Worked Over: How Round-the-Clock Work Is Killing the American Dream

by Jamie K McCallum

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541618343
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/08/2020
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jamie K. McCallum is professor of sociology at Middlebury College. His first book, Global Unions, Local Power, won the American Sociological Association's prize for the best book on labor. His work has appeared in scholarly journals and popular outlets such as the Washington Post, Mother Jones, Dissent, and Jacobin. He lives in Weybridge, Vermont.

Table of Contents

Introduction One Nation Under Work 1

Chapter 1 The Hours of Inequality 21

Chapter 2 Nickel and Timed 53

Chapter 3 The Electronic Whip 79

Chapter 4 Time Machines 103

Chapter 5 More Than Money 127

Chapter 6 Back to Work 155

Chapter 7 We Control the Clocks 177

Chapter 8 Labor's Forgotten Fight 205

Acknowledgments 231

Notes 233

Index 247

Editorial Reviews

07/06/2020

Middlebury College sociologist McCallum (Global Unions, Local Power) delivers an informative examination of the strains placed on American workers by “overwork, unstable schedules, and a lack of adequate hours.” Linking decreased unionization to rising income inequality and work hour instability, McCallum notes that in the past 40 years, “CEO pay soared by an inconceivable 1,070 percent, and productivity increased by 70 percent, but hourly wages of average workers limped forward just 12 percent.” The “gamification” of work has exacerbated the situation, according to McCallum, who notes that Target (“a.k.a. Walmart for liberals”) uses color-coded screens to display the productivity rates of checkout clerks in real time. He also contends that a cultural shift toward expecting one’s job to be meaningful and fulfilling has made it harder for workers of all stripes to maintain a healthy work-life balance. His suggestions for reform include increased family and medical leave, across-the-board working hour reductions, and Medicare for All. Interweaving anecdotes from the history of American labor with profiles of contemporary workers, union organizers, and social service administrators, McCallum lucidly explains how the current system came to be and offers hope that the resurgence of socialist principles can lead to improved working conditions. The result is a cogent, persuasive, and witty call for change. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Well-written…[McCallum] explores the reasons that Americans’ work hours have been growing since the 1970s, including the gig economy and the moribund labor movement.”—New York Times

“Workers of the country need bold ideas like those McCallum offers.”—The Washington Post

"McCallum wants us to reignite the fight to raise wages, reduce work hours, and make work satisfying simultaneously. But, as he stresses, we must focus on the neglected aspect of time. The less time we spend at work, the more time we can spend looking for meaning where we will more likely find it — among our families, friends, and communities."—Nation

"McCallum's latest work stands out among a spate of recent books about the dismal conditions of workers by offering a unifying focus on employees' loss of control over their jobs.... Rich with examples of middle- and working-class responses to job-related time pressures.... Subtly drawing on classic Marxian theory that capitalism steals laborers' lives as well as their work, [it] will find a welcome audience among those concerned about global working conditions."—Library Journal

"A thought-provoking look at the systemic problem of overworking in America."—Booklist

"McCallum may be the only social scientist who has worked as a longshoreman on the Seattle docks and marched in a picket line with the Exotic Dancers Union at the Lusty Lady peep show in San Francisco. Drawing on such colorful experiences as well as deep scholarly research, he makes the compelling argument that Americans are losing control of their work time.... A sobering analysis of quasi-Orwellian tactics that permeate American work life."—Kirkus

"An informative examination of the strains placed on American workers by 'overwork, unstable schedules, and a lack of adequate hours.' Interweaving anecdotes from the history of American labor with profiles of contemporary workers, union organizers, and social service administrators, McCallum lucidly explains how the current system came to be and offers hope that the resurgence of socialist principles can lead to improved working conditions.... A cogent, persuasive, and witty call for change."—Publishers Weekly

"Jamie McCallum's sharp and clarifying analysis links workers' freedom to control work time — and thus their lives — to our ability to have a functioning, genuine democracy. Worked Over underscores the need for workers to have significantly more power over the anti-worker decisions currently in the hands of the corporate elite."—Jane McAlevey, author of No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age

"Worked Over examines an important, but little appreciated, aspect of America's out-of-control inequality: millions of Americans have scant say over when they work and how many hours they work. In this eminently readable, well-researched book, Jamie McCallum combines smart analysis, on-the-money anecdotes, and moving profiles of individual workers to explore the many ways that American workers are being squeezed by unfair, onerous work schedules."—Steven Greenhouse, author of Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor

"As America grew more unequal, most people's workloads just kept growing and growing — and there was little they could do about it. Worked Over helps us see what's going on and also how we might fight against it."—Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

From the Publisher

08/14/2020

Sociologist McCallum's latest work (after Global Unions, Local Power) stands out among a spate of recent books about the dismal conditions of workers by offering a unifying focus on employees' loss of control over their jobs. The author specifically deals with the tension between employers' increasing demand for productivity and workers' need to maintain (or regain) control over their own time. McCallum's book is rich with examples of middle- and working-class responses to job-related time pressures. A few cases seem quirky (1973 astronaut in-space strike or a strippers' union protest), but even those fit well with his theme that workers without control over their time will, too often tragically, buckle under the conditions or, through remarkable effort, resist. The author traces the rise of modern time control to the early 20th-century managerial revolution that increasingly employed surveillance and technology to demand worker efficiency. Mid-20th-century labor movement focused on wages and benefits rather reclaiming time. Fragmented organized labor and emphasis on individual satisfaction through intensive work dominated the late 20th century. A well-focused chapter on changes in the welfare system reveals the role of government in demanding workers' time. VERDICT Subtly drawing on classic Marxian theory that capitalism steals laborers' lives as well as their work, McCallum's book will find a welcome audience among those concerned about global working conditions.—Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato

Library Journal

2020-06-04
A sociologist warns that too many Americans are overworked or subject to soul-crushing tactics such as real-time electronic surveillance by their employers.

McCallum may be the only social scientist who has worked as a longshoreman on the Seattle docks and marched in a picket line with the Exotic Dancers Union at the Lusty Lady peep show in San Francisco. Drawing on such colorful experiences as well as deep scholarly research, he makes the compelling argument that Americans are losing control of their work time. For generations, Americans saw hard work as a means to upward mobility, with strong unions to protect wages and hours and employers who managed workers’ time by adopting the ideas of efficiency experts like Frederick Winslow Taylor and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. That changed beginning in the 1970s. As union power waned and wages fell or stagnated, a new idea took hold: Work was good for you. What mattered was following your “passion,” not decent wages or hours. At the same time, new electronic tools allowed companies to manipulate workers’ time in ways that had especially harsh consequences for low-wage earners, including giggers and taskers like Uber drivers and Instacart shoppers, who were often left with too much or too little work time or unstable schedules. McCallum describes giant screens at Disneyland that showed workers’ names in real time—and who was (and wasn’t) meeting productivity goals—and a scheduling algorithm at Target (“Walmart for liberals”) that doles out shifts that can vary so much, employees can’t arrange child care or supplement meager pay with second jobs. Archcapitalists may be put off by the socialist-inflected remedies McCallum proposes, but few will disagree with his conclusion: “Free time is an objective good in and of itself, and workers clearly deserve more than they’re currently getting.”

A sobering analysis of quasi-Orwellian tactics that permeate American work life.

Kirkus Reviews