The Need for Leadership

This last point—the need for presidential leadership—is especially important. If Franklin Roosevelt could provide the leadership needed to enact the New Deal labor policies, and Ronald Reagan could usher in an era of aggressive managerial actions against unions by firing air-traffic controllers, the next president can surely energize the country around an effort to support policies and institutions needed to build a new social contract based on the full range of human, economic, and social expectations and obligations we have for work today.

Neither we in the IRRA nor our national leaders can do this alone. We need to continue taking our ideas and message to the American public. Unless we engage a broad cross section of the public—young and old, women and men, entry-level and professional-managerial workers—our message will fall on deaf ears. And we must reach out to and include in these discussions the same wide web of groups and leaders from business, labor, community groups, family advocates, and others who share an interest in these issues. If we do our job well, then we can hold elected leaders' feet to the fire and insist they carry out their responsibilities by putting these issues front and center on the national agenda. As I said at the outset, the next generation of professionals in our field will judge us by how well we discharge this responsibility.