The Worker Empowerment Research Network (WERN) is an interdisciplinary network of labor market researchers. This report, “U.S. Workers’ Organizing Efforts and Collective Actions: A Review of the Current Landscape,” is the first research product of network and provides a comprehensive review of the methods U.S. workers are currently using to express their collective voices and assert power in their workplaces. The report explores various the concepts of the “voice gap” and “representation gap,” worker actions—including traditional union organizing, strikes, and work stoppages—the growth of worker centers, and new organizing forms.
The report illustrates how the issues workers care about have expanded beyond traditional wages and hours to include topics ranging from new technologies to protection from workplace abuse. For all stakeholders interested in equitable, productive, and resilient employment relationships, it serves as a starting point for discussion and knwoledge building about the conditons of the US labor movement.
It takes intention to design a workplace culture that fully leverages the strengths of employee ownership. In this event, panelists discuss the diverse ways that employee ownership can be realized for a business, including employee stock ownership plans, employee ownership trusts, worker-owned cooperatives, and equity compensation programs. Each holds different advantages and disadvantages, and they can differ in their profit sharing, costs, flexibility, and how workers are involved in decision making.
The Job Quality Toolkit is a comprehensive but beginner friendly resource for employers trying to improve job quality and retain their workforce. The toolkit walks the reader through components of job quality and provides strategies and resources for each component: Recruitment & Hiring; Benefits; Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility; Empowerment & Representation; Job Security & Working Conditions; Organizational Culture; Pay; and Skills & Career Advancement.
This is part of a collection of resources created by the Department of Labor and other federal agencies, relating to job quality and implementing good jobs priorities through federal investments and beyond. Many of these resources are no longer publicly available on government websites, though they were all at one point public and shared with the intent of preserving these resources for public use.
Please note that we cannot guarantee that information contained in these resources related to specific programs, policies, and processes remains accurate, though many best practices and examples remain useful. In addition, many of these resources link out to government websites that do not exist anymore. You may be able to find these linked resources in the archive itself by searching the Overview document. For more resources, please visit the Data Rescue Project website, at https://www.datarescueproject.org/
In this event, panelists discuss the promise of work-based learning. When designed well, work-based learning provides a number of benefits to workers and businesses. Approaches such as apprenticeship, on-the-job training, and other forms of employer-sponsored training can offer workers the opportunity for upward mobility and the chance to earn and learn at the same time, while employers gain a more engaged and skilled workforce.
This resource, created as guidance for the Department of Commerce Internet for All initiative, provides examples of childcare initiatives, which employers can implement to make their workplaces more accessible for caregivers and attract a diverse pool of talent despite caregiving responsibilities. Examples, with case studies of these strategies being implemented, include: on-site childcare, all hours childcare, grant programs, public-private partnerships, family resources, and subsidies.
This is part of a collection of resources created by the Department of Labor and other federal agencies, relating to job quality and implementing good jobs priorities through federal investments and beyond. Many of these resources are no longer publicly available on government websites, though they were all at one point public and shared with the intent of preserving these resources for public use.
Please note that we cannot guarantee that information contained in these resources related to specific programs, policies, and processes remains accurate, though many best practices and examples remain useful. In addition, many of these resources link out to government websites that do not exist anymore. You may be able to find these linked resources in the archive itself by searching the Overview document. For more resources, please visit the Data Rescue Project website, at https://www.datarescueproject.org/
The Hartford has a large workers’ compensation business, ranked 2nd in the nation based on direct written premiums. Workers’ compensation is insurance that provides coverage in the form of cash payments or medical care for workers who are injured on the job. Recently, the company discovered that a significant proportion of claims that were made through the workers’ compensation department were relatively simple claims, referred to as “medical only,” that required only coverage for medications or medical care and not more complex areas such as lost wages or time off work. Medical-only also includes claims that do not require any significant medical intervention or service, as well as claims where the treatment was completed before the claim was filed. This area represented a prime opportunity for automation, where work previously done by a claim administrator would instead be automated using custom-built computer algorithms, freeing up staff members to do more complex work. They determined that some medical-only claims processes could be automated, eliminating multiple human touchpoints without sacrificing compliance or customer outcomes. As with other automation efforts, AI often creates significant financial returns and efficiency gains, giving work previously done by humans to a machine. Unlike many automation efforts, though, The Hartford did not find savings through eliminating workforce. Rather, they took the opportunity created by the automation and reformed roles to fill different business needs, enabling the entire workers’ compensation department to handle more, more efficiently.
This piece reflects on the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program’s event “Democratizing Work: The Role, Opportunities, and Challenges of Worker Cooperatives in the US,” which introduced the US movement for worker cooperatives and discussed their potnetial to improve job quality.
This piece from the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program discusses how placing trust in workers is not just important for job quality but also improves business outcomes, as well as reflecting on the economy-wide implications of increasing trust in workers.
The profile features an interview with A Few Cool Hardware Stores founder and CEO, Gina Schaefer, who explains her decision to convert to an ESOP, the process of transitioning to employee ownership, and the challenges and successes she and the new employee owners have encountered along the way. Gina recently published a book, Recovery Hardware, about the business’s journey in helping revitalize neighborhoods and in supporting employees to improve their lives.
This issue brief reviews the history and current state of job design, highlights the benefits workers and businesses receive when jobs are designed with worker well-being in mind, and notes emerging issues and practices in job design related to technology, work-based learning, and employee ownership. We hope this brief sparks new thinking and conversations about how we can all encourage and contribute to designing work and workplaces that promote quality jobs.