Rethinking and Reframing U.S. Policy on Worker Voice and Representation

NOTE: draft version of papers by presenters at the conference are at http://www.employmentpolicy.org/topic/15/research/conference-75th-anniversary-passage-national-labor-relations-act"The evidence reviewed by the Commission demonstrated conclusively that current labor law is not achieving its stated intent of encouraging collective bargaining and protecting workers’ rights to choose whether or not to be represented at their workplace. Rectifying this situation is important to insure that these rights are realized for the workers who wish to exercise them, to de‐escalate workplace conflicts, and to create an overall climate of trust and cooperation at the workplace and in the broader labor and management community.

Toward a New Technology and Policy Program (TPP) Curriculum

The mission of the MIT Technology and Policy Program (TPP) is: “Provide an integrative education to scientists and engineers who wish to lead in the development and implementation of responsible strategies and policies for exploitation of technology for the benefit of their communities” (Hastings, 2000). Embedded in the TPP mission statement are several educational requirements: (1) a comprehensive and diverse set of solid analytical skills needed to develop and assess strategies and policies, (2) the flexibility to manage the conflicting interests and values that are present at all stages of the policy process, and (3) the ability to provide leadership at each stage in the policy process. With these concepts in mind, the TPP Curriculum Development Committee will work to place TPP at the forefront of educating the “leaders (researchers and practitioners) of the fields of technology and policy studies” (Hastings, 2000)

RESOLVING AMERICA’S HUMAN CAPITAL PARADOX: A PROPOSAL FOR A JOBS COMPACT

This paper was prepared for the Harvard Business School’s Competitiveness Summit, November 28-29, 2011. A shorter version published in Harvard Business Review March 2012, vol. 90, Issue 3, p.64-72.It’s generally understood that the United States can’t be competitive—and won’t be able to support high, and rising, living standards—without a well-trained, well-paid, and continuously improving workforce that can compete with the best that other countries have to offer.Yet, at all levels of the economy, we behave as if we don’t believe this: firms value short-term profits over investment in the workforce; federal policymakers tolerate high, persistent unemployment and underemployment; wages for most of the workforce have stagnated for three decades, despite gains in productivity; unions have become a convenient scapegoat despite their sharp decline in influence; and job satisfaction nationally has declined steadily over the past decade. Why this human capital paradox? At one level, the reasons are complex—and, as a result, there can be no single, silver-bullet solution. At another level, though, we’re looking at a simple market failure, and a not-so-simple institutional one. Let’s start with the market failure

Will Workers Benefit from This Economic Recovery?

Every 2 years, staff at the Economic Policy Institute publishes a labor market and employment sourcebook. The State of Working America 2008-2009 is an especially important and valuable contribution. It documents how poorly working families fared in the period prior to the recent economic crisis and therefore provides a benchmark for assessing whether current economic recovery policies will reverse these trends. The author draws on the data and analysis presented in this volume to suggest policy actions needed to do so

The Long-Haul Effects of Interest Arbitration: The Case of New York State’s Taylor Law

The authors examine debates about the effects of mandatory interest arbitration on police and firefighters in New York State under the Taylor Law from 1974 to 2007. Comparing experience with interest arbitration in the first three years after the law was adopted with experiences from 1995 to 2007, the authors find that no strikes occurred under arbitration and that rates of dependence on arbitration declined considerably. Moreover, the effectiveness of mediation prior to and during arbitration remained high, the tripartite arbitration structure continued to foster discussion of options for resolution among arbitration panel members, and wage increases awarded under arbitration matched those negotiated voluntarily by the parties. Econometric estimates of the effects of interest arbitration on wage changes in a national sample suggest wage increases differed little in states with arbitration from those without it. The authors therefore propose a role for interest arbitration in national labor policy