The New York Times rounded out 2008 by encouraging President-elect Obama and Secretary of Labor nominee Rep. Hilda Solis to take up the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would ensure that workers have a free choice and a fair chance to form a union, as a top priority:

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... 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.

Read the full New York Times editorial.