Call center workers in New York overcame a brutal yet predictable anti-union campaign, but are stuck as management stalls first-contract talks. The National Labor Relations Board, with only two of five seats filled as the Senate dithers, is painfully slow to respond to workers' pleas. They and their union, the Communications Workers, aren't waiting, and took the fight directly to management Friday.

Verizon workers were out in force today, rallying on both coasts as California bargaining teams entered what promises to be difficult contract talks. They're battling layoffs and looking to halt givebacks started at AT&T.

The theory behind the so-called “Cadillac tax” on high-premium health plans is that people like Betty Diamond have too much health insurance, which causes them to get more medical care than they need. And if people like Diamond had thinner health care benefits, the theory continues, their bosses would pass the savings along in nice wage increases. But recent research studies argue such a tax will make employers cut benefits, make workers pay more or forgo health care, and put much of the savings back in management's pocket.

One nagging factor in labor's crisis has been its internal culture of silence. Difficult issues are often sidestepped, finessed, or ignored all together. Steve Early says he learned in his early days the first rule of business unionism: “Thou shall not criticize another union.” Thirty years later, he's still banging on this rule with a prose sledgehammer—and producing some of the most insightful commentary around about the labor movement.