Labor Day Newsletter — Risks, Rewards, Regulations, and Resources – The Aspen Institute
I am delighted to bring you this year’s edition of our special Labor Day newsletter. As you know, the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program strives to advance strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. As such, an enormous amount of our time and attention is devoted to policies, strategies, and ideas that can improve the experience and rewards of work.
We live in a moment when workers continue to take on growing risks at work while experiencing shrinking rewards; when workplace regulations are derided and undermined; when the need for everyone — including businesses, policymakers, educators, and labor leaders — to focus on improving job quality has never been clearer; when workforce professionals lack the resources to live by their own job quality goals; and when the hazy specter of artificial intelligence threatens to upend our workforce in ways that few can predict and fewer can prepare for.
But the rise of new challenges often reveals new avenues for progress. More and more companies are looking to models like employee ownership to rebalance the risks and rewards of work, improving both job quality and business performance in the process. Policies to improve job quality are as popular as ever, and if we work together we can update them to be effective in our modern places of work. The potential for coalition-building has never been stronger, and the tools to forge such partnerships have never been more readily accessible. Workforce professionals have never been more motivated to live by the high standards they set for our system, and they know what to do to achieve it. And new developments in technology — unpredictable though they may be — give us the chance to reshape our economic and educational systems for the better.
These are just the highlights of ideas that my esteemed colleagues and I have to share with you. I hope you feel inspired to click through and read more, share with interested colleagues and friends, and consider the implications for the work that you do. We always appreciate hearing your feedback, and we encourage you to join us online next week — Wednesday, September 4 — for a conversation on workers’ rights and executive action.
However you choose to engage, I hope you enjoy this holiday. From my team, and my family, to yours: Happy Labor Day!
When it comes to business, the word “risk” is typically associated with the entrepreneurs and investors who put up the capital. Rarely do we consider risk from workers’ perspectives, outside of dangerous occupations like mining and construction. But workers do take risks — placing their faith, talents, time, and energy into an enterprise that’s unlikely to share much of the upside with them, and to let them go at the first sign of uncertainty. It’s time we recognize and rebalance these risks. As EOP’s Managing Director Matt Helmer writes in Fast Company, employee ownership is a powerful way to do that, granting workers a stake and a say while boosting performance for the business as a whole.
The phrase “government regulation” isn’t one that inspires feelings of joy, gratitude, or national pride, but regulations have yielded immeasurable benefits to the health and well-being of people in the US, especially in the world of work. From provisions like the minimum wage and overtime pay to bans on child labor, workplace discrimination, and unsafe working conditions, regulations have made life better for millions of workers and families. Yet even these basic protections are under attack, and as I write in The Hill, there is so much more we can do. This Labor Day, let’s honor workers by celebrating — and strengthening — the rules that make work better.
This Labor Day, we are proud to unveil our new Job Quality Center of Excellence, a one-stop shop for reports, videos, case studies, and more. The Center is designed to meet the needs of a diverse array of audiences — including employers, investors, advocates, policymakers, and workforce professionals — no matter where they are on their job quality journey. In addition to hosting curated topic guides on subjects like employee ownership, the care industry, equity and inclusion, and job quality frameworks, the center boasts a flexible, modern resource library containing materials on a wide range of issue areas, including wages, benefits, scheduling, safety, training, worker voice, labor law, and more. We hope that all who are invested in improving work now have the tools and resources to educate themselves, learn from others, and take action to improve job quality in their sphere of influence. Together, we can work toward ensuring that all workers have what they need to live healthy, fulfilled lives.
Workforce development staff often find themselves at the vanguard of the job quality movement, helping employers understand what constitutes a good job and connecting job seekers to those opportunities in turn. But when it comes to creating good jobs for their own staff, workforce leaders can unfortunately fall short. What will it take for practitioners to “walk the talk” on job quality? In a new blog, Senior Fellows Sheila Maguire (now retired) and Dee Wallace — who lead our Workforce Leadership Academies — outline what’s required to move forward, including a more thorough understanding of local needs, tighter connections among workforce professionals, adjustments to our incentives and mental models, and greater input from frontline staff.
Like all of our cherished national holidays, Labor Day grants an opportunity for both celebration and reflection — as we celebrate working people, we reflect on the meaning of work itself. This year, our team has been reflecting particularly on the “future of work” and how this concept has changed over the last decade. In our new series, “Back to the Future of Work: Revisiting the Past and Shaping the Future,” we’re gathering insights from labor, business, academia, philanthropy, and think tanks to find out: What predictions did we get right? What did we get wrong? Who did we leave out of the conversation? And how can we make the future of work better than the past? Check out our latest entry, “Artificial Intelligence, Human Intellectual Autonomy and the Future of Work,” by NYU Stern’s Arun Sundararajan.
While lawmaking represents the most powerful way to advance workers’ rights, deep political divisions render this option unfeasible in Congress and many statehouses. Executive action offers a promising alternative, and some notable gains have been achieved this way in recent years. But the strategies required to drive executive action remain complex and elusive for grassroots activists and organizations. Join us and our partners at Workshop for a webinar next Wednesday, September 4, from 2 to 3:15 p.m. EDT. We’ll hear from a panel of seasoned public servants — including former officials from the Obama Administration — and discuss lessons from Workshop’s “Toolkit: An Organizer’s Guide to Executive Action,” which demystifies the policy-making process and offers a practical blueprint for advocacy.
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