Portside

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis specifically said the union is willing to consider reducing benefits for those who still are working, although she emphatically ruled out changes for members who already have retired. But such compromise wont come until the city and the school board agree to contribute more to pensions each year in order to at least partially make up for a contribution shortfall that occurred during much of the past two decades.

Wisconsin was the first state to grant public-sector unions the right to negotiate contracts. Before Gov. Gaylord Nelson signed that law in 1959, only unionized workers in private companies had a government-protected right to bargain collectively. The Wisconsin idea soon spread around the country. Act 10 is an about-face, and Gov. Walker and his Republican supporters see it as a tough-minded strategy that other states can follow. History repeating itself, if in reverse.

With 51 percent of the 24,000 or so local machinists who voted saying yes to the pact, Boeing's " 'best and final' offer [now] guarantees assembly of the next 777 widebody jet and the fabrication of the plane's carbon-fiber wing" will be done at plants in the Puget Sound region.

With our inequality coming close to that of Jamaica and Argentina, as Obama pointed out in his Dec. 4 speech on inequality and social mobility, we can no longer ignore the danger it poses to our democracy and living standards.

Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters based in Washington, said, "Going forward, this is as much about politics and the priorities of public officials as it is about bankruptcy and the court." Schaitberger said that elected officials in the United States are expected to continue to "push for austerity no matter the cost to the lives of workers and public safety."