none of his four "strategies" include a policy that would include stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws—a policy that he perhaps thinks either unwarranted or politically incorrect to espouse.

Greenhouse believes

Congress should appoint a bipartisan commission that would have six months to determine how much income is needed to meet a household’s basic needs in each of the fifty states.

Nice. Sweet. A few sentences later, he states

Congress should make vigorous use of the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit (EITC) to assure that all fulltime workers have sufficient income to support their families.

Nice. Sweet. A few sentences later, he suggests:

To show their seriousness about stopping theft of wages, prosecutors should seek to send some executives to prison for cheating workers.

Congress and the states should also enact laws making companies jointly liable for any wage violations committed by the contractors they hire.

Every American is given the right to a public school education. Is the right to health coverage any less important? Our system should [1] guarantee that every American can obtain coverage without financial hardship, it should [2] bring health care inflation under control, it should [3] ensure that people don’t go without coverage because they [A] changed jobs or [B] lost their job or [C] had a preexisting condition, and it should [5] prevent health costs from undermining the nation’s industrial competitiveness.

To me that all reads like the wishlist of a child to Santa Claus.

“extend Medicare to all Americans, emulating Canada’s system in which the government pays nearly all medical bills [because] Some economists estimate that moving to such a program would save $200 billion a year....”

“require every resident to buy health insurance the way states require every driver to buy automobile insurance.”

There are options for solving the looming retirement crisis.... [A]ll workers [should] have a retirement account that would piggyback on top of their Social Security balances. Workers would be required to contribute several percent of their wages into that account.... [T]hese retirement accounts would promise a specific rate of interest each year, perhaps 3 percent after inflation.

Wow! The idea that retirement accounts should promise 3 percent after inflation indicates just how badly dated this book is. That proposal is laughable. Today some $15 trillion of sovereign debt worldwide is priced to yield a negative return.

It's because of sentences/notions like the above that this book is not worth reading. It won't surprise readers that someone who thinks like Greenhouse was (and is?) also infatuated with the kinds of ideas advocated by someone like Elizabeth Warren.

Greenhouse states: “Labor unions once were, and could be again, the most effective tool to improve the lot of the American worker.” I wonder to myself how.

Way back in Nov. 2001, the left-leaning Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks wrote

When the proportion of recent immigrants in the labor force declined during the 1930s and 1940s, unions grew stronger and the distribution of income became more equal. New Deal legislation favorable to the labor movement, as well as the social consequences of World War II, also played a central part in these changes, but curtailing immigration may have made unionization easier.

Greenhouse ends his book declaring “there needs to be a ‘revalorization’ of the worker. Plain and simple, revalorization means treating workers with a newfound respect....”

That cri de coeur for "revalorization" struck me as dumb, useless, akin to the call for a new value system, a change in society's valorization of this or that, a cop-out.

It brought to mind a critical remark that Richard Rorty once leveled at his fellow leftists:

"If there is a happy solution to [our myriad problems], it is going to be the result of some as yet unimagined bureaucratic-technological initiative, not of a revolution in 'values.' The slow crabwise movement [of humanity towards tenderness] is not going to speed up thanks to a change in philosophical outlook. Money remains the independent variable."

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though written in 2008, many of the problems are still here, and even exacerbated, while the solutions suggested have not been set in place. When a contract is only enforceable when a person is poor, and the rich or the corporate do not have to honor it, there is trouble. And we can see today that trouble is here.

[Matt Haynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depressing to read, but really well done. It’s definitely eye-opening to see all the corporations taking advantage of their employees.

[Susan Kurth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating! I could barely put it down.

[Bobbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Workers need unions bc corporations can't be trusted

[Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only rated this two stars, but it is not because it is a "bad" book. The rating is because this is an extremely depressing book. If you are a worker, you already know how bad you have it (unless you are one of those jingoistic workers who vote for right wingers even when it is against your interests). Greenhouse does two main things in this book. One, he has put together an extensive collection of stories from workers who have been exploited and screwed by their companies. And I do not mean just being stingy in terms of salaries. From spying on workers to not paying for medical claims for injuries sustained at work to outright sexual harassment, workers have faced it all. Two, Greenhouse gives a pretty good history lesson on how the United States got to the point where employers pretty much can get away with exploiting their workers.

