#60: Jamie McCallum — Author of “Worked Over: How Round-the-Clock Work is Killing the American Dream,” Award-Winning Sociologist, Filmmaker, and Activist

Bring It In | The Future of Work, Jobs, and Education

The majority of working Americans today have temporary, unstable, low paying jobs. When a monthly job report flaunts how many ‘new jobs’ have been created, very often it’s these types of jobs. This discrepancy leaves a vast population in a state of constant poverty, stress, and in no exaggeration, life threatening circumstances.

This is the crux of our guest, Jamie McCallum’s work. After years teaching at the University of New York, Jamie moved into a position at Middlebury College as an Associate Professor on Sociology, focusing on labor, politics, and globalization.

His latest book “Worked Over: How Round-the-Clock Work is Killing the American Dream,” hones in on those most overworked, underpaid, and vulnerable, from the Amazon warehouses to Rust Belt factories to California’s gig economy. It’s the hours of low-wage workers that are the most the most subject to crises.

These are the exact people that in the midst of the pandemic, we were calling heroes, and now, many employers are calling them ‘lazy.’ How does that make sense?

We can’t have a healthy society, we can’t stand for every worker, unless we take into account the health, safety, and wellbeing of every worker.

This is an episode that’s essential to listen to, so with that...let’s bring it in!