Centerfield

Labor Day

Transient! That's the word that applies to our world -- especially in terms of the economy, jobs and the relationship between employer and employee. I'd like to reflect on that last item.

Back in the 'dark ages' when I and other baby-boomers were in elementary and secondary schools, the paths to our future seemed to break down into roughly three:

1) Take over the family farm, work hard year-round and have a life much like your parents lived. You try to accumulate savings from day one because old age could easily be lived out in poverty or dependance on your children.

2) Be part of the first -- or at most second -- generation of your family to get a college education and become a professional (doctor, lawyer) or at least earn a degree that would lead to a fairly well-paying job.

3) Find a job with a company that will give on-the-job training and job advancement all the way to retirement.

This is a simplistic description, but generally true. Oh! And careers were still generally appropriate to a specific gender. Male nurses and female lawyers did not exist -- not even on television! Most of my generation chose a variation on paths two or three.

An important element common to both paths was being assured of job security and, if you have a pension to combine with social security, that you could look forward to a sufficiently comfortable retirement. You would have to work 35 or 40 years to achieve this, but there's no free lunch anyway!

These career patterns were considered stable because there was a cultural understanding that both government and business worked hand-in-hand with citizens (including unionized labor) to provide this stability. It was the social compact, if you will. It was real. Our parents lived it -- so could we, although higher education steered more and more onto career path two.

Today's world is so different! But one really big difference is the change in how business and employees view their relationship. That's where the term transient applies. My job? Here today, gone tomorrow. My employees? Employees are simply expenses -- we're stuck with many today; we hope to get by with fewer tomorrow.

Stability is gone. Transience is here.

In addition to this transience is the shift in control and ownership of many companies. Less often are those running a company the controlling owners...the stockholders, with the pride of ownership and partnership with employees. Instead, executives seek to maximize their own benefits and shareholder profits, which often means cutting expenses -- employees, benefits, pensions. The employee has now become a temporary asset whose sole purpose is to maximize profit -- with much less consideration to the employee's long term needs.

Then there's the change in attitude towards government -- that necessary evil! Back in the 'dark ages' I recalled above, government was usually seen as part of how the citizens of society work together to achieve benefits very difficult or impossible to achieve through individual or ad hoc group effort. Not a popular concept today.

So what's my point?

Only to raise the issue...and to suggest that this is one of the core issues we have to deal with as a nation. The so-called social compact of the past has broken down, but nothing has yet replaced it. The traditional 'American dream' is being battered by an array of forces that we can't control and often don't understand. My fear is that the next couple of decades will see the middle class shrink...with lower wages and less upward mobility. From what I've seen, that's the current trend. The solutions we're offered really boil down to blundering ahead without a read plan...things will take care of themselves.

We need to find the right roles and responsibilities for government and business and build a more stable relationship between business and workers. It won't be like the social compact of the 1960's. I don't know what it will be like. I do know we need leaders who can focus our efforts on these issues, who can lead us in asking the right questions. Then we can look for answers.

Now get back to work!

(also posted to CivicDialogues.org)

Posted by Erasmus at September 1, 2003 02:45 PM