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

269 Pages·2005·2.1 MB·English

by  Thomas A. Kochan

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Restoring the
American Dream

Restoring the
American Dream
A Working Families’
Agenda for America
Thomas A. Kochan
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information
storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or
sales promotional use. For information, please email special_sales@mitpress.
mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 5 Cambridge Center,
Cambridge, MA02142.
This book was set in Palatino by SNPBest-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kochan, Thomas A.
Restoring the American Dream : a working families’ agenda for America /
Thomas A. Kochan.
p. cm.
Contents: Work, family, and American values—Integrating work and family
life—Contributing and prospering in a knowledge economy—Good jobs—
Building knowledge-based organizations—Portable benefits—Restoring voice at
work and in society—Aworking families’ agenda for government—Acall to
action.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-11292-2 (alk. paper)
1. Work and family—United States. 2. Quality of life—United States. 3. Family
policy—United States. 4. Social planning—United States—Citizen
participation. 5. United States—Economic policy—21st century. I. Title:
Working families’ agenda for America. II. Title.
HD4904.25.K634 2005
306.3¢6—dc22
2005045103
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my family—generations past, present, and future.

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Work, Family, and American Values 1
2 Integrating Work and Family Life 17
3 Contributing and Prospering in a Knowledge Economy 49
4 Good Jobs 69
5 Building Knowledge-Based Organizations 101
6 Portable Benefits 127
7 Restoring Voice at Work and in Society 141
8 AWorking Families’Agenda for Government 175
9 ACall to Action 203
Notes 223
Index 231

Preface
I grew up on a small family farm in Wisconsin where work and
family were inseparable. I have on a wall at home a picture of my
four siblings and me with our grandfather standing together in a
field on our farm at harvest time. This picture is a reminder of how
farm life taught us the values of cooperation, community, respon-
sibility, initiative, leadership, and, of course, hard work. With these
values came an equally deep conviction that hard work should gen-
erate its just rewards—a psychological feeling of accomplishment
and pride, recognition from others of a job well done, and fair com-
pensation. I was lucky to have parents who recognized that the
world was changing in ways that required their children to move
off the farm to go where job opportunities might take them. My
parents encouraged us to get as much education as we could so that
these opportunities would be open to us and to our children.
Because of its progressive traditions, Wisconsin gave us this
chance. We received a solid foundation of basic education from our
local parish school, an excellent public high school, and a world-
class public university system that has now served two generations
of our family very well.
The education I received enabled me to devote the last thirty
years to studying, teaching, and advocating innovations in work
and employment relations in search of ways to improve both our
nation’s economic performance and the quality of work and family