to war. and in identity, political scientist francis - - examines the history and current role of identity politics on domestic and global affairs. our look at this week's new releases continues with chef josc andres. about the chefs who helped the puerto ricans after hurricane maria. best-selling author lisa mccubbin recounts the life of betty ford. and one person, no vote, carol anderson, chair of african-american studies provides a history of voter suppression. and yale university professor joann friedman recalls the violence that took place on the floor of congress and the lead up to the civil war

>> good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to barnes and noble, upper west side. louis hyman is a professor of economic history at the industrial labor relations of cornell university. as well as the director of - - institute for workplace studies. a former scholar and mckinsey consultant, he received his phd in american history from harvard. his writing has appeared in the new york times, the atlantic, slate, bloomberg, pacific standard and elsewhere. sarah kessler is the author of - - the end of the job and the future of work and she's the deputy editor of course at work. her reporting has been cited by the "washington post", newark magazine and npr. mr. louis hyman new book, - -

how the american dream became temporary. every working person in the united states asks the same question. how secure is my job? for a generation, roughly from 1945-1970, business and government leaders embraced the american workforce rooted in stability. over the last 50 years, job security has cratered as a pool for institutions that insulated us from a volatility have been swept aside by our fervent belief " on quote the market. the answer goes deeper and further back than downsizing and can test the most essential assumptions we have about how our businesses should work. anne-marie slaughter, president and ceo of new american rights, thames is a rivetingread with f

anyone grappling with contemporary capitalism. it simultaneously shows us the decade-long evolution of the present epidemic of job insecurity. takes a clear eyed look at the explication of women and workers of color. and outlines a positive vision of how americans can prosper both in work and life. without further do, please join me in welcoming louis hyman and sarah kessler. [applause] >> hi everybody. thanks for joining us tonight. i will talk a little bit about my book for a second before we have a nice q and a. thank you to barnes and noble and to maya for hosting us this evening. when we think about insecurity and work in america. it's hard to get a historical perspective on it. so i'd like to start as a history teacher talking about history. and remind you about what you remember from school.

when you learn about the industrial revolution and school we often hear about factories and steam engines and maybe if you have a nerdy teacher, the power loop.we are taught that technological innovation drive social change. that technology reshapes work. likewise today, we talk about today's economy. we focus on smart phones and artificial intelligence and apps. here too, it's the mark of technology that is disrupting our work today. often times to point to the smart phone as the reason for the so-called gig economy. but this narrative is wrong. the history of labor shows technology does not usually drive social change. on the contrary, social change is typically driven by decisions about how we organize our work, reorganizing people, reorganizing relationships.

reorganizing society. and technology consolidates that chain.technology is neutral. technology is used to solve business problems.sometime around 1970, a stable workforce, secure job, long-terminvestments , all became a problem for business. the solution sold by consultants and business gurus was to remake the corporation. two and workplace security. in short, to make us all temps. temps define the limit of what's possible in our labor markets. casting a long shadow of the rest of the workforce. temps call the day laborers linger outside home depot, waiting in the early morning hours for a contractor's truck will sweep through. light industrial workers assemble components for dell or cardboard packages for amazon. thames called management consultants fly first class all over the world to advise ceos

on global strategy. for some of the newtemps like consultants that work the work is glamorous and will pay, for others like office workers, it's a dead-end. those waiting outside home depot, it's work with little pay and much danger. despite pay gaps, education gaps and citizenship gaps, temps have come to define our workplaces from the margins of the center. in ways that in madmen era, secretarial temps, never could have imagined. this book is the history of that transformation. the transformation for the secure post world war into the world in which we live today. in many ways, the people who were left out of those good postwar jobs, the people who were women. the people who were people of color. were migrants. the poor left out become - - a

rehearsal for the rest of us today. as the century progressed, these other groups would not have the same kinds of protections as white men. they would act as transitional labor forces for new kinds of workplace models. especially in silicon valley. as protections remain on the books, they were not renewed alongside the economy. making these so-called laws similarly, so-called rights, evermore peripheral to the everyday experiences of working americans. again and again, we are forced to ask the question, who counts? who deserve security? who deserves certainty of where their next paycheck is coming from? at the same time, this is an important thing we need to always remember as we talk about the freelance or good economy. even for those white men who have the good paychecks, who work on the assembly line or in a mine or in a cubicle in

office. the work was dehumanizing. backbreaking, monotonous or tedious. for all of these kinds of jobs, soul breaking work. whatever the wages and benefits. humans should not do the work of robots. that kind of monotony and repetition is unworthy of the word, human. the challenge for the 21st century i think will not be suspending our robot jumps but discovering what is valuable in being human. and that in a few minutes is what the book is about. sarah and i will have a talk about her book and my book and the intersections they are in. welcome sarah kessler. [applause] >> i think that was short enough. temporary as it were. >> very appropriate. >> so your book, gigged.

