From an unexpected corner of America - a major cooperative of garbagemen - comes a series of perplexing questions about our society. Does the fact of worker ownership reduce the stress of a job that is generally scorned and stigmatized? What is the best way to distribute the rewards of work and ownership? How can we expect to recruit men and women into the less valued occupations, the "dirty work" that must be done by someone? Stewart Perry explores these questions and more in this study.

For more than ten years, beginning in 1966, Stewart followed the history of an Italian-American cooperative that was formed in 1920. He reports a revolution among its members and a period of growth and development which resulted in a multi-division corporation. He periodically went out on the trucks to work beside the men, and he reports from firsthand experience what it is like to be a garbageman - and a worker-owner of a major business.

In 1997, he returned to the cooperative to discover that it had been transformed over the preceding twenty years. In a new epilogue, he discusses three areas in which transformative changes have taken place: the leadership, the company format, and the work itself. Collecting Garbage is a singular study of an intriguing occupation and will be enjoyed by sociologists of work, as well as specialists in business studies.