TY - BOOK T1 - Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Naked Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers Y1 - 2015 A1 - Hill, Steven KW - freelancing KW - libertarianism KW - non-traditional employment KW - sharing economy KW - workers AB - The US workforce, which has been one of the most productive and wealthiest in the world, is undergoing an alarming transformation. Increasing numbers of workers find themselves on shaky ground, turned into freelancers, temps and contractors. Even many full-time and professional jobs are experiencing this precarious shift. Within a decade, a near-majority of the 145 million employed Americans will be impacted. Add to that the steamroller of automation, robots and artificial intelligence already replacing millions of workers and projected to "obsolesce" millions more, and the jobs picture starts looking grim. Now a weird yet historic mash-up of Silicon Valley technology and Wall Street greed is thrusting upon us the latest economic fraud: the so-called "sharing economy," with companies like Uber, Airbnb and TaskRabbit allegedly "liberating workers" to become "independent" and "their own CEOs," hiring themselves out for ever-smaller jobs and wages while the companies profit. But this "share the crumbs" economy is just the tip of a looming iceberg that the middle class is drifting toward. Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Naked Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers,by veteran journalist Steven Hill, is an exposé that challenges conventional thinking, and the hype celebrating this new economy, by showing why the vision of the "techno sapien" leaders and their Ayn Rand libertarianism is a dead end. In Raw Deal, Steven Hill proposes pragmatic policy solutions to transform the US economy and its safety net and social contract, launching a new kind of deal to restore power back into the hands of American workers. PB - Palgrave Macmillan CY - London L2 - eng ER - TY - BOOK T1 - We Are One: Stories of American Workers Y1 - 2015 A1 - Gottlieb, Elizabeth KW - labor movement KW - labor unions KW - workers KW - workplaces AB -

There are millions of workers around the world, each with their own personal story. WE ARE ONE explores the lives of American workers from coast to coast, from all walks of life, in words and self-portrait photography. The collection examines their workplaces, their life events and ideas about success, inspiring reflection and thought among its readers. We hear from musicians, laborers, teachers, journalists, auto workers, nurses, a ballet dancer from the San Francisco Ballet, a West Virginia coal miner, filmmaker John Sayles, and many others. WE ARE ONE is an introduction to today's labor movement from a personal perspective, and a much needed answer to the all too common negative stereotype of unions.

PB - Hard Ball Press CY - New York L2 - eng ER - TY - BOOK T1 - The Chinese Worker After Socialism Y1 - 2012 A1 - Hurst, W. KW - China KW - labor KW - reemployment KW - social dislocation KW - socialism KW - unemployment KW - workers AB -

This book was first published in 2009. While millions in China have been advantaged by three decades of reform, impressive gains have also produced social dislocation. Groups that had been winners under socialism find themselves losers in the new order. Based on field research in nine cities across China, this fascinating study considers the fate of one such group - 35 million workers laid off from the state-owned sector. The book explains why these lay-offs occurred, how workers are coping with unemployment, what actions the state is taking to provide them with livelihoods and re-employment, and what happens when workers mobilize collectively to pursue redress of their substantial grievances. What happens to these people, the remnants of the socialist working class, will be critical in shaping post-socialist politics and society in China and beyond. (publisher's statement)

PB - Cambridge University Press CY - New York L2 - eng ER - TY - BOOK T1 - What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo-American Workplace Y1 - 2007 A1 - Boxall, P. A1 - R. Freeman A1 - Haynes, P. KW - Australia KW - Canada KW - Ireland KW - New Zealand KW - United Kingdom KW - United States KW - workers AB -

[Excerpt] This book is about employee voice in the workplaces of the highly developed Anglo-American economies: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. These are among the most economically successful countries in the world. Despite being located in three different geographic areas, the Anglo-American countries have a common language and legal tradition, have close economic and political ties, and are linked by flows of people, goods, and capital. Many of the same firms operate in each country. The unions in each pay more attention to their counterparts within the group than to unions in other countries. The Anglo-American brand of capitalism – market oriented and open to competition, with modest welfare sates and income transfer systems – differentiates the countries from countries in the “social dialogue” model of the European Union (although the United Kingdom and Ireland are part of the Union) and from the highly unionized labor system in Scandinavia.

