Labor

Union-sponsored online health care polls may not be gold-standard random-sample surveys but they can sure shed some interesting light on how ready Americans are to address the cost and quality challenges in the health care system. The AFL-CIO and Working America sponsored just such a poll and more than 26,000 people took the time to vent.

Democrats and Republicans are alike in one respect, according to the libertarian writer Brink Lindsey: their shared nostalgia for the 1950s. Except, he says, "Republicans want to go home to the United States of the 1950s, while Democrats want to work there."

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees not only the freedom to speak but also the freedom not to listen. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that "no one has a right to press even good ideas on an unwilling recipient." Nevertheless, American businesses are increasingly violating the First Amendment freedoms of their employees.

In 1946, Peter Drucker’s intimate, multiyear examination of General Motors (GM), Concept of the Corporation, was published. GM hated it.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach -- which together make up the nation's busiest harbor complex and one of the key engines of the Southern California economy -- are poised for an 18-Wheel Revolution. In April, they unveiled a plan to slash diesel pollution from the 16,000 trucks that haul goods to nearby rail yards and warehouses by 80 percent. And that's only the beginning.

It’s tough to imagine what Gen. Harrison Gray Otis -- the bellicose press baron with the steely gaze and a speaking voice once likened to "that of a game warden roaring at seal poachers" -- would make of his family’s recent decision to sever the last of its ties with the Los Angeles Times.

I never thought that trying to extend the city’s "living wage" law to a dozen hotels near Los Angeles International Airport was a good idea.

Please don’t misunderstand. Directing businesses to pay their employees at least $10.64 an hour is a smart and principled way to help the working poor. Those who insist that such a policy would trigger a huge loss of jobs are flat-out wrong.

The problem with targeting a handful of hotels -- and this was true even before a Superior Court judge last week barred the city from enforcing the ordinance -- is the narrowness of the approach.

Avondale, Colo. -- Spring is about to spring up here in this high plains farming community just outside the old steel city of Pueblo, and Joe Pisciotta is still not sure whether he’ll have enough of his usual workers to tend his crops.

Ever since the Colorado Legislature declared war on illegal immigrants last year, farmers in this neck of the woods have been worried that the undocumented workers who make up at least half of the area’s farm labor will be too scared to make a return migration.

You may remember the ruckus that arose a couple of years ago when a local Spanish-language television station, Channel 62, put up a billboard publicizing its newscasts. Next to the words "Los Angeles," the abbreviation "CA" was crossed out and "Mexico" written in its stead.

Many reacted angrily, saying the sign was glorifying illegal immigration. Others accused the complainers of being racist xenophobes and maintained that the ad was simply celebrating the region’s Latino flavor.

It's no secret that labor unions are struggling with declining membership and loss of negotiating clout, but don't tell that to the hundreds of activists who gathered Friday for a rally outside the Hilton Hotel at Los Angeles International Airport...