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The Big Squeeze | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Knopf
Category: EBooks
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $7.96 (44%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 6688
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Dewey Decimal Number: 331.0973
ASIN: B0017L8N6O
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
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 workers: 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short, the post-World War II social contract that helped build the world-s largest and most prosperous middle class has been replaced by a startling contradiction: corporate profits, economic growth, and worker productivity have grown strongly while worker pay has languished and Americans face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 America: 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 great interviews, limited political insight September 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The many interviews for this book help to engage the reader's interest, and make the reality that we face more real. but the book isn't just interviews. there's also a lot of good factual data to back up his critique of "what is." Employers have been aggressively screwing workers for the past several decades, and often in ways that are illegal, and this does come out here.
The book is a bit limited in what it offers as solutions. He's very much within the political mainstream and does pick up some good reform proposals, such as extending Medicare to cover everyone. Getting rid of the private insurance companies is key to the solution but the author doesn't really lean enough on that point. the main limitation is that he fails to recognize that things aren't going to substantially change unless and until American workers figure out how to engage in large scale organizing and actions to fight back. The "good times" in the decades after World War 2 didn't happen because "enlightened political leaders" saw the light. They happened because of the pitched battles, general strikes, workplace sitdowns and wildcat strikes of the '30s and '40s. The feds and the corporations were forced to make concessions.
The author of this book has some rather misplaced ideas about American unions. He says they need to be more "cooperative" with employers. But the leaders have long preached "cooperation" but the employers have decided they don't want to cooperate. And the old union leader "cooperation" with employers often led to sellouts and the unions getting a black eye in terms of how workers view them. The author proposes all sorts of invasive and paternalistic legislation to micromanage unions by the government -- ignoring the lesson he should have learned from employer domination of the National Labor Relations Board. It would be more relevant to provide info about more grassroots controlled unionism and forms of action and organizing workers can do themselves.
 A Great Read and an Important Book about Workers August 25, 2008
I read a lot of books on the economy and workers, and unfortunately too many of them are plodding and overstuffed with statistics. That's why the Big Squeeze was such a pleasant surprise. It's a wonderfully big-hearted book, and it's also a terrific read. It's the best book on American workers that I've read in recent decades (or at least it's a tie with Barbara Ehrenreich's wonderful Nickel and Dimed).
The Big Squeeze is unusual because it tells very moving, very human stories about two dozen individual workers -- the software engineer who has to train the worker from India who was to replace her, the "temp" whose company keeps her as a temp for 10 years, the Air Force veteran who works for three retailers in a row that erase hours from employee time cards to save money. Depressing, but very gripping stuff.
What's also impressive about The Big Squeeze is it sees the trees and the forest. Better than any other book that I've read, it explains in detail how American workers are being systematically squeezed--on wages, health insurance, pensions, job security, pressure to work harder and smarter. The book also examines in a intelligent and accessible way the many complex forces that are causing this squeeze, e.g. globalization, Wall Street's push for greater profits. The book deals with some complicated matters, but it moves quickly, never getting bogged down.
Greenhouse tells one eloquent story after another about how Americans are being squeezed at work. With things getting worse for the nation's workers, Barack Obama and John McCain should be required to read this book so they could see what's really happening in the American economy.
The future looks mighty grim for the beleagured American worker. July 20, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I imagine that many conservative talk show hosts who have heard of or even read "The Big Squeeze" will dismiss out of hand Steven Greenhouse's new book as just more predictable liberal negativity. After all, according to Sean Hannity on one recent afternoon program it is possible for everyone to become rich in America if they are just willing to work hard enough. This is hogwash, Mr. Hannity. Everyone is not cut out to be an enterpreneur or a stockbroker. The reality is that in America today 10% of the population controls nearly 50% of the wealth. The gap between the richest Americans and the rest of us has been increasing at a alarming rate. Good paying jobs are being shipped to other nations and millions of Americans employed in retail or service industries are being forced to work in miserable conditions just to scrape by. "The Big Squeeze" is about the sobering new realities facing an ever increasing number of American workers today. And for the most part what Steven Greenhouse has discovered is not a pretty picture.
It would appear that the American worker is under attack from all directions. Over the past two decades the U.S. has been inundated by millions of illegal aliens from places like Mexico, Guatemala and Haiti. The presence of these additional workers helps to depress blue collar wages in this country and places a strain on the public services we all have to pay for like schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, despite that fact that Americans are among the most productive workers in the world U.S. corporations have accelerated the outsourcing of good paying white collar jobs to places like Pakistan and India where workers are happy to work for a fraction of what his American counterpart makes. Greenhouse spotlights a number of instances where American workers were actually forced to suffer the indignity of training their foreign replacements or else risk losing their severance packages. This one hits especially close to home because my wife found herself in just this situation a few years ago.
As the grip of "The Big Squeeze" gets tighter and tighter, increasing numbers of Americans are forced to accept lower paying positions at outfits like Wal-Mart and Family Dollar. Steven Greenhouse hightlights a whole host of appalling working conditions too numerous to mention here that employees at these retailers are forced to endure. To me the most disturbing one was that in many smaller stores Wal-Mart employees working the overnight shift were actually locked in the store with no manager present and with absolutely no ability to get out in case of an emergency! How can they get away with that?? In the course of "The Big Squeeze" Greenhouse does give kudos to both the discount retailer Costco and the accounting firm Ernst and Young. He praises these companies for the value they place on their employees and cites them as models for other companies to follow. Greenhouse also believes that if the challenges facing American workers today are ever to be reversed then labor unions must play a major role, particularly with those doing lower-paying jobs like janitors and nursing home workers.
For most Americans, what Steven Greenhouse has to say in "The Big Squeeze" will really come as no surprise. The problems outlined in this book are myriad and the implications for most workers are quite frightening. Steven Greenhouse argues that America should take a second look at globalization and perhaps make some adjustments along the way. "The Big Squeeze" is a highly readable and informative book. Recommended!
Easy read, with Liberal viewpoints July 10, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
Book is easy to read. Author presents lots of examples of how our American middle class is being squeezed out, and the increasing differential between the poor and the rich, or upper class. His answers are dissapointing unless you are left wing liberal. He places blame on the awful big/greedy companies. Thinks the era of the 50's/60's was our best because we had big Unions to get benefits for workers. His answer now is basically for the government to contol most everything, and to return to the area of big Union representation. Never mind much of our American industry is crippled in the global economy due to the huge legacy costs to workers brought on by the Unions before we had to compete in a global economy. Yes, we have big problems today, but this is not the answer that will solve things.
A Compelling Account of Capitalism Run Amok! July 8, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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, non-union workers say they would like to join. What holds them back? Greenhouse suggests that one reason is the 2,000+ "union-avoidance" consultants 9Only 100 in the 1960s).
Greenhouse also suggests a need to improve organizing tactics, and offers the SEIU's approach to organizing janitors in Houston as a good example. They began by getting elected officials who were pension-fund overseers with large real-estate holdings to urge Houston building owners to press cleaning contractors to cooperate. The SEIU also promised not to begin bargaining until at least 55% of the employees' contractors were organized (no "unfair" disadvantages). Finally, they leveraged their strength by picketing opposing janitorial firms with work in other cities.
Greenhouse's Recommendations: Increased Social Security taxes (to ensure its stability), increased income taxes on those with higher incomes (benefited most from globalization), changing health care to a single-payer system (much less overhead), and working to restrain health care costs.
Reading "The Big Squeeze" sometimes hurts as one sees how people are taken advantage of. My only criticism is that Greenhouse does not lay enough blame at the feet of globalization.
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