Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Obama's Labor Day photo op. Philly teachers may strike.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Obama's Labor Day photo op. Philly teachers may strike.:

Obama's Labor Day photo op. Philly teachers may strike.

Obama Labor Day Photo Op

If you Google Obama's Labor Day Speech, the first news articles that come up will be about his intentions to lob missiles into Damascus. His actual Labor Day speech was little more than empty rhetoric and a hard-hat-wearing photo op with a few real factory workers. None of the pro-labor initiatives promised back in 2008 have even been mentioned again and unions are in the weakest position in decades with right-wing governors successfully pushing so-called  "right-to-work" legislation in dozens of states.

The New York Times reports that there have been virtually no net full-time jobs added in the U.S. over the past three years — since the depth of the recession. A key reason the unemployment rate has declined is because so many people have stopped looking for work; adult work-force participation is near historic lows. The vast majority of jobs being created are part time, often without benefits. The U.S. Labor Department reports the average workweek is now less than 33 hours in several huge industries: leisure/hospitality, education, health services and retail trade.

In the classical terminology of Marx, a large reserve army of labor reduces both the individual and the collective bargaining power of workers, enabling capital to