Book Description

ESSENTIALS OF PAYROLL

Full of valuable tips, techniques, illustrative real-world examples, exhibits, and best practices, this handy and concise paperback will help you stay up to date on the newest thinking, strategies, developments, and technologies in payroll.

"Steven has done it again. Payroll seems and is complicated to the average executive who is the decision-maker. In the past, there has not been a source for understanding the technical and practical applications of payroll. Essentials of Payroll covers each area of payroll from the initial forms in the employee file to details about payment options, deposits, and problems such as termination, manual checks, and integration with general ledger. I think this should be required reading for those executives who supervise personnel and payroll functions."
–Gail W. Sevier, CPA
Marrs, Sevier & Company LLC

"Creating effective procedures, maintaining policies, and streamlining operations are more important now than ever before. This is an excellent reference and useful guide for professionals who manage payroll, compensation, and related benefit issues."
–Clint Davies, Partner (Principal)
Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Valuable Payroll Resource
I think this is a good beginner-to-intermediate level book about payroll. While I doubt this book can serve as your only source to setting up a payroll system (a claim never made by the author), it can serve as a valuable guide to implementing or reviewing your current payroll internal controls, best practices and payroll policy manual. It may also help you analyze whether you are paying too much money or spending too much time on your job costing system. If you like examples, the author uses many short case studies to clarify his main points.

He keeps the book up-to-date by discussing topics such as payroll information technology, current payment alternatives and Internet references. He discusses other issues in detail, such as fringe benefits, vacation pay, minimum wage laws, payroll calculations, retirement plans, and stock option plans.

Given the popularity of outsourcing the payroll function, I think the book could have went into more detail about how to select the right payroll outsource vendor and how to ensure that the outsource vendor maintains proper internal controls (e.g. obtaining an annual SAS 70 Type II). Also, I felt I could have skipped the payroll tax portion and read IRS publication 15, 15a and 15b and my state's corresponding payroll tax publication. Finally, to help improve the books longevity, the author could have either left out the current year tax rates and limitations altogether or listed Internet references where the current and future rates and limitations could be referenced.

Nevertheless, overall I think this is a good book that I will use from time to time to brush up on my payroll process knowledge. Therefore, I think the book is worth buying, reading and referencing. ... Read more

Book Description

For Federal employees, the avenue toward protecting their rights is winding and sometimes, full of potholes. Now, the lawyers of Passman and Kaplan --- a noted Washington law firm --- have compiled a guide book that every agency employee will want to consult. This road map steers the employee onto the right path.

Which route, the MSPB or the EEOC? Or maybe both? How much time to file? What if an appeal is necessary? When should the case go straight to the judge? What if a security clearance is revoked? Theres even a separate chapter for postal employees. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

get it before you need it
If you work a gov'ment job you need this book. It spells out your rights in dealing with managers and co-workers. Buy it and study it and keep it in your desk at work.

A MUST HAVE FOR ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
If you are a federal employee it is imperative to have and refer to this book in order to protect your rights and privileges on and off the job.It contains a great amount of information that is well worth the price.I only wish it were updated (the current edition was printed in 1999), but even that factor is of little import when you consider the benefit of the information it contains.It is thorough, well written and packed with resources. Since it is published by a legal firm that deals with federal employment cases, it is filled with situations that a current federal employee might face on the job.

the holy grail is found!
seriously, for those of us fortunate enough(or is that unfortunate enough?) to work for the federal government, this book is by far the most complete reference work available. keep a copy on your desk and watch your supervisor "wince" as you quote your rights verbatim from the text. it is an easy read and thoroughly details rather complex topics and situations relating to any federal employee's work environment. i've used it repeatedly as a reference guide and to plan strategy in my day to day dealings with co-workers and "pea-brained" manager types. i raise my glass to the author.....cheers!

An excellent Book
This book is an excellent reference for those who work in the public sector for Uncle Sam.Explains all of the hoops that you have to jump through in order to solve almost any work-related problems. ... Read more

Book Description

Why are pension funds so large and benefits so small? This examination of the 120-year-old American system of privatized social insurance - often called, at 1.7 trillion dollars, the biggest lump of money in the world - reveals that the system fails to provide adequate retirement income security, its most prominent goal, and, in fact, its greatest influence is in supplying funds to U.S. capital markets.

Linking market forces, historical movements, and social norms in the evolution of pensions, Ghilarducci's study is the first to focus on all major aspects of the system. Its trenchant analysis of the many sides of pensions and pension policy addresses questions of whom the system benefits, its direct and social costs, and the possibilities of reforms that would take into account the related problems of capital formation and retirement income.

