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Differences that Matter
As UNITE HERE union's Hotel Workers Rising! campaign continues to make headlines nationwide, a new book now brings much-needed empirical evidence to the debate: Dan Zuberi's Differences That Matter: Social Policy and The Working Poor in the United States and Canada. Based on in-depth interviews with workers, managers and union leaders, this new work analyzes the effects of social policies on multinational hotel employees in both Seattle and Vancouver, and shows exactly how government policies on union organizing, health care, employment, social welfare, and urban public investment, shape the lives of workers.
By comparing the experiences of hotel employees working in the same jobs for the same multinational hotel chains on different sides of the border, Dan Zuberi's research clearly shows that the more progressive and generous policy regime in Vancouver reduces material hardships for hotel workers, particularly those with children, as compared to Seattle. Differences That Matter shines a spotlight on the causes and consequences of urban poverty, and ends with specific policy recommendations for reducing hardships and improving the lives of hotel workers and other low-wage service sector workers.
Praise for Differences that Matter:
"Dan Zuberi's superb new book, comparing immigrant hotel workers and policy regimes of the United States and Canada makes clear that social policy matters immensely in the reduction of working poverty. Differences That Matter is an elegant piece of narrative social science, seamlessly blending interviews, data, policy analysis and an understanding of politics."
- Robert Kuttner, coeditor of The American Prospect
By comparing the experiences of hotel employees working in the same jobs for the same multinational hotel chains on different sides of the border, Dan Zuberi's research clearly shows that the more progressive and generous policy regime in Vancouver reduces material hardships for hotel workers, particularly those with children, as compared to Seattle. Differences That Matter shines a spotlight on the causes and consequences of urban poverty, and ends with specific policy recommendations for reducing hardships and improving the lives of hotel workers and other low-wage service sector workers.
Praise for Differences that Matter:
"Dan Zuberi's superb new book, comparing immigrant hotel workers and policy regimes of the United States and Canada makes clear that social policy matters immensely in the reduction of working poverty. Differences That Matter is an elegant piece of narrative social science, seamlessly blending interviews, data, policy analysis and an understanding of politics."
- Robert Kuttner, coeditor of The American Prospect
Submitted on June 7, 2006 in By David.
