Posts tagged free-market
Right-to-work facts vs. myths
February 12, 2025 // What’s become evident over the decades is that right-to-work laws are associated with statistically significant gains in employment, particularly manufacturing employment, job opportunities, population growth and economic growth. If New Hampshire adopts a right-to-work law, we would expect to see improvements in all of those areas, along with an improvement in state business tax revenues resulting from the additional business activity. As for freedom vs. coercion, workers have First Amendment rights not to associate with or fund membership organizations that they choose not to join. If workers want to join unions, they should be free to do so.
Commentary: The Rise of “Pro-Labor” Conservatism
September 9, 2024 // Yet O’Brien’s move has attracted the attention of commentators from both sides of the political spectrum who see it as a bellwether. It is what conservative commentator Sohrab Ahmari has called a “brave gambit” and veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse dubbed a “huge gamble.” “A glacier of hostility has divided the GOP from organized labor for two generations,” Ahmari wrote in Compact. But the Teamsters president “took a pickaxe to that glacier” by speaking at the RNC. Ahmari attributes the rise of this strain of pro-labor, anti-union conservatism to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), a MAGA firebrand who has come out as perhaps the lone GOP senator to oppose right to work legislation, the anti-union laws on the books in 28 states.
OPINION STAR PARKER: Unions and Republicans
August 16, 2024 // According to a recent survey from Pew Research, 39 percent of union members are Republicans. Furthermore, when we examine the polling data, we see a disconnect between what voters think about unions and what workers are actually doing. Regarding the latter, the data is clear that fewer and fewer workers are joining unions.
Opinion: REI is Right to Question Unions
November 17, 2023 // Following the landmark 2018 Janus decision, public sector unions can’t mandate dues on non-members because it violates their First Amendment rights. The Freedom Foundation reports four of the largest public sector unions have lost a whopping 733,745 members since June 2018. An inconvenient truth: The unionized workforce is rapidly dwindling, making up 10.1% of the U.S. workforce. In comparison, the freelance workforce has grown to 45%—with 72 million individuals engaging in independent contracting full-time, part-time, or occasional. Even if I disagree with their politics, companies like REI demonstrate they can offer better benefits and perks over third-party entities like unions.
The rise and fall of ESG investing
November 9, 2023 // Ideologically aligned investments are risky. Fink and others now seem to understand that. There’s a role for ESG investing if people want it, with the risks and realities clearly explained up front. As the conversation moves forward on rulemaking, regulation and what the law should be, the fiduciary responsibility that money managers have to their clients to produce the greatest possible return on investment must remain the paramount consideration.
Video: ALEC’s Labor of Love: A History of Championing Worker Freedom
March 10, 2023 // Today, ALEC debuts its first episode, “Worker Freedom,” in our 50th anniversary video series. The episode features ALEC champions Scott Walker (45th Governor of Wisconsin), Matt Hall (Michigan House Minority Leader and ALEC Board of Directors Member), and Vinnie Vernuccio (Senior Fellow, Mackinac Center), discussing ALEC’s pivotal role in securing Worker Freedom policy wins across the states. In some states, private sector workers can be forced to join, leave, or pay fees to a union as job requirement. The Right-to-Work Act, which ALEC task forces approved as a model policy, provides a solution to this issue. It prevents private employers from requiring or banning union membership (or fees) as conditions for employment, giving workers in Right-to-Work states a guaranteed right to support a union or not to support a union without this choice affecting their hiring or job security.
The year labor organizing came to tech
December 13, 2022 // Tech's labor organizing is still in its infancy. Only a few unions have successfully formed, and most of those still face the often-arduous process of negotiating contracts with employers. Pandemic-driven labor shortages gave workers an unusual boost in leverage for a time, but that dynamic could change again as the economy slows down. The tech industry laid off over 120,000 employees in 2022.