Eight months ago, in a contemplative moment, Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America West, sketched out what could have been a script for the collision that wrecked talks between Hollywood's producers and striking writers on Friday. During an interview in his office here, Mr. Verrone described the looming negotiations with employers as a confrontation much grander than a simple fight over pay formulas. This battle would be about respect.

In a rare rebuke, a state labor board ruled that the United Farm Workers of America deliberately misled workers about their rights not to join the union or fund its political activities. The ruling comes amid a continuing national effort by anti-union activists to weaken organized labor's political clout, and as the farmworker group continues to lose membership and influence among California's immigrant farm laborers.

In a victory for the Writers Guild of America, a NLRB judge has rejected an NBC Universal complaint that the union illegally hampered the production of Web episodes of such TV shows as "The Office" and "Heroes." NBC had alleged that the guild pressured "show runners"--writer-producers who oversee shows--to refrain from overseeing the writing of "webisodes." The network contended that the work was covered under existing labor agreements, whereas the union contended that writers wanted to negotiate fair terms for the extra work. The judge ruled that there was no evidence the union "restrained or coerced" the show runners, recommending that the complaint be dismissed.

Huge pay cuts at Ford. GM shifting production to Mexico. It's no secret that Detroit automakers are expected to push for significant changes in UAW wages and benefits in the contract being negotiated this year. But one of the nation's top auto economists raised eyebrows among his industry colleagues when he suggested that hourly workers may have to give up more than ever before to protect U.S. assembly jobs.

The UAW is losing its edge in pay compared with nonunionized U.S. assembly plant workers for foreign companies, even as Detroit automakers aim for deeper benefit cuts to trim their losses. In at least one case last year, workers for a foreign automaker for the first time averaged more in base pay and bonuses than UAW members working for domestic automakers.

Herding freelancers is a bit like herding cats. Both are notoriously independent. Nonetheless, Sara Horowitz has figured out a way to bring together tens of thousands of freelancers into a thriving organization. [She] has founded the Freelancers Union, offering members lower-cost health coverage and other benefits that many freelancers often have a hard time getting. A former labor lawyer, she is trying to adapt unions to a world far different from yesteryear, when workers often remained with one employer for two or three decades.

Union membership dropped to 12% of U.S. workers last year, extending a steady decline from the 1950s when more than 1/3 belonged to unions. The latest gloomy news for organized labor comes at a time when the group is pushing legislation in the Democratic-controlled Congress that would make it easier for unions to organize. But labor laws aren't the only obstacle to union membership.

The AFL-CIO and [the United Food and Commercial Workers] sued the federal agency in charge of workers' health and safety, saying it has failed to implement a rule that would require employers to buy protective equipment for their employees. Such a rule would apply to as many as 20 million people who work in a number of places, including restaurants, hospitals, factories and at construction sites, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in 1999. That was the year the agency proposed that employers pick up the costs of their workers' protective equipment, saying 48,000 injuries and at least 7 deaths could be avoided annually as a result of such an action. The agency has yet to act on the rule.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. workers returned to work Tuesday after a three-month strike against the world's third largest tiremaker and some workers said it will take time to mend wounds with management. Workers at 12 plants in 10 states on Friday approved a three-year agreement covering 14,000 employees that includes plans to close a Texas tire factory and creates a $1 billion health care fund for retirees. Some members of the United Steelworkers were optimistic about rebuilding their relationship with management.

British, American and German unions are to forge a pact to challenge the power of global capitalism in a move towards creating an international union with more than 6 million members. Amicus, the UK's largest private sector union, has signed agreements with the German engineering union IG-Metall and two of the largest labour organisations in the US, the United Steelworkers and the International Association of Machinists, to prevent companies playing off their workforces in different countries against each other. The move is seen by union leaders as the first step towards creating a single union that can present a united front to multinational companies.

After 50 years of decline, the labor movement sees an opening to reverse that trend with the election of a Congress controlled by Democrats. And they are starting an intense campaign to win passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a proposal that would make it easier to form a union. Labor delivered millions of votes for the Democratic Party in the 2006 midterm elections and is outlining what it wants from the Democratic-controlled Congress in return.

The new synthetic ball and the new rules cracking down on in-game conduct have prompted complaints from players since the N.B.A. season began. But what irritated the National Basketball Players Association most was that its membership was not informed beforehand of the changes. The players union filed two unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB and asked [them] to investigate what it said were the N.B.A.'s unilateral actions. Players have complained that the ball is too sticky and then, when wet, does not adequately absorb moisture.

The nation's largest federal labor union will push to organize airport security screeners after a finding by a United Nations agency that the screeners should have union representation. The 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees says it could improve workplace conditions. The Transportation Security Administration has one of the highest attrition and injury rates in the federal government, which aggravates staffing shortages that make airport security lines longer. The AFGE plans to lobby Congress' new Democratic leaders to let TSA screeners unionize.

