When California health care workers gave up on the project of democratizing the Service Employees (SEIU) and launched a rival organization instead last winter, the road to union recognition didn’t seem so long and hard. Soon after the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) was formed in January, in response to SEIU’s trusteeship of the United Healthcare Workers (UHW) local, the new union displayed enough rank-and-file backing to file election petitions in 350 private and public sector bargaining units covering about 100,000 employees. In many of these workplaces, a strong majority signed cards seeking a vote that would let them switch from SEIU to NUHW.

In blazing midday heat in Upper Senate Park, a small but vocal crowd of about 1,000 sweated it out Thursday for single-payer health care. The rally was organized by Healthcare NOW to celebrate the 44th birthday of Medicare, the federally administered system of health insurance for the elderly.

Cabin crews at Delta, the largest airline in the world since its merger last year with Northwest, are preparing for their third union election in eight years. The result promises to shape the standards of work for flight attendants, and union supporters are banking on a new political appointee to help them get a fairer shake in this election.

The sign carried by a sympathizer on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers picket line at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport read: “Polish Solidarity American Style.” With American unionists being fired and thrown in jail simply for exercising the right to strike, the comparison with Poland was inevitable.

The recession numbers focus on the out of work, the nearly 10 percent of the workforce who are unemployed. Not counted in the stats of workplace misery are those still “lucky to have a job.” A Labor Notes survey this month found harassment in the workplace at unprecedented levels, with a sharp uptick since the recession began. It may be that a measurable chunk of the unemployed have been harassed out of their jobs, fired rather than laid off.

After a grueling 11 months on strike, workers at the Stella D’oro cookie factory in New York returned to their jobs victorious in early July. But the win may be short-lived: they were greeted by a notice from the company that it intends to close the plant in 90 days.

It’s an oxymoron no longer: charter schools are unionizing. Pioneering teachers and staff sealed an overdue victory in June at three Chicago International Charter Schools, the largest charter operator in Illinois.

When was the last time you heard a union president denounce another union president—publicly? For labor’s upper echelon, the most scrupulously honored principle is protocol. (And you thought it was “solidarity.”)

But at the UNITE HERE convention in late June, the torrent of abuse heaped on Andy Stern’s head would have caused a less confident labor statesman to turn pale. “Darth Vader” and “pirate” were just two of the epithets—and these from presidents without a dog in the fight between UNITE HERE and Stern’s Service Employees (SEIU).

Every day it’s front page news. Another company closes, big unions take concessions, municipal workers go on furlough. The boss puts your members through a one-hour PowerPoint on competition in China and India.