Where Are All the Good Jobs Going?: What National and Local Job Quality and Dynamics Mean for U.S. Workers

From the Publisher:

Deindustrialization in the United States has triggered record-setting joblessness in manufacturing centers from Detroit to Baltimore. At the same time, global competition and technological change have actually stimulated both new businesses and new jobs. The jury is still out, however, on how many of these positions represent a significant source of long-term job quality and security. Where Are All the Good Jobs Going? addresses the most pressing questions for today’s workers: whether the U.S. labor market can still produce jobs with good pay and benefits for the majority of workers and whether these jobs can remain stable over time.

What constitutes a “good” job, who gets them, and are they becoming more or less secure? Where Are All the Good Jobs Going? examines U.S. job quality and volatility from the perspectives of both workers and employers. The authors analyze the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics (LEHD) data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, and the book covers data for twelve states during twelve years, 1992–2003, resulting in an unprecedented examination of workers and firms in several industries over time.

Counter to conventional wisdom, the authors find that good jobs are not disappearing, but their character and location have changed. The market produces fewer good jobs in manufacturing and more in professional services and finance. Not surprisingly, the best jobs with the highest pay still go to the most educated workers. The most vulnerable workers—older, low-income, and low-skilled—work in the most insecure environments where they can be easily downsized or displaced by a fickle labor market. A higher federal minimum wage and increased unionization can contribute to the creation of well paying jobs. So can economic strategies that help smaller metropolitan areas support new businesses. These efforts, however, must function in tandem with policies that prepare workers for available positions, such as improving general educational attainment and providing career education.

Where Are All the Good Jobs Going?: What National and Local Job Quality and Dynamics Mean for U.S. Workers, by Harry J. Holzer … [et al.]. New York : Russell Sage Foundation, 2011. 212 p. ISBN 9780871544582 (pbk.)

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Recreating Canada: Essays in Honour of Paul Weiler

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In 2005 a Harvard conference honoured Paul Weiler, originally from Thunder Bay, Ontario, who drafted the Notwithstanding Clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and created the Canada Program at Harvard University.

Weiler’s Notwithstanding Clause saved the floundering constitutional talks that eventually rebuilt Canada upon the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In Part One of this book, Weiler lucidly describes his very Canadian legal philosophy, spelling out his original intent in drafting the clause. Joining Harvard in 1979, he set up a Canada Program that has provided the image of Canada held by many future leaders. He reenergized the languishing Mackenzie King Endowment for Canadian Studies and soon Mackenzie King visiting professors were teaching everything from Canadian economics to Canadian aboriginal history. After Weiler’s address at the 2005 conference, past Mackenzie King professors spoke on Canada; the second part of this book contains their essays. Many discuss constitutional law or politics but discussions range from economic nationalism to water rights.

Readers interested in what Harvard students learn about Canada will find these essays intriguing. Weiler’s Canada Program is expansively multidisciplinary and this book is a respectful tribute to both Weiler and to Canada.

Recreating Canada: Essays in Honour of Paul Weiler, edited by Randall Morck. Kingston, Ont. : Queen’s Policy Studies Series, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, 2011. 238 p. ISBN 9781553392736 (paperback)

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Organizing Age

From the Publisher:

Age is the silent shaper of work organizations and their human resource practices. It has become a potent feature of how society is structured and how it views itself. Age assumptions mold the behaviours of young and old alike, and are used as political tools by policy makers and managers. Organizing Age asks the perennial question – can age ever not matter?

Drawing on range of social scientific and popular writings, this book casts a critical eye over the social construction and politicization of age in and beyond organizations. Amongst other topics, it discusses: the historical roots of age in society; how we ‘perform’ our age in different settings; the social impact of defining age groups as generations; ageism; the effect of an age-cluster on an organization’s processes and members’ experience; the rituals of retirement and the birth of the retirement industry; and the impact of the economic recession in challenging some of our assumptions about age as the growing ‘grey’ population becomes increasingly politicized.

Organizing Age provides an accessible introduction to the current and emerging themes around this topic, which will be invaluable resource for students, academics, and policy makers.

Organizing Age, by Stephen Fineman. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011. 175 p. ISBN 9780199578054 (paperback)

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OECD Economic Outlook, No. 89, May 2011

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Twice a year, the OECD Economic Outlook analyses the major trends and forces that shape the short-term economic prospects. It provides in depth coverage of the economic policy measures required to foster growth and stable prices in each Member country.

OECD Economic Outlook, No. 89, May 2011 (Vol. 2011/1), by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Paris : OECD Publishing, 2011. 405 p. ISBN 9789264063471

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Prostitution in the Digital Age: Selling Sex From the Suite to the Street

 

From the Publisher:

This candid book reveals the enormity of the commercial sex-for-sale industry in the modern era.

Prostitution—often referred to as “the world’s oldest profession”—is alive and well in the modern world. In the United States alone, an estimated $14 billion is generated in annual revenue from the sex-for-sale industry. Worldwide revenue from the commercial sex trade industry is estimated at more than $100 billion each year.

For those without direct experience with the seamy, real-life world of prostitution, it can be easy to accept the glamorized depictions of the sex-for-sale industry as it is often portrayed in fiction and Hollywood or sensationalized in the media. In reality, the business of sexual exploitation such as prostitution, sex trafficking, pornography, and sex tourism is far from attractive.