Ghilarducci describes the history of pension funds and the involvement of unions in bargaining. She takes up the "moral hazard" involved in the conflicting interests of corporations and their employees, tackling issues of information availability and inequality of pension distribution based on sex, race, and job hierarchy. And in two chapters, each focusing on corporate and union uses of pension funds, she covers such topics as tax breaks, the effect of corporate takeovers, the use of pensions to pay back debt, and the kinds of skimming that can occur despite government regulation of pension activities. Ghilarducci concludes by presenting an ideal pension plan that would benefit both employer and employee and by offering predictions about pension plans of the future. Teresa Ghilarducci is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame. ... Read more

Book Description

A sustained examination of the politics and decision-making surrounding the origins, development and maintenance of Britain's main policy addressing international competitiveness. The Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy has not transformed Britain's economic competitiveness, as intended. This examination of VET sheds much needed light on factors of policy development and implementation which will benefit ministers, officials and the business community in developing future policies, balancing the demands of short term imperatives and long-term objectives, and catering for internal workings and accountabilities amongst quangos and executive agencies. A textbook for postgraduate studies in education, as well as educational policymakers. ... Read more

Book Description

Harvey Mackay is the author of two New York Times #1 bestsellers, Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive and Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt. Both these books were recently listed by the New York Times among the top fifteen inspirational business books of all time. Harvey's most recent book, Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty was also a New York Times bestseller. His books have sold more than eight million copies worldwide, have been translated into thirty-five languages, and have sold in eighty countries.

In addition, Harvey is a nationally syndicated columnist and was named by the 170,000-member Toastmaster International as one of the top five speakers in the world. He is founder and CEO of the $85 million Mackay Envelope Corporation. ... Read more

Reviews (18)

Mackays best book to date
I have been a fan of Harvey Mackay since reading Swim with the Sharks. Pushing the Envelope is even better.If you are in business or want to be, read this book and learn from a master..

Mackay's best book yet
"Pushing The Envelope" is probably Harvey Mackay's best book since he wrote "Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive." And, maybe "Pushing The Envelope" is better. Mackay shares his wisdom about how to build a business from the standpoint of a professional envelope maker, one of the world's best salesmen, and probably the leading business self-help writer.

Mackay knows his envelopes and much else. He talks about setting resolutions, but realizes most people never keep them. He points out that to succeed you must work hard and stick to your goals until you reach them, like an postage stamp sticks to an envelope. "Initiative is important. Finishative is vital," Mackay writes.

Mackay tells you not to take yourself too seriously, and that it is probably good to let the other fellow think he is smarter than you. But "Pushing The Envelope" is far more than a collection of positive thinking aphorisms (yes, there are a lot of those also). Mackay discusses his views about managing people and selling, both of which are crucial to most company's success. And, both areas where Harvey Mackay is a world class expert.

Mackay teaches you how to cultivate your sales force. He gives insight on making intelligent hires, and points out that recognizing talent is the most valuable talent of an entrepreneur. Mackay shares his views on getting rid of employees and points out that it is the people who you should fire, but who you don't, that cause you problems. Not that Harvey fires many people himself. Many of his happy envelope makers have worked for him for several decades or longer.

And, as Mackay points out, making envelopes isn't a business you would consider naturally fun or sexy. And, some of Mackay's people who left to work for the competition were rehired when they learned that the generous offers made to them by Harvey's competitors were deceptions. More money, better tasting glue on the flaps, and who knows whatever else was offered.

Harvey understands the importance of forgiveness and helping other people reach their personal and life goals. Without an aphorism, Harvey cares about people and about his employees. He understands the importance of people. And, that computers can't replace them.

This is not to say that old Harvey is as flat as one of his envelopes due to being walked over by chums. As Mackay says, "every dog can get in one bite." After that and I'd bet the pouch is in trouble.

"Pushing The Envelope" also briefly discusses why people pay more for some products. Value-added. He really shows you how to successfully charge more for your product by focusing on service. Mackay says this is what smaller companies who can't swing lower per unit costs can offer.

"Pushing The Envelope All The Way To The Top" should be read by all business people, even those who cringe at the thought of reading one more Harvey Mackay aphorism! By Chapter 82 (yes, Chapter 82, he writes bite-sized chapters) Harvey runs out of business wisdom and goes off on a tangent telling you about how to properly tip waiters and waitresses and the tennis pro at your vacation resort. Ah, Thanks, Harvey.

Just when you are questioning if the book will end without a bang, Mackay falls back to his natural ability in closing a deal to write a chapter about how we all appreciate a good and true compliment. But, I'll save the ending for your own reading. I'll leave you with my favorite Mackay aphorism, "While on the ladder of success, don't step back to admire your work." Peter Hupalo, author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur"

Great book
One of my favorite things to do besides learn about the stock market is read books on starting/running businesses and self help/motivational/inspirational books I find these books to be a relaxing brain stimulant that helps me better myself. I am sure others receive the similar feelings and thoughts from reading material like this.

