MIT's Paul Osterman has a provocative piece in the Boston Review about some myths standing in the way of turning lousy, low-wage jobs into good jobs. The convention wisdom, he says, is "to let the economy generate jobs of whatever quality firms choose and then, if necessary, compensate by enabling people to avoid the bad ones or by shoring up people who are stuck. The nature of available jobs is a given." His arguments bolster the union movement's case that we need direct intervention in the labor market to make bad jobs into good jobs through collective bargaining, labor standards, public-sector leadership, training and career ladders and more.