Restoring the American Dream: A Working Families' Agenda for America [Hardcover]

In this earnest, meticulous volume, MIT management professor Kochan argues that Americans need to view work and family as "tightly coupled issues" so that the former can be managed to complement the latter. A good start, he says, would be paid family leave for all workers, not just white-collar professionals; beyond that, he even suggests new laws that give corporate employees "the same rights to information and voice in [corporate] government" that investors already have. His other ideas are hardly objectionable, at least to blue-staters: fund basic public education, especially science; increase the minimum wage; invest in R&D to develop new jobs; revamp labor laws ("a national disgrace") to protect workers' right to unionize; and repeal "some or all of the tax cuts that have gone to the most wealthy Americans in recent years" in order to reduce the federal deficit. Kochan mostly ignores the current political scene and sidesteps cost figures, but suggests that a variety of networks and coalitions, including religious and identity groups, might help effect change—as they have already in some local cases. This wonkish book awaits a candidate and movement ready to translate Kochan's "vision for the longer term" into a workable plan. (Sept.)
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"America is the wealthiest country in the world, yet American workers are experiencing a generation-long stagnation of wages and living standards. Thomas Kochan has produced a timely and important book assessing the economic challenges facing American workers, charting a forward-looking agenda for our country and challenging business, labor, and government to work together to reclaim the American dream. His arguments and proposals deserve the careful attention of anyone concerned with the living standards of the American people and the future of our country."--John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO

"Brian Obach has given us a well written, insightful, and balanced examination of the complex relationship between the labor andenvironmental movements in the United States. It should be required reading for all those who believe that forging a bridge between these two groups would create a potent force for progressive social and political change."--John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO

"*Restoring the American Dream* lays out the facts facing workers and their families and then provides a set of actionable recommendations that can positively affect American society. Letting no one off the hook, this is a book that could only have been written by someone like Tom Kochan, with his thirty-plus years of scholarly research, ongoing consulting and policy advising, and most of all, his humanity and compassion. It is this remarkable combination of science, wisdom and compassion that makes *Restoring the American Dream* such a powerful and compelling read."--Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Stanford Business School, and author, *The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First*

Many American families have not prospered in the new "knowledge economy." The layoffs, restructurings, and wage and benefit cuts that have followed the short-lived boom of the 1990s threaten our deeply held values of justice, fairness, family, and work. These values -- and not those superficial ones political pollsters ask about -- are the foundation of the American dream of good jobs, fair pay, and opportunities for all. In this call to action for families, business, labor, and government, Thomas Kochan outlines ways in which we can empower working families to earn a good living by doing satisfying work while still having time for family and community life.We cannot make the transition to a knowledge economy, writes Kochan, with a workforce that is stressed, frustrated, and insecure. Businesses need to rebuild relationships with their employees based on trust. And working families need to take control of their own destinies.First, we can take action that goes beyond the workplace buzzwords flexible and family friendly to design systems that support productive work and healthy family life. We can invest in better basic education and life-long learning, and we can work toward strategies for creating and sustaining good jobs with portable benefits. We need organizations that value investors of human capital -- their employees -- as highly as they do investors of financial capital, and we need a renewed labor movement to give workers a stronger voice. Kochan lays out an agenda for working families in the twenty-first century that calls for business, labor, government, and workers to come together to make the changes that will allow us all to benefit from the new economy. The solution to our problems, he points out, is too important to be left to "the market."

Thomas A. Kochan is George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. He is Codirector of both the Institute for Work and Employment Research at the Sloan School and the MIT Workplace Center. He is coauthor (with Paul Osterman, Richard M. Locke, and Michael J. Piore) of Working in America: A Blueprint for the New Labor Market (MIT Press, 2002).