Posts tagged cronyism
NYC lifeguard union boss retires ahead of disciplinary trial
January 30, 2025 // Peter Stein, who was the longtime head of the lifeguards supervisors union, will face a virtual disciplinary trial Thursday with representatives from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The proceeding is not open to the public. An attorney involved in the case and a lifeguard who has long pushed for reform of the union described the allegations to Gothamist. The hearing, they said, centers on charges Stein failed to abide by union bylaws and obstructed lifeguards from participating in union activities.
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.
OPINION: Sen. Sinema Shouldn’t Let Julie Su Turn Ariz. Into Calif.
June 5, 2023 // More than one million freelance workers lost work in the wake of AB5’s passage. In response to public outrage, the California legislature carved out scores of politically connected professions from the draconian legislation so that it no longer applied to musicians, translators, writers, photographers, and many others. But big labor’s main targets – independent truckers and the gig economy – are still suffering from AB5’s harsh policy. Even the notoriously left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has suggested that AB5’s sponsors and enforcers may have had no legitimate policy objectives in mind when granting exemptions to AB5, and instead acted out of "animus" by targeting companies that facilitate vast swaths of independent contracting.