Unemployment

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

Questions for Barbara Ehrenreich

Through over three decades of journalism and activism and over a dozen books, Barbara Ehrenreich has been one of the most consistent and imaginative chroniclers of class in America, but it was her bestselling 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed, a undercover expose of the day-to-day struggles of the working poor, that has been the most influential work of her career. Now, with Bait and Switch, she has gone undercover again, this time as a middle-aged professional trying to get a white-collar job in corporate America. We asked her a few questions about what she found:

Amazon.com: Your previous book, Nickel and Dimed, became a blockbuster bestseller with a classic "there but for the grace of God go I" liberal message just when the general political mood of the country seemed to be going in a very different direction. Why do you think it struck such a chord? What sorts of reactions have you gotten to it over the past four years?

Barbara Ehrenreich: A lot of Nickel and Dimed readers are people who regularly inhabit the low-wage work world, and many of them write to tell me that the book affirmed their experience and made them feel less alone and ignored. Other readers though, are affluent people who write to say I opened their eyes to a world they'd been unaware of. For those people, I think one appealing feature of Nickel and Dimed is that it's a personal narrative that gives them a look at lives lived at the margins of their own. The most gratifying response has been from people who tell me the book inspired them to become activists for things like a living wage or affordable housing.

Amazon.com: At what point did you realize that your new book, Bait and Switch, in which you went undercover again, this time to tell a story of working in corporate America, was instead becoming one of not working in corporate America? Is that the story you expected to tell?

Ehrenreich: My initial aim was not "to tell a story of working in corporate America" but to try to understand the human underside of corporate America--the job insecurity, the constant layoffs and downsizings that now occur even in the best of times. I expected to get a job and hence an inside view, but I always knew that that would be very difficult. After about 4-5 months of job searching, I began to get seriously discouraged, but I also came to understand that a fruitless search is in fact a very common experience. After all, today 44 percent of the long-term unemployed are white collar folks--an unusually high percentage. It's their world I entered, and their story that I tell in Bait and Switch.

Amazon.com: For someone with a white-collar career, you didn't have much experience in corporate culture before you attempted to join it for this book. What surprised you the most about what you found?

Ehrenreich: What surprised me most, right from day one of my job search, was the surreal nature of the job searching business. For example, everyone, from corporations to career coaches, relies heavily on "personality tests" which have no scientific credibility or predictive value. One test revealed that I have a melancholy and envious nature and, for some reason, was unsuited to be a writer! And what does "personality" have to do with getting the job done, anyway? There's far less emphasis on skills and experience than on whether you have the prescribed upbeat and likeable persona. I kept wondering: Is this any way to run a business? I was also surprised--and disgusted--by the constant victim-blaming you encounter among coaches, at networking events for the unemployed, and in the business advice books. You're constantly told that whatever happens to you is the result of your attitude or even your "thought forms"--not a word about the corporate policies that lead to so much turmoil and misery.

Amazon.com: You seemed to make much closer ties with your fellow workers in Nickel and Dimed than you did on the white-collar job hunt. What was different this time?

Ehrenreich: You're right--there is a difference. But it's not so much a matter of personalities as it is about two different worlds. There's a lot of camaraderie in the blue-collar world I entered in Nickel and Dimed. People help each other and look out for each other; they laugh together--often at the managers. The white-collar world doesn't encourage camaraderie, far from it. There it's all about competition and fear--of losing one's job, for one thing. Other people are seen as sources of contacts or tips, at best; as competitors or rivals, at worst. And among the unemployed add shame and a sense of personal failure, the constant message that it's all your own fault. All this discourages any solidarity with others or real openness.

Amazon.com: God forbid anyone would come to your book as a guide for finding a white-collar job, but what advice would you give to someone in the shoes you put yourself in: a middle-aged professional woman, in fear of falling irrevocably out of touch with the world of the regularly employed?

Ehrenreich: You don't think I'd make a good career coach? OK, but I have three pieces of advice for the middle-aged, middle-class job seeker anyway:

One, be very careful how you spend your money and time. Since the mid-90s, a whole industry has sprung up to help--or, depending on your point of view, prey upon--white-collar job seekers. The "professionals" in this business are usually entirely unlicensed and unregulated. Also, watch out for events billed as "networking" opportunities that really have another agenda--like recruiting you into expensive coaching or proselytizing you into a particular religion.

Two, don't count on the internet job sites to find you a job or even an interview. On any of these sites, your resume will be competing with hundreds of thousands of others, and most large companies today don't even bother reading online resumes; they have computer programs scan them for keywords (and you won't know what those keywords are.)

Three, and most important: stop believing that it's your own fault. That's the first step to recognizing the common problems facing white-collar workers and responding to them. I'd be thrilled if this book, like Nickel and Dimed, also inspires readers to get involved and become active in efforts to make life a little easier for the growing numbers of people who are unemployed, underemployed, or anxiously employed. What could they do? Lobby for universal health insurance that's not tied to a job, for example. Fight for extended unemployment benefits. Raise their voices to complain about corporate tax breaks and subsidies that are justified in terms of "job creation" but often go to companies that are busy laying people off. One major reason job loss is so catastrophic is that we just don't have much of a safety net in this country. That has to change, and who's going to make it change, if not people like those I met in Bait and Switch? I've got a new website, barbaraehrenreich.com, and I'd like to hear from readers--both their stories and their ideas for how to take action.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class

Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War

Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor

Photobiography of early twentieth-century photographer and schoolteacher Lewis Hine, using his own work as illustrations. Hines's photographs of children at work were so devastating that they convinced the American people that Congress must pass child labor laws.

