The International Monetary Fund, which has never found an austerity program it didn’t like, and has consistently argued for the emasculation of worker rights, has just issued a report saying that workers rights must be restored in the US.

Seriously, this is not something that I expected from this organization.

The IMF has been on the side of the banks and the oligarchs since its inception:

Systematic erosion of workers’ power relative to their employers has suppressed US wages

Politicians in both US political parties now acknowledge wage stagnation and have adopted narratives claiming that “the system is rigged.” Some focus on the number of immigrants and on what they see as unfair trade with China. Others focus on monopolies charging higher prices and reaping huge profits. There is, however, no agreement on what, and who, rigged the system.

In fact, as my new paper with colleagues Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz, “Explaining Wage Suppression” shows, wages have been kept low in the United States because workers have been systematically disempowered as a result of corporate practices and economic policies that were adopted—or reforms that were blocked—at the behest of business and the wealthy. This lack of worker power has caused wage suppression, increased wage inequality, and exacerbated racial disparities. The specific mechanisms behind this shift in power are excessive unemployment, globalization, eroded labor standards and their lack of enforcement, weakened collective bargaining, and corporate structure changes that disadvantage workers. To reestablish patterns of growth that benefit the vast majority requires new policies that center on rebuilding worker power.

Coming from someone like me, this would be considered pinko ranting, but from the IMF, even publishing this paper represents a shift.