In the latest legal parry in a multiparty labor fight over "America's Next Top Model," the Writers Guild of America has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB. The union claims that producers of the CW's reality TV show broke the law by eliminating 12 positions previously held by some striking writer-producers. In a charge filed, the WGA seeks reinstatement and back pay for the strikers, who walked out in July in a bid to join the guild. The striking employees sometimes refer to themselves as storytellers. Though reality shows are unscripted, teams of employees must sort through reams of film and video to construct story lines.

After announcing a tentative contract with the teachers' union, the Bloomberg administration signaled yesterday that its next major negotiating goal was to achieve savings on health coverage for 300,000 municipal workers. The deal announced late Monday gives the teachers a 7.1% raise over two years, increasing the base salary for the most senior teachers to just over $100,000. The agreement was unusual because it was the first time that a New York mayor reached a major labor deal so long before the current contract's expiration. The current contract, which covers 83,000 teachers and about 30,000 other school employees, expires in October of next year.

A national union campaign in support of striking Houston janitors kicked off in the Chicago area when local janitors refused to cross picket lines at 6 office buildings. SEIU targeted buildings cleaned by the area's largest commercial office cleaning contractor--in an effort to pressure the company to settle in Houston, where some janitors walked off their jobs starting Oct. 23 after contract negotiations broke down.

Organized labor is filing an international protest about a federal decision redefining which workers are supervisors exempt from legal protection to join unions. The AFL-CIO, said it would file a complaint with the International Labor Organization of the United Nations about a decision this month by the NLRB. The decision, covering a series of cases known as the Kentucky River cases, involved the role of a supervisor. The board ruled that nurses who regularly run shifts at health care facilities should be considered supervisors and exempt from federal protections that cover union membership. The decision potentially has major implications for workers in other fields.

Say a mean-looking, burly guy starts giving Sandy Pope a tough time at a Teamsters union meeting. Her inclination is to walk up to him and ask what's his problem. "It doesn't occur to me to be scared, and sometimes I think that is not wise." Pope [is] the #2 candidate on a slate challenging Teamsters President James P. Hoffa for the leadership of the 1.4 million-member union. She is the first woman to do so in Teamster history. Whether her grit will win supporters is another issue.

Striking members of the United Steelworkers of America continued to staff picket lines outside Goodyear Tire & Rubber's corporate headquarters, plants and other locations today. No new negotiations are planned. About 15,000 Steelworkers at 12 U.S. plants and four in Canada walked out at 1 p.m. on Thursday as four months of talks failed to result in a new contract.

Illinois' largest public employees union has told the Gov.'s administration to back off an internal investigation of state hiring and to stop threatening workers who refuse to cooperate. Interviews being conducted by two law firms hired by the governor's office could have a "chilling impact" on workers who may also be questioned in the federal criminal probe of state hiring. "These interviews could be used to intimidate employees from revealing information that would potentially provide evidence of [hiring] violations," wrote Michael Newman for Council 31 of AFSCME.

Sick of waiting for modest demands to be met, [Starbucks] baristas announced they were joining the Industrial Workers of the World, intent on returning some meaning to the National Labor Relation Act's call for "mutual aid or protection." The baristas don't want an election with the NLRB or a certified bargaining unit. They're using a tactic popular before the Depression, solidarity unionism, in which a minority of workers act in concert and issue demands even if management doesn't recognize their union--which Starbucks does not. But the Chicago baristas aren't alone: Six New York City Starbucks have affiliated with the IWW in two years of campaigning, and the Wobblies take credit for three city-wide pay increases there.

About 300 people were arrested Thursday evening for blocking the street in front of two hotels near Los Angeles International Airport in a highly choreographed event intended to publicize unionization efforts at 13 airport-area hotels. More than 2,500 people joined a march through the streets before the arrests. Organizers from the local chapter of Unite Here, the hotel and restaurant employees union, have been trying to unionize the 3,000 to 4,000 airport hotel workers as part of a nationwide drive. The housekeepers, dishwashers and other employees earn an average of about $9.55 an hour, 20% less than similar workers make elsewhere in the city.

Four hundred people will be arrested early this evening for blocking Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport, in what could prove to be one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in the city's history. At least that's how the script reads. For much of this year, the national hotel workers union, labor leaders and immigrant groups have been planning today's protest. Marchers are supporting a drive to organize the mostly immigrant, nonunion workers employed at 13 hotels near the airport. If the event goes as envisioned, organizers say, it will be a highly choreographed episode of street theater, timed for news broadcasts and peaceful enough to persuade but not enrage the public.

It's time to get mad at the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress, national AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told 400 delegates to the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO biennial convention. "The fact is that our families are getting clobbered by the federal policies of George Bush and our rubber-stamp Congress," Sweeney said. "And it's time for us to get mad. And it's time for us to stay mad and stand up together and fight together and vote together and take back America together."

