The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker

by Steven Greenhouse

Book Overview

The Big Squeeze takes a probing, sometimes shocking look at the stresses and strains faced by an alarming number of American workers--white- and blue-collar, middle- and low-income--as wages have... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400096529
• ISBN13: 9781400096527
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A Compelling Account of Capitalism Run Amok!

Greenhouse's focus is to ask "Why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations intent on squeezing their workers dry?" Corporate profits, economic growth, and worker productivity have grown strongly, while pay has languished. Median income for non-elderly households in 2006 was $2,375 lower in real terms than six years prior. Income inequality now more closely resembles a 3rd-world country than an advanced nation - if it was the same as in 1979, the bottom 80% would receive $8,000 more in yearly income. Almost one-fourth of the workforce earns less than $10/hour, and generally also lack benefits. Health costs now account for 16% of GDP, up from 5% in 1960. Meanwhile, the proportion covered by pensions (especially defined-benefit - eg. IBM) is declining, and large corporations (eg. United, Delta, and U.S. airlines, LTV and Bethlehem Steel) are defaulting on existing obligations. Corporations flaunt overtime laws (eg. Wal-Mart, Target), and even fail to pay workers for all their time worked (H-P, Wal-Mart). Circuit City has twice replaced its longer-term workers earning higher salaries with new recruits at lower pay scales, while Microsoft, H-P, and others make the term "temporary" workers an oxymoron in a bid to deny benefits to large numbers of long-term employees. Three decades ago employer-provided health insurance protected 70% of private-sector workers - now it is down to 55%, and their coverage is no longer as extensive. "Independent contractor" status is extensively exploited (saves Social Security, etc. payments) by eg. FedEx, and their use of the tactic is expanding (to FedEx LTL) despite adverse court rulings. What fuels these actions? Greenhouse answers - takeover threats, deregulation (airlines, trucking), pressure from jobs lost through automation (also used to create an environment of close supervision), outsourcing, streamlining (eg. delayering, eliminating overheads), increasing costs of employer-funded health care (especially vs. non-coverage by Asian firms), and the "Wal-Mart" effect (low employee pay and benefits; forcing suppliers in the same direction). There are few heroes in "The Big Squeeze." The most obvious is Costco - higher pay, benefits, sales, and profits/employee than Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, while much lower employee turnover and shrinkage. Greenhouse also suggests Las Vegas casinos (courtesy of strong employee unions) and Timberland shoes - however, both are exempt from strong commodity-like or foreign competition and thus not as impressive as Costco's achievements. Don't economists agree that globalization to the max is good for us? Not all - Paul Samuelson, Nobel Prize winner in economics, says: "If you don't believe (offshoring) changes the average wages in America, then you believe in the truth fairy." Unions used to be a strong offsetting force vs. management. However, just 7.5% of private sectors are now in unions - the lowest rate since 1901. Yet, 53% of non-management,

compelling account of what work life in America has become

I first picked up The Big Squeeze after I heard that it had a chapter about the factory closing in Illinois that Barack Obama spoke about in his keynote address to the Democratic convention in 2004. I grew up in the Midwest, and I care a great deal about the future of manufacturing, so that was the first chapter I read in the book. It was terrific. Yes, the chapter was about a factory closing--Maytag closed a 1,600-employee refrigerator factory and moved it to Mexico--but the chapter was far more than that. It was a great read about a devastated community, Galesburg, Illinois, and it was fascinating--it was even literary--because it tied in Carl Sandburg, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Ronald Reagan's Illinois childhood all with David Ricardo and the economics of globalization. The chapter had some very moving descriptions about how globalization affects workers. At one point tears came to my eyes. Then I turned to the rest of the book, and I found it highly readable and intelligent throughout, whether it was discussing Wal-Mart workers, immigrant workers or contingent workers like freelancers. The book has very good, human stories of individual workers, and analysis that digs much deeper than other treatments of these issues. At a time when everyone is talking about working-class voters, this book really lays out what's happening to America's workers. And the story ain't pretty. Anyone who wants to know what's happening to the nation's 140 million workers should read this book.

eye opening, readable, balanced

I've long been concerned about the rough way that many workers are treated and I picked up The Big Squeeze at a friend's recommendation. I was impressed -- and angered -- by The Big Squeeze; it lays out better than anything I've read exactly what's happening to the nation's workers. Sad to say, wages are going nowhere for millions of Americans, pensions are going down the drain and in this age of Blackberries, everyone seems to be working more than ever. The best thing about this book is that it tells the tales of individual workers -- some are written like nimbly told short stories -- to explain the way that many workers are being dragged down by trends like offshoring white-collar jobs to India, factories moving to Mexico and the two-tier wage schemes that are hammering many twentysomethings as they enter the workplace. Books about economics or about work can often be heavy-handed and hard to read, but I was pleasantly surprised at how readable this book was. And Greenhouse tries very hard to be balanced and fair-minded as he treads through some difficult terrain about globalization, labor unions, corporate culture and immigration. It's good that Greenhouse writes about the good and the bad, about Wal-Mart and other corporations that brazenly flout the law in how they treat their workers and about corporations like Costco that do right by their workers, companies that we can all learn from and that more companies should seek to imitate. The Big Squeeze does a terrific job explaining in a very human, readable way the many painful things happening to the nation's workers. I think it's the best book on American workers since Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed.

Something we need to care about

If you find yourself wondering, "Is this all I'm worth?" when you look at your paycheck, meager benefits (or lack thereof), other poor job opportunities or rising gas, college and home costs, and the increasingly unattainable "American Dream", you are not alone... This book is an excellent primer for those of us who want to know why American jobs are so much less fruitful than those of our parents or grandparents generations (for 20 or 30 somethings). It is a sociological eye-opener on par with "Fast Food Nation". It emboldens us to get more politically involved, and helps us form opinions on many of todays very relevant pressing issues(health care, illegal immigrants, the minimum wage, dwindling union support, offshoring and job security, education costs and standards, corporate corruption). The Big Squeeze covers several case studies sprinkled with analysis and history of all parties involved in our mighty economy. Greenhouse makes a very well informed argument for adapting to changing and new economic pressures and in the end of the book lays out his proposals (albeit too idealistic for most administrations) for solving many of the problems he has dissected. I commend him for tackling such a huge subject with so many variables and attempting to pull it all together into a comprehensive book that educates the lay person (who is not an economist) on what is happening in this country. He makes the reader aware that this is truly an epidemic and raises the red flag. While this book is not "light" reading, it does tell positive tales of employers doing the right thing, and of immigrants who have succeeded and injustices that have been unveiled so as to balance the overwhelming sea of pessimism and hopelessness that these types of books tend to hold between their pages.

A Story That Needed To Be Told

A well-researched, well-written, gripping documentation of the deteriorating status of the American worker at all levels of the economy, by a veteran New York Times reporter who certainly knows the turf. Many readers will relate to the human stories recounted in this book. Those who don't will have their eyes opened and their thinking changed. Kudos to this author, who has done a good deed by telling this story.