The book is very prophetic if nothing else. This book was written just as Obama was elected, and a lot of what the author predicts or envisions in the book has come to pass. In some cases, things have in fact gotten worse since the book's publication. I found it particularly foreboding when he asks what would happen if a presidential candidate proposed something like universal health care, which certainly would go a long way to solve many of our issues. Well, we already know what happened: the new president proposed it, then he watered it down to almost nothing in order to appease an opposition party bent on obstruction and which just favors the wealthy. In other words, the guy folded like a cheap suit, to borrow the cliche.

If you are somewhat informed, you probably have heard many of the stories in this book, like some of the lawsuits Wal-Mart has faced. Greenhouse does not just pick on Wal-Mart (even though the company does get one whole chapter), but he looks at a lot of other miscreants from Big Box companies to small convenience stores and predatory Rent-to-own scheme stores, call centers, so on. The book does include extensive end notes for those who want to verify some of what they are reading.

This is a book that more people should be reading. It should specially serve as an eye-opener to workers. Sadly, those workers are probably too worried trying to barely make a living to read it. We know employers pretty much won't read it, and if they do, they will probably not give a hoot. Now don't get me wrong. Greenhouse does highlight a few decent employers, but it is clear that those are few and far in between. And to those who may say that I have it for employers, think about this for a moment. Look at the current economic mess that bankers and Wall Street got us into combined with the fact that wages have been not only stagnant but decreasing (a lot of it due also to Wall Street pressures). Now, the economy relies on people spending. They can't spend if they do not have the money, and they won't have the money if you do not pay them for their work. There was an interesting quote in the book (I think I put it in one of the GR updates here) from Wal-Mart's current CEO, who apparently is a big GOP PAC donor, actually complaining that the Republican tax cuts under Bush went to the rich. Just think about that for a moment.

Overall, this is a necessary expose that needs to be read, even if it is painful and depressing at times.

Similar books: Off the top of my head, I would recommend Big Box Swindle, which I have read and reviewed here. It may be a bit more easy to read, and it looks at another side of the issues Greenhouse discusses. Another one may be Deer Hunting with Jesus which may help explain why is workers often vote against their interests for people more interested in giving tax breaks to the rich (nothing against the rich. You make your money legally and honestly, cool. You want tax breaks you do not need at the expense of the rest of society, that is wrong).

[Shira · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for a discussion group at work, and I have to admit I wasn't too psyched to read it. I was afraid it would be another diatribe against Wal-Mart, and while I agree that Wal-Mart's labor practices are deplorable, I didn't feel the need to read another critique of them. But I was pleasantly surprised that the author went far beyond Wal-Mart to show that there are serious labor issues across multiple sectors and multiple levels of jobs. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that it was very well written. In another person's hands, this book could have been very dry reading, but since Greenhouse is a journalist, his writing is very accessible and engaging. He skillfully weaved anecdotes about individual workers in with discussions of larger historical trends and statistics. One of the other things I particularly appreciated about this book is that he did include a chapter on companies that have good labor practices AND make a profit. Too often, these types of books only talk about the negative companies, without exploring models of how to do things better.

I think what struck me the most is that Greenhouse made it clear that the “big squeeze” is being felt fairly universally from hotel housekeepers to Wal-Mart managers, from assembly line workers to accountants. This is not at all to equate the problems of a low-paid Wal-Mart employee with that of an accountant, but just to show that in different ways, the culture of working ‘till you drop is pervasive across the economy. He also did a good job of showing the ways that the pressure that managers feel then trickles down to how they treat their supervisees. For example, he tells the story of a former Wal-Mart manager who did things while she was there that she admits were wrong and she feels badly about. So he doesn’t simply demonize the store managers who lock employees in at night or who change employee’s work hours to cut costs, he shows how they are in turn getting pressured from above, which makes them act in ways that they know are unethical. I think that by showing that the big squeeze is affecting white collar workers as well as blue collar workers, he is hopefully helping to awaken all of us to the need to work together to stop egregious labor practices and to demand a better balance between our work time and personal time (i.e. people should not have to take their Blackberry on vacation with them!)