Eleven Domino's employees hoping to make a little more dough and get a bigger slice of the profits have formed the nation's first union of pizza delivery drivers. The American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers won recognition from the NLRB over the summer as the bargaining agent for drivers at a franchise. The union could open doors for other fast-food workers, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University's ILR. A spokesman for Industrial Workers of the World said the prospects for unionizing fast-food employees are encouraging because older people are taking service industry jobs that were traditionally held by younger workers.

The buyout package Ford Motor is offering 75,000 union workers shows the vestiges of the United Autoworker Union's might: It offers lifetime retirement benefits for workers 50 or older with 10 years of service, and a $100,000 education account for children or spouses. But the deal also shows what the union has been reduced to: Getting a good deal for its members as they leave their jobs forever. That future has already arrived, for the UAW and the entire labor movement. The decrease in union membership has been stark. Twenty percent of the United States work force was unionized in 1983. By 2005, union membership had dropped to 12.5%of the work force.

After nearly two weeks of intense negotiations marked by picket lines and marches, San Francisco hotel workers unveiled a tentative agreement Wednesday with 13 hotels, averting a second strike in two years. The contract, which runs through August 2009, grants higher wages, better pensions and full healthcare benefits to more than 4,200 members of Unite Here Local 2, a union of cooks, maids, bellmen and other hotel workers. They had been working without a contract for two years. The accord is retroactive to 2004. "It shows that when we start together fighting for our rights, we can keep whatever we deserve," said Rafael Leiva, who delivers room service at the Hyatt Regency.

A farmworker group that ran a successful workers' rights campaign against Taco Bell has begun pressuring Chipotle to buy tomatoes from suppliers who the group says take proper care of laborers and pay fair wages. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida has accused the casual dining restaurant chain of buying tomatoes from growers who have mistreated workers and paid substandard wages. After a four-year coalition boycott, Taco Bell's parent company, Yum! Brands, agreed in 2005 to pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes with the money passed to workers who pick the crop that is sold to Taco Bell.

In a victory for NYU, its graduate teaching and research assistants have ended the contentious strike that disrupted hundreds of classes last November, without having won recognition of their union. Local 2110 represented N.Y.U.'s graduate assistants in bargaining until their contract expired last year and the university chose not to continue to recognize the union. N.Y.U.'s student union leaders said yesterday that their members had decided to halt the strike at the end of the last school year, in part because as much as 30% of the membership turned over each year, and because they believed the whole membership should choose which strategies to pursue.

UPS pilots have approved a new contract with the world's largest shipping carrier that includes hefty pay raises, large signing bonuses and higher healthcare premiums. The deal ends a lengthy battle that was mired by threats of a walkout. The deal was reached after more than three years of talks. The contract, together with a tentative agreement between FedEx and its pilots, furthers a trend in recent years that has seen pay for cargo airline pilots shoot up while the pay of many commercial airline pilots has declined. UPS pilots had been making on average more than $175,000 a year. The new contract will boost average pilot pay to about $206,000 a year.

The nation's largest labor federation announced that [it] would spend more money this year than ever before to get voters to the polls in a midterm election [it] hoped would return Democrats to power in Congress. "This Labor Day, it appears that a 'perfect storm' is gathering that may well sweep away Republican control of the Congress this fall," said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. The 9-million-member AFL-CIO [will] spend $40 million on its voter turnout effort this year, compared with $35 million in the last congressional midterm election. "Economic trends have strained working families to the breaking point," Sweeney said. "Workers are not sharing in the wealth they helped create, and our nation's economic recovery has not been a recovery for workers at all."

The Engineers and Architects Assn. concluded a two-day strike Wednesday, pulling down picket lines after failing to seriously disrupt public services or force Los Angeles city officials to offer a better raise to the union's more than 7,500 workers. The marching and protests, while gaining few tangible results for the union, appeared conversely to bolster the political fortunes of its chief adversary.

A year after their breakup, former partners in organized labor are trying to heal some differences by joining forces politically for the November midterm elections. They're cooperating now for the sake of those who depend on them--about 15 million union members. Both the AFL-CIO and the breakaway Change to Win alliance are negotiating an agreement that would allow them to coordinate their massive effort to educate and mobilize workers.

One year after America's labor movement saw its largest schism in decades, unions are gearing up for a high-stakes political battle in November. It's the first test of how the split between the AFL-CIO and the new seven-union Change to Win labor federation will affect the political activities of the labor movement. It's also a chance for unions to demonstrate that they still wield political heft despite dwindling membership.

Day laborers and organized labor joined forces today, signing a significant agreement to advance worker rights and fight ongoing immigration reform efforts coming out of Congress. The formal partnership between the AFL-CIO and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network creates a powerful political team composed of groups that historically have been at odds. "Worker centers make good on the core American belief that even the shunned and excluded should and can fight back," [AFL-CIO President John] Sweeney said. "It is a moral imperative that we do everything in our power to support the work of worker centers."

