Nations should create jobs and stimulate growth, not cut back government spending with ruthless "austerity" measures if they want to successfully get out of the economic crisis, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka during a meeting of global leaders.

If you’re in Washington, D.C., next week, hope you can stop by the AFL-CIO for a discussion on “American Workers in an Age of Austerity.” Panelists will talk about what we can learn from the past as we strategize for the future in the context of labor, progessives and the current U.S. political environment.

Here’s mandatory reading material for lawmakers returning to Capitol Hill this week. A new United Nations study “savages” U.S. and European economic policies that call for austerity measures and deficit cuts, which the report says is pushing the world economy toward disaster “in a misguided attempt to please global financial markets.” The report called for:

wage increases, stricter regulation of financial markets, including a return to a system of managed exchange rates, and a conscious break with market-led thinking.