Under the Bus: How Working Women Are Being Run Over

by Caroline Fredrickson

Overview

Called a “damn fine book” by Elle magazine, the hardcover edition of Under the Bus changed the conversation about women at work—the question is not only about those women at the top trying to “break the glass ceiling” but instead why millions are stuck on the sticky floor.

Fredrickson shows that our labor laws are based on outdated, misogynistic, and racist assumptions that leave huge sectors of the workforce without a minimum wage or the right to unionize and subject to wage theft, physical and sexual abuse, and pregnancy discrimination, despite laws that purport to protect all workers. Laws are written through compromise and negotiation, and in each case vulnerable workers were the bargaining chip that was sacrificed to guarantee the policy's enactment.

“Unpack[ing] the history of the racism and sexism that has left so many working women and people of color without adequate protections" (Mother Jones) Under the Bus offers "a call to action for women who have been left behind in the fight to secure fair labor standards" (Washington Independent Review of Books).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620972533
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	09/06/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Caroline Fredrickson is the president of the American Constitution Society and a senior fellow at Demos. She was chief of staff to Senator Maria Cantwell and deputy chief of staff to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1 The Test of Our Progress: A Brief History of Race, Gender, and Worker Protections in the Twentieth Century 19

2 The Wages of Discrimination: Paycheck Unfairness 43

3 Punching the Clock: Part-Time, Just-in-Time, and Overtime 98

4 The Wild West: The Lawless World of the Contingent Workforce 128

5 Bye-Bye, Baby: Giving Birth and Back to Work 148

6 Did Mary Poppins Have Kids? Child Care and the Working Mother 168

7 Learning Together 190

Notes 201

Index 235

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Under the Bus:

"This is a damn fine book that I will reference frequently and at length, forever. . . . The book is easy to read and it's easy to recognize myself—and the women I've worked with over the years—in its pages."
—Linda Tirado, Elle

"I took furious notes while reading Caroline Fredrickson's Under the Bus: How Working Women Are Being Run Over. . . . 'Furious' because I had to write fast to keep up with information Fredrickson packs into this relatively slim book, and furious because every new thing I learned made the hair on my neck stand on end."
—Katie McDonough, Salon

"Offers up fixes for this broken, exclusive system."
—Mother Jones

"Informative, occasionally shocking exploration of the state of women's rights in the workplace."
—Kirkus

"This excellent book will contribute to ongoing discussions concerning women in the workplace."
—Booklist

"Did you think you knew the facts about women and work? Think again. Caroline Fredrickson has written a terrific book that paints the whole picture, and it's not pretty. The history, the huge continuing gaps in the laws, the widespread employer exploitation, the statistics, and the wrenching stories—they're all there in this meticulously researched and utterly gripping volume."
—Peter Edelman, author of So Rich, So Poor

"Women workers are the backbone of America's service economy, yet, as Fredrickson so expertly describes in Under the Bus, millions have been abandoned by our nation's employment laws, which were established to protect all workers. The book provides clear ways forward to help empower and lift up the voices of women workers and to reverse the growing income inequality they face. Fredrickson's persuasive analysis explains why organizing and legislation must go hand in hand."
—Mary Kay Henry, International President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

"Under the Bus vividly brings to life the hardest working women in our economy and shows that their systemic exclusion is no mistake but a calculated result of racism and narrow thinking. Fredrickson's indispensable work expands the conversation from the few women at the top of the corporate structure to the many millions who are working to survive. Brilliant, compelling, and important."
—Saru Jayaraman, co-director, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United; director of the Food Labor Research Center, UC Berkeley; and author of Behind the Kitchen Door

From the Publisher

04/01/2015
A legal advocate for women in Washington, DC, Fredrickson (president, American Constitution Soc.) shifts the current focus on professional women to those working in the lowest tier of the labor force, who are disproportionately women of color: caregivers, domestic workers, sales clerks, and farm laborers. Despite a considerable number of labor laws and antidiscrimination statutes passed since the 1930s, which Fredrickson describes briefly, these workers still do dangerous work for small wages, without benefits or protection from illegal practices and sexual harassment, thanks to loopholes and lax enforcement. Employers can reclassify workers as part-time or contract labor, eliminating the need to pay benefits. To accommodate family needs, federal law requires only unpaid leave (and for only 12 weeks) for health, family care, or pregnancy; women often can't afford to take this leave. Childcare is unregulated, unreliable, expensive, or unavailable. Fredrickson offers the standard solutions: closing loopholes, more unionization, increased expansive laws, larger investments in early childhood education, and a more effective social movement. She also proposes "shaming" the United States by emphasizing how meager are the benefits offered to families compared to other nations (alas, an unsuccessful tactic so far). VERDICT A readable and concise summary for the curious layperson.—Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC

Library Journal

2015-02-04
Examination of the inequalities women still face in the workforce.As president of the American Constitution Society and former director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, Fredrickson understands the complex laws regarding fairness in labor practices. In this extensive analysis of gender equity and protection in the workplace, the author exposes the large proportion of workers, primarily women of color, who have slipped through the grid of legislative laws and who do not receive the same rights as other working women and, particularly, men. This large group consists of women working part-time or as independent contractors, domestic help taking care of children and/or the elderly, waitresses, hairstylists, office cleaners, receptionists and secretaries, and any others who fill many of the minimum-wage jobs in the United States. Fredrickson examines how current laws have undoubtedly helped many women but still allow this section of society to be excluded from basic practices such as child care and paid maternity. The author uses personal stories to demonstrate the widespread unfairness found in the workforce—e.g., women being fired for getting pregnant or requesting time off to take care of a sick child, those who have suffered sexual harassment, then are fired when they instigate lawsuits against the perpetrator. "We have definitely not reached the promised land," writes the author. "More and more of our jobs lack benefits; fewer of us are part of a union; almost none of us have decent or affordable child care; many are denied sick days or family leave and are forced to sign away their remaining protections to get or keep a job." Women comprise 63.9 percent of "breadwinners or co-breadwinners," and Fredrickson effectively bares all the loopholes and fallacies in America's policies toward this significant, but often underappreciated and underrepresented, piece of the national workforce. Informative, occasionally shocking exploration of the state of women's rights in the workplace.

Kirkus Reviews