Why more and more Americans express dissatisfaction with their jobs while their work has become more intellectually challenging and less physically exhausting
When pollsters ask people about both job satisfaction and work satisfaction, they discover workers, blue collar, white collar, pink collar, love their careers but not their working conditions. What turns a model employee into a malcontent? David Kusnet followed the workers at four companies in the Seattle area in the turning-point year of 2000: Microsoft, Boeing, Kaiser Aluminum, and Northwest Hospital. He tells the stories of skilled and dedicated workers battling not so much for better pay and benefits as for respect and a say in the future of the business. Exposing a powerful paradox of globalization, he argues that Americans can only compete with quality products, not cheap labor. But indiscriminate cost-cutting and the pursuit of short-term profits prevent the best workers from doing their best work, fueling the workplace conflicts of the twenty-first century.
David Kusnet (Washington, DC) served as chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and now advises leading Democrats and labor unions. A Visiting Fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, he has written for many major newspapers and magazines.
