Posts tagged Donald Trump
Commentary: How the Teachers Union Broke Public Education
June 7, 2023 // School closures were not just an issue that impacted teachers, kids, and parents—this policy will have decadeslong ripple effects that will reverberate through every aspect of society. While savvy middle class and affluent families may opt for charter and private schools as a solution, the poorest and most vulnerable children, such as my former students, will remain trapped in a rotting system. The children who never catch up will grow into damaged, illiterate adults who cannot participate in the labor force and who are plagued by social dysfunction and decay. Ultimately, the union will achieve its vision of remaking the world—only it will be a broken, disfigured world that no one wants.
A Mandate for Labor Error: Big Labor Radicalizes
May 25, 2023 // s for claims by some conservatives that embracing unions will drive electoral success, these notions arise from populist factions’ overinterpretation of the 2016 election results and under-interpretation of elections since then. Many note that in his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump’s efforts in the upper Midwest states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were aided by his moderate stances on economic issues relative to the positions of prior Republican candidates like Mitt Romney. And this is generally true—but not on labor-relations issues.
Opinion: The green movement is a jobs killer. Are unions finally figuring this out?
May 15, 2023 // Even now, as Biden cozies up to the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and places a metaphorical blade at the neck of the blue-collar union workers, the union bosses are reluctant to call for a divorce with “lunch bucket Joe.” After acknowledging the threat that Biden posed to the livelihoods of tens of thousands of union members, the UAW’s Fain warned that “another Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster.” How? Union workers saw huge job and wage gains when Trump was president. Fain even muttered some disingenuous mumbo jumbo about getting "behind a pro-worker, pro-climate agenda" for the working class. That’s an oxymoron.
OPINION: UAW’s phony baloney non-endorsement threat to Biden’s re-election campaign
May 11, 2023 // Union officials have already traveled to Washington to meet with the Biden administration officials to voice their concerns. A memo written by the union’s president, Shawn Fain, said the Detroit-based union leadership expressed “our concerns with the electric vehicle transition” that Biden pursues.
PBA head Patrick Lynch won’t seek reelection after years at helm of NYPD’s biggest union
April 12, 2023 // Lynch, the longest-serving president of the city’s largest police union, announced his departure after hammering out a new contract between the PBA and the city last week. The PBA had been working without a contract for six years before the deal was reached. Under Lynch’s leadership, officers also turned their backs on de Blasio when he spoke at the fallen officers’ funerals, as well as at the funeral of Police Officer Miosotis Familia in 2017. Lynch made headlines — and ruffled a few political feathers — when he and the union endorsed former President Donald Trump for reelection in 2020. It was the first time in the union’s history that it formally backed a presidential candidate, he noted at the time.
New union head for auto workers promises militant contract bargaining and activism
April 7, 2023 // FAIN: We're here to come together to ready ourselves for the war against our only one and only true enemy - multibillion dollar corporations and employers that refuse to give our members their fair share.
AFT’s Weingarten goes all-in on progressive politics
April 6, 2023 // The annual “Share My Lesson” virtual conference is supposed to be a forum to discuss classroom instruction strategies, curriculum ideas, or lesson plans. Instead, Weingarten used the time to highlight partisan, political rhetoric. She began her address by painting a picture about teachers unions like AFT, as being “on the side of hope, of aspiration, of humanity,” in contrast to partisan politicians. “Teachers are stewards of society,” Weingarten said, “Teachers are nation builders.” Weingarten said too many politicians are trying to “drive a wedge between parents and teachers because you think it works as a politician to get you votes.” Weingarten, who has a track record of being an outspoken critic of politicians on the political Right, then focused much of her ire on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. She claimed that DeSantis is “leading this charge [against teachers]. They’re threatening teachers with felonies and jail time if they give their students the wrong book to read.”
Biden set for first veto on Senate bill opposing climate-friendly investing
March 2, 2023 // President Biden is expected to issue the first veto of his presidency after the Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would revoke a Labor Department rule allowing the managers of the agency’s vast retirement funds to use climate-oriented and social criteria when making investments. The Senate passed the measure after Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) crossed party lines and joined the Republicans, providing the key pieces of the 50-46 majority needed. Both senators are up for reelection next year in heavily Republican states. Four senators abstained. The House passed the bill on Tuesday. The measure takes aim at big asset managers who often use criteria that they believe are crucial for building a portfolio that can withstand changes, especially climate changes, over the coming years. These criteria are known as ESG — environmental, social and governance — and have become sensitive political and cultural touchstones, with critics calling them evidence of “woke” financial institutions.
UC strike energizes unprecedented national surge of union organizing by academic workers
January 3, 2023 // In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caltech plans to officially kick off its organizing campaign this month, and other academic researchers are working to form unions at the University of Alaska, Western Washington University, the National Institutes of Health and such influential think tanks as the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. Princeton University, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Pasadena, Caltech, Pardee Rand Graduate School, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Claiming ‘democracy under attack,’ Biden administration looks to make it harder to oust unions
November 7, 2022 // National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced it would start the process rescind a 2020 rule implemented to protect workers' right to vote on removing union representation. The NLRB adopted the Election Protection Rule in 2020 to reform several processes, including union officials filing "blocking charges" to prevent employees from voting out union representation from their workplace. Filing blocking charges by making one or multiple allegations against an employer prevents employees from voting, or their ballots are impounded because litigation ensues over the charges. This process often takes months or years to resolve, during which union representation and dues deductions continue.