For Michael Johnson, a security guard for 16 years, unionization cannot happen soon enough. Mr. Johnson is among more than 70,000 office-building security guards nationwide the Service Employees International Union is trying to organize this summer, a group that in many cities is more than 50% African-American. Those cities include Los Angeles, where guards' pay averages $8.50 an hour. The city's black clerics are rallying behind the unionization drive, which has borrowed the vocabulary and history of the civil rights movement. Using tactics that have included sit-ins and the picketing of executives' homes, the union has organized far more workers than any other in the last decade.

Emergency safety standards are needed to counter a widening outbreak of lung disease among workers exposed to a common ingredient in microwave popcorn. The Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers plan to file an emergency petition demanding that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration set exposure limits for diacetyl, a flavoring agent used in the manufacture of artificial popcorn butter, dog food and other products. Diacetyl has been linked to an irreversible lung disease that has afflicted scores of workers at popcorn factories and other work sites and killed at least three people in the last few years.

The union representing New York City's school bus drivers reached a tentative three-year settlement yesterday with 25 bus companies, averting a strike that had threatened to inconvenience 37,000 summer school students starting today. The union, which represents 8,400 bus drivers, escorts and mechanics, declined to give details of the accord, including the size of the wage increase, which was reached four days after the old contract expired. The union had threatened a strike against just a few bus companies, but the New York City School Bus Contractors Coalition warned that if the union was to strike against even one company, then all the companies would lock out their workers.

A bankruptcy judge said Thursday that Northwest Airlines can throw out its union contract with flight attendants if two more weeks of talks don't produce a deal. "We reserve the right to strike" if that happens, [a] spokeswoman said. The memorandum of law from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper was a major victory for Northwest. For the rank and file, the only bright spot was Gropper's decision that Northwest could impose the terms rejected by 80% of flight attendants earlier this month--not the harsher terms Northwest offered earlier in negotiations, as the airline had wanted.

About 47,600 workers accepted buyout offers or early retirement packages from General Motors and Delphi, the largest offers of their kind in U.S. corporate history. Robert Bruno, a labor and industrial affairs professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he wasn't aware of a bigger, more expensive buyout package anywhere in modern capitalism. He said the buyout program will wipe out a big chunk of consumer-buying capacity in the U.S. economy and put more pressure on the American middle class. "By the time all the severance money is spent, we've wiped out 47,000 middle-class union jobs with health benefits," Bruno said. "What is the calculated cost to communities?" The buyout plan is a key component of a larger turnaround plan at General Motors. The plan includes cutting tens of thousands of factory positions, closing all or part of 12 plants, and slashing operating and material costs.

Workers at Mesaba Airlines have employed a rarely used strategy to fight the steep wage and benefit cuts their employer demands. They're sticking together. Separate union leaders for about 1,400 Mesaba flight attendants, pilots and mechanics are sharing everything from legal experts to strike strategies as they try to scale back proposals for wage and benefit cuts as the company reorganizes under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Thousands of airline workers have taken wage and benefit cuts since the most recent wave of airline bankruptcy filings started in 2002. But airline and labor experts say this is the first time three separate unions have worked so closely to keep as much of their pay and benefits as they can. Lawyers for the three unions disperse tasks to those best fit to carry them out.

Today is proof that, at General Motors and Delphi, the carrot is mightier than the stick. After decades of punching in at the world's largest automaker and its spinoff parts company, hourly workers are leaving in droves under an early retirement and buyout plan that ends at 6 p.m. today for most employees. The upheaval of the past 45 days has been mind-boggling for United Auto Workers members, whose careers once spun around gold-standard job security and unshakable labor contracts. They have had to decide whether to accept the buyout, which offers those with more than 10 years of service $140,000 and those with fewer years $70,000. Taking the deal means no retirement benefits or health insurance.

More than 33,000 factory workers have accepted early retirement packages at struggling car giant General Motors and its bankrupt parts supplier Delphi. The United Auto Workers said 25,000 GM and 8,500 Delphi staff had signed up for the deals, ranging from $35,000 to $140,000. GM wants to close 12 plants and cut 30,000 jobs, while Delphi is seeking to shut 21 of its 29 manufacturing sites. The car maker is cutting costs after making a loss of $10.6 billion in 2005. Delphi and the UAW are still fighting over plans to change labor contracts.

Members of the largest union of state workers [California] have voted to authorize their first-ever strike if the union is unable to agree on a new contract with the Schwarzenegger administration. Service Employees International Union Local 1000 could formally declare a strike as early as Thursday, the legal deadline for passing the state budget, if they don't have a new deal. With no precedent for such a walkout, it is not clear whether a strike by state workers is legal. But a strike by Local 1000 could affect the daily lives of millions of Californians. The union represents toll collectors, tax collectors, custodians, DMV staffers and agricultural inspectors--as well as nurses, teachers, cooks and other support staff in prisons and state hospitals.

