After play­ing a key role in Pres­i­dent Obama’s re-elec­tion, the labor move­ment must piv­ot imme­di­ate­ly to a new task: mov­ing the pres­i­dent away from a poten­tial­ly dis­as­trous pol­i­cy of ​“aus­ter­i­ty eco­nom­ics” and toward a sec­ond-term adop­tion of more work­er-friend­ly ​“pros­per­i­ty eco­nom­ics.” In the weeks after the elec­tion, Oba­ma will nego­ti­ate with the hard-right House Repub­li­cans about the loom­ing threat of auto­mat­ic across-the-board cuts.

Vigorous job creation will not only meet the needs of the jobless but also give workers more confidence and power to raise stagnant wages.

Labor lead­ers see Obama’s strat­e­gy on these nego­ti­a­tions as a key test of his sec­ond-term pri­or­i­ties. They fear that if he accepts cuts to impor­tant pro­grams such as Social Secu­ri­ty, Medicare and Med­ic­aid, his pres­i­den­cy will turn into a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic cat­a­stro­phe for work­ing peo­ple. ​“Even peo­ple who vot­ed for Mitt Rom­ney” don’t want cuts to those key social insur­ance pro­grams, says AFL-CIO Pres­i­dent Richard Trum­ka. Instead, labor wants Oba­ma to adopt a plan for ​“pros­per­i­ty eco­nom­ics” along the lines pro­posed by Yale polit­i­cal sci­en­tists Jacob Hack­er and Nate Loewen­theil ear­li­er this year. Beyond debunk­ing aus­ter­i­ty as a deeply flawed strat­e­gy, Hack­er and Loewen­theil argue for a gov­ern­ment invest­ment in such areas as research, infra­struc­ture, edu­ca­tion, improved eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal secu­ri­ty for work­ing fam­i­lies, con­straints on cor­po­rate polit­i­cal pow­er, and more wide­spread union­iza­tion. Togeth­er these mea­sures will pro­vide stronger, more equi­tably shared eco­nom­ic growth that ulti­mate­ly resolves bud­get deficits.

If Oba­ma adopts a deficit-obsessed aus­ter­i­ty approach to the long-range bud­get, there will be lit­tle mon­ey avail­able for cre­at­ing jobs — what work­ers most need from the next Con­gress. And if Oba­ma breaks his promise to pro­tect social insur­ance pro­grams and accepts a ​“grand bar­gain” with Repub­li­cans that pro­longs the past ​“lost decade” for work­ers, the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic reper­cus­sions could be far-reach­ing. ​“Our mem­bers would sim­ply walk away from the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, and Paul Ryan would be pres­i­dent in 2016,” one labor offi­cial says.

Vig­or­ous job cre­ation will not only meet the needs of the job­less but also give work­ers more con­fi­dence and pow­er to raise stag­nant wages.

Many union strate­gists will con­tin­ue to push for a revised, updat­ed ver­sion of the Employ­ee Free Choice Act, but such reform is a longer-term strug­gle. Oba­ma side­lined labor law reform in his first term, and his recent cam­paign pro­gram to strength­en the mid­dle class did not even men­tion unions, let alone leg­is­la­tion to facil­i­tate organizing.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers of Amer­i­ca Pres­i­dent Lar­ry Cohen envi­sions cre­at­ing a mass coali­tion move­ment for both eco­nom­ic jus­tice and stronger democ­ra­cy that would take up issues from labor rights to cli­mate change and cor­po­rate per­son­hood. Increas­ing­ly, union lead­ers believe reform will only come after social dis­rup­tion or polit­i­cal cost forces the issue. ​“Unrest first,” says one high-rank­ing strate­gist, invok­ing the prece­dents of both the civ­il rights move­ment and labor orga­niz­ing in the 1930s. ​“Labor law next.”