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Social reform needed. 2009-11-18

Reviewer: Charles R. Lester

This book is mostly about the problems that some workers in America face. They are unjustly treated. Not all is rosy. It is an honest treatment of the subject.

American Workers on Life Support 2009-06-08

Reviewer: Rolf Dobelli

A perfect storm is battering the American worker. Blue-collar and white-collar jobs are moving overseas while America's economy lags and its immigrant population expands. Given the quality of this report, getAbstract surmises that few individuals are more suited to address this precarious situation than Steven Greenhouse, who has covered workplace issues for The New York Times since 1995. Writing with clarity and simplicity, Greenhouse illustrates the plight of the American worker with first-hand accounts of mistreatment and misfortune. He offers some solutions at the end of the book, but he finds only a few patches of optimism in the bleak landscape he portrays so capably.

Much that is good, and much that is 100% wrong 2009-05-12

Reviewer: Paula L. Craig

"The Big Squeeze" has lots of great stories, is well written and interesting. For that reason I give it three stars. Unfortunately, I find much of Greenhouse's analysis lacking, and many of his policy recommendations unhelpful.

Greenhouse is right that we need to improve health care. I recommend The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System as the best book on the subject.

Greenhouse is a fan of unions. I'm a union member myself, but I'm not convinced that unions are the road to improving the American workplace. I think unions are fine as far as giving employees a voice in debate, but depending on the power of the strike to improve workplace conditions significantly is silly. Workplace conditions improve when employers need to reduce turnover and workers have skills employers need. Unions can't change the law of supply and demand.

Greenhouse says far too little on the role of immigration in general and illegal immigration in particular in creating the terrible workplace conditions we now have. In my opinion, enforcing the immigration laws and reducing immigration numbers are the single most important step we can take to improve the American workplace.

Greenhouse also misses one of the most important steps in empowering the working poor: birth control. It is no accident that many of Greenhouse's worst stories involve single mothers or families with several children. Children today are a luxury item. When someone with no skills and no savings has a child, it doesn't take a genius to see that making ends meet will be difficult. Desperate people trying to support too many mouths are ripe for exploitation. Greenhouse notes that young people today are having an especially tough time finding good jobs, but misses the implication--this is a classic symptom of overpopulation.

Greenhouse talks a lot about how the poor need higher incomes. I agree that we need to greatly reduce income inequality in the U.S. However, keep in mind that the U.S. poor have high incomes by world standards. Greenhouse says that $17,300 a year in annual retirement income is not much to live on. But why is that? In most places $17,300 annually per person would be more than enough to acquire housing, transportation, health care, and the necessities of life. Greenhouse needs to look more at why housing, transportation, and the like are so expensive in the U.S. We don't need more economic growth--we need efficiency in producing high quality of life from our incomes. For more on this, seeThe Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, The High Cost of Free Parking, and Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development.

Anecdotal - nothing new for most 2009-03-24

Reviewer: John D. Sens

For those who have been unaware of what is going on in the marketplace since about 1975, this is an adequate introduction to left of center views regarding challenges faced by employees of large employers such as WalMart, including as lack of unionization, outsourcing, temporary employees, low wages, and globalization.

Sadly there is nothing new or insightful. While Mr. Greenhouse, like others of his persuasion, laments economic changes that have taken place since the end of the Carter administration, he fails to provide insight into why the changes have taken place. The real problems of foreign competition, massive increases in costs of medical care, and others, are not seriously addressed. One example: By now, many understand that public perception of labor unions began to change drastically in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but Mr. Greenhouse fails to explain why. That is what I was looking for but didn't find it.

Larry C 2009-03-18

Reviewer: L. Craig

This book should be a mandatory read for all graduating high school seniors. They are in for a rude and damaging shock if they think that corporate America will give them a fair shake. I loved the many real stories that the author gives the reader that show time and again how the rich, established business interest will go to almost any means to take advantage of our most vulnerable, hard working citizens. Where is our government? Why is it not protecting us? The short answer is that our government is for sale and corporate America has the money so they buy what they want. I hope that we can find the political will to put back in place strong workplace protections for workers and at the same time, demand that our large companies treat their employees in an ethical, honest and fair manner. This book tells all the dirty secrets and it is a disgusting, heart wrenching story. Not only did our large corporations wreck our economy, they are hell bent on making us a 3rd World workplace!