A $22,000 Question  

The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by Steven Greenhouse Knopf, 2008, 345 pp., $25.95 Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America’s Best Workers Are Unhappier Than Ever by David Kusnet Wiley & Sons, 2008, 270 pp., …







New Roles for Unions?  

More baloney is written and spoken around “employee involvement” (EI) than any other issue in American business. But it’s a mistake to dismiss this movement as “just baloney.” Twenty years of experimentation and more than a decade of careful academic …



“Employee Involvement” Plans  

At a recent educational conference of the Machinists union (IAM), I asked several groups of local officers and staff  how many of their locals were involved in “employee involvement” (EI) or “labor-management cooperation” (LMC) programs. An overwhelming majority said they …





Public Policy and Steel  

Steel in the United States is a “mature” industry, and our political-economic discourse, like other aspects of American culture, is particularly ill-equipped to deal with maturity and aging. Steel’s best years are behind it. It has not been “profitable” by …