How to Renew the American Dream for Working Families?

The essence of the American Dream is that by working hard and playing by the rules members of each generation should be able to improve on the standard of living they experienced growing up. Yet that dream is at risk for today's working families, and particularly for our children and grandchildren.

The question of what it will take to renew the American Dream for working families will be front and center as Democrats meet at their convention next week. Indeed, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have made "Renewing the American Dream" the theme of their domestic policy platform and vision for the future.

But workers have good reason to be skeptical of such themes, visions, and platform statements. They know first hand that they have been working harder and longer than ever before yet are seeing their incomes decline and their jobs, health care coverage and costs, and retirement security all put at risk. They want and deserve concrete answers to the question of exactly how Barack Obama and fellow Democrats will reverse these trends.

Those of us who have been working on labor and employment issues in the campaign know that Senator Obama is committed to a comprehensive, detailed, forward-looking action plan. It starts by enacting the Employee Free Choice Act to restore workers' ability to join a union and get a collective bargaining agreement and by ensuring all working parents have access to paid sick leave and supporting state-level initiatives to provide paid family leave. It builds on his plan for jumpstarting the economy by investing in renewable energies and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure with good paying, sustainable jobs. It complements his plan to provide affordable, high quality health care coverage to all America by engaging and working in partnership with our nation's health care workforce and provider organizations.

But it also envisions a new approach to administration and enforcement of work and employment policies. Barack Obama will restore workers' trust in government by putting people in charge of labor and employment agencies who are highly respected, knowledgeable, and above all who believe deeply in the laws they are charged to enforce! He will charge agency leaders to work in partnership with unions, community groups, and progressive employers to make sure labor standards at home and in our nation's trading partners are enforced and improve over time. He will bring his unique brand of leadership to Washington he began promoting in his work as a community organizer in Chicago, one that brings business, labor, religious, and community leaders together to work for the common good, rather than fight battles over outworn ideologies of the past.

Exactly how to pursue these and other goals will be discussed and debated in the meetings and speeches at the convention. But we need to make sure working families across America also learn about and share the excitement, energy, and commitment to the concrete action plans that will flow out of the Convention. So in future entries to this blog I will try to convey both the ideas and the energy that will be building up in Denver in ways that will hopefully engage America's working families to become the powerful force puts Barack Obama in the White House so he can start renewing the American Dream on day one of his Administration.

Stay tuned.

Thomas Kochan, Co-Director, Institute for Work and Employment Research, MIT Sloan School of Management

Comments

[eesmith]

If you are interested in reading more articles by Tom Kochan, his coverage of the Democratic Convention, you can visit the Labor and Employment Relations Association Blog, LERA Commons, at http://lerablog.org, where he blogs regularly.

http://kochan.lerablog.org

[elizaW]

"His unique brand of leadership to Washington" What are you talking about? Obama's ability to win a nomination has nothing to do with dealing with Washington politics. Also, with the choice of Biden for VP, it's clear that Obama is terrified he doesn't know his way around Washington politics so he brought in a Washington insider. This is not good news for working class people in this country, especially because of Biden's affiliation with the credit card companies that feast on the high interest charges that many Americans strugggle with every day.

[WASanford]

“Yet that dream is at risk for today's working families, and particularly for our children and grandchildren.” My heart sank as I read this. It means that you don’t get it. The American dream is not at risk, for the vast majority of us it has been totally destroyed! The very idea of a fair wage for a hard day’s work has been totally invalidated.

You want a Democrat to win in November? Well, here’s some advice. Each night during prime time shock waves need to come from your convention in Denver. You know how America got this way, (If you don’t you need to read Thomas Frank’s “The Wrecking Crew”) and you need to make sure everyone else does by educating them while you have their attention. While you’re at it, it is imperative that you show us how you intend to reverse what’s been done to us. Even if we all have to sit through a slide show, that would be preferable to more chimerical chanting “Change we can believe in” Words only matter when they’re not just empty promises.

Oh, while I’m giving advice, at least attempt to heal the schism to your party that developed during the primary. The quickest and easiest way to do that is to offer a place on the ticket to Senator Clinton. That just might bring more of her supporters to your cause.

[GregBamber]

Well said Thomas Kochan; it sounds as though Bill Clinton and Joe Biden have also been reading your wise words on the American Dream; keep up the great work!
America and the rest of the world would be much better off if the Democrats win back the White House in November. Good on you for trying to help to achieve that end!
Greg Bamber, Professor, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Visiting Professor, Newcastle University, England.