Pushing the envelope is another great book by Harvey Mackay (he owns an envelope company incase you were wondering.) Like his other books "Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive" and "Beware the naked man who offers you his shirt" Pushing the envelope is choke full of real life tips on how to be better at work, at home and with friends. Hands off to Harvey for he has created another wonderful book.

If you would like to invest in your future I recommend purchasing this book: Pushing the envelope all the way to the top

Reed Floren

Is it me?
Did I read the same book as the rest of these reviews? I like Harvey Mackay and enjoyed Swim With the Sharks, but I thought this book was a fairly simplistic brain dump of cliches and unoriginal thoughts. I do believe Mackay's geniunely decent nature come through and most of the concepts were fairly well presented, but I found very little here I hadn't already heard. I kept thinking to myself that this was Harvey's publisher squeezing out another book under contract. Sorry.

Buy this book!
From Author of "Script Magic: Subconscious Techniques to Conquer Writer's Block: Want to get motivated? Want to do the impossible! You can, with Harvey MacKay as your guide! There are many poignant messages in this book, but the two that touched me the most was the fact that MacKay aimed for and achieved his desires, despite the "odds." And secondly, the subtle message I get from him and his book is that generosity is really the best policy. Tuck it under your pillow at night and read it for inspiration! ... Read more

Book Description

In the 1980s and early 1990s, a substantial number of U.S. companies announced major restructuring and downsizing. But we don’t know exactly what changes in the U.S. and global economy triggered this phenomenon.Little research has been done on the underlying causes of downsizing.Did companies actually reduce the size of their workforces, or did they simply change the composition of their workforces by firing some kinds of workers and hiring others? Downsizing in America, one of the most comprehensive analyses of the subject to date, confronts all these questions, exploring three main issues:the extent to which firms actually downsized, the factors that triggered changes in firm size, and the consequences of downsizing.

The authors show that much of the conventional wisdom regarding the spate of downsizing in the 1980s and 1990s is inaccurate.Nearly half of the large firms that announced major layoffs subsequently increased their workforce by more than 10 percent within 2 or 3 years.The only arena in which downsizing predominated appears to be the manufacturing sector—less than 20 percent of the U.S. workforce.

Downsizing in America offers a range of compelling hypotheses to account for the adoption of downsizing as an accepted business practice. In the short run, many companies experiencing difficulties due to decreased sales, cash flow problems, or declining securities prices reduced their workforces temporarily, expanding them again when business conditions improved.The most significant trigger leading to long-term downsizing was the rapid change in technology.Companies rid themselves of their least skilled workers and subsequently hired employees who were better prepared to work with new technology, which in some sectors reduced the size of firm at which production is most efficient.

Baumol, Blinder, and Wolff also reveal what they call the dirty little secret of downsizing:it is profitable in part because it holds down wages. Downsizing in America shows that reducing employee rolls increased profits, since downsizing firms spent less money on wages relative to output, but it did not increase productivity.Nor did unions impede downsizing.The authors show that unionized industries were actually more likely to downsize in order to eliminate expensive union labor.In sum, downsizing transferred income from labor to capital—from workers to owners.

Downsizing in America combines an investigation of the underlying realities and causes of workforce reduction with an insightful analysis of the consequent shift in the balance of power between management and labor, to provide us with a deeper understanding of one of the major economic shifts of recent times—one with far-reaching implications for all American workers. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Corporate downsizing: public perception versus reality
Headlines in the last decade of the twentieth century contained a steady drumbeat of corporate downsizing announcements. Now three professors of economics have used money from the Russell Sage Foundation to examine the record to see what actually happened to American firms during those stressful years. They wanted to know whether public perceptions matched reality.

The limited funds placed significant constraints on the resources available to the researchers. The value of their work depends heavily on their skill and judgement in using publicly available statistics and discrete private data bases to reveal more than at first sight evident. The result is a model of econometric technique.

The first conclusion is that newspaper media tended to favor the dramatic figures from large, well-known manufacturers. Manufacturing in America has been in long-term decline since 1967 and manufacturers have steadily shed jobs. So far, perception matches reality. However, agriculture and manufacturing only provide employment for 15% of the population, so this segment is not a good proxy for the entire economy.

What happened in the Service Sector that employed the other 85% of the population? Unfortunately, we can only see gross trends, because the government doesn't collect steady, detailed statistics on this segment. The researchers were forced to use some indirect techniques to tease out meaning from what was available.

"Downsizing", it turns out, is corporate-speak for upsizing. Firms laid off one set of workers - disproportionately less-educated, older, female or parents of young children - and hired on another set, by implication younger, male and single. Was the resulting workforce more productive? No, there was no change in employee productivity. Moreover, non-managerial employees bore the brunt of the layoffs, so that claims to be ridding the company of "fat" actually increased the management-to-staff ratio.

