If organized labor is going to survive and thrive in the future, we have to change our tactics and be creative.

We want to make sure that every future laborer and every current laborer realize that the labor market is like any other market, that you've got to remain competitive, you've got to remain productive, you've to get better every year.

We are having private conversations with each of our labor unions to discuss issues impacting the future of Northwest.

We feel the data is still quite relative, substantively, ... Most labor market [indicators] really don't change that rapidly so even the truth of it is still fairly accurate. People's relative standings--one group to the other--those kind of things don't change very much from year to year.

This is a small union, and it doesn't have any allies, because it's kind of a pariah in the labor movement,

The jobless claims drop shows good strength in the labor market at the end of the year. It shows that the economy has recovered after the hurricanes and is heading into the new year with good momentum and good job prospects.