Business: Rites of Winter At Bal Harbour

For the sultans of Big Labor, a perennial rite of winter is the annual meeting of the AFL-CIO's executive council in Bal Harbour, Fla., just north of Miami Beach. There, at the garish 15-story Americana Hotel, the heads of 34 AFL-CIO unions representing some 20 million workers—about 21% of U.S. wage earners—gather every February to talk strategy under the sun and in sybaritic splendor. TIME Correspondent Philip Taubman attended this year's eight-day meeting and filed this report:

"Come on, Lucky Pierre," shouted the chap in the stands at a Miami jai alai fronton....

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