book review: restoring the american dream: a working families' agenda for america

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  • 8/16/2019 Book Review: Restoring the American dream: A working families' agenda for America

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    workers and people with intermittent job histories (particularly women) are most

    often the hardest hit.Chapter 12 considers some of the theoretical explanations for the fragmenta-tion and greater diversity in working life. Excess capacity and the ascendancy of finance are seen as central to the overall long downturn (1970 to the present day)in Australia and other countries such as the US, Japan and Germany. These devel-opments have been characterised by growing wage inequality and low wagesectors contributing to brief periods of unsustainable economic growth followed byrecession. The final chapter advances a reasoned plea for more pluralist andsearching debate on ways of intervening in the macro dimensions of economicsand working life. Overall, Fragmented futures provides a worthwhile collectionand insightful interpretation of recent empirical data on work in Australia andthus is an important contribution to our understanding of trends within the

    OECD countries.

    Ashly Pinnington, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland

    Thomas A. Kochan. 2005.

    Restoring the American dream: A working families’ agenda for America

    ISBN 0 262 11292 2, 272 pages; US$27.95. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

    DOI: 10.1177/1038411106072195

    Professor Thomas Kochan is a renowned academic and researcher from MIT,holding directorships at the Institute of Work and Employment Research and theMIT Workplace Centre.

    Kochan’s basic premise in the book is that in order to return to the dreamof ‘good jobs, fair pay and opportunities for all’ based on the foundation oftraditional American values of justice, fairness, family and work, the onus is onindividuals within the workplace to stand up and be counted.

    He describes the multitude of factors impacting on workplaces – includingdemographic changes in workers and their families, the diminishing power of theunion movement, the impact of globalization and the trend to offshore/outsourcejobs, the business case for flexibility, the growing importance of the knowledgeeconomy, and the significance of education and life-long learning as a concept thathe argues must be embraced. Ultimately he claims all of these factors have lead tothe emergence of the ‘working poor’ who earn lower ‘real’ wages than they did20 years ago. He argues that the gap is widening between those who ‘have’ andthose who ‘have not’ to the point where he calls for individual workers and theirfamilies to take action.

    He outlines the perspectives of various stakeholders – workers, their families,business, government, unions and academics. His writing style is easy to read andhe includes personal recollections and actual business cases to exemplify his message.

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    The book is obviously relevant to Australia as the landscape he describes is

    apparent here as well as in the US. It has a particularly timely message because of the anticipated adverse impact of Workchoices legislation on workers’ familiesand work–life balance issues in Australian workplaces. Australian workers, likethose in the USA, are recording some of the longest working hours among OECDcountries, and the number of hours they are working is increasing.

    Ultimately Kochan’s objective in writing this book to ‘engage the Americanpublic’ in the debate is unlikely to be met, because the average worker willprobably not read his writing. More likely it will be read by those working/ teaching/studying in the work–family life field, HR practitioners, managementresearchers and some unions. For those people, it is a worthwhile read, and is auseful resource in the growing amount of literature devoted to the topic.

    Rosemary Kelly, GM Holden Ltd, Sydney

    384  Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 2006 44(3)

    APJHR_44_3_BkRevs.qxd 9/10/2006 2:50 PM Page 384

      © 2006 Australian Human Resources Institute. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. by georgiana ciobanu on November 23, 2007http://apj.sagepub.comDownloaded from 

    http://apj.sagepub.com/http://apj.sagepub.com/http://apj.sagepub.com/http://apj.sagepub.com/