Labor disputes end with labor, management and the electeds standing together on the stage agreeing that the settlement is good for children, good for teachers and good for the city, unless the goal is not to reach a settlement.

Unions must convince their membership to vote for the agreement, school boards and electeds must convince the media and eventually the public that the agreement benefits the “people.”

In 1995 the teacher union in New York City, the mayor and the board of education were negotiating for months. The rumors hinted at an increase of three or four percent. In the waning days of August an agreement was announced, a five year contract with no increase in the first two years, referred to as the “double zero” contract. The membership voted down the contract. (Months later they approved the same contract.)

There are those who think that politics consists of constantly facing choices between good and evil, and choosing good, if you're good, and choosing evil, if you're bad.

But that's not really true. Politics consists of constantly facing choices that contain 38% good, or 42% good, and 34% evil, or 25% evil, and 28% very unclear, or 33% very unclear. No political choices affect the past, which we know pretty well, and can more or less deal with. All of them affect the future, which we don't know at all, and which can change the lives of others, and maybe the lives of ourselves.

What to do? If we vote "yes" on the proposition before the Council, or the House, or the Senate, we vote in favor of the 34% evil. If we vote "no", we vote against the 38% good. And who knows how the 28% unclear will turn out? But we can be sure that our political adversaries will portray the unclear as being evil, if we voted "yes", and supremely good, if we voted "no".