Has appeared in many areas. Hes from vermont and is a distinguished professor sociology the Graduate Center and the author of the bestselling for Peoples Movement regulating the poor and why americans dont vote with the late richard gaye. Please join me in using your zoom clap or heart reactions to welcome him to your living room. High everyone thanks for joining us. Fran can hear me with the thumbs up . Yes i can hear you hello everyone. Should we begin our discussion . Sure, sure. Jamie, why dont you begin by telling us a little bit about the book and especially about why you were inspired to work on it. Thanks for hosting this event ive had the pleasure of working with fran for a very long time ive always appreciated your support. So, this latest book, came out with an interest i had a very long time ago i guess about always having a political sensibility that the reduction of worktime is a public good. And should be a goal of social movements. And, it was not until i got to middlebury really wears hardworking about ten years ago, i found a group of very, relatively well off and delete students who seem to almost like a performed a commitment to overwork. There was a constant almost bragging mentality about how committed they were and how overworked they work. I felt this was odd giving the health of relatively well off background, many of them. So started writing a chapter in the book that talked about the kind of discourse or ideology around the last 30 or 40 years prayed that led me down a rabbit hole into thinking about why we are all doing so much of it. And soy started looking historically at the data. And i focused on work times of the reduction of the increase in the movement to control it. That is sort of what originally gave me the idea. You could also speak about the religion of work couldnt you . Of ideology of work . Is a very strong religious kind of inspiration. Actually a lot has been written about the religious naming of work and worktime. And it has to do with the old story of the garden of eden, right . The idea that it is sinful in a way participate in planted to. And that you have to sort of compensate for that by a lifetime, eons, societal time of work. Obviously there is a long tradition of the rise of capitalism with what people call the protestant aspects, right . And so there is a way. Of course in that story they argue as capitalism tends to take hold, the religious teeth those around work dissipate. You get a capital ethic or a work ethic. I think that was part of like a polemical background to me, wanting to write about that. I tend to be overworked myself. And yet, i have a job that allows me the freedom to not do that actually. So both politically and perfectly and figuratively figuring this out. Steve ask how much you work jamie . [laughter] i mean, while its interesting. When you are in grad school you mirror your mentors. And mine never retire, they never stop working. And i think early on it became sort of a goal to have intellectual lifer academic life pursuits. When you are a new professor as i was in middle barry, you work very, very hard. Many of my colleagues work together. We work through the night very often. The stress was pretty high. You get to a certain point, you know you can relax a little bit. And i have got there, i think. But also tend to take on more and more projects. Im always doing, y, and z. While it is a little bit confusing because dont we like to work . Dont we enjoy working . I dont know do you . I dont know what i would do if i didnt work. And im a very old person. So its time for me to it stop working. Some would say that yes. I mean, that adage that goes if you love it youre doing youll never work a day in your life, that whole thing. And i think that to me, that is always stood out as the way too avoid, or a way to hide the fact that many of us are not able to do what we like to do. And are not able to sort of derive a sense of self or selfsatisfaction from the work we do. I am to some degree perhaps you are, most people arent so privileged. And one thing, on that, one thing i found interesting in this book as we hear about overwork in the press, we are constantly barraged with stories of overworked professionals, whitecollar lawyers, the corporate types who put in 60, 70 hours a week at work. And of course, that is true. They actually tend to work the most. When i was most interested in however was the change. In the last 45 years, it seems that they have actually, the top of the income bracket have changed their work hours the least. Where the lowest wage workers have increased their hours the most. Which is a reversal of past trends. So for me, i censor the book less on workaholics like myself, and more on people who for a variety of other reasons and pulling all all nighters or weekends or network or whatever. So maybe you could talk a little bit about, not the specific situation of academics or lawyers or other highly trained professionals who get a lot besides money out of their work. They get a lot of selfrespect, self identification out of their work. But talk a little bit about the way in which work has changed for the broad people who depend on work for a livelihood. Rights. Right. So from, attended tell stories like this. For a very long time maybe a century, workers and their unions and their various performers and whoever else, managed to massively decrease the time people spend working. So from 1860 something until around 1950 something, the hours of labor tended to decline. Sometimes very significantly. There is the ten hour day, theres the eight hour day, they want weekends, they went holidays, they were paid leave, sickly, family leave, all these types of things. By mid century Industrial Workers want enough time off it steel mills, auto factories to call it a sabbatical at times. And yet, and so since the 70 since about 1975, we have increased our work significantl significantly. So all major salary workers have increased their week shy worktime to about 13 . Which is pretty significant actually. Pretty significant reversal. Juliet sure right about this in the overworked american in the early 90s. Some of you may know julia with her work. And i tried to take off her