There is a great editorial in The New York Times today on unions and the Obama Administration's commitment to labor--giving basically a full-throated endorsement of the Employee Free Choice Act and why it is such an important part of an economic recovery program.

Employee Free Choice legislation:

"The measure is vital legislation and should not be postponed. Even modest increases in the share of the unionized labor force push wages upward, because nonunion workplaces must keep up with unionized ones that collectively bargain for increases. By giving employees a bigger say in compensation issues, unions also help to establish corporate norms, the absence of which has contributed to unjustifiable disparities between executive pay and rank-and-file pay."

"The argument against unions -- that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands -- is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad, so the recession by itself is not an excuse to avoid pushing the bill next year. The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would...Without a united front, workers will have even less bargaining power in the recession than they had during the growth years of this decade, when they largely failed to get raises even as productivity and profits soared."

"If Mr. Obama's campaign promises are to be kept, that mindset cannot prevail again. Mr. Obama's creation of a task force on middle-class issues, to be led by Vice President-elect Joseph Biden and including Ms. Solis and other high-ranking officials, is an encouraging sign that labor issues will not be given short shrift."