While the reforms in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain arguably bring substantive reduction of EPL for permanent workers, reforms in France and the Netherlands were more subtle.
They also put new wage and safety regulations on the books to protect coal miners, construction workers and home care workers, reforms that had been decades in the making.
The kind of guest-worker reform Mr. Bloomberg wants has languished in Congress for more than a decade, stymied by Republican opposition.
Harkin said the guest worker reform was both an economic issue and a human rights issue, noting that some employers don't play by the rules and end up hurting their aboveboard competitors.
Aligning themselves with their Republican colleagues, caucus members have blocked a range of environmental and pro-worker reforms.
"I call on the Legislature to deliver real workers' comp reform to my desk by March 1," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in his state of the state address in January.
Despite this relative transparency and initiatives under way to address the problems facing domestic workers here, reform is still in its infancy and for many any change would come too late.
Last year, Mr Schwarzenegger got through his workers' compensation reform by threatening to take his scheme to the people; the Democrats caved in in exchange for some last minute concessions.
"Governor Spitzer deserves a lot of credit for bringing together disparate groups and leaders to agree on a truly significant workers' compensation reform package, said James N. Tedisco, the Republican leader in the Assembly.
More important, perhaps, progressives to a large degree achieved their economic and social objectives among them, strict regulation of intrastate railroads and public utilities, legislation to prevent child labour and to protect women workers, penal reform, expanded charitable services to the poor, and accident insurance systems to provide compensation to workers and their families.
