These discrepancies are the subject of Paul Osterman s book, Securing Prosperity. The role of institutions plays a major component in the book. His analysis and problem resolutions are tinted by his faith in the importance and predominance of institutions as a major player in labor markets, including big business, big government, and big labor. Both problems and solutions are defined within the context of institutions. In Osterman s view, each of these institutions is partially responsible for problems in the current labor market and each have a role in the solution to those problems.
Institutions become the counterweight to the vagaries of the marketplace.
While acknowledging that not all firms approached labor in the same manner, he feels that business and labor had a web of mutual obligations that defined the job market of the 1950s through the 1970s. The collapse of this web then becomes the fundamental cause of current problems. While the web collapsed for several reasons, the result was a loosening of the tie that bound workers to their employers. Companies gained new advantages over workers as power shifted from the worker to their employer. Demonstrating the results of this collapse by citing a variety of statistical evidence, including several BLS surveys, Osterman argues that many workers are suffering from these looser attachments between employees and their employers.