検索キーワード： 労務・労使関係

Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”. It went viral. After a million online views in 17 different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.

In this important book, an eminent authority presents a new perspective on affirmative action, investigating its actual consequences in the United States and in other countries where it has been in effect. Evaluating his empirical data, Thomas Sowell concludes that race preference programs worldwide have not met expectations and have often produced the opposite of what was originally intended.

This provocative book makes a compelling case for reducing the number of workdays in a week to four. International business expert Robert Grosse draws on scholarly research to construct an appealing argument for why the four-day workweek benefits both the organization and the employee. Research has demonstrated that longer work hours harm the individual and don't amount to a more effective organization. The book goes beyond merely arguing that a reduced workweek is a good idea. It delves into why, explores the means for achieving it, and scrutinizes the barriers to getting there.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, read by Christopher Ragland. Back in 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes prophesied that by the century's end, technology would see us all working 15-hour weeks. But instead, something curious happened. Today, average working hours have not decreased but increased. And now, across the developed world, three-quarters of all jobs are in services or admin, jobs that don't seem to add anything to society: bullshit jobs.

In this passionate and revealing book about loving clothes but despairing of a broken global system Patrick Grant considers the crisis of consumption and quality in fashion, and how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better-quality things. Weaving in his personal journey through fashion, clothing and the other everyday objects in his life, this is a book that celebrates craftsmanship, making things with care, buying things with thought and valuing everything we own.

Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The plane maker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever.

Between 1848 and 1899, more gold was removed from the earth than had been mined in the 3,000 preceding years, bringing untold wealth to individuals and nations. But friction between Chinese and white settlers on the goldfields of California, Australia, and South Africa catalyzed a global battle over "the Chinese Question": Would the United States and the British Empire outlaw Chinese immigration?

One of the most vexing human rights issues of our time has been how to protect the rights of individuals and communities worldwide in an age of globalization and multinational business. Indeed, from Indonesian sweatshops to oil-based violence in Nigeria, the challenges of regulating harmful corporate practices in some of the world’s most difficult regions long seemed insurmountable. Human rights groups and businesses were locked in a stalemate, unable to find common ground. In 2005, the United Nations appointed John Gerard Ruggie to the modest task of clarifying the main issues.

From one of the most prominent voices on the American left, a galvanizing argument for why we need socialism in the US today. Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to health care, education, and housing and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities.

One in four American workers says their workplace is a "dictatorship." Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.

In Revolting Prostitutes, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith bring a fresh perspective to questions that have long been contentious. Speaking from a growing global sex worker rights movement, and situating their argument firmly within wider questions of migration, work, feminism, and resistance to white supremacy, they make it clear that anyone committed to working towards justice and freedom should be in support of the sex worker rights movement.

In Wall Street’s War on Workers, Les Leopold, co-founder of the Labor Institute, provides a clear lens with which we can see how healthy corporations in the United States have used mass layoffs and stock buybacks to enrich shareholders at the expense of employees. With detailed research and concise language, Leopold explains why mass layoffs occur and how our current laws and regulations allow companies to turn these layoffs into short-term financial gains.

Historian Erik Baker argues that the entrepreneurial work ethic has given meaning to work in a world where employment is ever more precarious—and in doing so, has helped legitimize a society of mounting economic insecurity and inequality. Where work is hard to find and older nostrums about diligent effort fall flat, the advice to "make your own job" keeps hope alive.

What does the future hold for America under Project 2025? Go into the heart of one of the most talked-about initiatives shaping the nation’s direction today. This in-depth, nonpartisan analysis reveals the Heritage Foundation’s ambitious blueprint and deciphers how these policy proposals could reshape the lives of everyday Americans. From economic reforms to healthcare, education, and international relations, this book leaves no stone unturned.

This audiobook contains all 3 volumes of Capital, a compendium that Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels described as 'the Bible of the working class'. One of the most notorious and influential works of modern times, Capital is an incisive critique of private property and the social relations it generates.

It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal - that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding - reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream.

In recent years, dreams about our technological future have soured as digital platforms have undermined privacy, eroded labor rights, and weakened democratic discourse. In light of the negative consequences of innovation, some blame harmful algorithms or greedy CEOs. Behind the Startup focuses instead on the role of capital and the influence of financiers. Drawing on nineteen months of participant-observation research inside a successful Silicon Valley startup, this book examines how the company was organized to meet the needs of the venture capital investors who funded it.

Richard Schweid examines home health care in detail, focusing on the women who tend to our elderly and disabled loved ones and how we fail to value their work. They are paid minimum wage so that we might be absent, getting on with our own lives. The book calls for a rethinking of home health care and explains why changes are urgent: the current system offers neither a good way to live nor a good way to die.

A Washington Post reporter's intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin - Paul Ryan's hometown - and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class. This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its factory stills - but it's not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next, when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up.

From the marketing consultant down the street to the home based "mompreneur," they are America's new economic icons: the job-hopping, tech-savvy, fulfillment-seeking, independent workers. This entertaining and provocative account of the new frontier - by Fast Company contributor Pink - will change your thinking...and maybe even change your life.