Over the years, American jobs have become more intellectually challenging and less physically exhausting. Yet more and more American workers—blue collar, white collar, and pink collar—are expressing dissatisfaction with their jobs. They love their careers, but not their working conditions. What turns a model employee into a malcontent?

David Kusnet followed the workers at four companies in the Seattle area in the turning-point year of 2000: Microsoft, Boeing, Kaiser Aluminum, and Northwest Hospital. He tells the stories of skilled and dedicated workers battling not so much for better pay and benefits as for respect and a say in the future of the business. Indiscriminate cost-cutting and the pursuit of short-term profits prevent the best workers from doing their best work, fueling the workplace conflicts of the twenty-first century.