This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally in March 2021.
In an era of rising corporate profits and anemic wage gains, low-paid jobs and blighted blue-collar communities have become an all-too-common feature of our nation’s landscape. But what’s behind these trends?
In his new book, Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, award-winning journalist and author Steven Greenhouse argues that the loss of worker power is largely responsible for this stagnation. Detailing the modern labor landscape with stories of dozens of American workers, from GM employees to Uber drivers to underpaid schoolteachers, Greenhouse believes the fight to take power back is crucial for America’s future.
Steven Greenhouse was a reporter for The New York Times from 1983 to 2014 and covered labor and the workplace for nineteen years there. His last book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, received a New York Press Club award, a Gerald Loeb Award, and the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism.