Did investors reward companies for their action? Perception says that downsizing is followed by an increase in the stock price. The reality is that stock prices remain steady or decline after downsizing announcements.

So what were the benefits of downsizing? The authors come to a surprising, but authoritative conclusion. Downsizing announcements force down staff wages so that the firm retains more profit. Simple really, isn't it?

"Downsizing in America" contains numerous graphs, tables, and economic formulae. Professors Baumol, Blinder and Wolff have spent the Sage Foundation funds wisely to "foster the development and dissemination of knowledge about the economy's political, social, and economic problems." ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (5)

The definitive work on discrimination
The Economics of Discrimination is the single most important book written about the topic of discrimination. Dr. Becker, a scholar of the Chicago school, won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in topics such as discrimination. In this book, the founding father of economic "imperialism" (the application of rational choice models to the topics usually reserved for other disciplines), presents an interesting hypothesis: free markets, through the profit maximizing incentive, are the best way to combat racism and bigotry.

The logic is simple: bigotry, if practiced by employers, has a cost. The best, most greed-driven profit maximizers will have no demand for this sort of strange, cost-imposing behavior. In a competitive market, we can expect that this behavior would lead directly to bankruptcy, and rightly so. Free markets provide the profit incentive for a color-blind society. Where would you expect to see the most discrimination, then? Government, of course, because it lacks profit incentives. Not-for-profit organizations are also easy victims. In other venues, discrimination is just too costly to be viable. Restrictions on the ability to choose, though, do nothing to stop bigotry, only to encourage it.

This book delves in to this argument in great detail with total academic honesty, and it is thoroughly researched, well documented, and succinctly presented. Dr. Becker is a first rate scientist and an excellent writer, and even though this was written early in his academic career it still carries his signature style. This book is a complete, definitive, authoritative work on the subject, but also suitable as an introduction. It could be readable by anyone with elementary economic knowledge, and even by the intelligent lay person. Anyone who wants to know what discrimination is really about and what we can do about it would do well to read and understand this book. No argument about discrimination is complete without understanding the logic and models Dr. Becker presents.

As a contribution to an impressive trend of applying the economic way of thinking to the most important issues we face, this book is absolutely invaluable. If this book interests you as much as it did me, you may want to read other books by Dr. Becker. For more about discrimation, though, try The State Against Blacks by Walter Williams.

straightforward logic
If entrepreneurs value profits above all else, then they will base their decisions on profits rather than race. This seems simple enough, though many lefties manage to avoid understanding this simple logic. Instead, they often try to dodge the content of this book by denouncing Becker's work as "garbage" without ever addressing the content of this book. The world would be a much better place if lefties would simply practice intellectual honesty when they read- but then they would cease to be lefties.

No
I disagree, but the previous reviewer has a right to be wrong.

Hocus Pocus
I was forced to read this piece of garbage in the early 1980s and am surprised that my co-reviewer offered five stars. While Prof. Becker's theories may be stimulating to the Nobel Academy and his Chicago disciples, I found his conclusions vapid and unfulfilling.

Classic work in the study of the effects of discrimination
Gary Becker turned his thesis paper into one of the classic works on discrimination. Becker demonstrated conclusively why irrational discrimination (or the overt act derived from the intent of racism, sexism, etc.) is difficult to maintain in a truly competitive economy. Competitors, seeking advantage, will hire victims of discrimination. Their labor costs will be lower. All else being equal, financial captial will flow to companies with lower labor costs, providing them with further competitive advantage. Eventually the price of labor for victims of discrimination will be "bid up" to the point where the marginal revenues from labor will equal the marginal cost of labor, at which point their average wages will reflect little, if any, loss of income from discrimination. ... Read more

Book Description

An up-close and personal look at the heroic immigrant women who make families, communities, and society tick by working a triple shift: caring for their families, toiling in sweatshops and factories, and building movements for social change. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Sweatshops from the workers' perspective
I teach a course on Women and Work and Miriam Ching Louie's Sweatshop Warriors is the first book I have found that really describes sweatshops from the workers' perspectives, as agents rather than victims. The students really got it. I plan to use the book in this course from now on.

A more sinister side of globalization
Miriam Ching Yoon Louie has a literary talent in exposing the ill effects of globalization on poor women of color in the American garment industry. Focusing on Chinese, Korean, and Mexican immigrants she documents how their labor is continuously being exploited without regard to their personal well-being. Transnational corporations seek their labor because it is cheap. It is these women who are the backbones of the forces of globalization and their stories need to be told. An added strength of this book is that the author doesn't just focus on the negative structural aspects but she also includes multiple instances of how these workers create social solidarity and fight for social change in their favor, even when up against the odds. Her personal involvement in these social movements is an added benefit. These poor women of color both produce and reproduce globalization on the local and global scale. It leaves one with the belief that there is hope after all for a fair and just world. This book will make you reevaluate the 'promises' of free trade agreements and economic growth. As one group prospers there is surely another group being disadvantaged. Overall, this book is accessible especially in discussions on the feminization of labor and migration that is not cluttered with jargon. Go ahead and take a gamble. I hope that it will alter your social stance on these important issues as it reinforced mine.

