Posts tagged big labor
The Biden administration wants free speech for Big Labor, not businesses
May 9, 2024 // What’s more offensive — and, for that matter, illegal? An employee calling a coworker a “gutter b****” and a “queen of the slums”? Or a CEO saying that bringing in a labor union will make the workplace “much slower” and “more bureaucratic”? The answer is clearly the employee who racially and sexually demeaned his coworker. Yet in President Joe Biden’s administration, the CEO is the one getting punished. On May 1, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law when he said that unionization comes with downsides.
Parity in Labor Transparency
April 24, 2024 // The institutional left has sought to reward Big Labor by making union organizing campaigns shorter, or bypassing them with “card check.” Big Labor knows that the dynamics of union organizing rely on labor unions being able to make their pitches to workers from trusted positions without skeptical responses from other workers or employer representatives. And they only need to win the vote once to start collecting dues and engaging in compulsory bargaining. As long as government-recognized and government-empowered compulsory union bargaining exists, the government require workers be given all the information before deciding whether to form a union and bargain collectively. The SALT Act would accomplish this needed reform.
How Big Government and Big Labor Colluded to Get VW to Unionize
April 24, 2024 // Failure to meet government sales mandates will be met with massive fines that increase by leaps and bounds after 2026. California, the nation’s biggest auto market, will, for example, require that 35 percent of automaker sales be of battery-powered vehicles by 2026. Failure to meet that number will cost them $20,000 per vehicle for every vehicle below the threshold. The percentage jumps to 43 percent in 2027, 51 percent in 2028, 59 percent in 2029, and 68 percent in 2030 on the way to outlawing the sales of gasoline cars in 2035. Federal penalties are similarly harsh. Tesla aside (as an EV-only seller, it is not only exempt from penalties, but also receives generous subsidies), just 5 percent of sales today are electric, with 50 percent of EV buyers returning to a gas car when they go back to market.
Opinion: Why union-free workers shouldn’t believe UAW bosses
April 16, 2024 // Even as laid off unionized autoworkers are expressing their dismay about the UAW brass, Fain and his minions are pouring, by their own account, $40 million in dues money extracted from workers like Woods and Roberson into campaigns to secure monopoly bargaining privileges over currently union-free autoworkers employed in right to work states. Fain’s message to production employees at facilities like the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is that they will get “higher pay, more paid time off and more generous health benefits” if they help UAW officials seize power to “negotiate” how they are compensated and managed. Given the miserable track record of making good on his word, Fain has already established during his still-short tenure as UAW president that there is no good reason Chattanooga or other currently union-free autoworkers ought to believe him.
Commentary: Biden fosters Big Labor cronyism
March 25, 2024 // It is bad enough that union dues go to political activity that workers may or may not agree with. It is worse that some union bosses are stealing money from the workers that they claim to represent. Every dollar that a union boss steals is one dollar less that a worker can put toward sending their children to school, putting food on the table, or building a nest egg. The Biden administration enables union corruption because union dues overwhelmingly go toward electing Democrats. Biden’s refusal to pull union bosses away from the trough directly harms workers. Unlike Biden, House Republicans are leading the charge to stamp out union fraud and corruption.
Biden’s war on work undermines the American dream
February 6, 2024 // Biden’s Labor Department rule pursues the same goals as AB 5 and would put the monthly incomes of tens of millions of people — disproportionately women (especially mothers) and minorities — at risk.
Opinion: REI is Right to Question Unions
November 17, 2023 // Following the landmark 2018 Janus decision, public sector unions can’t mandate dues on non-members because it violates their First Amendment rights. The Freedom Foundation reports four of the largest public sector unions have lost a whopping 733,745 members since June 2018. An inconvenient truth: The unionized workforce is rapidly dwindling, making up 10.1% of the U.S. workforce. In comparison, the freelance workforce has grown to 45%—with 72 million individuals engaging in independent contracting full-time, part-time, or occasional. Even if I disagree with their politics, companies like REI demonstrate they can offer better benefits and perks over third-party entities like unions.
Opinion: Radical Unions Elected Biden, Chaos Ensues on International Front, but Others Bank on Same Formula
October 26, 2023 // Additionally, Biden unveiled a $400 billion American Jobs Plan designed to force thousands of Medicaid home healthcare providers back into the union membership they declined following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Harris v. Quinn. Unofficially, Biden waited weeks to survey the damage in fire-ravaged Hawaii and still hasn’t visited East Palestine, Ohio, where a 38-car train wreck last February created a huge hazardous waste disaster. But he saw fit to wade into a private-sector labor dispute by siding with the striking United Auto Workers and became the first sitting president in history to join a picket line.
Commentary: Leaked Messages From UAW Official Reveal a Big Cause of Unions’ Decline
September 28, 2023 // If union officials actually want to protect UAW jobs and improve workers’ compensation, then they have to want the Big Three American automakers to succeed and to grow. Considering that U.S. auto production is less than half of what it was two decades ago, success is likely going to require that the UAW work alongside—rather than against—U.S. automakers to help them become more competitive. To the extent that involves lobbying policymakers, the focus should be on getting the government out of the business of picking winners and losers by its subsidizing of more expensive electric vehicles that require 40% less labor while also seeking to ban gas-powered vehicles that Americans still overwhelmingly desire. And if unions across America want to increase their membership, they should appeal directly to workers by offering things they value instead of using their dues to get politicians to go against their interests by doing things like attacking secret ballot union elections, restricting employers’ ability to share important information with workers before union elections, and establishing a pathway to force an employer to bargain with a union even if workers don’t want to be represented by it.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IGNORES PROTOCOL – INSTALLS UNCONFIRMED ACTING LABOR SECRETARY JULIE SU TO PRESIDENTIAL LINE OF SUCCESSION
September 25, 2023 // “Beyond keeping Su as Acting Secretary, she’s been added to the official Cabinet webpage in the presidential line of succession — ahead of sitting Cabinet members who actually received a vote of confirmation.” Withe concluded, “President Biden champions himself the most pro-union president in our nation’s history — but what he really means is that he’s been bought and paid for by Big Labor bosses for his entire career, and now those labor leaders are calling in their favors.”