For the curious, Mark Oppenheimer at the New Haven Advocate goes into detail on some of the anti-union actions Ian Shapiro took during the grade strike which recently cost him the Hillman prize. Oppenheimer reveals just how disingenuous Shapiro is being when he professes innocence (or ignorance.)

One charge against Shapiro is not so secret, however. Although it was not
part of the NLRB complaint, the allegation that Shapiro watered down a letter of
recommendation for Corey Robin, then a graduate student and pro-union activist,
has long been well known in GESO circles, and, according to Meyerson, was one of
the charges that led to the withdrawal of the Hillman Award.

Robin, now a professor at Brooklyn College, says he took a leave of
absence from Yale "to work full-time as director of the organizing drive for
GESO. And Ian had been on my dissertation committee before I did this. The
letter he wrote prior to my taking a leave was very positive. He said in
the letter, "He is one of the ablest students in our program.' After I returned
. . . he changed it to "He is an able student.' That's essentially saying, "He
can walk and chew gum at the same time.' And it was particularly detrimental to
my career, because he's one of the political theorists in the department, and I
would have needed his support on the job market."

Shapiro denies ever changing the language in question. However, we have the letters right in front of us, provided by Corey Robin, and they bear out Robin's charge.

Also in NLRB news, this is now legal, and the board may be about to rule that thousands of Registered Nurses in the private sector count are "managers" and thus can't form unions through the NLRB election process.