POS BC 3333 COLLOQUIUM ON POLICY ANALYSIS:
The Politics of Jobs Policy
Fall 1998
Judith Russell
This colloquium is designed to give students an organized opportunity to investigate a key policy area in the United States—employment policy. Our plan is to finish the semester with a respectable understanding of the theoretical framework that determines employment policy, as well as the historical, political, economic, and real world context in which decisions are made that shape the American world of work today. While our focus is on government jobs policy, this area cannot be understood without serious analysis of the economic assumptions that underpin American government and the way we do business, of the changes in the private sector that have had direct impact on the number and nature of available jobs, and of the global business environment in which American business (and workers) must compete.
Course requirements:
1. Informed attendance. Each week assigned readings must be read before our class meeting. Do not come to class unprepared. This should be a lively and productive colloquium, but can only be so with a high level of commitment by its participants. In this class you are responsible for signing the attendance sheet that circulates. You should arrive on time in order to sign this sheet. More than three absences will cause you to lose you right to complete the course.
2. Informed participation is expected. Classes will be organized by and around each week’s readings and student presentations related to them. This will entail two 15/20 minute presentations by each student during the semester. In addition, students who are not presenting are to submit hand written or typed reading notes on each week’s assigned reading. These may be informal or schematic impressions of the assigned material. The function of this exercise is not to determine the quality of your interpretation, but to assure that materials have been read before class.
3. Written work will take the form of a 25 page analytical research paper. The paper may be a critical analysis of some aspect of employment policy or related issues we are studying. It may be a case study highlighting some aspect of jobs policy from the governmental perspective or that of the private sector; it may be concerned with how these issues are affecting ordinary communities or workers; it may take another form we agree on together. A two page, typed, proposal of the research paper, with bibliography, must be submitted to me by October 6, although you may hand your proposal in before this date. Each student is responsible for scheduling at least one consultation with me before submitting her paper proposal and I am available for many more. The paper is due on December 8, unless you would like to hand it in early, no exceptions!
Readings
All readings are on reserve at the Barnard Reserve Room. The readings indicated below are available for purchase at the Columbia University Bookstore.
Books for purchase
Burtless, Gary, ed., A Future of Lousy Jobs? The Changing Structure of US Wages (Brookings, 1990)
Craypo, Charles and Bruce Nissen, eds., Grand Designs: The Impact of Corporate Strategies on Workers, Unions, and Communities (ILR Press, 1993)
Edwards, Richard, Rights at Work: Employment Relations in the Post-Union Era (Brookings, 1993)
Freeman, Richard B., ed., Working Under Different Rules (Russell Sage, 1994)
Harvey, Philip, Securing the Right to Employment: Social Welfare Policy and the Unemployed in the United States (Princeton, 1989)
The New York Times Special Report: Downsizing of America (Times Books, Random House, 1996)
Reich, Robert, Locked in the Cabinet (Knopf)
Schneier, Edward V. and Bertram Gross, Legislative Strategy: Shaping Public Policy (St. Martin’s Press, 1993)
The Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report on Retraining America’s Workforce, No One Left Behind (Twentieth Century Fund Press)
Weir, Margaret, Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States (Princeton, 1992)
September 8 Introduction: The Problem of Employment in the United States
September 15 American Workers and Economic Transformations
The Downsizing of America (New York Times series)
Part I. Economic Ideology and Ideological Economics
September 22 The Goal of Employment Policy: Full Employment?
Philip Harvey, Securing the Right to Employment: Social Welfare Policy and the Unemployed in the United States
September 29 American Exceptionalism
Margaret Weir, Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States
October 6 Research proposals due
Discussion of proposed research and presentation by the Director of Library Research, Barnard College Library
Part II. Politics
October 13 The Politics of Politics
Schneier and Gross, Legislative Strategy: Shaping Public Policy
October 20 The Politics of the Real World
Robert Reich, Locked in the Cabinet
Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, “What Is A Nation?” in Political Science Quarterly Vol. 106, No. 2, Summer 1991
October 27 The Politics of Job Training
Gordon Lafer, "The Politics of Job Training: Urban Poverty and the False Promise of JTPA" in Politics and Society Vol. 22, September 1994
Part III. American Corporations
November 3 No class, Election Day
November 10 The American Firm and the New Industrial Environment
Charles Craypo and Bruce Nissen, eds., Grand Designs: The Impact of Corporate Strategies on Workers, Unions, and Communities
Part IV. Working: Who Works? Who Doesn’t? How We Work Now
November 17 Work is Different Today
Richard B. Freeman, Working Under Different Rules
November 24 The Decline of Middle Class Jobs
Gary Burtless, A Future of Lousy Jobs?
December 1 Workers Rights: Memory, Dream, or Oxymoron?
Richard Edwards, Rights at Work
Part V. Solutions
December 8 Lifelong Learning
No One Left Behind: The Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report on Retraining America’s Workforce
