Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Marc Doussard posits a new interpretation of the 2001 to 2006 profit-wage disjuncture that is innovative and fresh. This is the stuff of truly innovative urban-economic analysis."—David Wilson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
"Distinctive and pioneering, Degraded Work analyzes the areas of excess profit within two sectors that are often viewed as very close to perfectly competitive, smaller scale neighborhood retail and residential construction. These detailed analyses help make a broader case that low wages and precarious work are not inevitable. Doussard integrates these elements into an instructive polemic against some popular but oversimplified analyses of urban and labor market restructuring, introducing the concept of degraded work to capture the changes he observes."—Chris Tilly, UCLA
"An important and much-needed intervention in the literature on inequality and low-wage work."—Labour/Le Travail
"Degraded Work is a valuable contribution to the study of low-wage work, inequality, labor markets, and organizing. Doussard makes a convincing case that policy makers, practitioners, and scholars need to engage in serious local, sectoral research in order to truly understand the labor market."—Social Service Review
"Well-written and clearly argued."—International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
"Well-researched and illuminating."—Labor Studies Journal
"A remarkably detailed book, Degraded Work challenges one of the dominant theories for urban inequality in North America and challenges readers to do something about inequality in their own city. Perhaps Doussard’s greatest accomplishment is to challenge what his readers believe and what they are doing with their lives or careers, without being confrontational. His analysis shows considerable depth and detail, but he presents it with humor, and without pretense, so it is accessible to experts and laypeople alike."—Economic Geography
"Marc Doussard’s Degraded Work is a timely foray into the complex and controversial reality of current workplace circumstances and conditions in urban America."—AAG Review of Books
Table of ContentsContents
Introduction: The Boom in Poorly Paid and Precarious Jobs1. New Inequalities: The Deterioration of Local-Serving Industries2. Beyond Low Wages: The Problem of Degraded Work3. The City That Sweats Work: Growth and Inequality in Post-Fordist Chicago4. Oases in the Midst of Deserts: How Food Retailers Thrive in Disinvested Neighborhoods5. “They’re Happy to Have a Job”: Mid-Size Supermarkets and Degraded Work6. Building Degradation: Dangerous Work and Falling Pay during a Construction Boom7. A Perfectly Flexible Workforce: Day Labor in a Precarious Industry8. New Answers to New Problems: The Creative Work of Reversing Degradation Conclusion: Building a Fair Labor Market in Post-Manufacturing Economies
AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex
