The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America

In the current era of intense global competition, advancing technology, weakness in organized labor and a worshiping of "shareholder value," the idea of a corporate social contract in America has become largely a myth. Most big companies seek to minimize their commitments to employees, as job security, pay, healthcare and pensions have all taken a severe hit. The few that invest in worker morale and culture-such as Google-are hailed as bold and innovative. But they don't tend to employ many people.In this richly detailed and eye-opening book, Rick Wartzman shows that for many of America's greatest companies, it wasn't always this way. As WWII drew to a close, General Motors, General Electric, Kodak and Coca-Cola were among the nation's business giants that took responsibility for providing their workers and retirees with an array of social benefits, erecting what was essentially a private welfare state. These companies also believed that worker pay needed to be kept high in order to pr