In May 1973 the Department of Employment published Manpower Paper number 7, ‘The Quality of Working Life’. This paper aroused considerable interest within the Chemical and Allied Products Industry Training Board, as its publication coincided with the completion of two years' work by a board working party on Organisation Development. Much of the work of this working party had impinged upon subjects which come under the heading of The Quality of Working Life. The board decided, therefore, to continue the working party so that it could examine the board's possible contribution to an improved quality of working life in the industry. To support the working party, the author, as part of a study tour in the USA, was asked to look at what was being done and said about the quality of working life in the USA. These are the impressions he gathered from a variety of people with different interests in the subject.