[Jennifer Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're already seriously peeved at Wall Street (and, unless Warren Buffett is actually reading this, I imagine you are), Greenhouse's book isn't going to make you feel any better. His stories of American workers are by turns infuriating and depressing - rampant minimum wage abuses, tampering with hours to avoid overtime, harrassment, abuse, and threats. The most heartbreaking are the stories of workers who give everything to their jobs to support their families, only to be heartlessly layed off, let go, retirement cut, health care denied - if you can think of it, it's happened to someone.

Tales of the reality of working in America are interwoven with economic history (the development of the company-worker-government social contract in the post-WWII era and its deconstruction, beginning in the 1980s...hey, remember those air traffic controllers?) and a ton of facts and statistics. Greenhouse is one of those talented writers who pulls off the personal stories/hard facts balance, and is capable of making dry economic theory both understandable and interesting.

In the name of the shareholder, Greenhouse argues, American corporations have forsaken their employees. We've just gone through the only era in American history in which profits and productivity practically sky-rocketed, and wages did not. In fact, the focus on Wall Street concerns (and the corresponding issues of globalization and the general weakening of labor unions), are slowly but surely eroding the middle class...wage stagnation and depression are serious issues, and we may very well be dooming future generation's ability to rise into the middle class, all in the name of short-term profit. And retirement? Forget about it, we're all working until we drop dead.

Greenhouse shows that it didn't use to be like this, and doesn't have to be (he does write about some companies - Costco, Patagonia - who do treat workers well,and whose gains in productivity and small turnover are well worth the money spent on wages and health care).

A great, interesting read - and, if you have a decent job, makes you glad you do.

[Jared Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about what is wrong with the American workplace and it ought to be required reading for anyone in the employment law, management, or human resources fields.

It has the tone of a NYT journalist: a tone that is scrupulous about facts and statistics, but that is not above using a shocking anecdote to really punch at the gut and drive the point home. This can be an effective device, but in this book, its repeated so often that the heroes and villains become stock characters, their struggles formulaic, and the resolutions predictable. That isn't to say that the stories themselves aren't effective, just that their presentation got a little scripted.

The "squeeze" of the title is just that: declining wages (at least in terms of purchasing power, if not in terms of dollars), combined with what is less noticed: increasing workplace demands caused by a sometimes legitimate need to cut costs and stay competitive in a globalized world. But really the plight of the American worker, which really is the focus of the book, goes beyond wages and demands and touches on discrimination, inhumane treatment of workers, and even dangerous conditions.

Greenhouse's description of the problem is, for the most part, effective. His proposed solutions seem like an afterthought. Part of that is the fact that he is a reporter, not a policymaker. But he also seems to have not researched his solutions with the same depth that he did the rest of the book. Some of his proposed reforms, for example, sound just like what is already in place and has been for quite some time in the federal WARN act. And many of his proposed reforms that are not actually written into the laws have been accepted by the courts as a matter of interpreting those laws to actually make sense and be effective. Still, this portion of the book was minor enough that its superficiality didn't detract too much overall.

[ProgressiveBookClub · Rating 5 out of 5]

A shocking tour of America's punishing world of work—and a call for a return to fairness and decency.

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 II made America's middle class the most dynamic and prosperous in the world. But no longer. As Steven Greenhouse shows in this illuminating and often moving survey of the American workplace, in recent years wages have stagnated, benefits have shrunk or disppeared entirely, job security has given way to job anxiety, hours are longer and work is often more dangerous—even as corporate profits and economic growth have soared.