The president of the United Automobile Workers union told his members in a strikingly blunt report released Sunday that they cannot ride out the automobile industry crisis and should be prepared to make tradition-breaking decisions to help rescue the industry. [Ron] Gettelfinger declined to say what specific moves he would ask union members to make and said he believed things could improve for the union, which he argued is gaining political and social momentum. But seasoned labor experts said the report [is] meant to prepare union members to expect more concessions in critical contract talks that begin next year.

U.S. labor groups urged the Bush administration to increase pressure on China to stop widespread labor abuses they said have cost millions of Americans their jobs in addition to harming Chinese workers. The 9 million member AFL-CIO labor federation filed a petition, for the second time since 2004, asking the U.S. Trade Representative's office to launch a one-year probe into whether China's "systematic repression" of worker rights is an unfair trade practice that warrants using U.S. sanctions to stop. The Bush administration rejected a similar petition filed by the AFL-CIO two years ago, saying it would work with China to improve conditions in a country whose vast supply of cheap labor has made it a manufacturing giant.

The United Mine Workers of America sued the government Thursday to demand immediate random inspections of the air packs miners use in emergencies. The union requested an injunction that would require the Mine Safety and Health Administration to start checking the devices, which provide about an hour's worth of air. The injunction also would require the agency to develop new emergency training for miners that simulates mine accidents. Mine-safety legislation approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday will require additional oxygen reserves for miners, but the bill doesn't include random testing of the emergency air packs. President Bush said Wednesday night that he would sign the measure into law.

The nation's largest manufacturing union, the United Steelworkers of America, and the nation's largest environmental group, the Sierra Club, announced the formation of an alliance that will do something that labor and environmentalists rarely do: cooperate. After decades of fighting between blue-collar unions and green activists, the Steelworkers and the Sierra Club say they will use the alliance to battle for energy independence and against global warming and toxic pollutants. A central goal of the partnership, called the Blue/Green Alliance, will be to reassure workers that measures to improve the environment need not jeopardize jobs.

By law, American workers have the right to form unions and bargain over wages and working conditions. Trying to exercise [that] right is another matter entirely--workers are routinely fired or discriminated against for supporting unions, most employers hire anti-union consultants to block organizing drives and some go so far as to close down work sites when employees vote for a union. That's why the story of Cingular Wireless and its union, the Communications Workers of America, is so unusual--and worth a closer look. The company's cooperative approach makes more sense than the reflexive anti-union stance typically found in executive suites.

The Teamsters union violated federal labor law when it attempted to discipline 54 workers who refused to participate in a "sympathy strike" during the bitter Southern and Central California supermarket labor dispute, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled. Administrative Law Judge William Kocol ordered International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 952 to notify members that they had a right to retroactively opt out of full membership in the union, though they must still pay fees to cover the expense of collective bargaining activities.

Inco, the Canadian mining company entangled in a series of conflicting takeover bids, has agreed with a labor union to preserve all jobs at its main operations even if the company is acquired. The promise is part of a tentative agreement the company and the United Steelworkers reached on Monday. The union revealed some terms of the contract, which is rich by current Canadian standards, on Tuesday. If workers at Inco's operations in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, accept the agreement, wages will rise by 2.50 Canadian dollars an hour over the contract period, profit sharing worth about 5,000 Canadian dollars a year will continue and pensions and other benefits will be improved.

Frustrated after three years without a raise, members of the largest state [California] workers union are preparing for their first strike--a series of rolling walkouts that might be illegal. Members of Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents more than 87,000 of the 173,000 rank-and-file state workers, are voting through June 10 on whether to authorize leaders to call a strike. Union officers expect approval. With no history of formal walkouts by state workers, a battle between the Schwarzenegger administration and Local 1000 could produce a new precedent and perhaps give public employee unions more leverage with the government.

The Laborers' Union has decided to leave the AFL-CIO. The Laborers were already part of the Change to Win coalition, breakaway unions that have left the giant federation of more than 50 unions in an effort to forge a new direction for organized labor. But the Laborers had remained in the federation. The breakaway unions have complained that the AFL-CIO was putting too much emphasis on electoral politics and not enough on organizing more people to join the shrinking labor movement. The Laborers' International Union of North America has about 700,000 members in the U.S. and Canada, mostly in the construction industry. A large share of the unions' newer members are recent immigrants, including many Hispanics.

A bankruptcy judge on Thursday denied Mesaba Airlines' motion to void its labor contracts, a decision that means the carrier and its unions must continue to try to reach negotiated contracts. "We are very pleased. It's a hands-down victory for the unions," said David Borer, general counsel for the Association of Flight Attendants. "It's a repudiation of everything management has done to date to try to reject the employees' contracts," he said. "The bankruptcy process is so tilted in favor of the company that a ruling like this will give the company's negotiators a dose of reality," Borer added. The company released a statement with a dramatically different interpretation of the court's decision.

