Posts tagged career and technical education

    Op-Ed: Greszler: Harris, Walz policy records undermine pro-worker rhetoric

    August 23, 2024 // the Biden-Harris Administration is also picking winners and losers among blue-collar workers. Its regulations governing wages and labor agreements on government contracts are disastrous. They almost exclude non-union workers from federal contract jobs, including 89% of construction workers who aren’t unionized; force many workers who perform federal contract jobs into unions, including requiring them to pay into union pensions they’ll never receive. Not only that, but despite the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to empower and unionize more workers, the unionization rate hit a new record low of 10% in 2023 (6% among the private sector), and the gap between union and non-union wages also hit a record low. That’s because union wages increased 6.4 percentage points less than non-union wages between 2019 and 2023. For Walz’s part, he’s signed a slew of labor laws ostensibly aimed at helping workers, but by driving up the costs and legal liabilities of employing people in Minnesota, they have instead hamstrung job growth in the state.

    Proposed Biden-Harris Apprenticeship Rule Would Exacerbate Skills Gap

    August 14, 2024 // PROPOSED RULE WOULD DISCOURAGE WORKERS AND DISINCENTIVIZE BUSINESSES FROM PARTICIPATING IN APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMS Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the U.S. Department of Labor has proposed a nearly 800-page rule that would burden apprenticeship programs with red tape, extra costs, and more bureaucracy. The rule includes several problematic new requirements, including