Posts tagged Arkansas
Powerful teachers’ unions share striking link with states struggling to teach kids to read
September 19, 2026 // Eight of the ten states to score among the worst in the Progressive Policy Institute’s (PPI) assessment of early-literacy policies were home to powerful teachers' unions. Among the top 60% of states in terms of early-literacy policy scores, only four had strong teachers' unions. Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Indiana, all Republican leaning states with weak unions, were among the states with the best literacy outcomes. Maine, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington and Rhode Island, blue states, were among the worst.
ALEC Releases 4th Edition of “States That Work” Labor Policy Rankings
September 14, 2026 // “States That Work shows that the states giving workers the greatest freedom to earn a living are also creating an environment where businesses and families can thrive,” said report author and ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Director Alan Jernigan. “From protecting Right to Work to removing unnecessary licensing barriers, states have a clear roadmap for expanding opportunity without growing government.”
Michigan earns ‘D’ in government union, worker freedom report
September 10, 2026 // The report called many of these actions taken by states and unions “anti-freedom” proposals which leave workers confused on their rights and obligations. “Union executives are spending tens of millions of dollars to rewrite the rules of the game and bolster their political machine in every state, at the expense of freedom for government employees,” Osborne said. “State lawmakers across the country must stand up against anti-freedom labor proposals to ensure that every American worker has the right to choose whether or not to associate with a union, without coercion or fear, and that their hard-earned dollars don’t fund a political agenda they don’t support.”
Report: The Battle for Worker Freedom: Grading State Public Sector Labor Laws
September 10, 2026 // Union executives are prioritizing recruitment. The fastest-growing category of public sector labor legislation expands collective bargaining into new workplaces. On the strength of these new laws, union executives are slowly replacing their membership losses since 2018. From 2018 to 2025, the country’s four largest government unions report a net decline in membership of 87,919, or 1.3 percent. However, they also report a collective gain of 232,502 members, or 3.5 percent since 2024. This report awards full letter-grade increases to Idaho (now A) and Louisiana (now B) due to their adoption of pro-worker labor reforms this past legislative session. However, the drops in grades—Nebraska (D), Nevada (D), and Rhode Island (F)—are the result of these states prioritizing union executives over workers and enacting laws helping unions recruit, politick, organize, and strike. Thirteen states now have an “A” or “A+” grade—up from twelve in the previous edition of this report—while six states earned an “F”—up from five over the same time period. Overall, the research finds 25 states fall below a “C.”
She never worked in a steel mill. Now she leads the United Steelworkers.
July 31, 2026 // “She’s going to have to get the trust of the steelworkers,” said Richard Tikey, a union local vice president at the coking coal plant for U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works south of Pittsburgh. He said the union should have pushed for additional benefits or a new contract during the sale process. “The union had more leverage then,” Tikey said. U.S. Steel’s initial proposal included an 18.2% pay increase over five years and a $4,000 contract bonus, but would implement employee copays for health insurance. Union negotiators said this was insufficient. They will counter in August.
Commentary: Why Are Union Officials So Comfortable Stealing From Their Own Members?
June 8, 2026 // That’s why we’re highlighting legislation like Iowa Senate File 472, championed by Iowa State Senator Adrian Dickey. The legislation requires public-sector unions to obtain affirmative consent from workers before deducting union dues from their paychecks and to renew that authorization on a regular basis. Workers must actively opt in rather than being treated as automatic revenue sources. The measure strengthens transparency, reinforces worker choice, and ensures unions maintain the support of the people whose paychecks fund them. Organizations that serve their members well have nothing to fear from accountability. Accountability strengthens trust. It forces leaders to remain responsive to the people they represent. Union members deserve the same protections, transparency, and financial safeguards that shareholders expect from corporations and taxpayers expect from government.
Report: The diminishing power of teacher unions
May 29, 2026 // The result is A Crowded Table: Teacher Union Strength in 2026. Building on our original study, the authors set out to gauge teacher union strength in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). Collectively, the 59 measures—which include 29 new measures that were not in the original report—seek to quantify union strength in five key areas: Resources and Membership; Involvement in Politics; Labor and Bargaining Policies; Policy Wins and Losses; and Perceived Influence, which draws from an original survey examining how stakeholders in each of the 50 states and D.C. perceive teacher union strength today. The states with the strongest teacher unions are Vermont, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Hawaii. The states with the weakest teacher unions are Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi. (See our interactive table on the report website for the overall rankings alongside the rankings for each of the five areas.)
Commentary: Unions make slight gains in South, mirroring national trends
April 29, 2026 // Southern states continue to lag significantly behind the rest of the country in union membership. Close to 4.9 percent of workers in the South belong to a union, and 5.9 percent of workers are employed in a workplace that enjoys union representation. That compares to 12.7 percent union density in the rest of the country, and 14 percent of non-Southern workers having union representation at their workplace. Labor’s modest gains come amidst a wide-ranging assault on worker protections under the Trump administration. Since coming into office, Trump has sought to strip collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million federal workers and eviscerated worker health and safety protections.
Opinion: Teachers Unions Get Desperate
February 17, 2026 // Antichoice plaintiffs “usually file lawsuits right before families sign up for the program just to be particularly cruel. They know they’ll lose nearly every case, but delaying or enjoining the programs in any way is the last-ditch effort to slow maximum uptake for families,” says Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children. Many suits are striking out. Idaho’s high court just ruled 5-0 in favor of the state choice program. Top courts in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and West Virginia have upheld choice programs. The U.S. Supreme Court has continued to issue beneficial rulings. Yet the legal threat is real, and unions, often accompanied by local school districts, continue to throw millions at litigation and disruption, forcing states to spend huge amounts to defend against them. Then the unions and the districts claim schools are underfunded.
Starbucks workers union planning pickets, rallies through Nov. 2. See in which states
October 27, 2025 // Starbucks, for its part, says it is willing to bargain with the union, which the company says represents about 9,500 of its "partners," or employees. "Workers United only represents around 4% of our partners but chose to walk away from the bargaining table. If they’re ready to come back, we’re ready to talk," corporate spokesperson Jaci Anderson said in a statement to USA TODAY. "Any agreement needs to reflect the reality that Starbucks already offers the best job in retail including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners," Anderson said. "We’re investing over $500 million to put more partners in stores during busy times. The facts show people like working at Starbucks. Partner engagement is up, turnover is nearly half the industry average, and we get more than 1 million job applications a year.”