Strengthening labor law, especially the right to organize, and penalties against law-breakers, is part of a comprehensive plan for shared prosperity the AFL-CIO Executive Council endorsed last week.

Prosperity Economics: Building An Economy For All, by Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker and Yale law student Nate Loewenthall, covers everything from labor law to campaign finance to restoring manufacturing to repealing the Bush tax cuts.

The 71-page document also calls for ultimate repeal of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, which has opened the floodgates to hordes of corporate campaign cash. That cash silences workers' voices and corrupts democracy, it says. And after demolishing what it calls myths that fuel the current "austerity economics," Hacker proceeds with a structure for an alternative.

"America desperately needs a reinvigorated middle class and an economy where dignity and opportunity are rights shared by all and where workers are our economy's most valuable assets," the council said in urging policymakers to adopt its recommendations. "But this vision will remain unfulfilled so long as the right to organize and bargain collectively remains an empty promise for most American workers."