i start with the industrial corporation and i traced that through in your book really starts with the invention of the smart phone. tell the audience a little bit about what you do in your book. >> i think what our books have in common is we position this quote unquote good economy of a trend that's been happening for a long time. but mine focuses on the extension and yours is on the whole history which i thought is so interesting to kind of have that all put together and so, weighed out as the progression of time as well. but yes, my book in 2013 with this thing called the good economy which i heard about because i was a startup reporter.

it's hard to imagine this but there was a time in which anything silicon valley did was seen as synonymous with progress. so they were like, what you've got this app. you press a button, you get a job. we've ended unemployment, congratulations us. it was going to be freedom and flexibility for everybody. that narrative has progressed and it's become apparent that if your software program and a highly skilled person, there might be flex ability, independence. but you can live on your savings and by health insurance. if you're not too bad, it's a way to strip you of those things. so what i thought was interesting when i was reading your book is that the broader, larger, historical narrative has the same thing of people marketing it as one thing but it actually has a different effect and affects people differently. >> is not an app that's doing this. it's capitalism. in the book i write about what

i call uber the waste product of the u.s. economy. i talk about, the alternative is in between driving for uber or other job and working in a unionized job with guaranteed benefits and defined pensions. or even just in an office but the alternative is selling coffee and maybe not getting enough hours of working in a walmart. and it's that kind of uncertainty that working americans already have been living in since 1970. we are so striking, the rhetoric around technology. as opposed to the wage stagnation we've had since the 70s. >> this is something i was curious about. by 2013 when this buzzword appeared and you had been studying this in the whole history of it.- - where you

like why are people talking about the good economy? i've been studying this for 4-5 years. >> that's why i last into the book because i was like, people like that. i do think, i studied capitalism. i think that for me, i was like wow, what is this cultural work being done by this term. it sang its progress. it's inevitable. it's in my pocket. it's empowering people with entrepreneurship. i was like well, you know, it's like the rest of work. for some people that is true. for some people, it is creating new kinds of opportunities to incrementally find work. for other people, it's more of the same. only with an expensive cell

phone plan. i'm curious what your experience is. >> i totally agree with everything you just said. one thing i think was interesting about this trend and the story of where it came from, was that it's not a new thing. but the buzzword and uber being this dramatic big company. all of a sudden, why i think it was useful a little bit, is that people were now interested in it. they were a new cast of characters but all of a sudden there were think tanks. publishing papers on this and proposing creative solutions and newspapers following worker missed qualification lawsuits. so, it kind of revitalized the conversation around solutions. >> i was struck with the conversations going on of how suddenly everyone cared about

taxi drivers. which was not my experience in new york before uber came here. i thought about was being left out of that conversation. people would say, well, the cars are being depreciated. that's also true for domino's pizza delivery guys. it's just that they don't count. it's also true when i thought about the history of silicon valley. this is a larger story about how we talk about technology. some people don't count. they are transitional labor forces. uber is excited about the fact that robots will drive their cars for them. but this is the same language you see at the very first macintosh factory in 1984 where robots are building robots. anytime someone says robot and silicon valley, they usually mean, women of color. immigrant women of color. it's hidden from the story. it's only because of it being

men driving these cars that it seems to count so much. adult men. who's left in, who's left out? i think we are grappling with that question. >> i was also reading your book, interested in how you chose - - from 2011-2017, i was there the whole time. and i saw how it progressed. how did you choose which companies you use or which themes used for tell this story of manpower, mckenzie, why focus on that? ...

