
What Workers Say
Decades of Struggle and How to Make Real Opportunity Now
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Lee Ann Howlett
-
By:
-
Roberta Iversen
About this listen
What have jobs really been like for the past 40 years and what do the workers themselves say about them? In What Workers Say, Roberta Iversen shows that for employees in labor market industries—like manufacturing, construction, printing—as well as those in service-producing jobs, like clerical work, healthcare, food service, retail, and automotive—jobs are often discriminatory, are sometimes dangerous and exploitive, and seldom utilize people’s full range of capabilities. Most importantly, they fail to provide any real opportunity for advancement.
What Workers Say takes its cue from Studs Terkel’s Working, as Iversen interviewed more than 1,200 workers to present stories about their labor market jobs since 1980. She puts a human face on the experiences of a broad range of workers indicating what their jobs were and are truly like. Iversen reveals how transformations in the political economy of waged work have shrunk or eliminated opportunity for workers, families, communities, and productivity. What Workers Say also offers an innovative proposal for compensated civil labor that could enable workers, their communities, labor market organizations, and the national infrastructure to actually flourish.
The book is published by Temple University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
"A timely and well-researched study." (Kirkus Reviews)
“Brings new insights and commentary about paid work through an exhaustive review and reanalysis...” (Julia R. Henly, University of Chicago)
©2022 Temple University—Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education (P)2022 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
Financially Smart Career Planning for Teens
- The Roadmap to Making Informed Decisions in an Uncertain Job Market, Prevent Feeling Overwhelmed & Analysis ... To Achieve Affordable College Degrees
- By: P.D. Mason
- Narrated by: Chandler Clark
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the secrets to graduating from high school without taking on crushing student debt and launching into a flourishing career! In this information-packed guidebook, you'll learn how to access valuable training and practical experience without having to enter the working world in Major College Debt.
-
-
Great guide for both parents and teens
- By Roshani Herath on 08-02-23
By: P.D. Mason
-
The War on Normal People
- By: Andrew Yang
- Narrated by: Andrew Yang
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future - now. One recent estimate predicts 13 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next seven years - jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant.
-
-
I Would Vote For Him
- By Tommie Sexton on 07-09-18
By: Andrew Yang
-
The Millionaire Mind
- By: Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D., William D. Danko Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Cotter Smith
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To become a millionaire, you have to think like one. The Millionaire Mind shows you how. Also available: The Millionaire Next Door.
-
-
No Millionaire Next Door
- By Sean on 02-01-03
By: Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D., and others
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
-
Know Your Price
- Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities
- By: Andre M. Perry
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes listeners on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued.
-
-
More about Black lives than property
- By J. Craig on 04-13-22
By: Andre M. Perry
-
Give Work
- Reversing Poverty One Job at a Time
- By: Leila Janah
- Narrated by: Leila Janah
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When asked if they'd rather receive aid or work, the world's poorest people will always choose work. But the world's richest countries continue to send aid, targeting the symptoms, not the causes of poverty. Western countries have the best intentions, but charity-based aid often does more harm than good, and billions of people continue to suffer. According to Leila Janah, giving dignified, steady, fair-wage work is the most effective way to eradicate poverty.
-
-
Top of my list.
- By Sandra on 04-14-18
By: Leila Janah
-
Financially Smart Career Planning for Teens
- The Roadmap to Making Informed Decisions in an Uncertain Job Market, Prevent Feeling Overwhelmed & Analysis ... To Achieve Affordable College Degrees
- By: P.D. Mason
- Narrated by: Chandler Clark
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the secrets to graduating from high school without taking on crushing student debt and launching into a flourishing career! In this information-packed guidebook, you'll learn how to access valuable training and practical experience without having to enter the working world in Major College Debt.
-
-
Great guide for both parents and teens
- By Roshani Herath on 08-02-23
By: P.D. Mason
-
The War on Normal People
- By: Andrew Yang
- Narrated by: Andrew Yang
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future - now. One recent estimate predicts 13 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next seven years - jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant.
-
-
I Would Vote For Him
- By Tommie Sexton on 07-09-18
By: Andrew Yang
-
The Millionaire Mind
- By: Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D., William D. Danko Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Cotter Smith
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To become a millionaire, you have to think like one. The Millionaire Mind shows you how. Also available: The Millionaire Next Door.
-
-
No Millionaire Next Door
- By Sean on 02-01-03
By: Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D., and others
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
-
Know Your Price
- Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities
- By: Andre M. Perry
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes listeners on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued.
-
-
More about Black lives than property
- By J. Craig on 04-13-22
By: Andre M. Perry
-
Give Work
- Reversing Poverty One Job at a Time
- By: Leila Janah
- Narrated by: Leila Janah
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When asked if they'd rather receive aid or work, the world's poorest people will always choose work. But the world's richest countries continue to send aid, targeting the symptoms, not the causes of poverty. Western countries have the best intentions, but charity-based aid often does more harm than good, and billions of people continue to suffer. According to Leila Janah, giving dignified, steady, fair-wage work is the most effective way to eradicate poverty.
-
-
Top of my list.
- By Sandra on 04-14-18
By: Leila Janah
-
The Nordic Theory of Everything
- In Search of a Better Life
- By: Anu Partanen
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life - from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare - was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension.
-
-
A non-radical perspective on two societies
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 06-20-17
By: Anu Partanen
-
Can't Even
- How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation
- By: Anne Helen Petersen
- Narrated by: Anne Helen Petersen
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do you feel like your life is an endless to-do list? Do you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram because you’re too exhausted to pick up a book? Are you mired in debt, or feel like you work all the time, or feel pressure to take whatever gives you joy and turn it into a monetizable hustle? Welcome to burnout culture. While burnout may seem like the default setting for the modern era, in Can’t Even, BuzzFeed culture writer and former academic Anne Helen Petersen argues that burnout is a definitional condition for the millennial generation.