In My Personal Top Ten
During my vacation, I've been reading "Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory" by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie. Miriam has a multi-decade organizing history with low income women of color. She is the co-founder of the Women of Color Resource Center in Berkeley, and author of an amazing trainers' manual called WEdGE" Women's Education in the Global Economy."

"Sweatshop Warriors" is one of my personal top ten books on radical organizing. It looks at transnational sweatshops through the eyes of Korean, Chinese and Mexican women forced to leave their homes of origin to take super exploited labor jobs in the world's sweatshops, ending up in the garment rows of NY, Oakland, LA, El Paso, etc. And there they have stood and fought. Against incredible odds, they've led international campaigns against the sweatshops industries, formed multi-purpose women workers centers, dealt with men in their families who were sometimes less than supportive of their activism, and learned to be world traveling organizers.

The author mixes political economy, analysis, history, and the herstories of the women organizers she has interviewed. Race/class/gender/nationality -- all come into play in the lives and organizing work of these incredible women. ... Read more

Book Description

Over the last several decades, employers have increasingly replaced permanent employees with temporary workers and independent contractors to cut labor costs and enhance flexibility. Although commentators have focused largely on low-wage temporary work, the use of skilled contractors has also grown exponentially, especially in high-technology areas. Yet, almost nothing is known about contracting or about the people who do it. This book seeks to break the silence.

Gurus, Hired Guns and Warm Bodies tells the story of how the market for temporary professionals operates from the perspective of the contractors who do the work, the managers who employ them, the permanent employees who work beside them, and the staffing agencies who broker deals. Based on a year of field work in three staffing agencies, life histories with over seventy contractors and studies of workers in some of America's best known firms, the book dismantles the myths of temporary employment and offers instead a grounded description of how contracting works.

Engagingly written, it goes beyond rhetoric to examine why contractors leave permanent employment, why managers hire them, and how staffing agencies operate. Barley and Kunda paint a richly layered portrait of contract professionals. Readers learn how contractors find jobs, how agents negotiate, and what it is like to shoulder the risks of managing one's own "employability."

The authors illustrate how the reality of flexibility often differs substantially from its promise. Viewing the knowledge economy in terms of organizations and markets is not enough, Barley and Kunda conclude. Rather, occupational communities and networks of skilled experts are what grease the skids of the high-tech, "matrix economy" where firms become way stations in the flow of expertise.

... Read more

Book Description

This book presents economic theories that seek to explain the prevalence of differentiated products in market economies. It uses these theories to derive market equilibria and to compare these to social optima for both horizontally and vertically differentiated products. The implications of product differentiation for market structure and power, strategic entry deterrence and international trade are all examined. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

: ) easy to read
This book presented various theories on product differentiation in a readable manner. It does not take you much time to pick up the idea presented in this book. Models covered are also basic. I think having some prior knowledge in game theory can help you understand better the materials. However, this book does not contain discrete choice theory, which is a more difficult topic. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In 1959, meatpackers in the little Minnesota town of Albert Lea went on strike to demand better working conditions and higher rates of pay. The plant's owners brought in strikebreakers from nearby towns, violence ensued, the governor of Minnesota called in the National Guard, and for a few days news from Albert Lea filled papers around the United States.

The incident has long been forgotten, even by many local residents. Cheri Register, who was 14 years old at the time, is one who remembers it well. In this affecting memoir of working-class life, she pays homage to her father, who worked in the plant for 31 numbing years, earning 70 cents an hour when he started, a bit more than five dollars an hour when he retired. The work was dangerous and unpleasant, but still an improvement over the alternatives, for, as she writes, "My entire family failed at farming in one of the richest stretches of the corn belt, where water was so plentiful it had to be drained away and the soil so thick that geologists could find no exposed rock."

As she recounts the strike and her father's life, Register describes how the subsequent generational conflicts of the 1960s and her own aspirations divided her family. "To be successful," she writes, "which means free from grueling labor, the children of blue-collar families must be driven from home, away from the familiar and secure." Her book is both a homecoming and a welcome contribution to labor history. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Tribute to the Greatest Generation's working-class
I don't much like memoirs. But Packinghouse Daughter, by Cheri Register, is not a typical memoir. It is enchanting, disturbing, and provocative. It should be read by a wide range of readers, including academics and other middle-class professionals who pride themselves on "siding with the working class." It shatters some of our illusions and our tendency to romanticize our identification with working-class people even as it encourages us to hold fast to our principles. The book should also be read by the countless working-class parents who worked hard to give their children the life they knew they could never have. Speaking for those children, this book says eloquently: we honor you, our parents, for your commitments and principles and will try to carry those into our very different worlds. As a bonus, the book's author tells her story so well, with a disarming openness about her conflicted emotions and with such humor and earthy but deep insight, that it will be accessible even to those who don't read much.