>> i found the archives of papers with manpower so with the companies i have access to but also without was important like you let packard that promises jobs for people who are not union but that falls apart during the 80s and 90s and i was hoping to write in the book may be currently fear reno was president that would make a

lot of money if that were the case but that did not work out. so with insecurity and how the world came to be labor history was the fall of this post- labor world. how did you come to the scenes? with all of this estrada. so talk about the gig economy that this is the best thing that ever happened. and to acknowledge people's experience are very different

today are so i set out to find people who were working a range of different jobs. and through the gig economy with this program are making $12000 a month to show a range. and starting with twice as many people they don't know what will happen in their lives. >> so then it became clear so then they started to illustrate different aspects like trying to organize and

other things in the book. and so also take the workers perspective. so i wonder also taking the perspective of the workers and how that impacts them as a historian what challenges does that perspective present? the mac it's hard to find workers voices. with those undocumented workers with that semi conductor set my processing. and with that complete story.

and with the stories of those people with the story of capitalism from the bottom up all the way up to the top. a lot of them are hilarious. >> the fact that i wearing this suit right now. and that five came through in the 80s and 90s and one of which is called the processed world. and these people have amazing stories of their lives. using the new computers to push back the experiences of what they are told they should be.

so with the fresh breath of air with that corporate propaganda. >> why did this become a thing? we are not allowed to blog or have facebook where publishing is controlled and also access to copiers as a terrible job as an office temp so you write things and make photocopies and distribute to your friends and other stories about what is going on. and that should end. that is the other part. it isn't just about being paid enough for a paycheck and a lot of the people are writing

about eight hours a day making photocopies. just spending day after day updating forms and that is important to reconcile whether a kid or a grandparent. and with endorsing books. what were the limits of conversation finding people was a big deal. also to see how you cared about everybody i was working with to get to the level of

trust and familiarity. and it takes a really long time. to spend a lot of vacation time in kansas city talking to the hoover driver. and the biggest key to that. like you are having these conversations looking at criminal records. >> you have a criminal record? >> do you have a criminal record? >> the way you show the uncertainty showed that office cleaning company with the pivot and it's easy to think that preparation and business people have that figured out.

to show how it is contingent like everything else. how did you gain their trust to tell their story? >> i met them really early on and by the time i was done with the book that they said afterwards we cannot take this back. [laughter] and then wait what you are talking about to adopt a theory taste on research and basically whole argument like costco and trader joe's is never of these people that that is a choice but if you

make the right business decisions you can gain a lot. >> are we saved -- saving for maximum profit art just enough. >> you can actually make more money by paying people well with health insurance. >> that's true. >> we have job security and the top prorations and making so much money that i write about in many different ways that it is hard to remember what that would be like that isn't just beholden to short-term or long-term investment. >> but also i am heartened a colleague of mine says i am

whistling in the graveyard talking about the optimistic story but it is also better to whistles and lay down and i. and in the past it took us 100 years to turn the industrial economy to regular working people but this time around it won't take 100 years with collective action to make it work and make it work for everybody. >> what i was trying to do researching the book that i think they are they are. >> it's hard. there is a lot of common sense and not as many stories about how to do that shall we talked to people in the audience?

>> you talk about private-sector responsibility i don't think in a capitalist economy you can expect the private sector not to be concentrated but you can have government countering that taking your worries off both mind with the idea why people are waking up to is medicaid those republican governors have to give into it. they are moving toward more conscious that you have to

depend on your companies for healthcare. >> healthcare and a guaranteed income? what does that do? >> what we can talk about as how do we enable people to be part of the independent workforce? especially burdened by student debt or personally that is a conservative argument to be made for the expansion of medicare and medicaid so this is one of the options that this is making it easier for people in the workforce making it possible with those industrial workers.

>> at all think i could add to that. [laughter] >> and going between the different socioeconomic strata because you get the whole upper life eastside hostage for 30 minutes. so curious about what it was to be a cabdriver but at the end of the day they don't really care. there is an article about hoover drivers 90 hours a week just to make their lease payment and then you say cabs are dirty and the suspension. people understand people's lives lives are worse to make their lives convenient that

hoover subsidizes the fares sure you can get a 2018 toyota with leather seats taking you someplace but like your friend would it come pick you up for eight dollars in gas money? >> so that is the amazon of transportation they are crushing rates for the market share to replace the robot. collectively we don't care about one another as people so this idea to watch out for yourself so how do we get the political will maybe it's a two-part question but without being a mad max's id to actually care about one another? >> you don't have the exact answer how to solve all of those problems?