Race Rebels : Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class

Ultimate Guide to Workers' Compensation Insurance (Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Books)

A strategic guide that arms business owners with ways to escape the growing cost of workers’ compensation insurance

Workers’ compensation insurance adds up to a huge, yet unavoidable, expense for businesses of all sizes. Edward J. Priz has discovered and reclaimed more than $10 million of workers’ compensation overcharges for his clients, and now he offers the same professional advice to his readers. This easy-to-understand guide:

• Enables readers to spot mistakes and stand up to insurance companies
• Translates complicated technical concepts and industry jargon into simple English
• Offers a concise explanation of industry practices that directly affect the costs of insurance, with insight on how to make sure a coverage plan is set up accurately
• Provides detailed information about each state’s unique rules and regulations, and explains how coverage plans differ

Ultimate Guide to Workers’ Compensation Insurance provides a behind-the-scenes look at this complicated issue and puts control back into the hands of business owners. Its countless money-saving tactics could save many small businesses from having to shut their doors.

Multicultural and Diversity Strategies for the Fire Service (Brady Fire)

The End of Work

The most significant domestic issue of the 2004 elections is unemployment. The United States has lost nearly three million jobs in the last ten years, and real employment hovers around 9.1 percent. Only one political analyst foresaw the dark side of the technological revolution and understood its implications for global employment: Jeremy Rifkin.

The End of Work is Jeremy Rifkin's most influential and important book. Now nearly ten years old, it has been updated for a new, post-New Economy era. Statistics and figures have been revised to take new trends into account. Rifkin offers a tough, compelling critique of the flaws in the techniques the government uses to compile employment statistics.

The End of Work is the book our candidates and our country need to understand the employment challenges-and the hopes-facing us in the century ahead.

Women and the Criminal Justice System (2nd Edition)

Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2nd ed. Allyn & Bacon by Katherine van Wormer and Clemens Bartollas • Includes critical thinking questions and a list of relevant web sites at the end of each chapter. These questions guide the student in ethical and policy analysis concerning key issues discussed. Questions relate to U.S. practices in global perspective and professional issues. • Provides a chapter on international victimization that includes such topics as sex trafficking, honor killing, rape in war, and domestic violence across the world. Progressive remedies from abroad are discussed as well. With the stress today on globalization, this detailed attention to human rights violations of women is timely and unique. • There is a special chapter on women and restorative justice. To prepare for work in the criminal justice field, knowledge of these growing initiatives is essential. • Includes an entire chapter on substance abuse and addiction, including biological, psychological, and social aspects. This knowledge is vital for workers in the field at every level. • Maps the pathways to crime for girls and women. This information will aid readers in having a better understanding of factors in the backgrounds of women who get into trouble with the law. • Provides data and interview material relevant to Latina victims, offenders, and professionals in the field. This content will help prepare students for work with today's most rapidly growing population. • Reveals original data from a national survey of women's prison wardens. Students can learn from these findings of the special needs of female offenders as well as about professional concerns within a malfunctioning system. • Offers a chapter especially devoted to feminist theory and research relevant to empowering female offenders and survivors of victimization. Instructor's Manual and power point available upon request from the publisher. Class orders are accompanied by a free book of personal narratives of offenders, victim-survivors, and professionals in the field

Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic

Over the course of a two hundred year period, women's domestic labor gradually lost its footing as a recognized aspect of economic life in America. The image of the colonial "goodwife," valued for her contribution to household prosperity, had been replaced by the image of a "dependent" and a "non-producer." This book is a history of housework in the United States prior to the Civil War. More particularly, it is a history of women's unpaid domestic labor in the context of the emergence of an industrialized society in the northern United States. Boydston argues that just as a capitalist economic order had first to teach that wages were the measure of a man's worth, it had at the same time, implicitly or explicitly, to teach that those who did not draw wages were dependent and not essential to the "real economy." Developing a striking account of the gender and labor systems that characterized industrializing America, Boydston explains how this effected the devaluation of women's unpaid labor.

One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928

Making Diversity Work: 7 Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace

Step-by-step strategies to make your business more competitive and productive.

Workplaces are more diverse than ever, and studies show that this diversity contributes to innovative ideas and novel approaches to decision-making. A diverse workplace also makes for stronger business relationships with customers and vendors, and offers opportunities for lucrative interactions with businesses around the globe.

However, when bias exists, the benefit of a diverse workforce lies dormant.

Drawing from research and nearly 30 years of experience in the field, diversity expert Dr. Sondra Thiederman provides executives and managers with step-by-step strategies for minimizing conscious and unconscious bias and maximizing the ability to manage diversity effectively.

Now updated and revised, the new edition of Making Diversity Work includes real workplace examples, practical applications, and exercises designed to guide you and your team on a journey of self-discovery, behavior change, and, ultimately, healing.

Learn to:

Maximize positive change and productivity in the workplace

Identify and defeat conscious and unconscious bias

Overcome diversity-related conflict and tension

Design and implement behavior change that reduces biased thinking

Immediately apply the material in the workplace and training room

Sondra Thiederman, PhD, is one of the nation's leading experts on workplace diversity, cross-cultural business, and bias reduction. The author of four books and the holder of a doctorate from UCLA in cross-cultural studies, she is a sought-after speaker who brings almost 30 years experience to help professionals in a variety of fields effectively navigate our increasingly diverse workplaces. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today.