How did we get here? Globalization, immigration, Wall Street's profit mania, the rise of Wal-Mart, the decline of labor unions, anti-worker government policies—there's more than one factor at play, but the bottom line is that most American workers, all across the country, have been squeezed dry. Greenhouse tells the often wrenching stories of software engineers, hotel housekeepers, call-center workers and janitors working hard but scraping by (if that), deprived of the means to live a life of dignity. But he also shows that it doesn't have to be this way. There are companies—Costco and Patagonia among them—who do right by their workers. And there are government policies—like raising the minimum wage, enforcing workplace regulations, going after union busters—that would hugely improve the lot of the American worker.

The Big Squeeze is at once a grim accounting of a national crisis, a ringing call for reform and a constructive manifesto for change.

[Bap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steven Greenhouse is the labor reporter for the New York Times. There was a time when every paper had someone assigned to the labor beat but with the demise of labor unions, the vast increase in interest of covering business and investing, and the general erosion of reporters, labor has been a neglected area. There are only about 5 or 6 reporters in the entire country who cover labor. Greenhouse is terrific.

The big Squeeze is a little like the book Nickel and Dimed with first hand accounts of corporate greed: Wall Mart locking night workers in the building with no way out in the event of a emergency; companies routinely manipulating payroll records to erase hours and avoid overtime; and companies sytsematically shipping jobs overseas eve when US factories were efficient and profitable but not as profitable as can be had with wages of a dollar an hour overseas.

Bt the Big Squeeze covers more ground and is full of statistics that are stunning. Workers with a high school education make five per cent less today than they did in 1979 when factoring in inflation. From 2000 to 2007 productivity rose nearly 3 per cent a year but employee compensation rose by only one per cent, and corporate profit rose 13 per cent. In 2005 the average CEO earned 369 times the average worker; up from 131 times in 1993 and 36 times in 1978. This is just a samplng. If this book does not make your blood boil, you need to check whether you have any blood.

Highly recommended

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mainly interviews but some useful data also. Written from a mainstream liberal point of view, and this is where some of my criticisms come in. at the end his solutions are only in terms of legislation or what political leaders can do, no emphasis on worker organizing or actions. the author is the labor reporter for the New York Times.

his solution for the inadequacies of the labor movement is to simply have the state regulate them even more closely...which means he's completely missed the ways the government is controlled by employers. he wants Congress to pass laws requiring unions to spend 25% of budget on organizing, 5% on education, to give examples. but this is a paternalistic approach that would deny to workers control over their own organizations.

he also thinks unions need to be more "cooperative" with employers. but in fact that is the traditional "business union" approach and it doesn't work. it leads to sell outs. the reasons unions have shrunk is not because union officials are not willing to "cooperate" but because the employers have decided they don't need the union leaders.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is a good overview of what's happening in our country, particulary to workers. It has the usual Wal-Mart is evil stuff (plus a bunch of other companies). He gave a lot of information and statistics about what workers are experiencing, from layoffs, low wages, workplace fraud, to expensive costs for higher education and health care. He also highlights some companies that are doing it right and pointed out that economically they're not worse off. Greenhouse also discussed the history of the American worker and the history of many workplace policies. For someone who knows their stuff about economics and the history of the American worker and the American middle class, this may be too basic, but for me it was just right. At the end he gives his recommendations about how to fix the problems he sees, I'd be curious to hear how people knowledgable in those fields (like health care reform, unions, etc.) see his commentary.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an amazing book. It really made me angrier than usual when you see how every American and immigrant worker (legal or undocumented) in America is treated. I start to wonder what would happen if say a company in a country in Europe (with universal healthcare) were to start seeing how valuable the American workforce could be and started to import some of it's workers. Which would hopefully lead to more people leaving.

I mean they should seriously think about it. Why should we be loyal to a country and it's corporations when they do nothing to protect or help us? They outsource and offshore not only manufacturing jobs but also the high-tech jobs which leaves us no chance. Many of us can't even afford a college education or healthcare anymore. It would be better to pay taxes and support a government that would value its workforce.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scathing rundown of trends that affect workers, including unionbusting, decline in real wages, and twentysomethings on track to do worse than their parents, illustrated with in-depth profiles. Some of Greenhouse's prescriptions for change are predictably idealistic ("change the national conversation about workers") but I especially liked his detailed suggestions around retirement security. While the nasty things corporations do to their workers get plenty of airtime, profiles of companies who do things differently prove capital's not the enemy, and shortsighted/lazy union leadership gets called on the carpet as well. Another quibble: the fix-it chapter lists a number of things unions should be "required" to do including budget allocations, but it's not clear who requires them--their coalitions, individual unions internally or is Greenhouse proposing massive regulation?

