Wall Street Journal (01/28/13) Laura Meckler

In a bipartisan legislative framework released today, millions of illegal immigrants would be given a path to citizenship. Most people in the country illegally could qualify for legal status and work permits, so long as they met certain criteria, such as a background check. The framework would also strenghten rules to make sure companies hire legally.

Washington Post (01/25/13) Robert Barnes; Steven Mufson

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has invalidated three of President Obama’s appointments to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board on constitutional grounds. In Noel Canning v. NLRB, a unanimous court held that the appointments of Sharon Block, Terence Flynn, and Richard Griffin to the NLRB on Jan. 4, 2012, were not valid “recess” appointments under the Constitution. The court’s decision casts doubt on hundreds of decisions the NLRB has mde in the past year, including enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements and the rights of employees to use social media.

New York Times (01/27/13) Erin Hatton

During the last three years, the temporary staffing industry has added more jobs to the U.S. economy than any other industry, according to the American Staffing Association. This opinion piece by Erin Hatton, an assistant professor of sociology at the State University of New York, argues that low-wage, temporary jobs have become so prevalent that they could become the norm. Hatton says instead of investing in American employees, companies have lowered wages and slashed benefits, converting permanent employees into part-time and contingent workers. Hatton concludes by noting that “If we want good jobs rather than just any jobs, we need to figure out how to preserve what is useful and innovative about temporary employment while jettisoning the antiworker ideology that has come to accompany it.”