few people left off with this parade that is one way. One of us to tort of statistical ways too describe these new trends. The other way would be what i started talk about before people with the lower end of the wage scale. The book is comprised a lot of stories a lot of interviews are conducted. One person in particular was not able to interview however is a story that leads off the first chapter of the book which is of a woman who in 2014 was working i think three different Dunkin Donuts shops in northern new jersey. She worked upwards of about 70 or 80 hours a week. And she slept in her car between shifts. One morning, she pulled into a Convenience Store to sleep for before her next shift that start at 6 00 a. M. And she never woke up. They found her sleep in her car, dead as a result partly of exhaustion and carbon monoxide. And so for a while she became sort of a symbol of the focus on overwork among the american working class in a country with massive wealth. Her name did not stick around for long really but nonetheless, i think that there are millions of people like her we have not met the traumatic statement nonetheless struggle day after day routine away, they try to get by. So the overworked aspect of the book is the one that most people pay the most attention to. I was interested in one of the results, that is alongside people working more, the hours and schedules that people work have become far more bile tall precarious. This is mostly true because people again at the lower end of the wage scale. This happened in as a result of two reasons. One is as unions came under attack and their power working peoples power eroded, was pushed around a little more print one of the ways there pushed around was by the transformation of the routine scheduling mechanism your shift starts at eight it ends at four so that your typical eight hours or typical halfday schedule, people began schedule is smaller and smaller increments or at longer increments. It disrupted the middle of their workday. It is now become routine for many low wage retail, fast food sometimes healthcare workers to have schedules that make it almost impossible too survive on one job but plan enough to have two. That volatility has been built in to a lot of lowwage jobs. I was interested in that dynamic. Both of these that are the process of not giving people the work schedule in advance. But sort of popping the work requirements on them. At any time so that means that not only does the employer control your work time, but the employer controls all of your time. Because you are supposed to be available to go to work. Yes exactly, exactly. I mean, who controls work . Controls the time that we have . The time with your family, the time to see our friends, the time to take a vacation, you know, that is determined by what we get off, when we can get a break from work. Or when we can make enough money to pay for that kind of leisure. And so youre absolutely right that it is not just about controlling peoples time they have at work, it really becomes disruptive to their everyday life. If you walk up and down 34th street as i did, and talk to those workers on 34th street h m, the gap and whatever else is there, they have very odd schedules. When you have the power to contest them there is a law that mandates its a scheduling law, workers do not know about it. So you are left with against some no recourse with the shop floor really a shopfloor vehicle like the union and that kind of stuff. You know, and the 19th century really at the dawn of industrialization, and the creation of an industrial workforce, a lot of people in england worked on the putting out system. The manufacturer was really kind of a merchant. And he distributed Raw Materials of which people would spend, he would distributed to the little cottages in which people lived. And they are, they would work. Everybody in the family would have a role, the kids would spend the role and so forth. And they would their own time. It was widely claimed about, you know sundays would spill over into mondays when you had a little too much to drink. And out of that complaint on the part of the merchant manufacturers, the factory system was invented and spread because if you made everybody come to the factory, then they could mull around on monday mornings when they were little bit hung over. He had to promptly respond to the orders of the boss and worked there 12, 13, 14 hours a day. So the process of gaining control of workers, was very connected to gaining control of their time. We lived in time, just as we live in space, we live in time. Regulating workers means regulating their time. And now, after a century of successful struggle to reclaim part of our lives, by reclaiming our time, we are losing that part of our lives. We are losing our lives because we are losing control of time. Yes, yes, yes. Exactly. I really tried over feigned from writing about some of that history that you are talking about. Because there is eight, people have done it and be the book can only be so long. But i was there. I remember reading evi thompson stuff with you as the mother about times of discipline and the difficulty it took to discipline a labor force to actually show up at a particular time routinely. We take that for granted now. We take it for granted that the organization of the working day seems natural to us. When you read the history it becomes very clear that it was a relatively significantly long and violent struggle for manufacturers to get control of the clock. And so, part of the end of this book is exactly its really a red thread throughout this thing of control. I think very often the last understand reduction of necessary labor, about leisure or lying about whatever it may be. All of which the movement too reduce working hours too get off the unnecessary stuff but to control. And so to me, struggles over labor timers much about leisure as they were about control of the workplace. What about right now . What i have been struck by very often is if i go somewhere and i talked about theres a lot of unease, especially among working people that you would not have to work there is a mass out there about work. What would you do with yourself if you