OECD to workers worldwide: "make the best of it"

Although I have my ideological problems with the OECD, I've always admired its clarity of vision and practical approach (cf. their task force on spam). So I'm gratified to read that the new OECD Employment Outlook bluntly states what we anti-globalization types have been repeating for years, workers are getting screwed:

The report pointed to a "remarkable" fall in the share of wages of national income in OECD member countries in the past couple of decades. Japanese wages have fallen by around a quarter as a share of GDP in the past 30 years, while they have dropped 13% in the 15 wealthier European Union countries and 7% in the United States, the report showed.

[snip]

The OECD urged governments to resist protectionist responses and instead adapt employment policies to help people move from one job to another with greater ease and sense of security. It singled out Denmark and Austria as having good policies to help workers adapt to change.

Mr Gurría said some people had lost out, but this was something policies should tackle because globalisation was a positive and inevitable process. "It's how you make the best out of it," he said.

Sensible policy proposals, I must confess. Very anti-union, of course, but at least it still acknowledges the essential role of the state in protecting its citizens economically. This is an idea which seems to have been discarded by both major parties in the U.S.

Here is the OECD's accompanying editorial "Addressing the Globalization Paradox" [PDF] which includes the following crucial sentence: "low-skilled employment can also be supported by making the funding of social protection more 'progressive' and shifting from social contributions to tax bases which fall on broader population groups, and not just wage earners." I'm not sure what "broader population groups" they are referring to (the wealthy are surely a narrower group), but I think they are hinting at major tax-policy overhauls among some rich countries.