4 comments about Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs (George Gund Foundation Book in African American Studies).

1. Since so many conservatives think that racism no longer exists, the market will cure all evils, and blacks do poorly because of individual rather than social failures, Dr. Royster puts these ideas to the test. She interviews 25 white men and 25 black men who studied the same vocational courses at the same high school to see if they did just as well in the marketplace. Though the black men get just as good grades and attend classes just as much, their individual initiative does not explain why their white counterparts consistently found jobs easier, were paid more, worked in fields in which they prepared, and were just generally better off.
   
   So many people nowadays feel that racism is so nebulous in the post-civil rights era that surely it must not exist. Dr. Royster explodes this idea and gives American racism a real face. In this study, white employers would forgive white males with criminal backgrounds but condemn black men in the same situation. White teachers gave black males verbal support but they only went out of their way to find actual jobs for white, male students. White males had tons of contacts who could find them jobs, no questions asked; while black men were consistently asked to prove their skills and proceed through bureaucracy. White male job applicants met white employers in predominantly-white parks, golf courses, churches, and many other places where few black males would have access. White employers would rather tell white applicants "You didn't get hired due to affirmative action" rather than "You were far from the most qualified person." The only successful black in this study said he has to constantly grin and bow and that white co-workers purposely used racist epithets hoping to make him explode and get fired. Though white males unanimously agreed that "who you know" gets you into doors, they never once realize that they know more well-off peopole than black men. In addition, though white males consistently fared better than their black counterparts, white employers would continually imply that they must give preferential treatment to them to counteract affirmative action policies.
   
   This book is well-written and sophisticated, though I think lay readers will be able to understand it generally. This book doesn't become overly descriptive and fall into simple narrative. The first individual interviewee discussed isn't brought up until page 66 of this 200-paged book.
   
   Dr. Royster stated that she originally intended to interview black and white females as well, but didn't due to time constraints and a lack of an interviewing pool. Thus, this is men's studies by default. Still, since the trades mentioned here are predominantly male, this exclusion makes sense. In fact, Dr. Royster suggests that black males have limited contacts because they can only go to similarly-classed black women, rather than the powerful white male mentors that young white males had. This was a fascinating gender politic.
   
   Dr. Royster describes herself as "a very, light-skinned African American." Hence, white subjects revealed things to her that she is sure they wouldn't have revealed to a phenotypically black researcher. This undercover interviewing is fascinating, but lead to truthful and accurate results.
   
   Though a new scholar, Dr. Royster critiques the most famous living black sociologist, Dr. W.J. Wilson, yet he even has to admit that her research is excellent. (See the back cover of the book.)
   
   I wasn't expecting this book to be a sociological study. I thought it would be a history of racism in labor movements and unions. Still, I was not displeased by the results. I am a better person for having found and read this text. Big applause to Dr. Royster.



2. In examining the seeming intractability of race and exclusionary tactics of white-male social networks, sociologist, Deirdre A. Royster asks and answers five fundamental questions that serve as a foundation for substantive discussions and analysis, among academic and non-academic audiences alike. Her questions are: (1) What happens when whites and blacks share a track placement, the same teachers, and the same classrooms? (2) Can desegregated institutions, in this post-civil rights era, provide equal foundations and assistance for blacks and whites? (3) Does the problem of embeddedness - in this case, historically segregated job networks - stifle the emergence of cross-racial linkage mechanisms and networks beyond schools? (4) Or does the post-Civil Rights era provide a new, color-blind labor market in which blacks show signs of work-readiness and achievement succeed on a par with white peers in terms of initial employment outcomes? (5) Finally, are black students, as the racial deficits theory suggests, lacking something that should make them less desirable as workers than their white peers? Of her questions, I find number one of considerable interest, for it illustrates what are some outcomes even when the playing field is leveled.
   
