This article summarizes “The Rewards of Work: Lessons from the Fair Labor Standards Actt,” an Opportunity in America event EOP hosted in 2022 to explore the history of the FLSA and how it could be updated and strengthenedt to improve workers’ wages and working conditions.

This shared definition of job quality was created collaboratively by leaders in business, labor, workforce development, and policy as part of the Good Jobs Champions Group, an initiative of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program and the Families and Workers Fund. The definition provides a framework for understanding job quality, dividing the components of a good job into three categories: economic stability, economic mobility, and equity, respect & voice.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or religion. Despite this, however, racial and gender wage gaps persist, discrimination still limits opportunity for many, and harassment continues to make many workplaces unproductive and unsafe. In this event, panelists discuss ongoing progress to realize equal opportunity at work, given the ever increasing diversity of the workforce. As we look to address the issues of today, and build toward a better future, what can we learn from the history and legacy of Title VII?

In this event, Erica Smiley and Sarita Gupta, the authors of “The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century,” argue that collective bargaining can be used to help improve work, address discrimination, and improve the health of our democracy. They explore the struggles of work today and explain how new forms of collective bargaining and worker organizing and power can help build a healthy, multiracial democracy with an economy that works for all.

In recent years, headlines have been filled with stories of workers from various industries on strike and attempting to unionize. The roots of these efforts lie with workers in the 1800s and early 1900s who first attempted to organize and used strikes to protest low wages and poor working conditions. Those early labor movements contributed to the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935, which gave workers the right to organize into unions and made it the official policy of the US to encourage collective bargaining. Although union membership surged after its passage, the NRLA had less of an impact for women and people of color, whose main occupations in agricultural and domestic work were deliberately excluded from the law, exclusions that still negatively affect millions of workers today. And the impact of NRLA in supporting collective bargaining has also waned over time, as membership declined from 35% of wage and salary workers in 1954 to just 10% in 2022. As panelists discuss in this event, the future of work and job quality rests in part on workers having the ability to influence their work and workplace, and the NLRA provides the legal foundation for workers’ right to exercise that agency. As we look to shape the future of work, what lessons can we learn from the NLRA’s history, impact and effectiveness today?

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, companies faced pressure to improve factors that contribute to job quality, including wages, benefits, workplace safety, racial and gender equity, and opportunities to learn and grow. But often overlooked is the content of the work — how does what we do align with who we think we are? In this event, Eyal Press, author of “Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America,” explores the toll of moral injuries at work, highlighting the working conditions of jobs that typically go unseen and raising disquieting questions about our society and its dependence on these jobs.

This event serves as a capstone to a year-long study on how the events of 2020 and 2021 — including the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened attention to racial inequality — affected businesses, including their operations, skill needs, hiring, human resources, and education and training programs. Panelists discuss what they learned from employers and what can and should be done to help workers build the digital skills needed to advance in the workplace.

One year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of non-retired adults said its lingering consequences would make it harder for them to meet their financial needs and goals. This event focuses on what companies can accomplish when they strive to improve the financial health and resilience of their workers. Senior executives from major companies discuss how they came to prioritize this issue, some of the surprises and challenges encountered, and lessons that others can build on. The companies represented on the panel are part of the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative, which was launched in October 2020 by PayPal and JUST Capital, in collaboration with the Financial Health Network and Good Jobs Institute.

Promoting Equity and Inclusion and Connection to Good Fit Jobs for Young Adults describes three categories of practice for employer engagement including leveraging political and financial incentives to influence employer practice change; acltivating connections between employers and young adults to influence employer practices; and working with employers to change practices from the inside. We hope this new publication will be helpful for workforce practitioners looking to engage with employers around supporting equity and inclusion in the workplace and to expand good-fit jobs in their communities.

Government, business, labor, and education leaders need to consider ideas to build and strengthen inclusive systems of lifelong learning that provide opportunities for adult workers to develop and improve the knowledge and skills they can apply to their jobs. This brief explores one such approach: separating training from specific jobs, so that workers can accumulate the benefits of training as they work across multiple jobs or switch jobs frequently, an approach we call portable training. In the following sections, we first contextualize portable training in the current landscape of worker education and training in the US. We then consider the potential strengths and risks of a portable approach. Finally, we look abroad and consider several portable training programs that have been established in France, Singapore, Canada, and Scotland, highlighting how program design choices can mediate the possible challenges of a more portable system of training.