[Excerpt] Researchers sensitive to the plight of low-wage workers in advanced industrialized economies have long sought to convey the magnitude of the problem by retelling sorrowful tales of worker exploitation. Sadly, even their most sympathetic readers have numbed to these accounts. Author Dan Zuberi has found a clever way to transcend this apathy in his new monograph based on about 100 interviews plus behind-the- scenes observations of the impact of hospital support staff outsourcing on patients and workers. Through a well-developed understanding of the work process and changes in the employment relationship, he ties outsourcing and the resulting exploitation of hospital cleaners and food service workers to the spread of viruses, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and other deadly pathogens. In so doing, he succeeds in delivering his intended take-home message that “worker exploitation hurts us all” (p. 124).