Register tells a story of growing up in the 1950s as the daughter of a longtime employee of the Wilson meatpacking plant in Albert Lea, Minnesota, not far from the more famous (and, in her account, more favored) Hormel plant in Austin. Coming-of-age memoirs now flood the market with stories that cater to our need for a revised Horatio Alger myth. In countless stories--many of them moving, important stories for our time--children grow up suffering from unspeakable poverty, abusive or otherwise dysfunctional families, or racism, but somehow survive and overcome those conditions to become not wealthy business moguls but their equivalent in our politically correct age: writers or academics who speak out against poverty, violence, and racism. Despite some similarities, this memoir is different. Register acknowledges gratefully that her parents provided an emotionally and economically secure environment for her, while educating her about her place in a world with more complicated class divisions than we see in most popular memoirs. It is, in part, her more subtle account of those divisions that makes her story so compelling.

Make no mistake about it: this is a one-sided story. Register's father is a loyal union man, and she is loyal to the union line, too, especially in telling the story of a particularly divisive labor dispute in 1959. But even when she makes it clear where she believes justice and unfairness lie, she complicates the story in ways that enrich our understanding rather than feed our prejudices.

I grew up in rural Ohio only slightly later than Register, the son of a small-town midwestern merchant in a solidly middle-class family with undoubtedly less disposable income than Register's. My father, like many of Albert Lea's merchants, resented the unions that secured better wages for the workers in the nearby General Motors plant than he thought he could afford to pay his loyal, hard-working employees--some of whom earned more than he did. That experience has always made me suspicious of class-based analyses of rural and small-town life. But Register's subtle class analysis of life in mid-century Albert Lea rings true even to my suspicious ears.

It also rings true because Register does not rely on memory alone. She consulted contemporary sources and interviewed a wide range of informants-balancing her interview with the union president by her interview and sympathetic portrayal of the plant manager, for example. Register knows what memories--hers and her informants--are good for. They convey the sentiment of the times. In that sense her account is sentimental in the best sense of that word. Her language is so vivid and her memories so fine-tuned that we feel we are walking the streets of Albert Lea with her, encountering mid-century sights and sounds that conjure up our own memories. But she knows enough not to trust memories when they become nostalgic, and she walks that fine line with a fine sense of balance.

Register also manages to succeed where many memoirists try but fail: though cast as a memoir, this book feels like it is more about the times than it is about her. Packinghouse Daughter is an eloquent and fitting tribute to the working-class lives of The Greatest Generation.

A Perfect Memoir
I first found out about this book in an article in the Rochester newspaper about the Minnesota Historical Society Press. Since then, I have purchased several of their books. *Packinghouse Daughter* won the American Book Award and the Minnesota Book Award for autobiography, and it deserved both prizes heartily! This book is full of interesting people, class struggle, a young woman coming of age, and old-fashioned Midwestern life. If you hate those whiney memoirs about bad childhoods then this is the perfect antidote.

I would also recommend Steven R. Hoffbeck's *The Haymakers,* which won the Minnesota Book Award for history, and Peter Razor's *While the Locust Slept,* which deserves to win every award out there--both from the Historical Society. These books, like Register's, are good stories concerned with how ordinary people get by and sometimes make an important impact on our culture. These heartfelt books should be read by Americans everywhere and should be the standard for all publishers to meet.

recommended reading
Even if you are not from the midwest or know nothing about the meat packing business this book will give you much to think about. Cheri has a way of bringing you into her experiences.

A gift to working-class families
This book -- personal and warm -- is an extraordinary gift to kids of working-class parents. Cheri Register says things that I felt about my own dad and about my own home town, but that I was never able to say to him. She shows how what we do for a "living" is really central to shaping who we are in the bigger world. Thank you for this book!

Packs a punch
This book does all the things so many memoirs fail to do. The author attempts to understand her parents, especially her father, rather than condemn them. She is critical of herself as often as anyone else. And, as Carol Bly points out in her blurb, she presents both a "public and personal memoir." Thus, the story of the 1959 meatpackers strike in Albert Lea, Minnesota, takes center stage. It becomes the flashpoint for future examination of class, gender, and the divide between union and management. By using this event as the book's anchor, Register reveals as much about the life of this small town as she does about herself. The point, it seems, is that her home town could as easily be our home town. We know these people. They happen to be packinghouse workers, but they could be Maine lobstermen fighting for fishing rights or small-plot farmer in the Southwest struggling for water rights. Best of all, Register makes you understand the human concerns of people on both sides. Where so many books would have chosen to demonize the plant managers, Register makes you see their point of view. By eschewing political agenda and dismissing easy propaganda, *Packinghouse Daughter* goes straight to the heart of the most basic American struggle. ... Read more

Book Description

Human Capital Over the Life Cycle synthesizes comparative research on the processes of human capital formation in the areas of education and training in Europe, in relation to the labor market.

