Worked Over

How Round-the-Clock Work Is Killing the American Dream

By: Jamie K. McCallum

Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto

Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

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 '70s. 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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Jamie K. McCallum (P)2020 Basic Books

Critic reviews

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

"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)

"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)

A timely critique of how work has taken over our lives.

Jamie McCallum's book strikes me particularly as timely, an updated version of the place work, and employment, occupies in our lives in post-industrial capitalism. While students in universities contemplate their future careers, they rarely actually contemplate work as a phenomenon they will need to encounter whatever professions they actually go into. This book also clarifies that the struggle for worker rights, particularly for greater control over their time, is not over.

Insightful, clear, informative

This book provided a great knowledge about what our society should look for when pursuing a job that best fulfills our desired needs. We’ve given way to much freedom to corporations when all the main goal is money. Our society needs to have a book like this one in order to retake out daily lives back and have a financially stable life.