Labor and Employment Relations Association
Perspectives Online Companion
In 2004, the first issue of Perspectives on Work Online Companion was posted at the LERA web site. The electronic publication featured mini-forums addressing timely issues of interest to the member community. Published each spring and fall, the Online Companion provides a complement to the print version of Perspectives.
Perspectives Online Companion - Spring 2012: Number 13
From the Editor
LERA Members on the Air and More
To encourage positive change and understanding of topics in the labor and employment relations realm, LERA members have participated in radio interviews on the University of Illinois WILL public radio's Focus 580 show with host David Inge. While some of the interviews took place in 2011, the topics and insights are evergreen. During each radio show, the guests entertained questions from listeners (via phone and email).
This issue of the Online Companion provides summaries of four of these interviews. Keep the conversations on these important topics going by posting your comments on the Employment Policy Research Network web site or sending your suggestions for future articles in Perspectives on Work to scass@mit.edu.
This issue also includes a brief write-up on a panel of sustainable entrepreneurship experts held at MIT in March 2012 organized by EPRN Sustainable entrepreneurship with a definite good-jobs edge is the newest EPRN research topic. It’s the brainchild of past LERA president Tom Kochan. Development of the topic is being supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world’s largest foundation dedicated to entrepreneurship and one of the biggest foundations in the U.S. You’ll find much more on sustainable entrepreneurship including more on this expert panel, in the fall/winter issue of Perspectives on Work. Please look for your copy in September.
Finally, we have three thoughtful book reviews prepared by young LERA scholars.
Susan Cass
Editor
Perspectives on Work
Multimedia
"The NLRB and the Role of Collective Bargaining in a Civil Society"
Wilma B. Liebman and Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld
"Labor Day Show: The Changed and Changing Nature of Work in the 21st Century"
Rosemary Batt and Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld
"Big Questions about the Future of Class-Action Lawsuits"
Michael LeRoy and Lesley Wexler
"Getting It Right: Public Sector Unions"
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld and Craig Olson
"Not Just Business as Usual …"
Employment Policy Research Network new topic: Sustainable Entrepreneurship
From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization: Markets, Workers, and the State in a Changing China
Sarosh Kuruvilla, Ching Kwan Lee, Mary E. Gallagher, Reviewed by Tamara L. Lee, Esq.
Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s
Arne L. Kalleberg, Reviewed by Jerome Hughes
The Thought of Work
John W. Budd, Reviewed by Mohammad A. Ali
Perspectives Online Companion - Spring 2011: Number 12
From the Editor
This issue of LERA’s Perspectives on Work Online Companion is the first since LERA’s affiliation with the Employment Policy Research Network (EPRN). The EPRN web site (employmentpolicy.org) launched in January to fill a void in objective, evidence-based research as the basis for better state and national employment law, policy, and practice. EPRN offers self-posted research by 120 researchers in labor relations, management, and collective bargaining, economists, attorneys, and sociologists. EPRN postings can be accessed through the LERA website. The EPRN startup is supported by grants from the Rockefeller and Russell Sage foundations.
In this issue, we have four articles and one book review. The first two articles focus on jobs. Eileen Appelbaum’s article suggests several policy options for increasing the pace of job creation and reducing unemployment. Andrew Sum and his colleagues at Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University explore job displacement in the U.S. economy in the Great Recession and the reemployment difficulties of the dislocated. The issue is rounded out by two articles on public sector unions. The debates in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio have brought issues surrounding public employees’ rights and the tensions that can exist between public sector unions and government and/or management into the national spotlight. Here Jeff Keefe answers the question on many people’s minds: “Are State and Local Public Employees Overpaid?” and Saul Rubinstein and John McCarthy look at school districts that follow a collaborative model offering a alternative model to the contentious relationships being exposed in the news of late.
The fall issue of Perspectives on Work will continue the important and timely public sector employee discussion. Please look for your copy in September. If you’d like to send a comment to one of these online authors send it to me, scass@mit.edu and I will forward it along. In addition, feel free to send comments or article suggestions for Perspectives on Work to me.
Susan Cass
Editor
Perspectives on Work
Understanding the Great Recession: March 2011
Eileen Appelbaum
The Dislocation Experiences of U.S. Workers From 2007-2009
Andrew Sum, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, Joseph McLaughlin with Sheila Palma
Are State and Local Public Employees Overpaid?
Jeffrey Keefe
Collaborating on School Reform: Creating Union-Management Partnerships to Improve Public School Systems
Saul Rubinstein and John McCarthy
NAFTA and Labor in North America by Norman Caulfield
Book reviewed by Seth Pipkin