United Auto Workers members have voted to authorize a strike against auto supplier Delphi if the company fails to honor its labor agreements, an action that could have severe consequences for Delphi and its largest customer, General Motors. More than 95% of UAW members who voted at 21 U.S. plants approved the strike authorization measure. The vote doesn't mean a strike is imminent, but it does allow the union to call a strike if it feels one is needed as the two sides bargain over wages. Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October, has proposed cutting its U.S. hourly workers' wages from $27 an hour to $16.50 an hour, or as low as $12.50 an hour if GM doesn't agree to supplement those wages.

[New York] City has agreed to drop a lawsuit seeking huge financial penalties against individual members of the city's main transit union, while the union has accepted terms for payment of $2.5 million in fines assessed against it for its 60-hour strike in December. The deal did not appear to bring Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union or the Metropolitan Transportation Authority any closer to the bargaining table, or to a settlement of their stalled contract. But it tied up legal loose ends for a union that is already under financial duress, and had been threatened with more fines.

Cuts in funding and staff at the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are threatening job security for millions of Americans, a federal workers' union claims in a new ad campaign. The American Federation of Government Employees is starting a media campaign criticizing budget cuts and reductions in staffing at the EEOC. New offices are being opened and the number of complaints are growing at a time when the agency is trimming its budget request, the group said. That staffing shortage has resulted in a backlog of cases that will approach 50,000 by the end of 2007. The union says the staffing reductions and planned budget cuts of $4 million for next year will result in many legitimate discrimination complaints being unresolved.

Around the country, unions are reaching out to America's daycare staffs, preschool teachers and full-time babysitters, using innovative approaches to recruit members of the poorly paid and largely female child-care work force, estimated at two million. Care of children is among the lowest-paid professions, averaging $8.68 hourly. Meanwhile, the ranks of union-represented child-care workers are growing. More than 350,000 child-care workers are affiliated with [the Service Employees International Union], the American Federation of Teachers, the United Child Care Union and its sponsor, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

At a time of maximum uncertainty over their future, the United Auto Workers union will gather next month to re-elect its president. An ardent, lifelong trade unionist, Ron Gettelfinger has presided over an era of unprecedented concessions to the Detroit automakers, telling his members that the alternative is for the companies and the union to go down together. Gettelfinger was chosen for the presidency in 2002 by the same administrative caucus that has controlled the union since the days of its legendary president, Walter Reuther. But if Reuther's UAW ushered blue-collar workers into the middle class by forcing Detroit to share the wealth, the Gettelfinger UAW is fighting to keep them from being unceremoniously ushered out.

Two national labor groups have agreed to set aside their differences and work together to mobilize political activity this election year. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says his organization will join with the Change to Win Coalition to form a national committee to coordinate election activities. Unions from both groups will work together on get-out-the-vote campaigns, candidate endorsements, and support for labor leaders who are seeking public office. Meanwhile, Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change to Win, said that her organization would allow its affiliates to continue to participate in local AFL-CIO labor councils and pay dues so they can help mobilize voters.

Under normal circumstances, a request by union leaders to authorize a strike is routine. But the situation between the United Automobile Workers and the Delphi Corporation is anything but normal. The UAW said Wednesday that it had asked its 24,000 workers at Delphi, the auto parts supplier that is operating under bankruptcy protection, to vote by May 14 whether to give union leaders permission to call a strike. If union leaders were to order a walkout, not only would Delphi be severely affected, but so would General Motors, which could itself be forced to file for bankruptcy protection as a result.

After a sit-in, hunger strikes and a nine-week walkout, janitors at the University of Miami decided yesterday to return to work, as the university's cleaning contractor reached a settlement with the Service Employees International Union. Under the agreement, the contractor, Unicco Service Company, would allow workers to sign cards indicating their desire to join the union rather than insist on the more traditional process of a formal election. The union agreed that to gain recognition, 60% of the university's 425 janitors--rather than a traditional simple majority--would have to sign cards saying they wanted to form a union.

Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transit Workers Union, walked out of jail shortly after 9 a.m. today, after serving less than four full days of what was supposed to be a 10-day sentence for leading an illegal strike in December. Defiant in brief remarks outside the jail complex in lower Manhattan, he said, "We will not back down" to demands by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to limit pensions and benefits. Mr. Toussaint was released after his sentence was trimmed because of good behavior. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore T. Jones found Mr. Toussaint in contempt of court for taking the 33,000-member union out on strike and sentenced him to the jail term last week.

Unions representing 6 million workers rallied Wednesday in 35 cities from New York to Los Angeles to protest what they called inadequate health-care coverage by Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer. The Change to Win labor federation said Wal-Mart epitomizes a business model of low pay and benefits that harm the middle class. It is the federation's first national rally targeting Wal-Mart and part of a broader campaign called "Make work pay" aimed at raising living standards for workers. The rallies were organized together with WakeUpWalMart.com, a political campaign group started a year ago by the United Food and Commercial Workers union to pressure the retailer to raise pay and benefits and improve working conditions.

