Collective Bargaining

Last May, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stood a few blocks from the White House and issued a stern warning: Union members could not be counted on as the Democrats' foot soldiers anymore. "If leaders aren't blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families' interests, then working people will not support them," he said in a speech at the National Press Club. Flash forward to today: Labor appears squarely back in the Democrats' corner for the 2012 election — pushed there in large part by Republican attacks on collective bargaining rights for public employees.

Joseph A. McCartin's Op-Ed article on Tuesday pointing out that collective bargaining for public employees has only recently become controversial prompted reader Betty W. Hosie of La Jolla to write: "McCartin missed a few points. He did not mention Franklin Roosevelt's letter in 1934 stating there should never be collective bargaining in government. In 1955, George Meany, president of AFL-CIO, agreed with him, stating that when government strikes, it strikes against the taxpayer.

On Jan. 17, 1962, President Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, bringing collective bargaining rights to most federal workers for the first time. Kennedy's order might be the least known of the string of significant events that made the 1960s such crucial years in American history. At the time Kennedy acted, very few workers at any level of government had won the right to bargain collectively with their employers. Federal action helped inspire many states and localities to follow suit, allowing their own workers to organize.

While the NHL and NHL Players Assn. squabble over last season's hockey-related revenue and future realignment, Rene Fasel watches from afar and hopes their disagreements won't spill over to include NHL players' participation in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Fasel, president of the Switzerland-based International Ice Hockey Federation and a member of the International Olympic Committee's executive board, avidly supports NHL players' competing in the Winter Games. He helped negotiate the deal that allowed NHL stars to represent their homelands for the first time at Nagano, Japan, in 1998, making it a marquee event there and in Salt Lake City; Turin, Italy; and Vancouver, Canada.

It's Christmastime in the NBA. What did the amnesty clause bring your team? The Clippers got Chauncey Billups, adding a former All-Star guard to their improving-by-the-minute roster for the bargain-bin price of about $2 million. Gilbert Arenas and Baron Davis are other waived players who could be had for little more than a cup of eggnog, at least by NBA salary standards. The NBA's new collective bargaining agreement has produced other peculiar-sounding gifts that could keep on giving into 2012.

Finally, basketball is back. NBA Commissioner David Stern announced Thursday that the owners and players ratified a new collective bargaining agreement, the final steps to ending the 161-day lockout that began July 1. That allows teams to officially open training camp Friday and for the free-agency period for the 2011-12 season to begin, at 11 a.m. PST. The NBA's regular season will begin Christmas Day, the start of a shortened, 66-game...

Mitch Kupchak's worries have shifted from whether the Lakers will play to who will play for the Lakers. It may seem counterintuitive to think that a team with an NBA-high $91-million payroll would fret over manpower, but those expenditures have left the Lakers with little wiggle room when it comes to filling out the fringes of their roster. "Based on our financial structure, we would be very limited in what we can do with our team in terms of free agency in the next two weeks," Kupchak, the Lakers' general manager, said Monday at the team's El Segundo training complex.

The NBA isn't officially ready for business, but its doors will open soon. Beginning Thursday, players can use team training facilities for voluntary workouts, according to a league memo to team officials. The facilities will be open to all players who are currently in the NBA, including free agents and players who were selected in the amateur draft last June. Players may use any team's practice facility, but coaches and front-office officials can't be present for workouts.

All the while during the drip-drip-drip of the sexual harassment scandal that has dogged Herman Cain for more than two weeks, it's entirely possible that the insurgent candidate has seen his support drain away in the polls not because of the allegations, but because of a steady stream of gaffes, non-answers and missteps that have exposed his lack of experience on the national stage. The latest row involves an answer that Cain gave during a now-infamous meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

It's getting redundant to write, but NBA labor negotiations stopped again without a new deal in place. The lockout lurched though its 134th day Thursday after an 11-hour bargaining session in New York failed to bear a new collective bargaining agreement between NBA owners and the players' union. Owners made a slightly revised offer, but union executives looked less than impressed. "It's not the greatest proposal in the world but I have an obligation to at least present it to our membership," union executive director Billy Hunter said while flanked by a handful of somber players.