With organized labor so prominently in the news these days, it might be helpful to explain how contract negotiations actually work.
We seem to have little capacity for sustained self-recrimination. Call it patriotism, call it blind optimism, call it "fogging the lens." American exceptionalism is alive and well.
Labor union leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia recently received a human rights award from the AFL-CIO at a ceremony held in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to accept the award himself.
Even though the Iowa caucus has come to be regarded by everyone -- the media, the public, academe, both political parties -- as a watershed political event, what does it actually mean?
While there have been ideological skirmishes, the National Labor Relations Board has managed to take its cow to market under past Republican administrations. Now, under Barack Obama, things have gotten way uglier.