   In asking such questions Royster lays a foundation that challenges conventional wisdom as it relates to African Americans and their economic, political, and social achievements. Not unlike a 1992 Atlanta newspaper article by Leonard Steinhorn, wherein he writes, "rather than asking why blacks have achieved so little, it is more appropriate to ask how blacks achieved so much given the odds against them," Royster begins her work by examining the social networks of her African American and American Anglo male respondents; networks that allow for successful school-to-work transitions for white males, but which are lacking in African American blue-collar social circles. Historically, with fewer and fewer African American men in quality blue-collar jobs, coupled with the lack of social networks, young black males seeking entrée into the sector were not met with a hand up, but a proverbial boot in the face.
   
   Examining the landscape of African American unemployment, coupled with massive deindustrialization in many American cities, I conclude that not only do African American males face seemingly entrenched "stigmatization" as articulated by Glenn Loury in his work "The Anatomy of Racial Inequality", they are also victims of a mistaken belief among white males that if an African American male has a particular job the Anglo male covets, it was not earned by merit alone, but by means unavailable to white males, i.e. affirmative action. Recognizing this faulty logic among many white males is particularly telling in that they seem to ignore historical impediments, i.e. deadly threats and actual death faced by African Americans in general and African American males in particular seeking quality employment. Even among black and white males of like educational, social, and economic standing, as proffered by Royster, white males persist in asserting that blacks are undeserving of their position, which some white males argue is due to legislative intervention.
   
   Partially employing Granovetter's theory of the strength of weak ties, Royster, shows how white males partake in a system often unnoticed by black males and never given a second thought by white males themselves. So much so, that white males do not observe that even when they engage in "typical `boys will be boys behavior'," white males are not without access to a web of networks. She goes on to write, "whereas white men can be thought of as second-chance kids, black men's opportunities were so fragile that most could not have recovered from even the relatively insignificant mishaps that white men report in passing." Such comments in "passing" by Royster's white male respondents illustrates their lack of an acute understanding of their "white-skin privilege" as articulated by Peggy McIntosh and their membership within a social structure/network that affords many opportunities for "mishaps" to be routinely accepted by both peers and potential employers. Mishaps that often leaves the African American male possessing a criminal record and effectively barred from potentially lucrative employment.
   
   Royster does a very good job of writing in an approachable style for non-academics and in a way that is intellectually redeeming for the hardcore academic mind. While some researchers may find fault with her "passing" as white to gather data, little can be said against both its utility and effectiveness of moving into a comfort zone with her respondents, such that her interviews with white males prove both disturbing and enlightening. As she states at the outset, "because I can pass for white, I have often overheard conversations among whites to which people of color are not ordinarily privy," Royster understands the risks, but proceeds and produces a masterful work.
   
   Overall, Royster has provided a work that, as William Julius Wilson noted, "will be widely read and cited." For this work and the ideas generated, this reviewer applauds the author's efforts and contributions.



3. Give this book to relatives, friends, students who think that race discrimination is history in America. Royster is a fabulous interviewer and writer. Her fifty young graduates of vocational high school (half African-American, half white) open up to her with heartbreaking honesty. White kids are successful because of the web of older white friends, relatives, and teachers in their school who make sure that they have jobs, even when they have criminal convictions. They praise the skills of some black classmates but feel no obligation to help them, as they themselves have been helped. The black young men think many of the white men are "cool," but make no demands. Anyone who doesn't see the need for affirmative action should read this book.



4. This is an interesting but flawed study. The author wishes to prove that informal social networks among Whites give them an advantage over Blacks who lack those networks in securing blue-collar jobs. This seems to be a common sense observation and I have no doubt that it is true. However to buttress this theory, the author utilizes interviews of only 38 students from ONE trade school in Baltimore. How this can be extrapolated for the entire country is beyond me. The time period for this study in Baltimore also occurred during a period of economic downturn.
   
   The author also has a particular axe to grind. Her "study" is merely a polemical cheer for affirmative action. Rather than address the structural restraints on the economy such as regulations and taxes, she proposes instead programs that would restrain the effectiveness of informal networks and opts for an affirmative action program of coerced mandates and governmental control. This can only result in conditions going from bad to worse.

