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20 Lab. Stud. J. 51 (1995-1996)
Rights at Work: Employment Relations in the Post-Union Era

handle is hein.journals/labstuj20 and id is 159 raw text is: BOOK REVIEWS Rights at Work: Employment Relations in the Post-Union Era. By Richard Edwards. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1993. 265 pp. $26.95, cloth. This easy to read prescription for the future, in which unions no longer act as America's driving economic force, should deservedly provoke discus- sion. Some will agree that present circumstances demand a break with out- moded aspects of our labor relations system or with Edwards' call for a new and more fertile common ground for shaping future employment relations. But probably not many worker educators will subscribe to Edwards' schema for labor law reform, which he terms choosing rights: Every firm over a certain size would be required by law to promulgate and distribute to its workers an employee handbook ... recognized in law as a binding and en- forceable employment contract. According to Edwards, handbooks should outline employee rights in- volving complaints, discipline, dismissals, promotions, and benefits. Em- ployers would tailor their own, which employees would ratify, or choose from a set of alternatives developed by a specially chartered commission. These handbooks would be enforced through a public system of dispute resolution using mediation, arbitration and litigation as a last resort. He believes employer handbooks would thus become the workers' bill of rights. Edwards' attempt at clearing our mental landscape of ideological ri- gidities, outmoded historical attachments, and other chimera that limit vision and prevent real progress deserves reading. This is a lucid, well organized book with many truths, including its overall plea contemplating common ground. His chapter on the inappropriateness of individual bargaining is clear and hopefully convincing to management readers. His chapter on the shrinking reach of unions provides (though not a forecast) an insightful current assessment that neither emulation, the threat effect, nor statutory generalization seems likely to transmit these collective-bargaining gains to workers at large. Similarly Edwards' chapter evaluating current employment laws well summarizes some obvious limitations, including employer FLSA noncom- pliance, ERISA's failure to ensure pensioners' rights, and econometric stud- ies' description of OSHA's miniscule impact. But while he states existing statutory protections should not be rolled back, he never convincingly argues why they should not be legislatively strengthened. He instead turns to hand- books via an easily understandable chapter on the rights contemporary firms are offering and another on promising employment-at-will cases. 51

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