Customer Reviews

Restoring Prosperity:: How Workers and Managers Are Forging a New Culture of Cooperation

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I read "Restoring Prosperity" when it was just coming out. Eleven years layer, I am still recommending this book to people.

As this world we share changes, we must also change. We must learn from the past, and try not to repeat the mistakes of others. When it comes to industry, this book is one of the guideposts that can help you examine your own business, and see if you are falling into the traps that lead many to the unemployment line.

The book is well laid out, and easy to read. Between the story aspects with first person accounts, hard numbers to back things up, and explanatory notes, you get a complete picture of the problems that were faced, solutions that were applied, and results.

Not all the results were good. They do not cover up the bad. And in the good results, side effects of many sorts were exposed.

No matter what your industry is, this book should be owned by the company, and passed around between all the managers, foremen, office personnel and other workers. That is because it has important information for everyone about how and why a company needs to work together, what compromises work, and what ones don't.

It also exposes key elements in globalization, and how working with foreign corporations adds new challenges, and new results.

This is not a silver bullet book, or cure all for a company's woes. But it is good information, in a good format, that deserves inclusion in your company's brain trust.

We are seeing the economy of 'cooperation' between labor and management right at this moment. It is called a flattening of wages in the last 30 years. It is called the destruction of unions which is part and parcel of the wage flattening. It is propaganda to believe that managers have the best interest of workers at heart. Managers are middle men who exist to ensure the continuation of profit for the executives. This, as history attests, is done by paying the workers less money than the workers produce. If it ever becomes otherwise the worker is fired. In a capitalist structure business works no other way, no matter what happy face you put on it.

If labor is being included in the 'idea' process, you can bet that this does not translate to higher salaries or job security, but only another way to squeeze more from the worker for the good of the executives.