goldbricking (loafing on the job) and featherbedding (the practice of union to require an employer to hire more workers than needed)?
I have heard the second but not the first. Neither are in use over here - "goldbricking" is called "skiving" in UK - a strange word for which I have no idea of the etymology. [too-lazy-to LIU icon]
"Featherbedding" is just a dream over here - we have no name for a condition that just doesn't exist! In the days of full employment/labour shortages some unions went in for "restictive practices" - limiting the sort of work that a worker might undertake - a carpenter had to drill the hole for the electrician to feed the cable through, etc, and the carpenter had to have a mate, so did the electrician. These are akin to your "featherbedding, but the workers were taken from existing staf left over from when there was either more work, or most likely, when there was less technology that did away with the necessity for so many skilled people.
But we never had a word for that
