Chainsaw Al earn huge salaries and lucrative stock options, decimate work forces, and bully remaining workers to work harder than ever. She also relates stories of employees being involuntarily converted from permanent to part-time status, losing all benefits and most of their incomes. Corporations reduce personnel costs in other ways, too, with more negative impacts on workers. One expert quoted by Fraser charges that U.S. software companies keep labor costs for programmers low by discriminating against older engineers and by hiring foreign nationals on work visas at lower salaries than their U.S. colleagues, all in violation of U.S. labor law. They work next to permanent employees, perhaps for years, but gain no job security and few benefits.
Technology also contributes to work overload.
Many employees are expected to be available to their employers 24 hours a day, seven days a week via cell phones, beepers, laptop computers, and more. Workers who refuse can always be replaced. In a lively style, she interweaves her story with quotes from her interviewees, excerpts from e-mails and postings on the Web, surveys, and other sources. Much of her material is anecdotal, but it rings true. Fraser offers only tentative suggestions.