>> we would solve so many problems if we just did that but in terms of the business model there is a lot wrong how we find companies public and private and what that does to your interest. i started to describe hoover to help subsidize because basically they are not making any money like you said they are just subsidizing that eight-dollar ride. >> and even in new york city pushing toward enema wage for uber drivers yes. but also so are a lot of other people so in that context it isn't just transportation in new york city but for the service economy that has left people behind so we hear about

why rates are so low but with the workforce participation rate those are low also. people are just dropping out to feel alienated from the economy and people are doing those jobs because they don't have a better alternative. they want to take work and responsibility but they don't have the ability you can only burn venture capital for so long. >> as you are saying, the technology, what do you think about trying to make easy money? and with the restaurant owners to pay for the rent?

and with taxes and everything? >> if there is a general problem who controls the platform? i can mostly talk about this as a historian but in the 19th century the platform was the railroad. everybody in america west of the mississippi trying to have a farm and they were gouged by the eastern bankers and the fees paid by for the railroad and in response to that you had a massive political uprising in the 1870s and 80s and 90s. so who controls the record long? it was regulated by the government that is the answer to that. also the nationalize railroad system so how do we control the network whether rails or

data and how do we make sure the charges for that equitably reflect the interests of society as a whole? it's not just a question of business or economics and politics and how we share this economy. but we also want to make sure we are compensated fairly so this is a question we still figure out what that platform looks like whether it is owned by the workers or regulated by the states and to have that conversation. >> from a journalist i will speak to the president on -- presents but we are technology we have no responsibility but i thank you are getting some pushback on that like new york with the taxi drivers but try

to set a minimum wage thing. but then something else is the idea that you could make a cooperative where the businesses owned the platform and the apps instead of grub how that be all the restaurants have a share in this thing where they order from. and that is something that has been useful a couple of people have been working on with examples of companies working it out. but one of the major hurdles that it is expensive to make them. one app technology looks a lot like the others so maybe everybody uses the same and is not expensive. >> of course in the past where we saw this where we can imagine having to hire a

unionized janitor or housecleaner. so as you think about the future what do we want to build to gather and how do we support people? >> talking about how in the beginning of the industrial revolution created in the 40s and 50s maybe we are on the path to restoring them again will it ever be those cycles on and off for a worker protection to permanently protect these people? >> i don't think so. there is always a struggle from some groups in society but i think that's okay to have contesting interest

different institutions it doesn't have to be stable capitalism is an understanding for change. so as we do this we realize we do this digitally. >> i think this is more of a sarah question i am curious as what you thoughts with those philosophical changes you were talking to overtime? i do some low income organizing and he always said one of the things that made it tough to organize low income people is they all have a belief that life sucks now but i could be reached tomorrow. well we all want to wake up

and be rich that is just a philosophy that they have that holds us back they think they have a shot. so i'm just curious if that is your perspective or if he saw a change of how people saw themselves in the world over the time you talk to them? >> yes. i think a lot of people started very hopeful on some of these platforms they were using because this work has been around forever and it's not new. but but then when they understood that i pay this much in taxes and the rules are working this way for me i can only get this much work, came to understand this isn't a path somewhere else.

i think it is different for different people. >> you have a character in your book with that get rich quick scheme. >> yes. something that i wrote about in the book because i think it does say something bigger about how people believe they will be successful in america for what you need to do that he was convinced he had to be a millionaire. and he's not wrong. that lifestyle most of us don't have a shot out one -- at. kevin trudeau sign up your friends it is pure mint scheme and lost a lot of money then signed up with uber with the same mentality this is my ticket out. this will launch me into the millionaire lifestyle.

