The Social Contract As a Metaphor

Throughout our discussions, I have used the social contract as a metaphor to reframe this debate. By the social contract, I mean "the expectations and obligations that workers, employers, and their communities and societies have for work and employment relationships".^[3] I believe this concept serves as a useful metaphor for our efforts because its philosophical underpinnings capture the central concern of workers and employers today and reflect the best values of our profession.

The key elements in this metaphor, borrowed from political philosophy, are summarized in table 16.1.Work and employment should be a voluntary relationship, one mutually agreed upon and one that over time has processes and procedures that ensure continued consent of the governed. Each party to the employment relationship has responsibilities to each other and to society. Therefore, an employment relationship cannot be viewed, as it has come to be in today's winner-take-all economy, as solely a two-party instrumental exchange, focused on only narrow self-interest of the individual worker and his or her individual employer. Work and employment must contribute to a good society for all, however we define that term. For a social contract to be meaningful, it must also be enforceable in some sense, so that each party can be held accountable for keeping its part of the understanding.

Table 16.1: Key Features of a Social Contract

Voluntary	Terms of employment are mutually agreed upon.
Consent of the governed	Processes ensure the parties can modify the contract's terms as conditions change.
Mutual responsibility	Each party is responsible to each other and to the broader society.
Enforceability	Each party can be held accountable for keeping its part of the understanding.
Subsidiarity and democracy	Parties closest to the workplace are able to control their own destinies.
Adapted from the published writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Rawls.

Our uniquely American approach to the social contract reflects our highly decentralized traditions—we attempt to provide the parties closest to the workplace the rights, power, and capabilities needed to control their own destinies at work. This was the genius of the New Deal legislation providing for collective bargaining— what one of our distinguished predecessor presidents Milton Derber described as the American model of industrial democracy.^[4] Labor legislation would establish the basics that should apply to all workers, and then collective bargaining would act as a tool for workers and employers to add to these basics in ways that fit each particular employment setting.

But we have allowed our unique American institutional approach to workplace relations to erode and atrophy. Indeed, collective bargaining is only a shadow of its original vision and stature, now covering less than one in seven workers in America. And the workplace is awash in specific workplace regulations, most of which are sensible and important in their own right; but some are not well suited to the variety of employment settings found in the economy, some conflict with each other, and some are out of the reach of enforcement to the average worker. We also have ceded responsibility for improving working conditions and living standards to the macroeconomy. We can be thankful for the near-decade-long sustained prosperity that the American economy has enjoyed. The tight labor markets of the last several years have been successful in improving the lives of those near the bottom of the income and occupational ladder and those moving from welfare to work. In some respects, the macroeconomic policy makers have bailed out our profession. But we cannot assume the macroeconomic boom will do the job for us forever. At some point, we need to give parties in the workplace the tools to regain control over their destinies.

^[3]Thanks are due to the Task Force on Reconstructing America's Labor Market Institutions Working Group on the Social Contract and the Corporation for crafting this definition of the social contract.

^[4]Derber 1970.