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Workers on Life Support

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 more suited to address this precarious situation than Steven Greenhouse, who has covered workplace issues for The New York Times since 1995. Writing with clarity and simplicity, Greenhouse illustrates the plight of the American worker with first-hand accounts of mistreatment and misfortune. He offers some solutions at the end of the book, but he finds only a few patches of optimism in the bleak landscape he portrays so capably.

[Ac · Rating 2 out of 5]

really depressing book with awful stories about workers getting screwed by corporations. i didn't like the author's insistence on using descriptive language when referring to the people mentioned in the book. i.e "Maria was a voluptuous woman with full pouting lips, long silky black hair, light brown eyes and the softest skin imaginable." or "Jake was a mountain of a man with bulging biceps"... it was so weird and annoying to keep reading these little character intros right before u find out that Maria worked 80 hours a week for 120$, or that Jake lost his legs in a coal mine accident. paraphrasing of course.. did not like this book at all and i fully regret reading it.

[Betsy Bayha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm reading this book as I do research on a documentary about the unhealthy state of the current workplace. This is quite a depressing read, as many have stated, but it does wake you up to what's happening to workers in the current era of globalization and technological change. As Greenhouse states, the past 30 years have seen the steady decline of the status of American workers, and painful as it is to witness that decline through the stories he relates, it's important to take note as the first step toward trying to improve our lot.

[Lianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

really angrifying book...my goal was to just read the how did we get here and corporate layoff sections but the other chapters keep drawing me in w/all the scrappy / plucky / intrepid blue collar souls who march to the beat of their own drums.

lots of wal-mart mentions in here...not sure why i'm surprised

minus 1 star for the extreme overuse of the adjective Dickensian. What does that mean?

[KeTURah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get out your jumbo markers and start working on your protest sign, because this book will fire you up to just the perfect combination of anger/vindication. It's like Fast Food Nation and Michael Moore's "Sicko" combined, but for all of us overworked zombie yes men/women, who are so tired by the end of the day that it's hard to even realize what's wrong with the system that makes us feel this way.

[Desiree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very depressing. A good look at the way corporations treat workers... A lot of the "good" jobs have left the country and the ones that are left are very low paying. Lots of individual stories about how companies are squeezing our workers. Also explores how immigrants are working a lot of the jobs we stil have left over here, working at jobs that American workers don't seem to want to do. A good read!

[Bela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing stuff. Presents a well-researched indictment against big businesses who funnel more and more money to their shareholders at the expense of the common worker who is barely scraping by even while working more and more hours and doing more and more tasks. The corporate greed exposed here is appalling. Hello Wal-Mart, which is one reason I absolutely REFUSE to shop there.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greenhouse does a particularly good job of blending numbers and anecdotes in this story about how workers in America from housekeepers to upper management are getting squeezed in the perpetual quest for shareholder return. It gets a little thick in parts, but is well-worth the read in the next year or two. I found it a great follow-up to Thomas Friedman.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is an excellent survey on the causes and consequences of the us labor movement's decline. lots of harrowing personal stories punctuate an in-depth analysis of the global corporate practices of downsizing, outsourcing, and union-busting. a good primer for deeper study into labor in the age of the neoliberal state, unregulated markets, and persistent financial crises.

[Mrs C · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book that government officials need to read and for consumers to read. The book focuses mostly on retailers (Wal Mart is mentioned). I couldn't believe that I was reading something that can happen in the U.S. Inhuman is not even a strong adjective to describe the companies who dare to act this way towards its employees.

[Mark Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book. It points out the problems that American workers face. It also highlighted some employers who were doing it right and profiting from it. Once you get started with this book, you won't be able to put it down. It is a real page turner. As I read it, I found myself wishing it was fiction.