Book Review: Shaping the Future of Work by Thomas A. Kochan

Abstract

Thomas Kochan, the Baby Boomer generation’s foremost scholar of industrial relations, has written an excellent book for today’s Millennial undergraduates. It is an engaging work, intended not only to educate but also to motivate students to repair “the dismal legacy” they are inheriting from their forebearers.The book’s jumping-off point is the demise of the postwar social contract and the “new void in worker voice and power.” Kochan offers a bevy of pragmatic innovations to improve working conditions, change employer mindsets, and strengthen schools. Bolstering government support for reform also is mentioned. But Kochan gives relatively greater emphasis to collaboration among private actors, an orientation that reflects his own experiences and predilections.