The New York Times‘ Steve Greenhouse took a look at the rash of recent labor strikes to read the tea leaves on the union movement’s relative power. It’s worth a read, but there is no hard and fast conclusion. But there is yet another reminder of how important political power is to union leaders who don’t want to do the heavy lifting of actually offering a better service to attract new members. Greenhouse quotes Richard Hurd:

“Unions have a tremendous amount of influence in the Democratic Party,” Mr. Hurd said. “Labor knows that the Democrats have a pretty good chance of winning the White House, but whether they can win a big enough majority in Congress to enact pro-labor legislation over a filibuster, that may be tough. A lot of unions are placing their future hopes on that.”