Sar A. Levitan

The Changing Work Place

Contrary to popular prophecies of doom, the work place will undergo no cataclysmic transformation in the next decade. The labor force will continue to grow, as women and immigrants flock to work in increasing numbers. Computerized technologies will alter the content of many jobs, but they will neither force millions out of work nor result in dramatically different skill requirements in the labor market. Despite the flurry of interest in labor-management cooperation in the early 1980s, American industrial relations will also continue to be characterized by traditional adversarial roles. Workers will be more educated than in prior generations, jobs will shift increasingly into the service sector, and both displaced workers and declining geographic areas will struggle with the U.S. economys gradual evolution. For unions, the greatest challenges posed by the changing work place will be to meet the expectations of more affluent and educated workers in a period of slow economic growth, to reconcile concerns for job security and improved productivity, to expand their organizing efforts in growing occupations, industries, and regions, and to sustain their longstanding commitment to social justice.

An affirmation of faith

I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of Heaven and Earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son who was conceived by the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; the third day He rose from the dead, He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen

Budgeting states’ rights

I t has been said that there are no new debates in politics, just old battles waged again on different turf with different rhetoric. A look ahead to deliberations on a federal budget which questions our very concept of public responsibil i ty, and on a N e w Federa l i sm which is at least two decades old, seems to confirm this adage. All of our problems cannot be laid at President Reagan s door. Former presidents of both parties share in the responsibili ty fix current conditions, as do the governors of the Federal Reserve Board. There are no quick and easy answers to our current di lemma, but some sound reasoning is needed in order to elicit a prudent response. Given the long background to our present economic conditions, we cannot expect Reagan to fix overnight the mess he has helped create in the past year and a half. The adminis t ra t ion s ideologica l commitment to supply-side economics and to small and decentralized government is well known. For some, these concepts have assumed the stature of religious tenets, while for others they remain a category of voodoo superstitions. The administration has built its 1983 budget and its New Federalism proposal on three basic premises: