"labor laws must be changed to recognize the rights of new types of workers who must be allowed to

[pampango]

form the next generation of labor organizations"

http://www.seattlepi.com/politico/426245_politico41757.html

Since the 19th century, our economy has cycled through a radical transformation every 50 to 75 years. Just as America went from having an agrarian economy to an industrial one in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we have more recently shifted into an information economy. During every period of transition, many people get left behind, and our democracy feels the strain of growing inequality. Too often, the insecurity and resentment fostered by rapid structural change provoke harmful waves of scapegoating and anti-immigrant nativism.

It takes the organized efforts of working people to reverse these trends toward exclusion and to ensure that each new epoch will bring a shared prosperity. During the transition to the industrial economy, it was not preordained that the auto, steel or textile industries would provide living wages, health care, pensions and other benefits that allowed for a stable, thriving middle class. Rather, employees needed to use the institution of collective bargaining to come together, negotiate with their employers and demand the conditions that would provide a healthy quality of life for working people.

Today, in the wake of an economic crisis that has left American workers more insecure than ever, we need to move our nation's labor laws out of the industrial era and into the new economy. American labor law is still based in the National Labor Relations Act, enacted in the 1930s. It was designed with the employment relationships of those bygone times in mind. Given these profound shifts, labor laws must be changed to recognize the rights of new types of workers. And the new laws must allow workers to form the next generation of labor organizations.

Getting there requires the labor movement to use its political capital to demand a legal framework for collective bargaining that will allow it to push beyond its traditional boundaries. This means spending as much time advocating for the rights of those currently excluded from its ranks as it spends protecting existing union members. Moreover, elected officials must enact substantive reforms that will allow labor organizations to change with the times. The alternative is dire. The longer we neglect the yawning gulf between the structure of our economy and the structure of our labor laws, the faster shared prosperity and a secure middle class in America will become relics of the past.

Amy Dean is co-author of "A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement." She worked for two decades in the labor movement and now develops innovative organizing strategies for social change organizations.

[JDPriestly]

1. We also need new, stricter laws about age discrimination.

Our economy will fall apart unless older workers are accommodated and accepted in the workplace. Older workers have a lot of physical and even some intellectual problems in the workplace, but it is necessary to keep people who want to work and can work on the job as long as they are needed. Of course, right now, unemployment is high and older workers are made to feel that they are not needed, but hopefully this might change. And if it does, older workers will be rehired as independent contractors at very cheap rates. This could create tremendous problems for all workers. This is a very important, very difficult problem. I don't know the answers. I just know that research is needed on this.