1 comments about Payroll Best Practices.

1. I have been away from full time practice for many years. This refresher was well written but still dry.

1 comments about Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream.

1. Book Review: "Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream"
   
   By Janice Fine
   
   Review by James Generic
   
   Edited by Yoni Kroll and Chris Mullen
   
   
   
   Today, unions in the US are in a weak state. More than 90% of all working people are not in unions. Does this mean that unions have become obsolete? No! The power of a worker in a union is much higher than someone without a union in terms of job security, wages, benefits, and the ability to solve grievances like harassment or discrimination. However, there have been many changes in American labor of late, such as anti-union laws, aggressive international anti-labor companies like Walmart, globalization where former union jobs are sent overseas, immigration laws aimed at keeping immigrant workers vulnerable, and the retailization of the US economy where many jobs have shifted from factories to retail and low-wage service jobs - like domestic workers, security guards, restaurant workers, agriculture, or day laborers. Most of the tactics of the labor movement have been slow to follow this shift. In addition, US unions tend to be on the conservative side (politically conservative like many building trades or craft unions, or just conservative in tactics and cautious in the case of industrial-based unions.) This huge void in the labor movement hasn't gone unfilled. A host of alternative labor organizing strategies and organizations have risen to fill this void, and one of the biggest trends of low-wage workers organizations is towards workers' centers.
   
   
   
   In "Workers Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream", Janice Fine does a very thorough study of workers centers across the US, visiting 137 in a two year span. She lays out what a worker center is, an organization that offers at least four features to workers, which outside of unions that other groups do not: 1- Services, examples being English as a Second Language, legal aid, job placement, placement to need-based service orgs, cash checking, peer counseling, and getting back wages 2- Popular Education, which would be know-your-rights classes, basic economic and globalization classes, critical skills development 3- Organizing, such as collective action for betterment of constituents, engaging in campaigns around issues, getting better conditions for their membership or constituents, bringing in alliances of groups to help, leadership development and 4) Advocacy, which is getting the message out and bringing light to low-wage communities.
   
   The majority of workers' centers are immigrant worker based, with many Latino and Asian centered groups and some African-American majority workers' centers, making race one of the key factors that these groups organize around. Often, the staff and volunteers of the workers centers come from the communities the centers work in, as well as the main point being to develop leadership within those communities. One of their big advantages over traditional unions is that workers centers are bottom up organizations based around local conditions, as opposed to numbers-based groups who target large bodies of people to organize instead of the "hot-shop" places. . In many ways, workers' centers are much like "pre-unions", doing the collective organizing that unions can't or won't do at this time but may someday be able to. The way that workers' centers think of members is also different than unions, in that in unions you are a member if you simply pay dues, but in the workers' centers it is more something you must earn and put in time for. Fine points out, however, that they could do better with fund-raising by establishing more firm membership. A general weakness of progressive organizations on the left - except unions - is the drift towards reliance on foundation money.
   
   There are many examples of workers' centers across the United States. The Chicago Interfaith Workers Rights Center organizes heavily around churches. The Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment (CAFÉ) works with day laborers, recruiting heavily in immigrant soccer leagues. Restaurant Opportunities Center - New York (ROC NY) organizes around the food industry, trying to make many connections from farm to table as well as fighting for the huge but often not organized restaurant industry. Koreatown Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA) fights for Korean and Latino workers across the immigrant-heavy Koreatown in Los Angeles. Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) goes after mostly meatpackers, even getting a very conservative governor to give in to their demands and post workers bill of rights in every workplace. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance more or less functions as a union without the legal recognition. The Tenants and Workers Support Committee (TWSC) organizes all sorts of workers in Northern Virginia, but especially taxi drivers and domestic workers. Domestic Workers United in New York City unites a heavily fragmented workforce spread from house to house made up mainly of Caribbean immigrant women. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers fights for tomato pickers across Florida and have won big gains from fast food giants like McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell. CASA Maryland works mainly with day laborers. The Vermont Workers' Center provides a place for alliance amongst organizations and individuals. The Miami Workers Center works internationally with Columbian labor groups. Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights places a human rights framework around workers rights. The New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice builds worker power and racial justice in the post-Katrina environment. These are the ones that stand out in Fine's book, though many more have arisen since it was published in 2006.
   