PB - Cornell University ILR Press CY - Ithaca, NY L2 - eng UR - http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/books/36/ ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Human Rights and Workers’ Rights in the United States Y1 - 2006 A1 - L. Compa KW - Employee Free Choice Act KW - employment KW - human rights KW - KW- legislation KW - KW - public policy KW - labor law KW - rights KW - standards KW - ULP KW - unfair labor practices KW - unions KW - workers AB -

[Excerpt] Over the past 50 years, a comprehensive body of international law has affirmed human rights to which all workers are entitled, including the right to form unions and bargain collectively. Although the U.S. government has committed itself to protecting these rights, many American employers fail to live up to these international human rights standards for workers.

American workers routinely confront a shameful pattern of threats, harassment, spying, firings and other reprisals against worker activists and a labor law system that is failing to deter such violations.

PB - AFL-CIO CY - Washington, D.C. L2 - eng UR - http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/laborunions/47/ ER - TY - JOUR T1 - In Praise of Middle Managers JF - Harvard Business Review Y1 - 2001 A1 - Huy, Q. N. KW - middle managers KW - workers KW - workplace KW - workplace sociology AB -

[Excerpt] The very phrase “middle managers” evokes mediocrity: a person who stubbornly defends the status quo because he’s too unimaginative to dream up anything better—or, worse, someone who sabotages others’ attempts to change the organization for the better.

The popular press and a couple generations’ worth of change-management consultants have reinforced this stereotype. Introducing a major change initiative? Watch out for the middle managers—that’s where you’ll find the most resistance. Reengineering your business processes? Start by sweeping out the middle managers—they’re just intermediaries; they don’t add value. Until very recently, anyone who spent time reading about management practices, as opposed to watching real managers at work, might have concluded that middle managers are doomed to extinction or should be.

But don’t pull out the pink slips just yet. I recently completed a six-year study of middle managers—in particular, their role during periods of radical organizational change. For the purposes of the study, I defined middle managers as any managers two levels below the CEO and one level above line workers and professionals. The research involved extensive on-site observations, in-depth interviews with more than 200 middle and senior managers, and a review of case research. My findings may surprise you.

L2 - eng ER - TY - BOOK T1 - Industrial Relations Systems (Revised Edition) Y1 - 1993 A1 - Dunlop, J. T. KW - government KW - industrial relations KW - management KW - policy KW - workers AB -

In this revised edition, John T. Dunlop updates his general theory of industrial relations, describing it as a set of tools for practitioners that can be used to develop new industrial relations systems or to reform existing ones. He also discusses the transformation of the industrial relations systems of the former Soviet Union. Since the initial publication of this work in 1958, a substantial literature has grown up around Dunlop's theory, which provides a framework for analyzing and interpreting the vast and growing body of information about labour relations. (publisher's statement)

PB - Harvard Business School Press CY - Watertown, MA L2 - eng ER - TY - BOOK T1 - Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the 20th Century Struggle Y1 - 1993 A1 - Brody, D. KW - CIO KW - labor history KW - labor movement KW - management KW - workers AB -

This famous book, representing some of the finest thinking and writing about the history of American labor in the twentieth century, is now revised to incorporate two important recent essays, one surveying the historical study of the CIO from its founding to its fiftieth anniversary in 1985, another placing in historical and comparative perspective the declining fortunes of the labor movement from 1980 to the present. As always, Brody confronts central questions, both substantive and historiographical, focusing primarily on the efforts of laboring people to assert some control over their working lives, and on the equal determination of American business to conserve the prerogatives of management. Long a classic in the field of American labor history, valued by general readers and specialists alike for its brilliance of argument and clarity of style, Workers in Industrial America is now more timely than ever. (publisher's statement)

PB - Oxford University Press CY - New York L2 - eng ER -