-
-
Yes. We Millenials are Entitled
- By chris boutte on 10-10-20
-
There Is Life After College
- What Parents and Students Should Know About Navigating School to Prepare for the Jobs of Tomorrow
- By: Jeffrey J. Selingo
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saddled with thousands of dollars of debt, today's college students are graduating into an uncertain job market that is leaving them financially dependent on their parents for years to come - a reality that has left moms and dads wondering: What did I pay all that money for? There Is Life After College offers students, parents, and even recent graduates the practical advice and insight they need to jump-start their careers.
-
-
review
- By Darin on 02-08-17
-
Disrupt Aging
- A Bold New Path to Living Your Best Life at Every Age
- By: Jo Ann Jenkins
- Narrated by: Jo Ann Jenkins, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Disrupt Aging, CEO of AARP Jo Ann Jenkins focuses on three core areas - health, wealth, and self - to show us how to embrace opportunities and change the way we look at getting older. Here, she chronicles her own journey and the journeys of others who are making their marks as disruptors to show listeners how we can be active, healthy, and happy as we get older.
-
-
More policy than I hoped
- By ahrosales on 04-19-16
By: Jo Ann Jenkins
-
The Debt Trap
- How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe
- By: Josh Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Debt Trap, Josh Mitchell tells the untold story of the scandals, scams, predatory actors, and government malpractice that have created the behemoth that one of its original architects called a “monster.” As he charts the seventy-year history of student debt in America, Mitchell never loses sight of the countless student victims ensnared by an exploitative system that depends on their debt. Mitchell also draws alarming parallels to the housing crisis in the late 2000s, showing the catastrophic consequences student debt has had on families and the nation’s future.
-
-
Great great great
- By Amazon Customer on 08-20-21
By: Josh Mitchell
-
The Inequality Machine
- How College Divides Us
- By: Paul Tough
- Narrated by: Paul Tough
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From best-selling author Paul Tough, an indelible and explosive book on the glaring injustices of higher education, including unfair admissions tests, entrenched racial barriers, and crushing student debt. Now updated and expanded for the pandemic era. Combining vivid and powerful personal stories with deep, authoritative reporting, Paul Tough explains how we got into this mess and explores the innovative reforms that might get us out.
-
-
A must-read/listen!
- By Jetaun Davis on 05-20-21
By: Paul Tough
-
The Next Shift
- The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America
- By: Gabriel Winant
- Narrated by: BJ Harrison
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pittsburgh was once synonymous with steel. But today, most of its mills are gone. Like so many places across the United States, a city that was a center of blue-collar manufacturing is now dominated by the service economy - particularly health care, which employs more Americans than any other industry. Gabriel Winant takes us inside the Rust Belt to show how America's cities have weathered new economic realities. In Pittsburgh's neighborhoods, he finds that a new working class has emerged in the wake of deindustrialization.
-
-
Illuminating historical perspective
- By APK886 on 01-07-25
By: Gabriel Winant
-
The Price You Pay for College
- An Entirely New Roadmap for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make
- By: Ron Lieber
- Narrated by: Ron Lieber
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more than $100,000 in many parts of the United States. Meanwhile, many families of freshmen attending selective private colleges will spend triple - over $300,000. With the same passion, smarts, and humor that infuse his hugely popular personal finance column, Ron Lieber offers a much-needed roadmap to help families navigate this difficult and often confusing journey.
-
-
College, one of the biggest financial decisions of life for many
- By D L Blanchard on 04-12-21
By: Ron Lieber
-
The Innovation Delusion
- How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most
- By: Lee Vinsel, Andrew L. Russell
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether it’s genuinely a new invention or just a new toothbrush. But in this manifesto on the state of American work, historians of technology Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell argue that our way of thinking about and pursuing innovation has made us poorer, less safe, and — ironically — less innovative. Drawing on years of original research and reporting, The Innovation Delusion shows how the ideology of change for its own sake has proved a disaster.
-
-
Good ideas, but one-sided and lacking insights
- By James S. on 01-24-21
By: Lee Vinsel, and others
-
Ghost Work
- How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
- By: Mary L. Gray, Siddharth Suri
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hidden beneath the surface of the internet, a new, stark reality is looming - one that cuts to the very heart of our endless debates about the impact of AI. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri team up to unveil how services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, invisible human labor force. These people doing "ghost work" make the internet seem smart. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked at least once in this "ghost economy".
-
-
Interesting research, disappointing analysis
- By Rafael Rosa on 05-11-19
By: Mary L. Gray, and others
-
Lower Ed
- The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy
- By: Tressie McMillan Cottom
- Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so rapidly in recent years - during the so-called Wall Street era of for - profit colleges.
-
-
Now that's a dissertation
- By Mira Krishnan on 09-20-19
-
The New Geography of Jobs
- By: Enrico Moretti
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today, there are three Americas. At one extreme are the brain hubs with workers who are among the most productive, creative, and best-paid on the planet. At the other extreme are former manufacturing capitals that are rapidly losing jobs and residents. The rest of America could go either way. For the past 30 years, the three Americas have been growing apart at an accelerating rate. This divergence is one the most important developments in the history of the US and is reshaping the very fabric of our society. But the winners and losers aren't necessarily who you'd expect.
-
-
Almost Stopped Listening
- By R. Hartley on 03-29-19
By: Enrico Moretti