Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand

This paper argues for a new social contract in the United States which will establish the mutual expectations and obligations that workers, employers and their communities have regarding work and employment relationships. It reports suggestions by participants in a recent online MITx course on ‘Shap...

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Main Author: Kochan, Thomas A
Other Authors: Sloan School of Management
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140406
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author Kochan, Thomas A
author2 Sloan School of Management
author_facet Sloan School of Management
Kochan, Thomas A
author_sort Kochan, Thomas A
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description This paper argues for a new social contract in the United States which will establish the mutual expectations and obligations that workers, employers and their communities have regarding work and employment relationships. It reports suggestions by participants in a recent online MITx course on ‘Shaping the Future of Work’. The participants in the course assigned high priority to business leaders working collaboratively with employees to improve organizational performance and provide workers with a significant voice in corporate governance. They urged unions to be effective in representing workers’ interests, not in an adversarial but in a partnership manner. They advocated that government should balance power in society and reform labor laws to provide workers with a wider range of voice and representation. The paper suggests steps which the new Administration should take to achieve these goals, in order to establish a new social contract and heal deep divisions in American society.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1404062024-06-06T19:32:03Z Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand Kochan, Thomas A Sloan School of Management This paper argues for a new social contract in the United States which will establish the mutual expectations and obligations that workers, employers and their communities have regarding work and employment relationships. It reports suggestions by participants in a recent online MITx course on ‘Shaping the Future of Work’. The participants in the course assigned high priority to business leaders working collaboratively with employees to improve organizational performance and provide workers with a significant voice in corporate governance. They urged unions to be effective in representing workers’ interests, not in an adversarial but in a partnership manner. They advocated that government should balance power in society and reform labor laws to provide workers with a wider range of voice and representation. The paper suggests steps which the new Administration should take to achieve these goals, in order to establish a new social contract and heal deep divisions in American society. 2022-02-16T16:02:40Z 2022-02-16T16:02:40Z 2021-03-29 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1038-4111 1744-7941 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140406 Kochan, T.A. (2021), Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand. Asia Pac J Hum Resour, 59: 582-594. en http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1744-7941.12290 Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Wiley Wiley
spellingShingle Kochan, Thomas A
Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand
title Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand
title_full Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand
title_fullStr Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand
title_full_unstemmed Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand
title_short Building a new social contract in the United States: the task at hand
title_sort building a new social contract in the united states the task at hand
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140406
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