The book proposes that one of the most important challenges faced by Europe today is to understand the link between education and training on the one hand and economic and social inequality on the other. The authors focus the analysis on three main aspects of the links between education and social inequality: educational inequality, differences in access to labor markets and differences in lifelong earnings and training. Almost all the stages in the life cycle are tracked from early childhood to stages late in the working life: firstly the characteristics and effects of schooling systems, then the transitions from school to work and, finally, human capital and the working career. ... Read more

Book Description

How often do you hear from loved ones that you should sell the great little gift baskets you put together for the holidays?Or maybe you can take a piece of scrap wood and turn it into a beautiful treasure-- something your next door neighbor would love to buy from you."The Complete Idiot's Guide to Making Money with Your Hobby" is a great way to get all the information you need to turn your hobby into a money-making venture.This book also includes information on manufacturing, shipping costs, handling taxes and using the Internet as a sales tool. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A great step-by-step guide!
This book is an amazing tool in turning your hobby into a profitable business. The author covers everything from 'the idea' to actual business laws, regulations, finances and workings.

As someone who has no business background or experience selling wholesale/retail, I found this book exeptional in its detail and content!

Highly recommended! ... Read more

Book Description

From law school to the law firm, lawyers are taught and encouraged to win, with little regard to the emotional consequences.After years of being obsessed with winning, racking up billable hours, and fishing for clients, many lawyers lose sight of why they initially joined the ranks of the legal profession.

Reviews (14)

A flawed but very valuable work.
Steven Keeva (who is not a lawyer but has spent many years observing and writing about them) here provides an assortment of advice, tips, and real-life examples to help you become a better lawyer and a better person. While I found much of the book to be old news, every 10 pages or so Keeva says something eye-opening, memorable, and truly instructive. The chapters on listening and service were, for me, the real pay-off, and I know I will be going back to them frequently. By contrast, his portrayal of litigators, trials, and especially corporate practice struck me as simplistic and a bit stereotyped. In addition, those who are unreceptive to the touchy-feely approach to problem-solving should be warned that this book is nothing if not touchy-feely. That said -- and notwithstanding my other qualifications -- this book is an *important* contribution to the literature of professionalism and lawyers' "mental hygiene" (as Prof. Stone of Harvard has called it). Since this book is also a quick read, every lawyer and law student who even suspects it may be helpful should give it a try and then keep it close at hand.

COMPANION AND PROFESSIONAL BIBLE FOR EVERY LAWYER!
Nearly every practicing lawyer owns and carries a briefcase. If each lawyer's briefcase contained a worn, dog-eared, repeatedly read copy of Steve Keeva's remarkable book, Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life, the practice of law would be a much more joyful place. My copy is extensively underlined, highlighted and adorned with yellow Post-Its to mark the multiple epiphanies I found in each chapter. Out of the hundreds of books and articles I have read on lawyering over my thirty-two years of practice, none have given me as many "ah-hah's" as I received from Transforming Practices.

The genius of Keeva's book is his recognition and description of the crises in the legal profession as a spiritual crisis requiring inner work as the solution. This spiritual crisis comes in part from a lack of congruence between lawyers' daily work and their core values and yearnings. In other words, what we do every day on the outside is dissonant from how we feel on the inside. It has long been thought that the solution is for the lawyer to simply compartmentalize his or her life, e.g., do and say things at work that would not be appropriate in other settings, such as with family, friends, or in the community. However, it is now clear that the compartmentalization approach simply does not work and produces even greater distress.

In order to bring more harmony and joy into lawyers' lives and work, Keeva outlines a number of practices designed to minimize the gap between lawyer's professional selves and their humanity. His descriptions of The Balanced Practice, The Contemplative Practice, The Mindful Practice, The Time-out Practice, The Healing Practice, The Listening Practice, and The Service Practice ignites unlimited new hope and possibilities for lawyers who felt doomed to a meaningless work life. Since maximizing the fulfillment from one's law practice requires both inner and outer work, Keeva provides practical tips at the end of each chapter so lawyers can begin to implement these theories in their work immediately.

Keeva's book should be required reading for anyone even remotely interested in the legal profession. It has served me well in several ways. As a trial lawyer for over 30 years, I continue to search for ways to bring the most meaning, joy and compassion into my work. This book has proved to be a continuing source of inspiration and renewal in my quest. Since I devote part of my professional time to coaching other lawyers on transformation and quality of life issues, I have found this book to be an excellent teaching and coaching vehicle for my attorney clients. I am extremely grateful to Keeva for this invaluable book. It is my hope that it will someday be every lawyer's companion and professional bible.

