The story of a boy who loses both parents at an early age, and who escapes the torture of working for his pitiless stepfather to make something of himself and, with any luck, find true happiness.

From the longtime New York Times labor correspondent comes an in-depth look at working men and women in America, the challenges they face, and how they can be re-empowered. From the longtime New York Times labor correspondent comes an in-depth look at working men and women in America, the challenges they face, and how they can be re-empowered. Wage stagnation, low-wage work, and blighted blue-collar communities have become an all-too-common...

"A comprehensive and insightful look at the modern workplace and how employees are managed, where the new approach is driven by the quirks of financial accounting to the detriment of employees and the long-term success of the organization. Real wages have stagnated or declined for most workers, job insecurity has increased, and retirement income is uncertain. Hours of work for white collar employees have increased steadily, opportunities for advancement...

As many have discovered during the Covid-19 pandemic, working from home certainly has its perks. From the easy (non)commute to your computer to the extra time you can spend with your family and pets to the benefits of customizing your environment to your own personal needs, many are continuing to enjoy the work-from-home lifestyle. But it also comes with its challenges. How do you avoid distractions around your home? How can you remain as productive...

"From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming...

When House Speaker Paul Ryan urged U.S. women to have more children, and Ross Douthat requested "More babies, please," they openly expressed what U.S. policymakers have been discussing for decades with greater discretion. Using technical language like "age structure," "dependency ratio," and "entitlement crisis," establishment think tanks are raising the alarm: if U.S. women don't have more children, we'll face an aging workforce, slack consumer demand,...

"Freed Black women organizing for protection in the Reconstruction-era South. Jewish immigrant garment workers braving deadly conditions for a sliver of independence. Asian American fieldworkers rejecting government-sanctioned indentured servitude across the Pacific. Incarcerated workers advocating for basic human rights and fair wages. The queer Black labor leader who helped orchestrate America's civil rights movement. These are only some of the...

Every working person in the United States asks the same question, how secure is my job? For a generation, roughly from 1945 to 1970, business and government leaders embraced a vision of an American workforce rooted in stability. But over the last fifty years, job security has cratered as the postwar institutions that insulated us from volatility--big unions, big corporations, powerful regulators--have been swept aside by a fervent belief in "the market."...

A biography of labor activist Fannie Sellins.

"Americans are overworked. After declining for a century through hard-fought labor movement victories, average annual work hours increased approximately 8 percent for all working adults from 1979 to 2016. In Worked Over, sociologist Jamie McCallum reveals how the battle over time on the job has been central to conflicts over capitalism from the beginning, how overwork is at the heart of the inequities and injustices in America's economy today, and...