How should we think about work — as just a necessary burden that we’d like to cut to a minimum or as the organizing focus of our lives? A number of new books about work, culture, and family suggest that we need to work for more than bread alone.
Working in America
Posted inEnergy and the Environment
Nice Work If You Can Get It: The Software Industry as a Model for Tomorrow’s Jobs
Some high-tech firms are redefining the relationship between employer and employee.
Posted inWorking in America
Overworked and Underemployed
A t least since the 1980s people have said that they work “too hard”-that they are spending too much time on the job, with too little left for family, chores, or leisure. In 1991 this frustration became conventional wisdom thanks to Juliet Schor’s best-seller, The Overworked American, which demonstrated that Americans worked an average of […]
Posted inWorking in America
A Fast Track for Labor
Saying no to trade agreements won’t stop trade. Labor’s advocates need to support realistic proposals for modifying NAFTA and other pacts.
Posted inEducation in America
Bad Apples
Juliet Ellery was a terrible teacher. But she couldn’t be fired. How can we get rid of bad teachers without hurting unions?
Posted inBooks
Workers United
Robert Bruno’s Steelworker Alley: How Class Works in Youngstown 12.02.99 | reviewed by Lisa Burrell Black spots on his father’s lungs convinced Robert Bruno it was time to reconnect with his family and his working-class roots. The result of his journey home is Steelworker Alley: How Class Works in Youngstown, a well- researched argument that […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Is The American Economic Model the Answer?
The financial elites that favor the “American” model — deregulation, weak unions, and a minimalist welfare state — ask the wrong question: how to compete against countries with lower wages and living standards.
Posted inWorking in America
The Skills Myth
Almost everyone seems to believe that workers are losing income because they lack the proper skills. But there’s a better explanation: they’ve lost bargaining power.
Posted inAmerica and the World
The Global Hiring Hall: Why We Need Worldwide Labor Standards
Years ago we decided to banish child labor within our borders. Will such standards now be extended to the global economy — or abandoned entirely?