Beaten Down, Worked Up
The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
About this listen
“A page-turning book that spans a century of worker strikes.... Engrossing, character-driven, panoramic.” (Zephyr Teachout, The New York Times Book Review)
We live in an era of soaring corporate profits and anemic wage gains, one in which low-paid jobs and blighted blue-collar communities have become a common feature of our nation’s landscape. Behind these trends lies a little-discussed problem: the decades-long decline in worker power.
Award-winning journalist and author Steven Greenhouse guides us through the key episodes and trends in history that are essential to understanding some of our nation’s most pressing problems, including increased income inequality, declining social mobility, and the concentration of political power in the hands of the wealthy few. He exposes the modern labor landscape with the stories of dozens of American workers, from GM employees to Uber drivers to underpaid schoolteachers. Their fight to take power back is crucial for America’s future, and Greenhouse proposes concrete, feasible ways in which workers’ collective power can be - and is being - rekindled and reimagined in the 21st century.
Beaten Down, Worked Up is a stirring and essential look at labor in America, poised as it is between the tumultuous struggles of the past and the vital, hopeful struggles ahead.
A PBS NewsHour Now Read This Book Club Pick
©2019 Steven Greenhouse (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Greenhouse probably knows more about what is happening in the American workplace than anybody else in the country.... He achieves a near-impossible task, producing a page-turning book that spans a century of worker strikes, without overcondensing or oversimplifying, and with plausible suggestions for the future.... Great nonfiction requires great characters, and Greenhouse has the gift of portraiture. He is able to draw a complex, human portrait of a worker with a minimum of words, making the reader greedy for more details, not just about the policies but about the people. And he has both the newspaper writer’s ability to find the one or two individuals whose personal stories exemplify a larger point, and the historian’s ability to make what has already happened seem unlikely. He is skilled at homing in on the moments of the highest uncertainty, and transforming them into stories with quick and destabilizing twists and turns.... Engrossing, character-driven, panoramic.” (Zephyr Teachout, The New York Times Book Review)
"What I fear is that the there is a systematic effort to wipe clean our national memory of the capacity and benefits of workers acting collectively and building strong unions. Greenhouse’s book helps us remember that labor unions really did build the middle class, raise the dignity of workers, and civilize workplaces. It also gives us reason to believe that, as labor activist Rose Schneiderman poetically framed it, workers still 'must have bread' but 'must have roses, too.'” (Robert Bruno, Perspectives on Work)
“[A] comprehensive primer on a subject that is intimately intertwined with our collective history.... It is obvious that 'Beaten Down, Worked Up' represents a monumental - and mostly successful - attempt to connect all the dots and thus provide a clear context for the ongoing societal debate about the efficacy of the labor movement and its place in contemporary culture.... If you are concerned about the future, and especially our economic prospects, this is one you’ll definitely want to add to your reading list. Highly recommended.” (Aaron Hughey, Bowling Green Daily News)
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A new generation is stepping up. There are now 26 millennials in Congress - a fivefold increase gained in the 2018 midterms alone. In The Ones We've Been Waiting For, Time correspondent Charlotte Alter defines the class of young leaders who are remaking the nation - how grappling with 9/11 as teens, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, occupying Wall Street and protesting with Black Lives Matter, and shouldering their way into a financially rigged political system has shaped the people who will govern the future.
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Born before the lint roller invented
- By ML Sadler on 03-05-20
By: Charlotte Alter
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All Things Possible
- Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life
- By: Andrew M. Cuomo
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
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In this full and frank memoir - a personal story of duty, family, justice, politics and resilience - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reflects on his rise, fall, and rise in politics, and recounts his defining personal and political moments and tough but necessary lessons he has learned along the way.
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I Love This Book AND the Guvnor (Governor, I Know)
- By Igi M. on 09-02-20
By: Andrew M. Cuomo
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Nothing to Fear
- FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America
- By: Adam Cohen
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing to Fear brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history - the tense, feverish first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, when he and his inner circle completely reinvented the role of the federal government.
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Important contribution
- By R.S. on 03-05-09
By: Adam Cohen
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Bushwhacked
- Life in George W. Bush's America
- By: Molly Ivins, Lou Dubose
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
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In their second book on our current White House occupant, Ivins and Dubose take the wire brush to the Bush presidency and show how he has applied the same flawed strategies he used in governing Texas to running the largest superpower in the world.
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Richly informative & entertaining...
- By Native Texan on 10-29-03
By: Molly Ivins, and others
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The Liberal Invasion of Red State America
- By: Kristin B. Tate
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Progressive upper-middle-class urbanites are deserting expensive liberal meccas like New York and San Francisco and flocking to traditionally red states like Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Texas. The result is a sudden, confusing purpling of small-town America. School boards and local governments are being reorganized around the progressive agendas of pushy transplants. Neighborhoods are becoming unrecognizable. And the implications for future Congressional and presidential elections are staggering.