   
   The worker center model put forth by Fine has many strengths and weaknesses. In general, they are good grassroots organizations that value building up their members and placing action and results above all else. They serve as a way for low-income workers to be able to organize for a better place in society when there is no help coming from outsiders. They also address the immediate needs that have to be filled and combine that with pushing for collective action and power from the bottom-up, thus the service, popular education, organizing and advocacy aspects of workers centers. Often, the staff and volunteers of the workers' centers come from the communities the centers work in, which is important from a leadership perspective.
   
   One of the main weaknesses is that worker centers tend to not have a firm membership base. Their direct membership is often small in comparison to unions, though that is often because they have many informal members through the networks that they build and the communities they serve. Because of that, their funds tend to be low and they tend to have to rely economically on grants because they generally haven't, or don't want to, built ways of raising money due to the fact that many of the communities they organize with are poor. Workers' centers could also do better as far as networking goes, as there are only two major national workers' center networks right now: the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) with 30 workers' centers; and Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) which connects 14 workers' center through strong religious ties. In general, their relationship with mainstream labor like the AFL-CIO has been somewhat rocky because unions often regard the centers as not being disciplined enough and not strategic and the centers see the unions as being too rigid tactically and top-down. However, labor has been moving to endorse workers' centers as a legitimate part of the labor movement. An example of this is the NDLON partnering with the AFL-CIO in 2006.
   
   When I went to the Jobs With Justice (JWJ) 2008 national conference in Providence, Rhode Island, Terence Courtney of Atlanta JWJ remarked that in the last three years, JWJ and the labor movement in general seemed to have gotten more radical in embracing alternative forms of organizing with people directly effected by today's poor economy. Unions and groups like workers' centers have reached a more equal footing in the last three years, according to Courtney. I agreed with him, as low-wage worker organizations seemed to have a key role amongst the workshops and speakers that day, as opposed to mostly unions and their direct allies as it was back in 2005. It appears that JWJ has taken a major step forward in recognizing that because of the bad position American unions currently find themselves in, there's a big void that can and should be filled by workers' groups. That is especially true here in Philadelphia, where there is a big need for a group that would combine organizing with service and advocacy. A workers' center would fill that need perfectly.

1 comments about How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics).

1. How Institutions Evolve is widely considered one of the most important recent contributions to the institutionalist literature. It received the Woodrow Wilson award, the most prestigious book award of the American Political Science Association.
   
   Thelen is concerned with the interplay between continuity and change in institutions. Focusing on vocational training, she demonstrates the persistence of country specific patterns of vocational training through periods of dramatic political change. In an extended treatment of the German case she demonstrates how, in spite of this continuity, the function of vocational training in Germany has dramatically changed over the years. While created against the opposition of organized labor at the end of the 19th century, it gradually changed into an importan pillar of union power in Germany's political economy.
   Her argument is directed mainly against the 'punctuated equilibrium' approach to institutional change, which views institutions as stable until a major 'critical juncture' changes them entirely.
   
   Though 'vocational training' may not strike most readers as the most exciting of subjects, Thelen's focused theoretical lense, as well as the historical depth of her treatment make this book a good, at times fascinating, read. It is sure to become required reading for all students and scholars of political institutions.

3 comments about Sweatshop Warriors : Immigrant Women Workers Take On the Global Factory.

1. During my vacation, I've been reading "Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory" by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie. Miriam has a multi-decade organizing history with low income women of color. She is the co-founder of the Women of Color Resource Center in Berkeley, and author of an amazing trainers' manual called WEdGE" Women's Education in the Global Economy."

