A practical, cleareyed, albeit repetitive, resource.
A worker’s guide to getting fair treatment and holding employers accountable.
In this book, Schachtner, a technical and community college instructor, aims to “help workers better understand their rights, responsibilities, and the larger systems at play” that affect the relationship between employee and employer. He emphasizes that the nature of that relationship is purely transactional, “a business arrangement where both parties have something valuable to offer,” rejecting the notion that employment is a form of benevolence where companies “give” jobs to workers. He defines employment ethics as “fundamental principles that establish basic workplace ethics, safety, and sustainability worldwide,” and as “tangible factors that affect your daily life, financial stability, and well-being.” Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of the employment relationship. First comes work ethic, which has four basic components: productivity, reliability, autonomy, and collaboration; each are discussed in detail. Chapter 2, “Employers Are Not Leaders,” explains the difference between management, which focuses on day-to-day processes and efficiency, and leadership, which is people-focused and needed in challenging times. The third chapter applies the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs framework to employment. Next, the author stresses the importance of a balanced relationship, noting differences between long-term and short-term/gig work and the problem of misclassification. The middle of the book tackles workplace safety and security, corporate accountability, and environmental responsibility. Chapter 8 makes the case for “community-supporting” wages. Chapter 9 reviews Maslow’s principles, and what happens when employer ethics fail. Chapter 10 and the conclusion serve as a call to action and outline how to advocate for change. All chapters end with reflection questions to help readers evaluate their own workplaces, such as, “Are your ideas and input respected in team settings, even if you are not in a leadership role?” There is also a reference list of the author’s research sources.
Throughout the book, Schachtner portrays the employer-employee relationship as heavily one-sided, where a worker’s loyalty is often demanded but rarely reciprocated: “For too long, the burden of the employment relationship has been placed exclusively on employees.” He details the myriad problems that occur when employers are unethical, including infamous historical catastrophes like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Chernobyl reactor meltdown, Monongah coal mine and Bhopal chemical plant explosions, and violent union busting. The author asserts that the regulations created in response to these and other workplace tragedies are essential for holding employers accountable and without enforcement by government watchdog agencies, companies would be free to exploit and endanger employees, communities, and the environment in the pursuit of ever-higher corporate profits. Other than mentioning freelance work for corporations and the issue of misclassification of gig workers, the only form of employment described is traditional jobs in for-profit industries. The author doesn’t mention government or nonprofit employers, although some of the issues might also apply to them. Schachtner’s writing is clear and straightforward, but he often repeats key points, for example, variations on the sentence “Recognizing ethical gaps is the first step toward advocating for change” appear in nearly every chapter. The book’s conclusion provides a partial list of resources such as OSHA, ISO, and Safe Work Australia. It makes a persuasive case that government regulations, oversight, and enforcement are necessary and worker advocacy, both individual and collective, is essential for a well-functioning society.
A practical, cleareyed, albeit repetitive, resource.Pub Date: July 7, 2025
ISBN: 9798992830910
Page Count: 184
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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