The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority [New York City] refused today to consider a ratification vote that the city's transit workers' union took last week on a long-stalled contract. Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union had voted in favor of the contract a week ago, three months after members narrowly rejected the same deal in a surprising rebuke to the union's president. The chairman of the transportation authority said the contract terms were off the table because of the union's initial rejection of the contract. He went on to describe the strike in December as a "criminal act."

Former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, Teamsters President James Hoffa and civil rights leaders marched with striking service workers and about 200 supporters Tuesday at the University of Miami. About a quarter of the 425 janitors and other contract workers employed by UNICCO Service Co. at the university have been on strike since early March. The workers want to organize as part of the Service Employees International Union and are demanding a pay hike. The union and students want UNICCO to agree to a process called card check, granting union recognition if a majority of workers sign cards in favor of joining. That process tends to be easier for workers to form unions, compared with having a secret ballot.

Efforts to heal the sharp divisions in organized labor are faltering as the AFL-CIO and the breakaway unions in the Change to Win coalition quarrel over the best way for the divided unions to cooperate from afar. The AFL-CIO has been promoting solidarity charters, which allow locals of the disaffiliated unions to join forces with AFL-CIO locals on issues of common concern. The Change to Win federation has proposed an umbrella group, Alliance for Worker Justice, which would allow unions from both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to join with other unions to work on issues ranging from working conditions to health and safety to political action. Both sides in the labor feud are now rejecting the unity plans of the other, renewing the sense of disarray in organized labor as the midterm elections near.

When Roger Toussaint, the transit workers' union president, leads a procession of chanting union members and labor leaders across the Brooklyn Bridge today on his way to a jail cell in Manhattan, it will be only the latest bizarre twist in a contract fight that never seems to end. In sentencing him to 10 days in jail, Justice Theodore T. Jones of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said Mr. Toussaint had shown contempt for the law by heading an illegal strike. But the jail stay, some labor experts say, could end up helping Mr. Toussaint by turning him into a martyr.

The nation's premier hotels are trying to have their accommodations resemble royal bedrooms. Superthick mattresses, plush duvets and decorative bed skirts have been added, and five pillows rather than the pedestrian three now rest on a king-size bed. The beds may mean sweet dreams to hotel guests, but they mean pain to many of the nation's 350,000 hotel housekeepers. The problem, housekeepers say, is not just a heavier mattress, but having to rush because they are assigned the same number of rooms as before while being required to deal with far more per room. The hotel workers' union, Unite Here, says injuries and the increased workload will be a major issue in negotiations this spring. The union is threatening its biggest strike ever, one that might involve hundreds of hotels in New York, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles and Toronto.

Eduardo and Eddie are two faces of one of the most ambitious union campaigns in recent decades to make that better world, an effort by UNITE HERE to campaign simultaneously for hotel workers who are in the union and those who are not--or at least not yet. The union is trying to create a "movement for equality" that will make the quality and rewards of work in the vast, low-paid ranks of the service sector a central issue of public morality in American politics. Despite a downturn after 9/11, which the industry used to slash its workforce, the hotel industry is now quite profitable. But hotel workers aren't sharing the bounty. The nation's hotels represent a microcosm of the growing inequality in the United States.

[New York] City's main transit union announced yesterday that its members had overwhelmingly approved the same contract proposal that they narrowly rejected in January, and its leadership demanded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority now approve the deal. Like so much else in the labor dispute, which has included a 60-hour transit strike that hobbled the city and the deal's rejection by just seven votes, yesterday's announcement raised as many questions as it answered and did not appear to bring matters any closer to a resolution. The authority brushed aside the union's demand yesterday, insisting that it had taken the contract terms off the table after the workers stunned the city by voting them down in January.

Outside the University of Miami's main entrance, six janitors and five students continued their hunger strike on Monday, with several asserting that the university's president, Donna Shalala, was a union-buster. The janitors have been on a hunger strike for 13 days, the students for 6--all part of a labor dispute that has turned unusually personal, with faculty members, students, union leaders and members of the clergy sharply criticizing Dr. Shalala. Day after day, the janitors and their supporters heap invective on Dr. Shalala, who was President Bill Clinton's secretary for health and human services, saying she has not done enough to pressure the university's cleaning contractor to grant union recognition.

Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union was fined $2.5 million yesterday for the 60-hour strike that hobbled the city in December. Coming nearly four months after the walkout, which brought subways and buses to a halt in the days before Christmas, and with no discernible progress in bargaining for a new contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the ruling was the second legal blow to the union in a week. On April 10, [the court] ordered Roger Toussaint, Local 100's president, to jail for 10 days for contempt of court, a charge that stemmed from [his] failure to order his members back to work under provisions of the state's Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees.

Delta Air Lines and a union representing nearly 6,000 pilots said today they had reached a tentative agreement a day ahead of a an arbitration panel ruling that could have sent the pilots on strike. The company, which has sought $305 million in annual pay cuts from the pilots, and the union said they would not provide details about the agreement, which has to be approved the union's executive committee and a bankruptcy court. The pilots had offered to take pay cuts totaling $140 million. An arbitration panel was expected to decide by tomorrow if Delta's contract with the Air Line Pilots Association should be thrown out. Earlier this month, Delta pilots voted overwhelmingly to strike the company if their contract was voided.

