Labor

Clarification: NLRB nominee Craig Becker has written that in National Labor Relations Board proceedings related to unionizing, where a union or workers file for a "Board election"in order to form or dissolve a union, there is nothing in the National Labor Relations Act which compels the NLRB's current policy, which is to permit the employer to be an active participant either favoring, opposing or even obstructing such an election.

The Social Security system was intended not merely to provide public pensions for the elderly but to establish a framework for a comprehensive system of economic security. Steven Attewell writes: “We need to go back to the original drawing board – the Social Security Act of 1935 – to finish the job it began and create a truly universal and comprehensive social welfare state.”

With the nation’s unemployment rate at 10 percent, the highest in a generation, President Obama could learn a thing or two about job creation by heading to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

On display is an exhibit of New Deal-era paintings that show men building roads, laying pipe, and shoveling snow. The artists were paid by the New Deal to paint these portraits; and the people in them were paid by the New Deal to construct public-works projects and the nation’s infrastructure.

Since President Obama announced the December job summit this month, the policy world has scrambled to put forth their ideas on how to best stimulate job creation in our jobless recovery. Some have noticed the surprisingly low German unemployment rate in the face of the Great Recession; Germany has been one of the worst-hit European economies, but their unemployment rate ticked down from 8.6 percent in March to 7.7 percent in October of this year.

President Obama's jobs summit on Thursday is unlikely to produce a consensus about what, if anything, to do about the crisis of mass unemployment in America. Nevertheless, it is helpful because it focuses the attention of the public and Congress on the urgent need for policies to promote job creation in the United States rather than wait passively for the economy to shift to a "new normal" in which unemployment might be permanently much higher than in recent decades.

As Barack Obama prepares to get a stimulus plan launched this winter, carefully planting seeds of cross-party warmth and nurturing each rare shoot, he may wish to avoid unrelated matters that cause bitter partisan showdowns and lay waste to the whole damn thing. At least, that seems wisest when you're asking for a trillion or so in new spending. So people understood why Rahm Emanuel, during a meeting with the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council last November, dodged an inquiry about a contentious piece of legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act.

Today is Labor Day, when we celebrate the wealth destroyers--at least if the libertarian right is to be believed.

The labor movement is at a dead end. Since 2008, a new Gallup survey finds that support for the labor movement has fallen to 48% from 59%, the lowest level in the 70 years Gallup has asked the question. This is despite the fact that labor has powerful allies in the White House and Congress, and a populist, anti-corporate mood has taken hold in the country.