I think that one cause that is not mentioned very often is our lack of legal protection for employees. The power is all on the side of employers, of investors.
We need to have laws that help us work together, employees and bosses. Right now, our laws put us at loggerheads. That is not working. Our society and our technologyare too complex for that.
Think about how our lives differ from those of our great-grandfathers.
We need to change our expectations about the workplace to reflect the fact that we have to cooperate and trust each other nowadays. At-will employment is not working today. Employers should not be able to just fire people because they can hire someone younger that they like better.
And employers should help bear some of the responsibility for training and educating their employees to do specific jobs. More than they do now. As it is the retraining of employees, say acquiring better computer or even basic math skills is usually the burden of the employee. The employer wants people with top skills, but expects the employee to get those skills on his or her own.
It used to be the government would provide the opportunities for people to get those skills. But now, employers don't want to pay high enough taxes to pay for government education and continuing education for ordinary people.
So we have a country in which employers do not adequately train their employees and in which employees cannot afford to pay for the training themselves. We need to change that.
Also employers should be required to let employees know how the company is doing financially. In theory, we have laws that prevent discrimination based on certain factors, but we don't really protect the ability of employees to survive in our changing economy.
= new reply since forum marked as read