Work is just another four-letter word, the cynics say. Certainly, Canadians talk about it all the time – either struggling under the weight of too much of it or desperate about the lack of it. As British Columbia poet Tom Wayman has long maintained, given labour’s importance in our lives, it deserves a lot more intellectual attention than it usually gets.

Alberta sociologist Graham Lowe agrees. He sees The Quality of Work as an attempt to spark “an informed, wide-ranging debate about the changing work world.” The result is a clearly written, well-argued, 10-chapter analysis drawn from both the economic and historical roots of Canada’s current employment/unemployment scene.

Lowe argues for workplace restructuring and innovation, based on the humane view that unhappy and disenfranchised workers will never be fully productive workers. When working conditions improve, so does the human condition, he maintains. And when a country works well, democracy works better.

This is a difficult book to summarize because of its wide-ranging argument and analysis, but it should be read by everyone, boss and worker alike. Lowe maintains that the present – in what he sees as the bleak aftermath of public-sector cutbacks and wholesale corporate downsizing – may be the “most opportune time since the late 1970s to carefully consider the benefits of workplace reform.”

Employees’ needs for work security and satisfaction seem at odds with a corporate push for profitability. However, Lowe argues, both management and unions must realize that learning new skills and sharing in decision-making are as important to today’s workers as good salaries and benefits. “The future of work is the future of society,” Lowe asserts, to which all but the independently wealthy would respond with a heartfelt amen.