A compelling investigation into the phenomenon of dirty work - labour that society considers essential, but morally compromised. A New Statesman Book of the Year 'This book will prompt a public reckoning with inequality in work' Michael J. Sandel 'A scathing and thoughtful book about labor and principles' Rebecca Solnit 'A writer in the tradition of George Orwell and Martha Gellhorn' Corey Robin 'Confronts a series of deep and vexing moral questions... penetrating, astutely observed, beautifully written' Patrick Radden Keefe Guards who patrol the wards of America's most violent and abusive prisons; undocumented immigrants who man the 'kill floors' of industrial slaughterhouses; drone operators who kill people from thousands of miles away. These are the essential workers we prefer not to think about. Their morally dubious, often physically violent and dangerous activity sustains modern society yet is concealed from our gaze. It is work that falls disproportionately in deprived areas, on immigrants and people of colour, and entails a less familiar set of occupational hazards - stigma, shame and moral injury. A striking, sophisticated and nuanced investigation, Dirty Work will change the way you think about society.

Are you aware that the T-shirt or running shoes you're wearing may have been produced by a 13-year-old children working 14-hour days for 30 cents an hour? The clothing sweatshop, as a recent string of media exposes has revealed, is back in business. Don't be fooled by a label which says the item was made in the USA or Europe. It could have been sewed on in Haiti or Indonesia--or in a domestic workshop, where conditions rival those in the third world. The label might tell you how to treat the garment but it says nothing about how the worker who made it was treated. To find out about that you need to read this book. "No Sweat" will show you:
How Michael Jordan earned more for endorsing Nike running shoes than the company's 30,000 Indonesian workers get between them in a year.
How Disney CEO Michael Eisner's annual pay and stock options, worth $200 million, are paid for out of profits from the sale of Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame T-shirts made by Haitian teenagers working for less than $10 per week and force-fed contraceptive pills.
How companies like the Gap and Wal-Mart (producer of the Kathie Lee Gifford line) have been forced into embarrassing concessions after successful campaigning by the New York-based National Labor Committee, the American garment workers union UNITE and the European-based Clean Clothes Campaign.
How you can join the growing global campaign of consumer groups, human rights activists, and international labor organizations to close down sweatshops and guarantee basic rights for those who cut and sew our clothes.
In hard-hitting words and pictures, "No Sweat" surveys the chasm between the glamor of the catwalk and the squalor of the sweatshop.
Don't go shopping without it

A compelling investigation into the phenomenon of dirty work - labour that society considers essential, but morally compromised. A New Statesman Book of the Year 'This book will prompt a public reckoning with inequality in work' Michael J. Sandel 'A scathing and thoughtful book about labor and principles' Rebecca Solnit 'A writer in the tradition of George Orwell and Martha Gellhorn' Corey Robin 'Confronts a series of deep and vexing moral questions... penetrating, astutely observed, beautifully written' Patrick Radden Keefe Guards who patrol the wards of America's most violent and abusive prisons; undocumented immigrants who man the 'kill floors' of industrial slaughterhouses; drone operators who kill people from thousands of miles away. These are the essential workers we prefer not to think about. Their morally dubious, often physically violent and dangerous activity sustains modern society yet is concealed from our gaze. It is work that falls disproportionately in deprived areas, on immigrants and people of colour, and entails a less familiar set of occupational hazards - stigma, shame and moral injury. A striking, sophisticated and nuanced investigation, Dirty Work will change the way you think about society.