, in Toronto to talk about overwork and the lunacy of life
in the New Economy, is racing through back-to-back appointments and grabbing
lunch on the fly to promote his "slow down" message.
"I'm violating every precept of my book," Mr. Reich concedes with an
engaging smile.
But Mr. Reich is a man on a mission, concerned about the social toll and
the erosion of family life as more and more working North Americans find
themselves trapped in a race for which there is no finish line.
"Americans are putting in more hours, even, than the notoriously
industrious Japanese . . . and Canadians are not too far behind," he says in
an interview.
"It is very, very common for professionals to put in more than 50 hours a
week, with young professionals in their 20s and 30s putting in 60- and 70-hour
work weeks," says Mr. Reich, 54.
Even those with the most exhilarating careers, the highest pay, the best
prerequisites reach the point where they realize "the route they are on has no
stopping point."
Mr. Reich's new book, The Future of Success, flows from a deeply
personal incident that led him to quit former president Bill Clinton's cabinet
in 1997.
He loved the heady excitement of the job, the 18-hour days that produced --
among other initiatives -- the Family and Medical Leave Act that enables U.S.
workers to take time off for family emergencies. The work was seductive,
highly rewarding -- and left little time for his wife and two teenaged
sons.
Until the youngest, Sam, called him on it.
Mr. Reich had telephoned to say he would not be home to say good night for
the fifth bedtime in a row, he relates in the opening chapter of his book.
That was okay, said Sam, but he wanted his dad to wake him up, no matter
how late. "He said he just wanted to know I was there, at home.
"To this day, I can't explain precisely what happened to me at that moment.
Yet, suddenly I knew I had to leave my job," he writes.
Although Mr. Reich, now a professor at Brandeis University, had spent most
of his adult life examining work and the economy, the incident "focused my
attention on the struggles most of us are having over paid work and the rest
of our lives . . . and it caused me to want to put together what I have
observed about the large-scale changes occurring in the global economy with
these small-scale personal dramas."
The gap between the highest paid and the lowest paid is growing, he says.
Those at the bottom are working full-tilt just to make ends met while those at
the top of the income scale are driven by insecurity -- who's hot today might
not be hot tomorrow. Even profitable corporations are downsizing and using
more contract employees; entire divisions are wiped out overnight as
businesses change course and chase the market.
"The problem, in short, is that very often there are only two tracks, fast
or slow," he writes. "The emerging economy doesn't offer many gradations in
between. Hourly and salaried workers are still with us, of course, but more of
their pay turns on how hard and how well they work . . . keeping up to speed
is now a necessity."
In many fast-moving fields, opting to work part-time is often seen as an
automatic career-breaker. This is why relatively few professionals, even in
"family friendly" companies, feel they can scale back their working hours to
spend more time at home, Mr. Reich says.
The former labour secretary concludes his book, published by New York-based
Alfred A. Knopf, with a series of sweeping proposals -- including guaranteed
work for anyone who wants it; a guaranteed minimum wage and "earnings
insurance" that would cushion people from sudden drops in income from one year
to the next. Those who had doubled their year-over-year income would pay into
the earnings insurance plan, while those whose earnings had been halved would
draw from it.
The digital economy -- as beneficial as it is in many respects -- has
ushered in the need for new social protections, just as the profound
structural changes wrought by the Industrial Age gave rise to laws against
child labour and hazardous working conditions.
Policy makers should consider guaranteed work for everyone who wants it --
if no private sector jobs are available, public service jobs can make up the
shortfall, Mr. Reich suggests. "We could also guarantee that all job holders
receive a minimally decent income. Anyone who works at least 40 hours a week
would be eligible for an income supplement that brought their total earnings
up to at least half of the nation's median income."
None of these "points of departure" has been seriously debated in the
United States, he says, "but we have to get out of the box."
The U.S. marriage rate is at "an all-time low." People are working so hard
that they are having fewer children or no children -- "the birthrate is
plummeting."
In the current hyper-competitive economy, individuals and corporations jump
off the treadmill at their peril, Mr. Reich says. The situation requires a
public discourse about what can be done on a national scale to curb the
excesses of the New Economy without compromising its benefits -- "in other
words, create a better social balance."
There is a fundamental debate going on in Europe "about the appropriate
balance between economic dynamism and social tranquillity in the New Economy,"
he says. "We are not having that debate in North America yet."
His current book tour notwithstanding, Mr. Reich has found tranquility in
his new role as an economics professor, author and father.
His sons, he says, were busy with their own lives when he finally carved
out more time to spend with them, but they seem to appreciate having him
around. One dreams of becoming an actor, he says, and the other wants to be a
labour organizer -- "there will be plenty for that one to
do."
