Posts tagged Bureau of Labor Statistics
Why unions won’t be participating in the U.S. manufacturing boom
May 27, 2025 // "Unionization policy in the United States is based on an adversarial relationship between management and labor," James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told Newsweek. "This means that the unions are not looked at as an asset to improve production; they are looked at as an extra cost and extra liability—which is why we see often, but not exclusively, U.S. states with less union concentration are the ones who are adding more employment.
Kim Kavin: The Tangled Web
May 23, 2025 // I know how most writers’ minds work. I have a well-honed instinct for spotting a thread I should pull on because the facts might be tangled up in some kind of web. This hyperlink in Newsweek was a different kind of typo. The words “2020 analysis” actually did lead to a report about independent contractors—one that was written not in 2020, but instead in 2009. A wrong hyperlink of that nature is a red flag to any decent editor that there’s probably an association in the writer’s mind between the words in the hyperlink and where that link goes. Any experienced editor will pull on that thread to figure out if there’s an actual problem with the facts.
Op-ed: Trump is neutering the Labor Department
April 12, 2025 // For union president Aliyah Levin, executive vice president Rob Sax and vice president Omar Algeciras, this moment is not just about protecting jobs but about protecting the mission of the department and, by extension, the public. At the core of the union leaders’ concerns is the Trump administration’s clear hostility toward federal civil servants. As Levin put it bluntly, “What is wrong with this administration that they’ve made public servants the enemy?”
Free the Economy podcast with Vinnie Vernuccio of the Institute for the American Worker
March 27, 2025 // Our interview for Episode 116 of the Free the Economy podcast is with Vinnie Vernuccio of the Institute for the American Worker. We talk about labor unions, independent contractors, right-to-work laws, port automation, and the future of the American workforce. Free the Economy is hosted by Richard Morrison. Our co-producer and editor is Destry Edwards. Keep up with new episodes by following us on Twitter at @freethe_economy and read our episode summaries, with links to the stories we cover, at cei.org/blog.
Michigan Republican presses Chavez-DeRemer to rescind Biden-era labor regulations
March 20, 2025 // “I encourage DOL to enforce its laws while providing robust compliance assistance to workers and businesses instead of continuing the enforcement-only approach taken by the Biden-Harris administration,” Walberg said Wednesday to Chavez-DeRemer in a letter shared with The Hill.
Lawmakers propose banning all federal labor unions
March 17, 2025 // “This legislation would end federal labor unions and immediately terminate their collective bargaining agreements to ensure the federal government is working on behalf of the American people – not labor unions – by increasing the productivity of its workforce,” Blackburn said in a statement. If passed, the bill would affect 25% of the federal employee workforce who are members of public sector unions, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Op-ed: Protect American workers: How Trump’s team can fulfill his promise
March 6, 2025 // Regulatory reform is needed at three federal agencies that oversee labor laws and regulations: the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. At the Labor Department, the administration should remove the economically inept "environmental, social and governance" investment criteria and instead protect workers’ retirement savings. Investment managers should be prohibited from advancing political agendas that reduce pension returns. The administration should guarantee workers freedom of information and transparency, so union members know how their leaders are spending dues.
Act 10, Scourge of Wisconsin Teachers, Faces Uncertain Future in Court
March 4, 2025 // According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the proportion of union members in Wisconsin’s workforce fell by nearly half, from 14.2% to 7.4%, between 2010 and 2023 (since that figure includes workers from all sectors, the drop for government employees is likely much steeper). A report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a right-leaning think tank, showed that the total number of unions holding annual recertification votes across the state declined from 540 in 2014 to 369 in 2018. The largest teachers’ union in the state, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, experienced a dizzying loss of manpower and organizing heft. A 2019 study conducted by a pair of researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that WEAC was forced to restructure and cut its staffing by about two-thirds. The retrenchment was made necessary by a freefall in the collection of dues, the payment of which was made voluntary by Act 10. The loss of paid organizers could be offset, in part, by the efforts of teacher volunteers. But the union had no ready replacement for the millions of dollars in government relations funds that had suddenly evaporated; WEAC went from being one of the biggest lobbying forces in Madison to a second-tier player virtually overnight.
SEIU Researchers Admit $20 Wage Law Caused Fast Food Job Losses
February 27, 2025 // As EPI notes, the evidence is from an unexpected source: “…the same labor union that pushed for the $20 policy.” “EPI has been a leading voice on the consequences of this law, releasing multiple reports based on government data that show the state’s $20 minimum wage is costing jobs. In an attempt to cover up these consequences, unions have supported biased researchers who are supportive of $20.”
‘Union Joe’ left labor movement weaker than it was
February 25, 2025 // As Dominic Pino pointed out last month in National Review, the overwhelming majority of workers in such fields as manufacturing, construction, mining, transportation and warehousing are not union members. Efforts to unionize employees attract disproportionate media cheerleading, especially when the unions target iconic American companies like Starbucks and Amazon. But there isn’t nearly as much coverage when workers in high-profile workplaces vote against joining a union — as they have recently at a Mercedes factory in Alabama, an Amazon warehouse in North Carolina and even Princeton University — or when scores of unions each year are decertified in workplace elections.