An earlier article—Good Jobs, Part 1: What Are They and Why Are They Important?—sketched the problem of not having a large enough supply of good jobs in the American economy. This piece identifies a wide range of approaches to improve opportunities. Some, if done right, may work all the time. Others may work some of the time, but turned too tightly, could send the economy into a nosedive.
Good Jobs: Part 2: What Can We Do?
An earlier article—Good Jobs, Part 1: What Are They and Why Are They Important?—sketched the problem of not having a large enough supply of good jobs in the American economy. This piece identifies a wide range of approaches to improve opportunities. Some, if done right, may work all the time. Others may work some of the time, but turned too tightly, could send the economy into a nosedive.
All approaches can be tried on the state and local level, although some would be better as federal initiatives, or collaborations between national and sub-national governments. Likewise, effectiveness may require other actors in the private and nonprofit to get involved. Partnerships are very important in today’s mixed economy.
What Can We Do?
Many of the following suggestions are not politically practical, but I listed them anyway. Some might exceed the ability of a firm to stay in business. Others may rightfully put some enterprises out of action—the sweatshop, packed with illegal aliens, paid a pittance, and in a state of indentured servitude is an obvious example.
This list does not include macroeconomic policy, which is very important. Full employment tightens labor markets, leads to the hiring of persons at the bottom of queue, and raises wages overall. (There are limits here, too, though: a profit squeeze can be induced, leading to a recession, or, perhaps, the acceleration of inflation. It all depends on many other factors.)
Consider the following suggestions…
Enforce Higher Standards
- Encourage unionization.
- Enact an inflation adjusted minimum wage
- Require paid family leave
- Explore providing benefits for part time employees
- Require First Source Hiring Agreements for all incentive deals
- Require living wages for firms that bid on most significant state contracts
- Link public infrastructure investment projects with “good jobs” and career pathway goals
Pursue High Road 1 Economic Development
Business Development
- Pursue a state policy that focuses on raising living standards via innovation and productivity gains
- Pursue a state development policy of fostering good jobs.
- Encourage through outreach, education, and technical assistance the startup and growth of majority-owned employee ownership.
- Encourage in the same way – sharing productivity increases by pay raises and by gain sharing, profit sharing, bonuses, and so on.
- Target more of business retention and expansion efforts on small and mid-sized firms with decent jobs
Workforce Development
- Make economic advancement the ultimate goal of all workforce efforts
- Integrate workforce supports for working poor clients
- Expand funding and implementation of efforts to link incumbent worker training with manufacturing modernization
- Require all workforce development programs to embody Casey Foundation’s “family economic success” model
- Expand adoption of a statewide Career Readiness Certificate (similar to KeyWorks – a credential of work readiness, recognized by employers and even by other states)
- Expand craft apprenticeship programs as well as school-to-work partnerships in high schools
- Target industries, clusters, and occupations for setting up career paths
- Improve access (and “friendliness”) for working adults for post-secondary higher education
- Make your state first in the implementation of high performance workplaces
- Raise high school graduation rates and the numbers of scientists and engineers
- Expand community college and higher education efforts in economic and workforce development
Asset Building and Benefit Improvements
- Experiment with lifelong learning accounts
- Expand number and quality of IDA programs
- Enact a state earned income tax credit.
- Help small firms in providing health benefits.
- Create a system for new voluntary retirement accounts
Conclusion
This piece is a small effort in dealing with a big topic. I have only scratched the surface.
Here are a few final thoughts:
We need to harness flexibility with the least social cost. Neither the ultra-flex Americana model, the European Keynesian-welfare state, nor the French work-sharing model work well enough for these New Times. We may not be able to give the labor force as much job security as they once had, but we need to find ways to ensure employment and income security.
According to Martin Carnoy and Manuel Castells in a report for OECD, we appear to be moving “away from permanent jobs as the locus of work toward a complex network of learning institutions, including the workplace, families, and community schools.” Such a learning network will not automatically create jobs but “it will provide the basis for greater productivity, greater quality, and the reintegration of individualized citizen-workers.” This requires much more agile workers. And since families will play such an important role in socializing the next generation, pre-K education, quality child care, parenting classes and support, and greater workplace flexibility for families will all be needed.
The policies for a learning society would focus more on the “universal enhancement of capabilities rather than entitlements, equalizing learning for all children, and expanding its reach across the lifespan.”
Our vision must be of a learning society that values not only entrepreneurship, hard work, resiliency and flexibility, but solidarity as well.1 Recently, the terms – “Low Road” and “High Road” have become popular. The High Road pays a “family” supporting income, provides benefits, treats the environment and workforce with respect and care, has career ladders, et cetera. What is the Low Road? Just the opposite. (Joel Rogers says it this way: “adding the value, reducing waste and capturing the benefits of both in smart democratic places.” He has also coined the slogan – “Close the Low Road and Pave the High Road.”)
For 20-plus years, CFED has promoted its spin on this issue with its economic development proposal that we should be “fostering more widely shared and sustainable increases in the standard of living.” In addition, High Roaders could be described as being guided by a triple bottom line. (There are a growing number of books and articles about this corporate movement.) Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility uses member education and technical assistance to encourage this approach, while the Sustainable Jobs Fund (NC) employs financing and management advice and training. ”The Great Game of Business Network” holds an annual conference on open book management and employee participation and fair compensation, aimed at small to mid-sized firms. The National Center for Employee Ownership, a membership group, advocates and educates for best practice in creating and running ESOPs. And the Kent State Center for Employee Ownership provides hands-on TA to those wanting to start or convert to an employee-owned firm. They have also helped to create a large and growing trade association of employee owned firms in Ohio.
2 This option may not raise the new business person’s income, but their “control” over their employment increases significantly.