Blog ● Unions +

August 11, 2022 // The $29.1 billion in net assets for unions, by the way, does not include the value of union pensions — which hold trillions of dollars in assets themselves. (Those pension assets could and should be strategically invested with the goal of strengthening the labor movement, but that is a topic for another day.) Those tens of billions, though, could accomplish a lot. Bohner, in his report, has a few suggestions: Hiring 20,000 new union organizers ($1.4 billion per year), supercharging spending on strike benefits ($1 billion per year), and funding ​“a new $3 billion entity (or entities) that could engage in riskier civil disobedience activities, like illegal strikes, secondary boycott activities, or defying restrictive court injunctions on picketing and protest.” One can quibble over the specific numbers, but these are all, frankly, very good ideas. We must enable vastly more union organizing; we must enable more strikes; and we must be able to take militant labor actions that fall outside the law, so long as the law is designed to handcuff labor. These things are not pipe dreams — they are all, as this report details, financially possible. So what is lacking? Leaders to make them happen. ” Chris Bohner, Radish Research,

Op-ed ● Labor Unions +

August 11, 2022 // After wading through all the leftwing blather, I can’t help but wonder why any conservative, libertarian, right-leaning, centrist or apolitical teacher would continue to belong to a teachers union. In California, when a teacher joins a local union, she typically forks over about $1,200 yearly. If the union is an NEA affiliate, $768 will go to the California Teachers Association and $204 will be sent off to NEA command central in D.C. The remaining $200 or so stays at the local level. Much of the money that goes to CTA/NEA is spent on leftwing politics, and every penny of the unions’ income is tax-free. Barack Obama, Becky Pringle, Robert Pondiscio, RJ Martin, OpenSecrets.org, Caroline Hoxby, Mike Petrilli, Fordham Institute,

News Article ● Unionization +

August 11, 2022 // A few months later, Robert Haynes — a retired Detroit police officer — reached out to tell us that he and his wife Patricia were ensnarled in a similar scheme. Bob and Pat receive monthly Medicaid checks to take care of their two adult children. This dues skim resulted in an estimated 80,000 day care and home caregivers being forcibly unionized, with $35 million taken from their paychecks and given to unions. Harris v. Quinn, Bob and Pat Haynes,

News Article ● Unionization +

August 11, 2022 // Lululemon Athletica Inc. employees will vote this month on unionizing a store in Washington, D.C., testing the strength of an organizing wave that’s been sweeping through previously union-free US retail firms. The US National Labor Relations Board has approved an agreement between the company and the new labor group organizing the location, the Association of Concerted Educators, to hold an election on Aug. 26 and 27. The planned vote follows a series of landmark labor wins in elections at companies including Starbucks Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., and Trader Joe’s.

News Article Research ● Unionization Unions +

August 11, 2022 // Labor leaders were giddy when a group of state Senate employees last month announced their intent to unionize. But if the group achieves its objective — to subject senators to the sweeping union rules Albany imposes on local governments and schools — the result may be more than what labor bargained for. About 80 of the Senate’s roughly 1,000 employees have formed the New York State Legislative Workers United. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the group demanded the same bargaining privileges New York’s Taylor Law grants state and municipal employees and teachers.

News Article ● Labor Unionization +

August 10, 2022 // The Amazon distribution center in Garner is massive. Located a few miles southeast of downtown Raleigh, it covers 2 million square feet and houses multiple departments across four floors. The facility, known as RDU1, employs more than 4,000 people who work shifts spanning all hours of the day and night, seven days a week. It’s a colossal operation, and Mary Hill is one of the workers trying to unionize it all. A Raleigh resident, Hill is the co-founder of Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, or C.A.U.S.E., which she formed with her colleague Rev. Ryan Brown, a former pastor in western North Carolina. Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, Mary Hill, Tim Platt, Duke University School of Law,

News Article Op-ed Research ● Labor Unions +

August 10, 2022 // AFSCME Council 8 had included in its contract with Cincinnati that the city would divert the equivalent of four hours of annual vacation time from all city workers and give it to the union. Those funds would compensate the city for the official time used by union members. This didn’t save taxpayers anything, since they were still ultimately paying for the official time. Rather, what it did was take even more money away from the workers, who were already paying regular union dues. Most Cincinnati city workers had no idea this was happening. The practice has been discontinued following a lawsuit by the Freedom Foundation, which argued that the arrangement violated the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus ruling, which said that government workers’ pay could only be diverted to unions with the workers’ affirmative consent.

News Article ● Unions +

August 10, 2022 //

News Article Research ● Labor Unionization Unions +

August 10, 2022 // Ten years ago this December, the state Legislature adopted a right-to-work statute, which said nobody need be compelled to join or financially support a union as a condition of employment. This worker protection law was the fruit of a two-decade campaign by the Mackinac Center. The Mackinac Center has repeatedly used its intellectual firepower to demonstrate to the public, opinion makers and legislators that right-to-work states frequently do better economically than those with compulsory union laws. Among the studies we cited over the years was a 1998 academic paper that looked at counties on state borders, where one state enjoyed right-to-work protections and an adjacent state did not. Mackinac Center Adjunct Scholar Todd Nesbit, Wall Street Journal, The Hill, The Detroit News,

