To be sure, many of labor's problems--the globalization of the economy, the willingness of American corporations to break the law rather than permit unionization, the temping of an increasingly insecure workforce--may be beyond the capacity of any leadership to solve.
Across western Europe, the old industrial working class – with its relatively stable jobs and cohesive communities based around workplaces – has given way to a more fragmented and insecure service-sector workforce.
A distrusted, low-investment business sector and too many of the workforce in insecure, low-wage jobs unable to make ends meet.
A combination of low pay, low participation in the workforce and insecure employment not only drags down women's economic opportunities, but also the global economy as a whole, the report found.
But Labour and anti-poverty groups accused him of letting down people on the fringes of the workforce who suffer insecure employment, with plans for only limited improvements in workers' rights.
His ambition was to be a barman and he trained in silver service, but he was soon laid off from his first job and joined the ranks of Britain's burgeoning hire-and-fire, temporary workforce with its insecure terms and conditions.
"Labour market conditions are widening the income gap between full-time employees and an increasing share of the workforce on part-time, insecure and often low-paid jobs.
Radical reform of the jobs market launched a decade ago has left around a quarter of the workforce in low-paid, insecure and part-time employment, belying the impression of an economic miracle with a flawless jobs success story that has become the envy of the world.
Since the 1980s economists have used the term "the feminisation of labour" to refer to the growing premium of communication and interpersonal skills, perceived emotional intelligence and other supposedly feminine attributes at work, and also to the development of an insecure, low-paid, low status, disposable workforce.
If this amiable, courteous man, his demeanour irresistibly suggesting a serial chewer of Bosni fruit gums, has indeed effectively buried the Thatcherite doctrines which have for so long held British management in their tord grip - and especially the belief that the way to motivate your workforce is to make it feel neurotically insecure - then all I can say is: good-ee.
