The Changing Work Place

Contrary to popular prophecies of doom, the work place will undergo no cataclysmic transformation in the next decade. The labor force will continue to grow, as women and immigrants flock to work in increasing numbers. Computerized technologies will alter the content of many jobs, but they will neither force millions out of work nor result in dramatically different skill requirements in the labor market. Despite the flurry of interest in labor-management cooperation in the early 1980s, American industrial relations will also continue to be characterized by traditional adversarial roles. Workers will be more educated than in prior generations, jobs will shift increasingly into the service sector, and both displaced workers and declining geographic areas will struggle with the U.S. economy's gradual evolution. For unions, the greatest challenges posed by the changing work place will be to meet the expectations of more affluent and educated workers in a period of slow economic growth, to reconcile concerns for job security and improved productivity, to expand their organizing efforts in growing occupations, industries, and regions, and to sustain their longstanding commitment to social justice.