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"Manpower policy United States."
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Good Jobs, Bad Jobs
Good Jobs, Bad Jobs provides an insightful analysis of how and why precarious employment is gaining ground in the labor market and the role these developments have played in the decline of the middle class. Kalleberg shows that by the 1970s, government deregulation, global competition, and the rise of the service sector gained traction, while institutional protections for workers—such as unions and minimum-wage legislation—weakened. Together, these forces marked the end of postwar security for American workers. The composition of the labor force also changed significantly; the number of dual-earner families increased, as did the share of the workforce comprised of women, non-white, and immigrant workers. Of these groups, blacks, Latinos, and immigrants remain concentrated in the most precarious and low-quality jobs, with educational attainment being the leading indicator of who will earn the highest wages and experience the most job security and highest levels of autonomy and control over their jobs and schedules. Kalleberg demonstrates, however, that building a better safety net—increasing government responsibility for worker health care and retirement, as well as strengthening unions—can go a long way toward redressing the effects of today’s volatile labor market. There is every reason to expect that the growth of precarious jobs—which already make up a significant share of the American job market—will continue. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs deftly shows that the decline in U.S. job quality is not the result of fluctuations in the business cycle, but rather the result of economic restructuring and the disappearance of institutional protections for workers. Only government, employers and labor working together on long-term strategies—including an expanded safety net, strengthened legal protections, and better training opportunities—can help reverse this trend.
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The good jobs strategy : how the smartest companies invest in employees to lower costs and boost profits
\"For decades, jobs with good pay and decent benefits in service, manufacturing, and retail have gone overseas, eviscerating America's middle class and setting off a chain reaction of problems for the country as a whole. Up until now, defenders of the new system have argued that American corporations, to stay competitive internationally, must cut wages and benefits and essentially squeeze as much value as possible out of each worker. But this is backward: workers aren't a cost. They are a company's greatest asset. Ton argues that good jobs and happy, well-compensated employees are in fact a key element of a virtuous cycle for companies that results in low prices and increased profitability. The author's work focuses on retailing, where bad jobs would seem to be most embedded in the fabric of the business; but she also reveals how her insights and conclusions can be applied successfully in most service businesses\"-- Provided by publisher.
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Rough Draft
Rough Draft draws the curtain on the race and class inequities of the Selective Service during the Vietnam War. Amy J. Rutenberg argues that policy makers' idealized conceptions of Cold War middle-class masculinity directly affected whom they targeted for conscription and also for deferment. Federal officials believed that college educated men could protect the nation from the threat of communism more effectively as civilians than as soldiers. The availability of deferments for this group mushroomed between 1945 and 1965, making it less and less likely that middle-class white men would serve in the Cold War army. Meanwhile, officials used the War on Poverty to target poorer and racialized men for conscription in the hopes that military service would offer them skills they could use in civilian life.
As Rutenberg shows, manpower policies between World War II and the Vietnam War had unintended consequences. While some men resisted military service in Vietnam for reasons of political conscience, most did so because manpower polices made it possible. By shielding middle-class breadwinners in the name of national security, policymakers militarized certain civilian roles-a move that, ironically, separated military service from the obligations of masculine citizenship and, ultimately, helped kill the draft in the United States.
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Reskilling America : learning to labor in the twenty-first century
\"From Katherine Newman, award-winning author of No Shame in My Game, and sociologist Hella Winston, a sharp and irrefutable call to reenergize this nation's long-neglected system of vocational training. After decades of off-shoring and downsizing that have left blue collar workers obsolete and stranded, the United States is now on the verge of an industrial renaissance. But we don't have a skilled enough labor pool to fill the positions that will be created, which are in many cases technically demanding and require specialized skills. A decades-long series of idealistic educational policies with the expressed goal of getting every student to go to college has left a generation of potential workers out of the system. Touted as a progressive, egalitarian institution providing opportunity even to those with the greatest need, the American secondary school system has in fact deepened existing inequalities. We can do better, argue acclaimed sociologists Katherine Newman and Hella Winston. Taking a page from the successful experience of countries like Germany and Austria, where youth unemployment is a mere 7%, they call for a radical reevaluation of the idea of vocational training, long discredited as an instrument of tracking. The United States can prepare a new, high-performance labor force if we revamp our school system to value industry apprenticeship and rigorous technical education. By doing so, we will not only be able to meet the growing demand for skilled employees in dozens of sectors where employers decry the absence of well trained workers -- we will make the American Dream accessible to all\"-- Provided by publisher.
