Labor

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.

Several years ago, I spoke on a panel where an audience member posed the rhetorical question, "Can any of you envision a robust progressive movement that doesn't have organized labor at the center of it?"

Can there be liberalism without labor? Can a progressive movement exist in a country in which organized labor has lost its political influence? My friend Mark Schmitt, the executive editor of the American Prospect, asks that question:

Samuel Sherraden from New America Foundation on why the government's $60 billion stimulus for green job creation hasn't worked. Original clip