so it is true that it is very hard in the united states to move from a lower income bracket to a higher income bracket if you look at research on entrepreneurs most often but they have is a source of capital. so i did think it was true in some weird way with his weird philosophy was with. >> for me the american dream is not about more money more money more money but a cheaper version of what the real american dream which is economy, autonomy, independence and freedom. >> do you know any of those people that have those things that don't make a ton of money? >> no. so now to be dependent on the

money. but there is an older version in the 19th century, that is what is a substitute for. and we do that a lot of different ways it isn't just rich people and their kids but workers and their kids. >> hi. so we have this old-school temp industry as a precursor to the tech enabled gig economy but it is still existent today and is parallel to the gig economy and uber is a household name by a lot of

people don't know about them. you can see it's from the parallel of the distinct temp industry and the gig economy is fusing or interweaving in the future that there will be companies that will not have big media attention that uber could generate but still have pervasive power in other ways? >> i think that already exists for sure. any company probably uses some sort of waiver other than direct employment or freelance or contract workers and you can speak more to this but it is uncommon to have this algorithm scheduling that is sporadic you don't know how much you will make next week and now new companies that are

basically structured the same way as uber but they use them as w-2 workers they call them up to have you do something for them but they are technically unemployed means they are not susceptible to the lawsuit. >> w-2 versus 1099 the w-2 is whole and moral. but they have done a terrible job with the w-2 worker. so these are excellent questions social scientists are very interested in the work but with that flexibility and insecurity to talk about

temps and freelancers. not that they have the same kinds of life but also the same structure that businesses are run. with a procurement instead of a side of employment. >> you chose to call your book "temp" but i see flexibility is a big attraction of the gig economy especially higher income so do you see any corporations reacting to provide more flexibility? the millennial's are tagged for this but i feel we lose a lot from the w-2 workforce precisely because of that 9-to-5 so is there a movement in the other direction? >> that is on the list of what should i call my book but then i thought people would think about bowflex. [laughter] so i told this story in their

that with independent contractors are highly skilled workers that are older workers and worked in these companies 20 years and they make a good living but they keep track of that as well. it isn't that spiral but the question is how do we do that for more people? because i think it's hard we want that good narrative of that relationship and to keep track of that simultaneously. >> yes. what was the question? >> flexibility with temporary but also i think who decides on what is flexible?

>> for the service workers the flexibility is the employer if they show up or don't. >> i think the job as we know it nine through five is not to disrupt that talk about the ways it is flawed and has been for a lot of people so the gig economy could fix that potentially. one thing that is interesting most surveys that ask do you like flexibility x that is the question that they ask. what idiot is going to say no? of course. but these researchers whose names i cannot remember right now, i'm sorry that they did a survey would you take this much cut in pay to have a flexible schedule?

they were measuring how people value flexibility in the asked one -- the answer is not much so right now i want flexibility in the gig economy often you are giving up a lot to monsieur in the situation to buy your own safety net because you have so much money. >> i read this article that you wrote it was a short article talking about counting people in the tenth and contingent workforce. i saw the study, don't know how many years, maybe going back ten years 70 or 80% of the new hires. >> 94%. >> so it is interesting that you say people are undercounted. a lot of people i know are

still getting full-time jobs with benefits but with the numbers that ucl there at that isn't reflected how many people are temps. >> just to get one cash -- wonk wonky, but 80% of workers still have a primary full-time job. but that doesn't mean but if kruger comes up as a princeton economist with the study and found 94% of the net new jobs that were created were the alternative work arrangements they can call them temp or the alternative work arrangement. so i think that's part of it and if you ask people are you a gig worker with space in the last two weeks and with that

again the numbers change vets it isn't how they pay the bills. i like playstation didn't matter. it is wonderful but if you can't get paid nothing and half of the people under 35 there is a really different experience depending on where you are in society in the world.

and from that university professor with two or $3000 they will plan to do the research and this is all part of the same system. >> with the data and the way that we categorize and then to count different things so you have these headlines everybody is doing this and then to say this doesn't even exist. >> hello. both of your books sound really interesting i'm looking forward to reading them.

angie talk about the excellent dividend and so that they can invest in people with creative jobs for individuals because what else is there? a lot of the companies that land on the best places to work with usually are the most profitable so there is a correlation between businesses doing well and putting people first. or how do you see more companies buying into that? >> i think there is a lot of people who wish more would. and working on how do we get more to ignore short-term

investors or how much progress they have made? i have examples of companies who do but i don't know the exact measurements. >> companies are still valued when they get acquired that helps. right? full-time employees? those are obligations those are highly valued corporations. so how do we think about those kinds of issues. how do you help business people of tomorrow to figure out the path of profitability and people to value people to recognize them and to make sure everyone counts. thank you so much. our books make great gifts

speeseventeen. >> just give us a moment to get set up they will sign copies on stage. speefive. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] w