The Numbers Game

For years the Massachusetts AFL-CIO has boasted 400,000 union members in its ranks. Today there are 404,000, to be exact, according to AFL-CIO officials. But thousands of those workers–including the […]

Nothing defuses labor militancy like a few years of prosperity. The state’s coffers flush with tax revenue, public employee unions are winning raises they didn’t see in the recession of […]

When Kathleen Casavant was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, her mother stayed home to raise her and her three brothers. There was never any worry about getting time […]

Union forces have been gaining strength in Massachusetts, if their membership rolls are any guide. An estimated 30,000 workers joined unions in 1998, bringing the state’s total organized labor force […]

Labor was showing its muscle and the television news cameras were rolling. Inside stately Faneuil Hall in Boston, the two candidates for governor, just eight days away from last fall’s […]

Sister Pauline Ross greets state Senator Stephen F. Lynch at the door of the Marian Manor nursing home on Dorchester Street in South Boston. It’s a Friday afternoon and Sen. […]

The Internet’s gale-force hype caused quite a bit of anxiety when it first blew through the newsrooms of the region’s dailies a few years ago. Editors fretted that they would […]

For sheer diversity of activities, New York’s Midtown Community Court, located off Eighth Avenue on the edge of the Manhattan theater district, is unique in the halls of American justice. […]

Every once in a while, I wonder whether CommonWealth magazine is one of the most backward-looking publications produced today. They say it’s possible to be so square you become hip, […]

When it comes to work, everyone’s got a story. Or, more likely, many stories. If you want to hear a tale, all you have to do is ask, “What was […]

American Work: Four Centuries of Black and White Labor By Jacqueline Jones W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1998, 543 pages. For most of the past two decades, America has […]

WEYMOUTH — The land isn’t much to look at, as even Jodi Purdy-Quinlan, the most ardent champion of these overgrown woodsy acres, will admit. “All this brush would have to […]

Massachusetts is more heavily unionized than the national average, with 15.9 percent of those employed belonging to a union. Yet despite the state’s pro-labor reputation, it ranks behind 17 other […]

“We’ll see if he’s going loony left.” – House Speaker Thomas Finneran, Sept. 16, 1998, when asked if he would be endorsing Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, the Democratic candidate for […]

Events of 1998 proved that Massachusetts voters do not agree with their elected officials on the role of money in politics. A proposed “Clean Elections” law calling for public financing […]

It’s one of those little-discussed State House mysteries: Why does the House of Representatives have a chaplain who starts each day’s session with a prayer, while the Senate has no […]

Every time the debate over public financing of private and religious schools heats up in Massachusetts, we hear the same legal arguments from each side of the debate: Funding advocates […]

School voucher programs, which give government checks to parents to send their children to private or religious schools, are currently operating in just two communities nationwide–Milwaukee and Cleveland. While the […]

When he took office in January, Gov. Paul Cellucci promised to make up for what some consider the single biggest failing of the Weld-Cellucci administration. He vowed to rebuild the […]

Protestants may have ruled in colonial Massachusetts, but there’s little doubt who’s in charge on Beacon Hill today: Catholics. Massachusetts is one of the most Catholic states in the country, […]

It’s 10:30 a.m. and time for social studies. “Good morning, class!” Angela Deuso, 22, beams from the front of the room. “Good morrrn-ing!” her pupils sing out together. The students […]

True story: Just after winning the 1990 gubernatorial election, William F. Weld and several aides were bustling through the Lexington, Kentucky airport on their way to a crash course in […]