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.

"Understanding what work means is critically important for understanding the lived experiences of millions of people and for research and policymaking. Bruno gives voice to workers who are critically important for society but overlooked by research focused on the managerial and professional class. The nuances revealed by the workers' own words can't be observed in statistical analyses, and the more we learn about their experiences through their own voices, the better."--John W. Budd, author of The Thought of Work"Bruno's humanistic analysis often approaches the poetic ('Work hurts. Work disables and abuses. It exhausts, stresses, and ultimately kills. Work dictates life spans. It also invigorates, inspires, satisfies, and brings joy'), and his shrewd recommendations for improving American labor include strong unions, reducing the 40-hour workweek, and stronger enforcement of overtime benefits. It's a worthy update to Studs Terkel's Working." --Publisher's Weekly

• IntroductionChapter 1. The Time of WorkChapter 2. Work and SpaceChapter 3. Work's ImpactChapter 4. The Purpose of WorkChapter 5. The Subject of WorkConclusionIndex

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.

"Understanding what work means is critically important for understanding the lived experiences of millions of people and for research and policymaking. Bruno gives voice to workers who are critically important for society but overlooked by research focused on the managerial and professional class. The nuances revealed by the workers' own words can't be observed in statistical analyses, and the more we learn about their experiences through their own voices, the better."--John W. Budd, author of The Thought of Work"Bruno's humanistic analysis often approaches the poetic ('Work hurts. Work disables and abuses. It exhausts, stresses, and ultimately kills. Work dictates life spans. It also invigorates, inspires, satisfies, and brings joy'), and his shrewd recommendations for improving American labor include strong unions, reducing the 40-hour workweek, and stronger enforcement of overtime benefits. It's a worthy update to Studs Terkel's Working." --Publisher's Weekly

• IntroductionChapter 1. The Time of WorkChapter 2. Work and SpaceChapter 3. Work's ImpactChapter 4. The Purpose of WorkChapter 5. The Subject of WorkConclusionIndex