Jamie K McCallum's Books

Worked Over

How Round-the-clock Work is Killing the American Dream

By: Jamie K. McCallum

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Worked Over

How Round-the-clock Work is Killing the American Dream

By: Jamie K. McCallum

Americans are overworked. After declining for a century through hard-fought labor movement victories, average annual work hours increased approximately 8 percent for all working adults from 1979 to 2016. In Worked Over, sociologist Jamie McCallum reveals how the battle over time on the job has been central to conflicts over capitalism from the beginning, how overwork is at the heart of the inequities and injustices in America's economy today, and why workers must fight to take control of the time they spend working. From Amazon warehouses to Silicon Valley campuses, from late night Uber deliveries to later night strip clubs, from factories in Ohio to retail floors everywhere, McCallum explains how the contemporary American workplace exploits workers' time and constrains their lives. Whether it's the manager's stopwatch, the scheduling algorithm's dispassionate authority, or our own internal clock that pushes us because we're afraid of falling behind or losing our jobs, ordinary people have lost much say over when and how much we work. Work, more than anything else, dictates when we sleep, eat, raise our kids, and live the rest of our lives. Popular discussions of overwork tend to focus on striving professionals, but as McCallum demonstrates, it's the hours of low-wage workers have increased the most, and it's their working lives that remain the most precarious and unpredictable in a service-oriented, on-demand economy. What's needed is not individual solutions but collective struggle. Throughout Worked Over, McCallum offers inspiring stories of how the battle to win back control of time has been renewed today by those most vulnerable to the capitalist society's electronic whip. Combining the rigor of a scholar, the storytelling of a journalist, and the vision of an activist, McCallum shows that winning shorter hours will require a radical break from our current political and economic system. Worked Over is an inside look at why our lives became tethered to work -- and how we might regain a greater say over our work time and build a more just society in the process"--

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

260

Published Date

ISBN 10

1541674936

ISBN 13

9781541674936

Worked Over

How Round-the-Clock Work Is Killing the American Dream

By: Jamie K McCallum

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Worked Over

How Round-the-Clock Work Is Killing the American Dream

By: Jamie K McCallum

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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

228

Publisher

Basic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

154161836X

ISBN 13

9781541618367

Global Unions, Local Power

The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing

By: Jamie K. McCallum

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Global Unions, Local Power

The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing

By: Jamie K. McCallum

News about labor unions is usually pessimistic, focusing on declining membership and failed campaigns. But there are encouraging signs that the labor movement is evolving its strategies to benefit workers in rapidly changing global economic conditions. Global Unions, Local Power tells the story of the most successful and aggressive campaign ever waged by workers across national borders. It begins in the United States in 2007 as SEIU struggled to organize private security guards at G4S, a global security services company that is the second largest employer in the world. Failing in its bid, SEIU changed course and sought allies in other countries in which G4S operated. Its efforts resulted in wage gains, benefits increases, new union formations, and an end to management reprisals in many countries throughout the Global South, though close attention is focused on developments in South Africa and India. In this book, Jamie K. McCallum looks beyond these achievements to probe the meaning of some of the less visible aspects of the campaign. Based on more than two years of fieldwork in nine countries and historical research into labor movement trends since the late 1960s, McCallum’s findings reveal several paradoxes. Although global unionism is typically concerned with creating parity and universal standards across borders, local context can both undermine and empower the intentions of global actors, creating varied and uneven results. At the same time, despite being generally regarded as weaker than their European counterparts, U.S. unions are in the process of remaking the global labor movement in their own image. McCallum suggests that changes in political economy have encouraged unions to develop new ways to organize workers. He calls these “governance struggles,” strategies that seek not to win worker rights but to make new rules of engagement with capital in order to establish a different terrain on which to organize.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

229

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801469481

ISBN 13

9780801469480

Essential

How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice

By: Jamie K McCallum

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Essential

How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice

By: Jamie K McCallum

How essential workers’ fight for better jobs during the pandemic revolutionized US labor politics Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, essential workers lashed out against low wages, long hours, and safety risks, attracting a level of support unseen in decades. This explosion of labor unrest seemed sudden to many. But Essential reveals that American workers had simmered in discontent long before their anger boiled over. Decades of austerity, sociologist Jamie K. McCallum shows, have left frontline workers vulnerable to employer abuse, lacking government protections, and increasingly furious. Through firsthand research conducted as the pandemic unfolded, McCallum traces the evolution of workers’ militancy, showing how their struggles for safer workplaces, better pay and health care, and the right to unionize have benefitted all Americans and spurred a radical new phase of the labor movement. This is essential reading for understanding the past, present, and future of the working class.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

288

Publisher

Basic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1541619900

ISBN 13

9781541619906

Global Unions, Local Power

The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing

By: Jamie K. McCallum

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Global Unions, Local Power

The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing

By: Jamie K. McCallum

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

229

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801469481

ISBN 13

9780801469480

Book's by Jamie K McCallum

Worked Over

Worked Over

Worked Over

Worked Over

Global Unions, Local Power

Global Unions, Local Power

Essential

Essential

Global Unions, Local Power

Global Unions, Local Power

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email