Restoring the American Dream ─ A Working Families' Agenda for America

Many American families have not prospered in the new "knowledge economy." Thelayoffs, restructurings, and wage and benefit cuts that have followed the short-lived boom of the1990s threaten our deeply held values of justice, fairness, family, and work. These values -- andnot those superficial ones political pollsters ask about -- are the foundation of the American dreamof 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 earna good living by doing satisfying work while still having time for family and community life.Wecannot 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 ontrust. And working families need to take control of their own destinies.First, we can take actionthat goes beyond the workplace buzzwords flexible and family friendly to design systems that supportproductive work and healthy family life. We can invest in better basic education and life-longlearning, and we can work toward strategies for creating and sustaining good jobs with portablebenefits. We need organizations that value investors of human capital -- their employees -- ashighly as they do investors of financial capital, and we need a renewed labor movement to giveworkers a stronger voice. Kochan lays out an agenda for working families in the twenty-first centurythat calls for business, labor, government, and workers to come together to make the changes thatwill allow us all to benefit from the new economy. The solution to our problems, he points out, istoo important to be left to "the market."