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Interesting and back up with facts
- By Jason on 01-23-20
By: Kristin B. Tate
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
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- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
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- Unabridged
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In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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The Year of Peril
- America in 1942
- By: Tracy Campbell
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- Unabridged
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The Second World War exists in the American historical imagination as a time of unity and optimism. In 1942, however, after a series of defeats in the Pacific and the struggle to establish a beachhead on the European front, America seemed to be on the brink of defeat and was beginning to splinter from within. Exploring this precarious moment, Campbell paints a portrait of the deep social, economic, and political fault lines that pitted factions of citizens against each other in the post-Pearl Harbor era....
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Disappointing
- By David S. on 06-08-20
By: Tracy Campbell
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New Deal or Raw Deal?
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In this shocking and groundbreaking new book, economic historian Burton Folsom, Jr., exposes the idyllic legend of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a myth of epic proportions. With questionable moral character and a vendetta against the business elite, Roosevelt created New Deal programs marked by inconsistent planning, wasteful spending, and opportunity for political gain---ultimately elevating public opinion of his administration but falling flat in achieving the economic revitalization that America needed.
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A must listen!
- By Book and Movie Lover on 06-14-09
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We've Got People
- From Jesse Jackson to AOC, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement
- By: Ryan Grim
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may seem like she came from nowhere, but the movement that propelled her to office - and to global political stardom - has been building for 30 years...With the party and the nation at a crossroads, this timely and original audiobook offers new insight into how we’ve gotten where we are - and where we're headed.
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Excellent and illuminating, despite tech "issue"
- By DanoB on 08-25-19
By: Ryan Grim
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Reaganland
- America's Right Turn 1976-1980
- By: Rick Perlstein
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Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga's final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement. In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford's defeat, too old to make another run.
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This Book is Censored by Audible
- By Nathan D. Backlund on 09-07-20
By: Rick Perlstein
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Third World America
- How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
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America's middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation - that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream - an American Nightmare of our own making.
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Sad... but with a ray of hope
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Armageddon
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Timed for the critical presidential election season, New York Times best-selling author and noted political commentator Dick Morris provides a strategy and position on the issues for Republicans to attract crucial new voters to the party in order to win back the White House in 2016 and put an end to the Obama agenda of ruinous socialism. By using new issues, attracting new voters, and offering new alternatives, Republicans can win the election of 2016 and save America!
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Informative and practical a must read
- By quentin on 06-30-16
By: Dick Morris, and others
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What listeners say about Beaten Down, Worked Up
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Keith
- 08-27-19
Primer for Unionism and Worker Struggles
Greenhouse, the former labor reporter for the New York Times, weaves in personal stories to tell a brief history of unions and the struggle for worker rights in America. His book is a recommended read for anyone looking to have a greater understanding of the current state of unions and ideas on how they can rebuild power for worker and civil rights.
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2 people found this helpful
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- justin stutz
- 05-05-22
great book
very informative. inspiring stories for the labor movement. we need this now more than ever
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- Peter Lyngso
- 05-25-21
Expertly Written and Conceptualized
The author provides first the groundwork for many of the labor battles from history that come to define today’s state of affairs within workers rights
There is a lot to taken away here and I suggest it highly
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- Equine Partner
- 02-01-21
Extensive reporting on workers rights
This book is an extensive reporting g on the history of worked rights. A must read for all workers to ensure they appreciate their rights and responsibility for maintaining these hard fought and important rights. We need many voices at the table .
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- Gokhan Cukurova
- 12-19-19
this it a must have in every library
I would have liked it more if the author really digged into the real heroes the real spearheads of the labor movements like the iww etc but overall it's a good book to have. in a lot of places in America labor movement and unions are stigmatized but it's only because people are not aware of labor unions and the fight for more fair and Democratic workplace is as American as apple pie. that is for a reason the more people know the more they fight back the system that exploits them even when they sleep. Walter Reuthers and Mother Jones of America have impacted millions of lives and they should be red and celebrated by millions. just like there are good cops and bad cops good plumber and bad plumber there are good union leaders and bad union leaders people should look at labor movement and unions as an ideal. just like we cannot dislike old police because of the bad police we cannot look at the labor movement with the lens of mainstream media where it makes the news if there is only a union leader misusing is power.
just like in the song,
my father was a miner and I am a miner's son,
I'll stick with the Union till every battle's won!
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- AWOL A.
- 12-31-23
Excellent Labor book
The book is full knowledge and all workers and union official must read this book. I love it.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-21-20
Must read
This book is fantastic. A must read for any leftist or anyone that supports unions and labor movements. I have not finished it yet but so far its up there with Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent as far as important political works. Well done Steven Greenhouse.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lesch
- 01-17-22
need a different narrator
I felt like I was listening to a robot. The narration made it difficult to enjoy. Struggled to get through. May have a different experience reading.
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1 person found this helpful