News Article Research ● Corruption +

August 10, 2022 // But that’s precisely what the Internal Revenue Service did, according to a recent Treasury investigation. Between 2004 and 2013, the agency continued to employ, and even promote, nearly 1,000 employees who willfully lied on or failed to pay their own personal taxes. Unfortunately, there’s no marketplace for tax collection and enforcement, so taxpayers can’t simply take their business elsewhere. IRS employee tax compliance is an important component of the public’s trust in the IRS. That’s why there’s a special provision—Section 1203 of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998—that specifies termination for any IRS employee found guilty of willful violations of tax law. The IRS commissioner, however, has the final say and can “mitigate” violations to a lesser penalty. First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, non-tax compliance, tax collector,

Op-ed Research ● Employee Rights Act ERA PRO Act +

August 9, 2022 // Why is championing flexible work through reforms so important? Independent contractors make up a sizeable portion of the 59 million freelancers in the U.S. economy, employ tens of millions of additional workers under their contracts as small businesses, and are often the entrepreneurs that grow successful new businesses in communities. Modern Worker Empowerment Act, California Supreme Court

Blog Video ● Labor Strike Unions +

August 9, 2022 // Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) assessed the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA)—which has been on strike in Alabama against Warrior Met Coal since April 1, 2021—to pay $13.3 million to the company for “for costs including increased security, damage repair and lost revenues from unmined coal,” as well as “almost $30,000” to individuals, mostly for damage to vehicles.

News Article Video ● Unions +

August 9, 2022 // Labor union bosses have praised the legislation as a big win for their members. The AFL-CIO is particularly pleased with the hundreds of billions of dollars the bill directs to climate-related initiatives. "These provisions dramatically lower the cost of clean energy, positioning the U.S. to make deep carbon emissions reductions while preserving and creating millions of jobs, with an especially big boost to manufacturing," said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. "Importantly for fairness and diversity, it pushes investment to fossil fuel and underserved communities. While the 'union bonus' incentives we advocated for were not included, the bill retains provisions that strengthen prevailing wage, apprenticeship and domestic content standards throughout."

News Article Video ● Labor Unionization +

August 9, 2022 // Workers like Xochitl Stauffer said they have more bargaining leverage now that the labor market is tight. “Service work is the backbone of the country right now,” Stauffer said, “and because of COVID so many people have passed away and the labor market is really tight right now, so we have the leverage to ask for better pay, to ask for sick pay and be better respected as workers.” In January, workers alleged that restaurant management was endangering their health by not telling them about COVID-19 cases.

Op-ed ● Labor Unionization +

August 9, 2022 // The power of workers relative to the power of the investment class must be rebalanced. Rebuilding the power of unions is the only way out of this trap, unless you are credulous enough to believe that we will all be rescued by the sudden radicalization of the tax policymakers on the House ways and means committee. If you ever want to live in a country where the American dream is more than a cruel, tantalizing joke, you have a stake in the revival of organized labor. History shows that organized labor thrives when it has the government’s support, and suffers without it. We are supposedly living under the most pro-union president of our lifetimes. So? Let’s hear some damn fire, man. The only reason companies feel so free to abuse their workers is that they don’t believe anyone will make them pay for it.

Blog Op-ed ● Labor +

August 9, 2022 // According to the Office of Management and Budget’s annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, federal employees’ overall satisfaction surged under the administration of then-President Donald Trump, and has already tumbled under the administration of President Joe Biden. Between 2016 and 2020, employees’ overall satisfaction rose by 8 percentage points. Over just the first year of the Biden administration, from 2020 to 2021, federal employees’ overall satisfaction plummeted 5.3 points. Public Service Reform Act, Rep. Chip Roy, Blueprint for Reorganization,

News Article ● Strike Unions +

August 9, 2022 // The union is asking for smaller class sizes; full-time art, music and physical education teachers; functioning heating and cooling systems in schools; more planning time for teachers; a cap on the number of class periods in the day; and "other working conditions that recruit and retain the best educators for out students."

News Article Research ● Labor Unionization +

August 9, 2022 // The desire to join a union is much more prevalent among younger journalists than among their older peers: 77% of full- or part-time journalists ages 18 to 29 are either already a member of a union at their news organization (20%) or would join a union if it were available to them (57%). This is nearly twice the share among journalists 65 and older (41%) – 13% of whom report already being in a union and 28% of whom say they would join one if it were available to them. Differences also emerge by journalists’ gender, race and ethnicity. About six-in ten journalists who are women (63%) say they are either currently a union member or would join one if available, compared with 52% of journalists who are men. Black, Hispanic and Asian journalists are all more likely than White journalists to say they are either in a union or would join one if it were available to them.

News Article Op-ed ● Labor Unionization Unions +

August 8, 2022 // The top lawyer at the body charged with enforcing US labor law has been hailed as a champion by some and as a “radical” by her opponents. For others involved in the white-hot world of union organizing, she has not gone far enough. Abruzzo’s bona fides are clear. She has repeatedly urged the NLRB’s five-person board to adopt new policies that would make it easier to unionize. She wants the board to prohibit so-called captive audience meetings in which Amazon and many other companies require employees to listen to anti-union speeches from managers and consultants. She wants the board to require employers to grant union recognition once a majority of workers sign cards saying they want a union.

News Article ● Labor Unions +

August 8, 2022 // Some of the state’s top union leaders are requesting that public employees’ health care contributions be frozen at current levels and that federal Covid relief funds be used to help offset proposed rate increases for those workers’ health insurance. In a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy obtained by POLITICO, the leaders of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, Communications Workers of America, New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association and other public employee unions say the steep proposed rate increases to the State Health Benefits Program would “cause a financial crisis for New Jersey workers, the public and State and local governments.” State Health Benefits Program, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Christi Peace, Division of Pensions & Benefits, Jennifer Sciortino, New Jersey Association of Counties and the state League of Municipalities,