   "Sweatshop Warriors" is one of my personal top ten books on radical organizing. It looks at transnational sweatshops through the eyes of Korean, Chinese and Mexican women forced to leave their homes of origin to take super exploited labor jobs in the world's sweatshops, ending up in the garment rows of NY, Oakland, LA, El Paso, etc. And there they have stood and fought. Against incredible odds, they've led international campaigns against the sweatshops industries, formed multi-purpose women workers centers, dealt with men in their families who were sometimes less than supportive of their activism, and learned to be world traveling organizers.

   The author mixes political economy, analysis, history, and the herstories of the women organizers she has interviewed. Race/class/gender/nationality -- all come into play in the lives and organizing work of these incredible women.




2. Miriam Ching Yoon Louie has a literary talent in exposing the ill effects of globalization on poor women of color in the American garment industry. Focusing on Chinese, Korean, and Mexican immigrants she documents how their labor is continuously being exploited without regard to their personal well-being. Transnational corporations seek their labor because it is cheap. It is these women who are the backbones of the forces of globalization and their stories need to be told. An added strength of this book is that the author doesn't just focus on the negative structural aspects but she also includes multiple instances of how these workers create social solidarity and fight for social change in their favor, even when up against the odds. Her personal involvement in these social movements is an added benefit. These poor women of color both produce and reproduce globalization on the local and global scale. It leaves one with the belief that there is hope after all for a fair and just world. This book will make you reevaluate the 'promises' of free trade agreements and economic growth. As one group prospers there is surely another group being disadvantaged. Overall, this book is accessible especially in discussions on the feminization of labor and migration that is not cluttered with jargon. Go ahead and take a gamble. I hope that it will alter your social stance on these important issues as it reinforced mine.



3. I teach a course on Women and Work and Miriam Ching Louie's Sweatshop Warriors is the first book I have found that really describes sweatshops from the workers' perspectives, as agents rather than victims. The students really got it. I plan to use the book in this course from now on.

1 comments about Myth and Measurement.

1. For those of us without formal economics training, Card and Krueger present an easy-to-read alternative view of the minimum wage controvery. They undermine powerfully the long held assumption that minimum wages decrease job opportunities for low wage workers, and elegantly descibe what poor workers have known for years.

5 comments about Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America.

1. This is something that needs to be forwarded around. We need to spread the word.
   
   MSNBC had the nerve to do a news story saying people in the US have the lowest productivity in the first world, but as this book points out, people in the US work an average of 9 more weeks than other first world countries. People who put in 10 and 12 hour work days as we do and don't take vacations are exhausted, and have terrible health and productivity as a result of it.
   
   European countries such as the United Kingdom where they eat more sugar and fat than we do, are thinner and in better health because they are not working themselves to death as we are.
   
   One of my favorite quotes from this book, is "Time is a family value."
   
   The Mother Manifesto is is a co production of Take Back Your Time and MomsRising
   The Motherhood Manifesto: What America's Moms Want - and What To Do About It



2. With this book, John de Graaf provides an opportunity to sit down with talented writers and perceptive thinkers, and hear their views on one of society's most pressing problems - time poverty. As we race to produce more stuff - stuff that is poisoning our environment - we lose the time we need to take care of ourselves and our families, particularly those most in need of care, the very young, the very old, and even our pets. As this book shows, Americans' single-minded focus on production comes at the expense of other areas of life that desperately need our time and attention. Children growing up in institutionalized care, pets being dumped at shelters, citizens relinquishing their right to vote, obesity becoming epidemic as fast food replaces home cooking, landfills overflowing with the items we frenetically produce; the list goes on. In addition to viewing the problem from several interesting and diverse perspectives, the book includes essays on possible solutions and provides ways for readers to get involved. Everyone should find the time to read this important and engaging book.



3. This book is not repetitive like others book in genres similar. This has many wonderfully written topics on time and our lack there of it in the United States. Different issues can arise due to lack of time. Some others also cross compare other countries who have more time and leisure, yet still have a great economy with more relaxed workers. Defienntly worth the time to read and may give you ideas on starting a movement to bring about more time for us.



