Beaten Down, Worked Up
The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor
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Beaten Down, Worked Up
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
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Written by:
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Steven Greenhouse
About this listen
“A page-turning book that spans a century of worker strikes.... Engrossing, character-driven, panoramic.” (Zephyr Teachout, The New York Times Book Review)
We live in an era of soaring corporate profits and anemic wage gains, one in which low-paid jobs and blighted blue-collar communities have become a common feature of our nation’s landscape. Behind these trends lies a little-discussed problem: the decades-long decline in worker power.
Award-winning journalist and author Steven Greenhouse guides us through the key episodes and trends in history that are essential to understanding some of our nation’s most pressing problems, including increased income inequality, declining social mobility, and the concentration of political power in the hands of the wealthy few. He exposes the modern labor landscape with the stories of dozens of American workers, from GM employees to Uber drivers to underpaid schoolteachers. Their fight to take power back is crucial for America’s future, and Greenhouse proposes concrete, feasible ways in which workers’ collective power can be - and is being - rekindled and reimagined in the 21st century.
Beaten Down, Worked Up is a stirring and essential look at labor in America, poised as it is between the tumultuous struggles of the past and the vital, hopeful struggles ahead.
A PBS NewsHour Now Read This Book Club Pick
©2019 Steven Greenhouse (P)2019 Random House AudioWhat the critics say
“Greenhouse probably knows more about what is happening in the American workplace than anybody else in the country.... He achieves a near-impossible task, producing a page-turning book that spans a century of worker strikes, without overcondensing or oversimplifying, and with plausible suggestions for the future.... Great nonfiction requires great characters, and Greenhouse has the gift of portraiture. He is able to draw a complex, human portrait of a worker with a minimum of words, making the reader greedy for more details, not just about the policies but about the people. And he has both the newspaper writer’s ability to find the one or two individuals whose personal stories exemplify a larger point, and the historian’s ability to make what has already happened seem unlikely. He is skilled at homing in on the moments of the highest uncertainty, and transforming them into stories with quick and destabilizing twists and turns.... Engrossing, character-driven, panoramic.” (Zephyr Teachout, The New York Times Book Review)
"What I fear is that the there is a systematic effort to wipe clean our national memory of the capacity and benefits of workers acting collectively and building strong unions. Greenhouse’s book helps us remember that labor unions really did build the middle class, raise the dignity of workers, and civilize workplaces. It also gives us reason to believe that, as labor activist Rose Schneiderman poetically framed it, workers still 'must have bread' but 'must have roses, too.'” (Robert Bruno, Perspectives on Work)
“[A] comprehensive primer on a subject that is intimately intertwined with our collective history.... It is obvious that 'Beaten Down, Worked Up' represents a monumental - and mostly successful - attempt to connect all the dots and thus provide a clear context for the ongoing societal debate about the efficacy of the labor movement and its place in contemporary culture.... If you are concerned about the future, and especially our economic prospects, this is one you’ll definitely want to add to your reading list. Highly recommended.” (Aaron Hughey, Bowling Green Daily News)