Executives at the Big Three auto companies are campaigning hard to convince their workers to accept health care concessions. Management wants the United Auto Workers to open contracts and take cuts so that the companies can reduce costs and thus regain market share and profits . . . .

More than 7,000 service workers at campuses from Berkeley to San Diego pulled a one-day strike April 14, protesting the University of California’s (UC) hardball stance during contract negotiations . . . .

AFL-CIO leaders convened in Las Vegas in March 2005 for one of the most contentious Executive Council meetings in the federation’s recent history. Dueling leaders and power blocs—on one side stood SEIU President Andy Stern and allies, on the other federation President John Sweeney and his supporters—debated restructuring plans that each side said would turn around the ailing fortunes of Labor in the United States. . . .

For more than 20 years, there has been a growing recognition that the labor movement is in crisis. Over the past 12 months, even the most ardent defenders of the status quo have accepted that we are in trouble. . . .

We now have, within the United States, fewer unions on the national scene than we’ve had in generations. Some reformers believe we need fewer still. To counter concentrated capital, the argument goes, we need to consolidate labor industry by industry until we end up with, in every sector, one big union. . . .

The recent AFL-CIO debates have generated much smoke and thunder. What’s lacking is a short- to medium-term strategy that gets at how workers and unions can tap the strength they find on the job. . . .