Labor’s Roller-Coaster Ride

Two years into the Sweeney era, the American labor movement seems to have found its own rather rocky rhythm: victory, disaster, victory, disaster. In late summer, the stunning success of the Teamsters strike at United Parcel Service was followed by guilty pleas from three top officials of the scandal-rocked campaign of Teamsters president Ron Carey. In November, labor’s watershed victory over the administration’s fast-track proposal was followed, just one week later, by the ruling from retired federal judge Kenneth Conboy barring Carey from seeking reelection. One week after that, Carey went on a “temporary, unpaid leave of absence.”

It is not to make light of the growing Carey scandal to note that this distinctive Sweeney...