This latest book from literary criminologist R. Barri Flowers updates the subject of prostitution for the 21st century, explaining why the commercial sex trade industry continues to flourish and exploring its proliferation in the digital world of the Internet, cell phones, and text messaging. The grim ramifications of prostitution—such as victimization, substance abuse, HIV, arrest, or even death—are addressed. Careful attention has also been paid to the various individuals involved: those who are prostituted (female and male), customers, pimps, traffickers, and other players in the sex trade.

Prostitution in the Digital Age: Selling Sex From the Suite to the Street, by R. Barri Flowers. Santa Barbara, Calif. : Praeger, 2011. 238 p. ISBN 9780313384608 (hardcover)

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Moral Courage in Organizations: Doing the Right Thing at Work

From the Publisher:

The topic of moral courage is typically missing from business ethics instruction and management training. But moral courage is what is needed when workplace pressures threaten to compromise values and principles.

Moral Courage in Organizations: Doing the Right Thing at Work underscores the ethical pitfalls that one can expect to encounter at work and enhances one’s ability to do the right thing, despite these organizational pitfalls. The book highlights the effects of organizational factors on ethical behavior; illustrates exemplary moral courage and lapses of moral courage; explores the skills and information that support those who act with moral courage; and considers how to change organization to promote moral courage, as well as how to exercise moral courage to change organizations.

This book is a potent tool to foster more ethical organizational behavior by giving readers guidelines for moral courage.

Moral Courage in Organizations: Doing the Right Thing at Work, edited by Debra R. Comer and Gina Vega. Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 2011. 231 p. ISBN 9780765624109 (pbk.)

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Honest Work: a Business Ethics Reader

From the Publisher:

Now in its second edition, Honest Work provides a practical overview of business ethics that concentrates on the ethical problems and dilemmas students are most likely to face in their prospective work environments. Featuring 103 articles and 80 cases, the book covers a wide spectrum of issues, ranging from such classic topics as honesty and trust in the workplace, whistle-blowing, product liability, finance ethics, and conflicts of interest to more cutting-edge areas like environmental ethics and ethics and technology. Excerpts from plays, short stories, and novels—including Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”—enliven the text. Each reading and chapter is followed by engaging questions for study and discussion. Offering a welcome alternative to the impersonal tone of most business ethics texts, the editors address students in an appealing and conversational manner.

Honest Work: a Business Ethics Reader, by Joanne B. Ciulla, Clancy Martin and Robert C. Solomon. New York : Oxford University Press, 2007. 659 p. ISBN 9780195161687 (pbk.)

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Labour at the Lakehead: Ethnicity, Socialism, and Politics, 1900-35

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In the early twentieth century, the Canadian Lakehead was known as a breeding ground for revolution, a place where harsh conditions in dockyards, lumber mills, and railway yards drove immigrants into radical labour politics.

This intensely engaging history reasserts Northwestern Ontario’s rightful reputation as a birthplace of leftism in Canada by exposing the conditions that gave rise to an array of left-wing organizations, including the Communist Party, the One Big Union, and the Industrial Workers of the World. Yet, as Michel Beaulieu shows, the circumstances and actions of Lakehead labour, especially those related to ideology, ethnicity, and personality were complex; they simultaneously empowered and fettered workers in their struggles against the shackles of capitalism. Cultural ties helped bring left-wing ideas to Canada but, as each group developed a distinctive vocabulary of socialism, Anglo-Celtic workers defended their privileges against Finns, Ukrainians, and Italians. At the Lakehead, ethnic difference often outweighed class solidarity — at the cost of a stronger labour movement for Canada.

Labour at the Lakehead: Ethnicity, Socialism, and Politics, 1900-35,  by Michel S. Beaulieu. Vancouver : UBC Press, 2011. 299 p. ISBN 9780774820011 (hbk.)

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Whistleblowing: in Defense of Proper Action

From the Publisher:

This latest volume in this important international series discusses practical errors and wrongdoing considered under the action theory (praxiological) umbrella, linking these to ethical behavior. Human actions related to the conduct of business should be effective and efficient. But such praxiological criteria are of secondary importance to norms that should also be taken into account. The primary norm is ethical behavior, which defines the morality of business activities on the basis of the good; these are the presupposed foundations for the human actions in business.

The articles in this volume discuss whistleblowing, or the exposure of behavior that violates the ethical foundations of business. They are written from different angles and present a variety of experiences, adding new value to both the subject of praxiology as well as ethics as it relates to economic activity in its social and global context. The issues, problems, and questions raised by this international group of eminent scholars have much to add to the contemporary debate induced by the present economic crises. These crises have revealed practical errors and hypocrisy of those responsible for leadership and management, primarily of financial institutions.

Whistleblowing: in Defense of Proper Action, edited by Marek Arszutowicz and Wojciech W. Gasparski. New Brunswick (USA) : Transaction Publishers, 2011. 197 p. ISBN 9781412811200 (hardcover).

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Manufacturing Meltdown: Reshaping Steel Work

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In the 1980s, following decades of booming business, the global steel industry went into a precipitous decline, which necessitated significant restructuring. Management demanded workers’ increased participation in evermore temporary and insecure labour. Engaging the workers at the flagship Stelco plant in Hamilton, the authors document new management strategies and the responses of unionized workforces to them. These investigations provide valuable insights into the dramatic changes occurring within the Canadian steel industry.

Manufacturing Meltdown: Reshaping Steel Work, by D.W. Livingstone, Dorothy E. Smith and Warren Smith. Halifax, NS : Fernwood Pub., 2011. 218 p. ISBN 9781552664025

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