Posts tagged California Policy Center
Americans for Prosperity Leads Employee Rights Act Coalition
September 8, 2025 // Protect workers’ right to a secret ballot in union elections. Preserve flexible self-employment career-paths across American industries. Protect small businesses that operate as franchises and vendors for other businesses. Give workers control over their personal information during union campaigns. Allow workers in Right-to-Work states to opt out of union representation. Require opt-in consent for union political spending. Prohibit mandatory DEI mandates in union contracts. Ensure only citizens or authorized workers vote in union elections.
PODCAST: An Unholy Incubator, Will Swaim breaks down the new regulation that took effect on March 15 which affects every independent contractor in America.
March 21, 2024 // The President of the California Policy Center, host of National Review’s Radio Free California podcast, and watchdog journalist warns about the new federal regulation that effectively makes CA-AB5 national and ends independent contractor status as we know it. As goes California, so goes the nation—from a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers to rampant homelessness, crime, and reparations—the recovering communist dissects examples of what’s happening in the Golden State and yet to come nationally.
How California’s Firefighter Union Could Get Guaranteed Raises, Forever
July 5, 2023 // “Firefighters are already among the best-paid government workers in the state,” said Will Swaim, president of California Policy Center, an advocacy group that is critical of California public employee unions. “No one else in California gets that deal,” he said. Michael Genest, the former finance director under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, also called promises of future raised “irresponsible.” “Governors and legislators always regret having made such promises when our budget goes out of balance,” he wrote in an email. “The wise move is to make decisions about the allocation of state revenues each year and even then to be careful not to spend more on anything than is prudent.”
Unionized Public Education is Destroying California
March 13, 2023 // The teachers’ union in California supported a ballot initiative that guarantees at least 38 percent of the state general fund is spent on K-14 public education. This guarantees that any new government program – such as last year’s single payer healthcare proposal that would have added hundreds of billions to the state budget – will pour more money into public education. This creates an incentive for California’s teachers’ unions to push for huge increases to the size of the state government, because they’ll get 38 percent of the pie no matter how big it gets. Because California’s public schools receive state funds based on attendance, the teachers’ union is also incentivized to support anything that will increase the student age population. Hence they have an incentive to support anything that will facilitate mass immigration, whether or not that puts a strain on housing and other services. If those students are from low-income households or don’t speak English as their first language, the per student allocations are increased.
Opinion: Labor unions, workers and the need to think outside the box
February 23, 2023 // The California Policy Center reports that as of December 2022, 27.1% of eligible public employees in California have chosen not to pay into government unions. Last November, employees of the local union SEIU 2015, a statewide union representing public employees in California, went on strike alleging unfair labor practices at SEIU 2015. Every two year election cycle hundreds of millions of dollars worth of membership dues from public sector unions in California alone are spent financing elections and lobbying efforts. And, because of a longstanding California employment law, employees from the University of California system are now being forced to repay wages they received while on strike last fall. These examples point to a larger issue: traditional unions are not protecting and supporting their own members.
Opinion: Public employee unions corrupt our system of government
February 14, 2023 // For an editorial in the Orange County Register at the time, I called Chapter 224 head Ronda Walen, who wrote the above statement on the union website. I asked if it was fair for the union to elect “our own bosses.” “Yes, I think it is,” she replied. “In a democracy, we have the right to do that.” Actually, using the voters’ own tax money to push candidates and positions on them is a violation of democracy, which is rule by the people — all of them. Not just a few union bosses living off taxes forcibly taken from everybody else, and funding pro
New California Law Forces Taxpayers to Pay for Union Members’ Dues
October 17, 2022 // On its surface, the law, Assembly Bill 185, provides $400 million of taxpayers’ money to a select group of people who purchase a private, optional service. (The so-called tax credit is refundable, or available to people who do not pay state income taxes, which makes it a payment instead of tax credit.) The stated intent “is to help individuals with the cost of being a member of a union.” But California lawmakers haven’t passed or proposed bills providing hundreds of millions of dollars to help individuals with the cost of becoming members of AAA or their local gym or farm bureau. So, why the special handouts for labor unions alone?
CPC files amicus brief to protect Californians’ right to the ballot initiative
June 6, 2022 // AB 5’s backers, primarily union leaders and their allies in the state legislature, said gig workers would get health insurance, rest breaks, and other benefits afforded to employees under California state law. Those union leaders did not mention that those drivers would lose what’s arguably the most attractive feature in their bargain with Uber and Lyft: the freedom to determine their work schedules. Castellanos v. California, Lorena Gonzalez, Proposition 22, Judge Frank Roesch,
CALIFORNIA UNION WATCH 2022 QUARTER 1 REVIEW
April 11, 2022 // The California Union Watch Twitter account (@CalUnionWatch) has been tracking government union contributions over the first quarter of this year (January 1, 2022 through March 31, 2022). Here are the five biggest union contributors from this year so far. We will be only focusing on state-level elections.