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Changing Schools in an Era of Globalization
Much has been written about globalization and the challenge of preparing young people for the new world of work and life in times of complexity and continuous change. However, few works have examined how globalization has and will continue to shape education in the East. This volume discusses education within the context of globalization and examines what is occurring in schools and systems of education in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Australia. Closer examination of recent developments and current trends reveal the same turbulence and a range of common issues in areas such as assessment, curriculum, leadership, management of change, pedagogy, policy, professional capacity and technology. This volume demonstrates the commonalities and differences and offers tremendous insight into the way things are done in places where student achievement is high but there is also a sense of urgency in continuing an agenda of change.
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All I want is a job! : unemployed women navigating the public workforce system
In All I Want Is a Job!, Mary Gatta puts a human face on workforce development policy. An ethnographic sociologist, Gatta went undercover, posing as a client in a New Jersey One-Stop Career Center. One-Stop Centers, developed as part of the federal Workforce Investment Act, are supposed to be an unemployed worker's go-to resource on the way to re-employment. But, how well do these centers function? With swarms of new clients coming through their doors, are they fit for the task of pairing America's workforce with new jobs?
Weaving together her own account with interviews of jobless women and caseworkers, Gatta offers a revealing glimpse of the toll that unemployment takes and the realities of social policy. Women—both educated and unskilled—are particularly vulnerable in the current economy. Since they are routinely paid less than their male counterparts, economic security is even harder for them to grasp. And, women are more easily tracked into available, low-wage work in sectors such as retail or food service.
Originally designed to pair job-ready workers with available openings, the current system is ill fitted for diverse clients who are seeking gainful employment. Even if One-Stops were better suited to the needs of these workers, good jobs are scarce in the wake of the Great Recession. In spite of these pitfalls, Gatta saw hope and a sense of empowerment in clients who got intensive career counseling, new jobs, and social support.
Drawing together tales from the frontlines, she highlights the promise and weaknesses of One-Stop Career Centers, recommending key shifts in workforce policy. America deserves a system that is less discriminatory, more human, and better able to assist women and their families in particular. The employed and unemployed alike would be better served by such a system—one that would meaningfully contribute to our economic recovery and future prosperity.
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Shaping race policy
Shaping Race Policyinvestigates one of the most serious policy challenges facing the United States today: the stubborn persistence of racial inequality in the post-civil rights era. Unlike other books on the topic, it is comparative, examining American developments alongside parallel histories of race policy in Great Britain and France.
Focusing on on two key policy areas, welfare and employment, the book asks why America has had such uneven success at incorporating African Americans and other minorities into the full benefits of citizenship. Robert Lieberman explores the historical roots of racial incorporation in these policy areas over the course of the twentieth century and explains both the relative success of antidiscrimination policy and the failure of the American welfare state to address racial inequality. He chronicles the rise and resilience of affirmative action, including commentary on the recent University of Michigan affirmative action cases decided by the Supreme Court. He also shows how nominally color-blind policies can have racially biased effects, and challenges the common wisdom that color-blind policies are morally and politically superior and that race-conscious policies are merely second best.
Shaping Race Policyhas two innovative features that distinguish it from other works in the area. First, it is comparative, examining American developments alongside parallel histories of race policy in Great Britain and France. Second, its argument merges ideas and institutions, which are usually considered separate and competing factors, into a comprehensive and integrated explanatory approach. The book highlights the importance of two factors--America's distinctive political institutions and the characteristic American tension between race consciousness and color blindness--in accounting for the curious pattern of success and failure in American race policy.
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Expanding work programs for poor men
Welfare reform, which required that poor mothers work in return for assistance, was a watershed in the struggle against poverty for American families. As work levels rose dramatically among low-income women, the welfare rolls were cut in half and many families rose out of poverty. But men's employment is also crucial to uplifting families, and programs designed to encourage work among poor men are often poorly funded and little understood by policymakers. Expanding Work Programs for Poor Men makes the case that poor fathers, like poor mothers, need \"both help and hassle.\" That is, poor men need more help from the government, but they must also be expected-and required-to help themselves. Drawing on welfare reform as a successful precedent, Lawrence M. Mead explores the psychology of male nonwork and evaluates the successes and failures of existing government programs for poor men, including child support and conditions of parole. These programs have succeeded in increasing work levels among poor men by requiring that they provide income to support their families or maintain a job to avoid returning to prison. Although both programs rely on legal enforcement, they are most effective when enforcement is coupled with incentives. Mead suggests that child support and parole conditions offer a useful model for future men's work programs, which should be mandatory and enforced, but combined with rewards for steady work, such as higher wage subsidies for low-income workers. Requiring poor men to work is as vital as welfare reform in ameliorating family poverty. This groundbreaking volume maps a way forward in making steady work the norm among poor men in America.
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