Roads Not Taken
Lessons for Building a New Social Contract at Work
Thomas a Kochan author Scott Cooper author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
Publishing:23rd Feb '27
£27.00
This title is due to be published on 23rd February, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
For American workers, the social contract is broken. This book gives a firsthand view of where the breaks occurred, and a prescription for rebuilding it to give workers their due.
With AI making the decisions and CEOs and moguls making the money, today it seems that most workers might as well be drones. And it might have been different if not for a long string of missed opportunities over the last fifty years. In Roads Not Taken, Thomas Kochan reviews the turning points where the social contract fractured and broke, reducing workers’ voices as well as their compensation, benefits, and status. In the lessons learned from these historical examples, he identifies the foundation for building a new labor relations system that ensures workers will share in the benefits from AI and puts America on course for an innovative and durable social contract at work.
As a longtime adviser to government, labor, and management leaders, Kochan offers an eyewitness perspective on the mounting mistakes made in America’s labor relations system beginning, roughly, with Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. His book makes a strong case for new strategies on the part of labor unions and other worker advocacy groups, business, and government—strategies not wedded to the legacy labor law and practice that have failed American workers for so long. Recasting the social contract on this basis, Kochan insists, is key to rebuilding our democracy and its institutions after the damage wrought in recent years.
ENDORSEMENTS
“Tom Kochan argues that the decline of the bargaining power of American workers was a choice, not a law of nature. In Roads Not Taken he carefully documents it, sparing no one: not unions, not management, not politicians. But this is no lament. Kochan offers a path forward, and with AI at the door, the choices ahead will be the most important of our lifetime.”
—Ron Bloom, Former Chair, Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service
“Tom Kochan makes a case that is at once clear-eyed and hopeful for restoring the social contract between employer and employee. On display are the traits that make him an extraordinary scholar and trusted adviser to both labor and management: deep familiarity with the research, a keen grasp of history, and an insatiable thirst for innovative ideas.”
—Rick Wartzman, author of The End of Loyalty and Still Broke
“With America’s workers and labor unions on the defensive, Roads Not Taken is much needed. Widely considered the nation’s foremost expert on labor relations, Kochan calls for urgent action to lift America’s workers and strengthen its unions by creating a new social contract that fits with today’s—and tomorrow’s—workforce, economy, and technologies. Smart and compelling.”
—Steven Greenhouse, longtime labor reporter; author of Beaten Down, Worked Up
“Roads Not Taken maintains that stronger unions can reverse the insecurity and voicelessness that workers face today, and offers fresh solutions. Kochan knows the relevant players from firsthand experience, all the way to our current AI crisis. A must-read.”
—Sanford M. Jacoby, Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA; author of Labor in the Age of Finance
“Aided by good story-telling, rich detail, and an even richer history, Kochan shows us what needs to be done to build a new and better set of labor relations institutions in the US.”
—Eileen Appelbaum, Senior Economist and Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
“Summarizing key inflection points in our social contract, Kochan’s latest contribution emphasizes the economic path to democracy as equally consequential to political reforms in righting our broken systems of governance. A must-read for champions of democracy!”
—Erica Smiley, Executive Director, Jobs with Justice; coauthor of The Future We Need
ISBN: 9780262059312
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
208 pages