4. This book really illustrates the problem we have in this country. Most people are busy paying on 300K + houses, paying SUV bills and are starved for time to live life the way it is to be lived. My hope is that people will use this book to fight corporate greed and gain a real life.



5. As a Physician I can personally vouch for the toll "time poverty" has on health and happiness. I don't believe a day goes by where I don't see someone stressed to the max. Time is the ultimate commodity: With enough time virtually every other limitation of life can be surmounted.
   
   It was with this in mind that I eagerly approached this book, hoping to find some wisdom to pass on to my patients (and to absorb myself). Unfortunately, instead of useful tips on priortizing, frugality and responsibility, what I found was a collection of Marxist propaganda regarding the evils of capitalism.
   
   According to this book, a young boy is a murderer because his welfare mother was forced to work for a living for a change. Pehaps if The State (productive members of society) had been less cruel in asking that she pull her weight and provide for those she brought into this world, her son may not have committed murder, at least until he was an adult. Then we would have to find someone else to blame (just not the murderer).
   
   Perhaps if we all lived in a communtist utopia where citizens are imprisoned for speaking out against the People (government) such as modern day communist China or the recently deceased Soviet Union, we would all be perfectly happy. That is unless you want something better for you or your family. Shame on you for working harder because you want to take care of your family.
   
   Apparently I only struggled through years of brutal schooling and worked over hundred hours per week to learn to care for others (at far less than minimum wage and mostly at my expense) out of pure capitalist greed. I guess I went over six months without a day off simply to oppress the poor. This sort of polemic makes me sick. Please don't be poisoned by this garbage.
   
   This book is not about helping you to spend your time on what is important or effective time or life management. It is simply a Marxist polemic angainst capitalism. It is unfortunate that one can't find a reasonable critique and review of the shortcomings our current system without a subversive agenda. I guess I'll keep searching.
   
   I would love to give this one back to Amazon, but I think I will keep it in the "Know Your Enemy" section of my bookshelf.

3 comments about Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation.

1. Kunda in his book explains that culture could be used as a powerful weapon that the organization uses against the workers to manipulate and finally control them, reaching the organization's goals. The author supports this idea through the study of the High Technologies Corporation (HTC) case, a "state of the art" company that designs, develops, manufactures, sells, and services a number of popular high-tech products. The company has been a high-tech success story through three decades of existence. According with Kunda, culture is a set of rules that support the relationship between the company and the people, specifically it is compound by rules for behaviors, thoughts and emotions. The conformation of this set is carried out by the interaction within workers and between the company, it means that each individual within the company could be affecting the organization culture (interactive effect). Kunda explains that the company sees the culture as a reengineering process, where it have to be redesigns and maintained to get the goals of the company. On another way, control is the effect to internalize and institutionalize the set of rules to get involve and part of the organization. Once obtained this level, the worker will be internally committed, strongly identified with company's goals, and intrinsically satisfied by his or her work; therefore, he or she will not need the company to be coercive with them to play his or her own role in the job. A company uses rituals as the machinery to model the culture. These rituals in HTC are conformed by structural speeches, presentations, meetings, lectures, parties, team and inter-group meetings and training workshops. Other elements used by companies are the myths; the company supports its message through a leader, who serves as model to follow. Finally, the common vocabulary is used to reinforce the identification of workers with organization's culture. An important dilemma that the employee faces is adopt or not adopt the organization's culture. Can they really have this choice? According to Kunda, some employees are alienating completely trough the culture, even losing their autonomy (marginal workers). Another workers are reluctant to adopt and intelligently simulate the internalization of culture or maybe draw a line to separate own culture and corporation culture. Both groups want really want to be part of the organization. In conclusion, culture is a mean to get corporation's goals and workers' convenience. In this sense the worker "choice" is to get involves or not with the trade-off to get high positions or not.



