Working families today live in an economy that values education, high skills and family self-sufficiency, yet doesn't provide adequate tools for many workers to gain high skills and doesn't create and retain sufficient quality jobs that sustain families. Employers operate in an economy that rewards competitors for low road behavior, such as moving operations to low-wage countries with few if any protections for workers and the environment.

Through high road partnerships, such as those studied for this report, unions, employers, communities and government are working together to create and retain good jobs, to enable employers to compete based on innovation and value and to build strong communities with working-family-friendly economic development.

By combining the key players in sectoral and regional economies, high road partnerships have the potential to achieve far more change than any individual union, firm, community group or government agency could.