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"For more than twenty years, Robert Bruno has taught labor history and labor studies to union members from a wide range of occupations and demographic groups. In the class, he asked his students to finish the question "Work is-?" in six words or less. The thousands of responses he collected provide some of the rich source material behind What Work Is. Bruno draws on the thoughts and feelings experienced by workers in the present day to analyze how we might design a future of work. He breaks down perceptions of work into five categories: work and time; the space workers occupy; the impact of work on our lives; the sense of purpose that motivates workers; and the people we work for, in all senses of the term. Far-seeing and sympathetic, What Work Is merges personal experiences with research, poetry, and other diverse sources to illuminate workers' lives in the present and envision what work could be in the future"--
List of contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Time of Work
Chapter 2. Work and Space
Chapter 3. Work’s Impact
Chapter 4. The Purpose of Work
Chapter 5. The Subject of Work
Conclusion
Index
About the author
Robert Bruno is a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he also serves as Director of the Labor Education Program. He is the author of
Justified by Work: Identity and the Meaning of Faith in Chicago’s Working-Class Churches;
Steelworker Alley: How Class Works In Youngstown; and
Reforming the Chicago Teamsters: The Story of Local 705. He is the coauthor of
A Fight for the Soul of Public Education: The Chicago Teachers Strike.