2. This book provides an excellent portrayal (though an ethnographic study) of a company which utilizes corporate culture as a means of control. The company expends great energy at inculcating an ideology that results in the employees putting the company and their work at it above all else, exhibited not only in discourse, but in failed marriages and overtime. This text illustrates how employees are converted into missionaires who will follow productions schedules and management strategies with religious zeal, oblivious to their personal lives and the cost of these new commitments. It would be interesting to see what these types of companies are doing today to manipulate and extract full faith and commitment from employees. A must read for software engineers and those who study organizations and org. psych.



3. Let an anthropologist walk around freely in a high-tech company, studying what people say to each other and why, and you get "ethnography of corporate culture". I suppose the reason companies allow (or even invite) this kind of study is to see if their attempts to mold corporate culture for better productivity really work.
   
   Simple answer: no, it doesn't. You can try to manage culture, and control people's thoughts and reactions, but if you do it strongly enough to have an effect, people will notice. It can create cynicism as well as emotional conflict as people try to reconcile membership in the company culture with their feelings of being manipulated. Kunda is thorough, and honest -- transparently describing his own methods in an epilogue chapter.
   
   I gave it a 3 only because I found it a long read to read about someone else's corporate culture. Better, perhaps, to take time here and there to think about our own.

2 comments about Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic.

1. Boydson goes to prove that the average woman ha had to work long and hard hours that have been often under paid and overworked while the men get their payment, the women must endure long hours and work extra hard. This book seeks to tell how the women have built the economy and have been one of the major leaders yet do not get the credit that they deserve. Think about the long hours put in spinning, canning, and doing the house work without air conditioning and yet still how it is today! This si the book to read for all historians.



2. I have to modify significantly the previous reviewer's take on this book. Boydston does not argue that women did all the work while men got all the pay. What she argues is that because women did as much unpaid work as they did, factories benefited more from male labor than they might have if they'd considered and economically rewarded the female labor that went into making the male a productive worker. In other words, capitalists effectively got two for the price of one when they hired a male worker. Without a female working for free at home while practicing home economics to keep expenses low, the American labor-profit system in the early republic would have been unsustainable. To make this system palatable, Boydston argues in her concluding chapter (indeed, the chapter that really is the point of the book), the culture generated a pastoral mystique of housework . . . images and ways of talking about housework that made it seem not only natural, but part of the beauty and splendor of nature.
   
   The previous reviewer's take suggests that this book in some way could be read as perpetuating a simplistic male/female gender war mentality. Instead, where this book really leads is to a common enemy of the mass of men and women: an exploitative political economy that thrives on the poverty of the family. Women entering the marketplace has done little to solve the problem. Indeed, what Boydston shows is that women have always been in the marketplace. If you think about it after reading this book, it becomes pretty clear that in the postmodern, post industrial age, capital is still getting two workers for the price of one: women working for less pay than men and men working for less pay than they have before. Meanwhile, the economy absorbs the on average lower female wage in a network of childcare services (daycare, formula, etc.) and "busy lifestyle" services (convenience food, maid services, etc.) that leave the situation little changed. Meanwhile, of course, the marketing machine continues working overtime to naturalize this situation.

1 comments about The New American Workplace.

1. This is a great illustration of the value of lucidity. Edward Lawler is one of the longest standing and most respected experts in HR, interestingly enough in compensation and rewards.
   
   This book shares his expertise in Organizational Effectiveness, though, working through the university-based center that he co-founded a number of years ago.
   
   The framework created here places the new American workplace into one of three organizational generalizations: large organizations that win by extracting cost (Wal-Mart), global competitors, and nimble, small innovators. In all of the above, the paradigm of lifetime employment has vanished in favor of contingent employment relationships, entrepreneurial career management, and "cash compensation," often outside the employment framework entirely.
   
   The huge American corporations of the 1970s have all but disappeared. We now deal with highly diverse workers who demand very different terms from their employers.
   
   This is a fun book to read - suprising in its insights and conclusions. The people who have been inventing the future have not had much time to document the journey. I'm glad Lawler made the time to write this account.