Mark Brenner

Negotiations are stalled on the West Coast between 20,000 longshore workers and the major shipping companies. Employers are screaming over congestion that has ships stacking up outside ports.

Few unions have been willing to talk about higher taxes. But those who have called for raising taxes—on the rich, not on their fellow workers—have won public support.

Politicians across the country are seizing on Detroit’s hard times as an excuse to trim public pensions closer to home. For them—and for bankers angling for a piece of the action—this could be the breakthrough they’ve been waiting for.

Tens of thousands of striking teachers and their allies marching through the streets of Chicago last fall had a back-story, a little-discussed trend in organized labor—reform movements.