Thoughts from Down the Road...
OK, it has been a while now since this book came out, and sinde i read it cover to cover. (in the interests of fulkl disclosure, i am in the book. But if you begin this book, you to will be compelled to keep reading! Honest!)

Anyone who is a lawyer-- or married to one-- needs to read this book. Steve was very brave to pitch this article to the ABA Jpournal. (It was then to be entitled Law and Spirituality, before it became a book and took on a life of its own!) He has a finely tuned ear for the symphony that is the legal profession. He is not a lawyer, but as a journalist for the leading legal journal in this country, he has been attuned to the profession for a long time. He hits all the righ notes-- he has perfect pitch. The healing has begun!
Thank you Steve!!!

Staying in the practice, and enjoying it!
Transforming Practices truly is a gift to lawyers, like me, who have been practicing for many years and want to continue practicing law in a satisfying and meaningful way. This book has been one of my best investments, and I keep it on my desk at work. Reading, or in my case rereading, Steven Keeva's inspirational words provides a much needed boost in spirit, and a new way of looking at the legal life, even on a difficult day! My colleagues who have read this book wholeheartedly agree!

Keeva On Cutting Edge Of 21st Century Lawyering
Keeva's Transforming Practices is the book that heralds the new model for 21st Century lawyering. A must read for anyone interested in staying relevant and on the cutting edge of law in this fast changing world. Just as the Internet burst into our awareness just a few years ago and has become indispensible, the holistic law approach Keeva writes about will be demanded by millions of people. Those lawyers capable of offering such services will be at the forefront of the emerging legal revolution. For those who do not yet know how to offer such services, Transforming Practices shows you how. Whether on Main Street, USA or here at my firm on Wall Street, clients want and expect the type of lawyering Keeva writes about. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent, comprehensive resource
I regularly teach a drama unit which focuses on child labour, and have found that this book provides the most comprehensive range of resources to accompany it. It's got everything - facts, interviews, stunning photos... and a respect for the point of view of the children themselves. Although I usually just pick a few sections to read out in class, I often recommend that students take the book out of the library themselves, as it's very accessibly written, even for middle school students. The section on exploitation of young workers in industrialized countries, e.g. fast food employees, has some great material to get teenagers thinking about labour issues and the role that they can play in creating change in their own environment. But Springer also gets the reader to identify with children from all over the world, and that's what really makes this a fantastic resource. ... Read more

Book Description

A three-part plan to help you create a booming business

Nearly 25 million Americans operate a registered home-based business--and those numbers are growing every day. In The 30-Second Commute, leading home business experts Beverley Williams and Don Cooper tell you everything you'll need to know, from determining potential markets to securing financing and developing a marketing plan.

Every vital business and personal issue is covered--how to choose the right business, strategies for overcoming lifestyle and family issues, tips for making the business successful, and more. Organizing the subject into three essential topics, this action-based book covers:

• Part I--Techniques for determining what business is right for you
• Part II--Nuts-and-bolts issues: securing financing, setting up a work space, and more
• Part III--Strategies for conquering problems unique to home-based businesses

Book Description

Monitoring Sweatshops offers the first comprehensive assessment of efforts to address and improve conditions in garment factories. Jill Esbenshade describes the government's efforts to persuade retailers and clothing companies to participate in private monitoring programs. She shows the different approaches to monitoring that firms have taken, and the variety of private monitors employed, from large accounting companies to local non-profits. Esbenshade also shows how the efforts of the anti-sweatshop movement have forced companies to employ monitors overseas as well.

When monitoring is understood as the result of the withdrawal of governments from enforcing labor standards as well as the weakening of labor unions, it becomes clear that the United States is experiencing a shift from a social contract between workers, businesses, and government to one that Esbenshade calls the social responsibility contract. She illustrates this by presenting the recent history of monitoring, with considerable attention to the most thorough of the Department of Labor's programs, the one in Los Angeles. She also explains the maze of alternative approaches being employed worldwide to decide the questions of what should be monitored and by whom. ... Read more

Book Description

Job Satisfaction is the most frequently studied variable in organizational behavior research. This new book provides an overview of the vast literature on this topic. The nature of job satisfaction is discussed along with techniques for assessing job satisfaction including existing scales and new instruments. In addition, the book summarizes the findings concerning how people feel about workùincluding coverage of cultural and gender differences in job satisfaction. Possible reasons for job satisfactionùboth personal and organizationalùare explored as well. The book concludes with a discussion of the potential consequences of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Those using this volume for study or classroom purposes will particularly appreciate the extensive list of references and the Job Satisfaction Survey included in the Appendix. Job Satisfaction is written for professionals and students in business, management, organization studies, human resources, industrial psychology and public administration. ... Read more