With Congress debating a major expansion in the program for guest workers, the nation's largest union of farmworkers planned to announce today that it had signed the first nationwide contract covering agricultural guest workers. The union, the United Farm Workers, and Global Horizons, a labor contractor based in Los Angeles, have signed an agreement that provides employer-paid medical care, a seniority system and a grievance procedure to help ensure that farms comply with state and federal laws.

Contract talks between the Federal Aviation Administration and the air traffic controllers union collapsed yesterday. The FAA declared the negotiations at an impasse, which allows the agency to turn the dispute over to Congress. The disputed contracts cover about 25,000 FAA employees who play key roles in the operation and safety of the nation's commercial aviation system. The FAA is one of the few places in government where unions can bargain over salaries. The agency's pay plan would reduce starting salaries for newly hired controllers by 30% compared with the current pay scale. By most accounts, the FAA will need to hire and train about 12,500 new controllers through 2014 as controllers hired after the 1981 strike retire and leave the agency.

The nation's largest labor organization on Tuesday criticized plans to expand guest worker programs for immigrants seeking to come to the United States, parting company with longtime Senate Democratic allies who pushed successfully to include them in broad-based immigration legislation. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's criticism underscored the unusual political pressures at work as President Bush and Congress grapple with an emotional issue in the run-up to midterm elections. The Service Employees International Union issued a statement supporting the measure.

Auto parts supplier Delphi has proposed giving its factory workers $50,000 in exchange for a 40% reduction in pay. Delphi has proposed lowering pay for factory workers initially by $5.50 an hour, to $22 an hour in early July. The rates would later drop to $16.50 an hour in September 2007. Unless there is an agreement with its unions by Friday, Delphi has said it plans to ask a federal bankruptcy judge for permission to cancel its labor contracts and impose lower wages and benefits. Such a move would increase the likelihood of a strike by Delphi workers and create more problems for General Motors, Delphi's largest customer.

Three months after a strike shut down the city's buses and subways during the holiday shopping season, the labor fight between 33,700 transit workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is being placed in the hands of three arbitrators. Handing the authority an important victory yesterday, the New York State Public Employment Relations Board ordered that binding arbitration be used to settle the contract dispute. The board's two members called for arbitration after concluding that the two sides were deadlocked and that the board's mediators had "explored every possible avenue through which a voluntary agreement could be reached." The transportation authority, a state agency, had sought arbitration, in which a three-member panel will essentially dictate the terms of a new contract.

General Motors reached a landmark agreement Wednesday with the United Automobile Workers intended to reduce sharply the ranks of a generation of auto workers long envied by other blue-collar workers for their wages and benefits. G.M. said it would offer buyouts and early-retirement packages ranging from $35,000 to $140,000 to every one of its 113,000 unionized workers in the United States who agreed to leave the company. For G.M.'s American workers, the offer presents a host of difficult choices, forcing them to consider the risk that the company may be even worse off in the future if the buyouts fail to spur a turnaround in business.

U.S. military uniforms are being made by workers who are poorly paid and lack health insurance coverage, the union that represents garment workers asserted in a report released yesterday. Many of the workers must rely on government programs, such as Medicaid and food stamps, according to the report from Unite Here, which said starting pay at the companies it surveyed averages $5.49 an hour. The average wage of those who sew uniforms is $6.55 an hour. The average for U.S sewing machine operators is $9.24 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Military uniforms, by law, are made in the United States with U.S. labor and materials. The contractors discussed in the report received $456 million for military apparel contracts from 2003 to 2005.

N.F.L. owners voted Wednesday night to accept a players union proposal to extend the collective bargaining agreement by six years, ensuring labor peace in the league through the 2011 season. The deal put an end to a labor dispute that had threatened the stability of the N.F.L., which is enjoying its greatest period of prosperity and has not had a strike since 1987. Without an agreement, the league faced playing the 2007 season without a salary cap and the possibility of a strike in 2008. The union's proposal called for the players to receive 59.5% of total revenue over six years, which owners struggled to accept.

Linda Jones worked 34 years for General Motors, but is so angry that her retirement health care benefits could be cut that she is ready to turn her back on the automaker. Jones was one of 20 retired hourly workers who testified in a Detroit federal court Monday against a proposed settlement between the automaker and the UAW that will force retirees to pay more for their health care coverage. More than 100 hourly retirees appeared in court, and dozens took seats in an adjoining courtroom or in the hallway and watched the proceedings on television monitors. Under the proposed settlement, GM hourly retirees would pay monthly contributions, annual deductibles and coinsurance costs for the first time.

Chicago Transit Authority union workers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to authorize a strike against the nation's second-largest transit system over work rules th