did not have to work eight, ten, 12 hours a day. When you say on a basic income guaranteed income friend people do do what they want. That means for women, that often means bringing them to spend more time taking care of their children, cooking, homemaking. Which is there other big job actually. All the time. But for men, it often produces in certain amount of unease or alarm. Yeah, yeah, i think theres an explosion of interest in income around a decade ago. And there is a number of really great books that reinvigorated the interest in it. I remember reading kathie weekes book on anti work politics and the work ethic. It was amazing. I interviewed a number of laidoff factory workers with the gm plant in ohio shut down. And a lot of the men said looked the hardest thing about me is being divorced from that work. Because certain degree of identity and purpose and masculinity comes from that stuff. At the same time, at the same time that person said that after a while, when it became clear that he was going too get attention largely because of his union, he took out painting, working on his house , steffi always wanted to do. And he found himself quite content. So in other words, i think there is a kneejerk reaction towards that rejection of that freedom you guys were talking about but also in retrospect, a realization thats pretty interesting. I dont talk much about income in this book just because i talk about basic services. So i think a more likely, cheaper and perhaps more, even potentially more radical view gives individuals money would be to radically redistribute the way we pay for social services, healthcare in particular. So if you look at healthcare alone, a lot of americans about half of americans get their healthcare through their job. Many workers stay on Public Opinion surveys that they stay at work, they pursue long our jobs just to qualify for healthcare. And so i think that universal healthcare, a Free Basic Service would be better than simply giving everyone money to pay for healthcare. Which im sure some of you agree with. I think in the conversation on basic income, stuff is occasionally left out. So one way, when vehicle too reduce worker time would be to radically expand services. Probably housing and to some extent education. Income as well. After all Social Security distributes income. It distributes it to disabled people. And until recently it distributed to poor people too. In the form of what we called welfare. That is true. You literally wrote a book on that. And im anxious too hear your thoughts on it. So i wrote a little bit in this book about cedar banks, who now oversees will basically help to eradicate the welfare program. So ep 37, a number of Pretty Amazing city, unions and social movements fought for very long time to eradicate in new york city. With evens of banks help and they did it. So in this book, one way that i talk about lowwage workers working longer is of course that after the mid 90s instead of receiving a welfare check for being indigent or whatever in some way you went to the workforce. That has a philosophical, moral, political and very material implication on peoples lives. And i think the movement too transform workfare back into welfare would also be a significant way we can think about regaining control of our time. A new york thats possible. Will it really seems like you know in the 1960s, when that welfares Rights Movement merge there is of welfare and Child Welfare recipients they were all excited to demand the right to welfare grants. And they fought for that. And they developed pride, they develop collectivity, they developed a sense of Public Service because that is what they thought they were doing for they thought they were actually enhancing political life in public life by fighting for better welfare grants. And they were smashed. And the smashing of the welfare rights was part of this quite horrible i think on dissidents among low income americans. That took place in the 1970s and 80s and 90s. And continues today. . And the country, the United States is supervised and so divided now, it was six months ago it was hard to imagine a Movement Like black lives matter and the brutality of american policing and then that emerged and became the Largest Movement in american history. They both reflect and create changes that are surprising and so far as we know. So when i wrote this, there was a long time was shorter hours the nature, the original goal of the Labor Movement was in fact that was a part of it that the demand to of roses as the old slogan was immaterial Living Conditions and something good over here but that necessity is like roses also. And with that Labor Movement to take seriously to expand not only the amount of control and in the middle of a pandemic it seems weird in a way with those people out of a job and i am curious between my reading of it like worksharing instead of laying people off this is working 40 hours they were 25 the government will subsidize the rest of your wages and avoid layoffs. They are not widely used so in this crisis the Career Movement is not only long hours that precarious and unstable hours. Then unions would propose worksharing arrangements as a response to the prospects of layoffs. Yes. And they have done that. And in some places like six months ago that happened so in 2009 in america it happened a lot in germany the way the United States has responded to a crisis we work five weeks per year or more layers to reducing schedule hours and reducing jobs and i think it is pretty interesting. Way it happens here is the movement for a fair work week you may have seen the stuff from a couple of years ago to promote the movement from retail workers for the most part to have scheduled predictability and then weeks. And then to be extended in the middle of the shift and what people take for granted they dont have. So this movement and a slow gaining momentum and with these kinds of issues are very important. Again i dont want to be too optimistic. There is anything that has been done as the basis on the longshoreman in my mind at one time did an. And those protections as they were being laid off. How do they enjoy a lot of them were laid off. And a lot of them are