USA TODAY—American Compass’s Wells King connects dysfunctional labor laws, declining union-participation, and partisan interests to the rise of economic inequality.

EVENT—American Compass’s research director Wells King shares key insights from the “Moving the Chains” policy symposium on the inaugural panel for the Industry Studies Association’s new webinar series.

Few Americans realize how our system of organized labor is an outlier among Western nations. In some European countries, unions attract a greater share of workers and maintain less adversarial relationships with business. A better understanding of these alternative models can guide American policymakers as they address our labor policy challenges.

In its latest public statement, American Compass affirms the enduring importance of organized labor and the need for conservatives to have a stake in its future. It challenges a right-of-center accustomed to dismiss unions to instead reconsider their role in our common life as well as the deeper costs of their absence. But doing so […]

Since at least the inauguration, a central question of this presidency has been whether Trump could cease campaigning and learn to govern. Now, with less than 70 days until the general election, a contrary question is equally pressing: will Trump stop governing like a Republican and start campaigning again as a populist? Gone from Trump […]

The “gig” may soon be up for Uber. A San Francisco judge’s ruling that ride-sharing services must treat their drivers as employees has both Uber and Lyft threatening to discontinue service in California, seemingly conceding that their money-losing business model relies not only on the subsidy of endless investor capital but also the legal arbitrage […]

Just as American Compass was releasing the Corporate Actual Responsibility project, the New York Times’s DealBook announced its own corporate-responsibility event. But the progressive Times wasn’t covering the obligations that businesses have to workers, their families and communities. Instead, it hosted a discussion with its own Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The 1619 Project, to discuss […]

Four American companies demonstrate how to fulfill corporate obligations without sacrificing corporate performance.

Corporate actual responsibility encompasses a set of obligations to workers to secure good jobs that can support families and offer professional development and advancement. The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based gasoline and convenience store chain QuikTrip has fulfilled these obligations while steadily growing and routinely outperforming its competitors. According to CEO Chet Cadieux, who took over the business […]

Corporate actual responsibility entails an obligation to invest broadly in actual communities rather than funding and advocating national progressive causes.  Gallery Furniture, an independent retailer in Houston, Texas, has become a fixture of its local community by dedicating company assets and orienting operations toward supporting the local common good. CEO Jim McIngvale, who founded the […]

Corporate actual responsibility entails an obligation to the nation to reinvest in its “industrial commons” and make strategic decisions that improve its economic trajectory. Long a giant of American innovation and high-tech manufacturing, the Silicon Valley-based chipmaker Intel has made a conscious priority of bolstering American competitiveness in a strategic sector. Many technology firms have […]

Corporate actual responsibility includes the obligation of employers to respect the balance of work and family commitments and to support employees’ aspirations for family formation. Recent campaigns for gender parity have drawn public attention to the “family-friendly workplace.” But such initiatives typically provide additional benefits for white-collar professionals and focus on keeping women attached to the […]