Posts tagged Georgia
Podcast Newt Gingrich, Vinnie Vernuccio; Episode 837: Protecting the American Worker
May 5, 2025 // Newt’s guest is Vincent Vernuccio, president and co-founder of the Institute for the American Worker. They discuss the significant labor policy developments and legislative efforts aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in both public and private sectors. Their conversation covers the introduction of the Start Applying Labor Transparency (SALT) Act, which seeks to amend the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 to ensure greater transparency in financial transactions between unions and labor consultants. Vernuccio also explains the implications of President Trump's executive action, Schedule F, which aims to make certain federal employees at-will to enhance accountability. They also discuss the challenges posed by public sector unions and the potential impact of Senator Josh Hawley's Faster Labor Contracts Act, which could impose arbitration on private sector union negotiations. Vernuccio emphasizes the need for modernizing union models to align with today's workforce demands for flexibility and merit-based advancement.
Op-ed: The evidence is in: Forcing workers to join unions destroys good-paying jobs
May 5, 2025 // He then noted: “This difference is substantial, equivalent to a 28 percent increase in manufacturing employment” in right-to-work counties relative to their forced-unionism neighbors. Practically all elected officials in the U.S. claim to support the creation of new manufacturing jobs and the retention of current ones. But the many Big Labor politicians in Washington, D.C., who support the elimination of state right-to-work laws and the expansion of union bosses’ forced-unionism privileges to all 50 states are objectively in favor of the destruction of good-paying manufacturing jobs.
May Day demonstrations in US and around the globe protest Trump agenda
May 4, 2025 // Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and around the world rallied Thursday in May Day protests that united many in anger over President Donald Trump’s agenda from aggressive tariffs that are stoking fears of global economic turmoil to his administration’s immigration crackdowns. In the United States, organizers framed this year’s International Workers’ Day protests as a pushback against what they see as the administration’s sweeping assault on labor protections, diversity initiatives and federal employees.
Liya Palagashvili: The Portable Benefits Revolution: How Did We Get Here?
May 1, 2025 // Senator Bill Cassidy just put flexible benefits on the map. This is the story of how a niche policy idea climbed to the top of the Congressional agenda.
Clark Atlanta launches labor institute to develop Black strategists for a renewed union movement
April 29, 2025 // Clark Atlanta University has partnered with national labor rights group Jobs With Justice to launch a first-of-its-kind academic center for training young Black and Brown labor movement leaders, on the belief that the South is the front line for revitalizing the US labor movement as a force in political democracy. The Labor Institute for the Advancement of Black Strategists is housed within the historically Black university’s W.E.B. Du Bois Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy.
Backgrounder: Trump Civil Service Reform Proposed Rule
April 27, 2025 // On April 23, 2025, OPM proposed a new rule to improve accountability for federal career employees, especially those in policy roles. The rule implements President Trump’s Executive Order 14171, which he signed on his first day in office. Executive Order 14171 explicitly directed OPM to render civil service regulations implemented during the Biden administration inoperative, citing the President’s authority to manage the executive branch. Among other things, the rule would create a new job category called Schedule Policy/Career in the excepted service for policy-influencing positions, making them at-will employees and, therefore, meaningfully accountable for their performance and conduct.
‘Where Are the True Pro-Union Democrats? They Aren’t at the DNC. And They Certainly Aren’t in Georgia
April 25, 2025 // Let’s be clear: the DNC and the New Georgia Project are NOT champions of workers. Despite their political influence, they are actively working to strip workers of their rights. The DNC has been involved in mass firings of union employees, the exact action they regularly chastise private companies about, even in tough economic conditions. Meanwhile, at the New Georgia Project, workers have faced retaliation for simply attempting to organize. These actions are blatant violations of the National Labor Relations Act and undermine the fundamental right of workers to freely choose union participation without fear of punishment. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern of systemic abuse that demonstrates the DNC and New Georgia Project’s disregard for worker autonomy. They are exploiting workers, not protecting them.
Workers hope to steer giant Southern EV battery plant toward unionization
March 25, 2025 // Buoyed by notable victories in the last couple of years, the United Auto Workers union is revving up efforts to organize the EV and battery sector in the South. One target is a sprawling campus in rural Kentucky that, once completed, will be one of the largest EV battery plants in the world. A supermajority of workers at BlueOval SK has asked the National Labor Relations Board for a vote on joining the United Auto Workers. The nearly $6 billion electric vehicle battery campus in Glendale, Kentucky, is part of a joint venture between Ford and South Korea’s SK On. It’s not up and running yet, but early hires say they’re exposed to hazards on the job, including formation production operator Alisha Miller.
Commentary– Justin Hill: Protecting the Secret Ballot: A step forward for Mississippi’s workers and taxpayers
February 24, 2025 // this measure prohibits “neutrality agreements,” which can unfairly prevent employers from sharing information with their workers. Employees deserve the right to hear both sides of the issue rather than being presented with only the union’s perspective and talking points. Transparency is critical for workers to make informed decisions about their future. This legislation applies only to future economic incentives and union organizing efforts. It does not impact existing unions, current economic incentive agreements or subcontractors. Compliance with this law is straightforward and does not conflict with federal labor regulations. When a similar law was challenged in Arizona, the courts upheld the state’s right to protect the secret ballot process.
Julie Su: ‘Unions were built for big fights’
February 23, 2025 // In four years at the U.S. Department of Labor under President Biden, including two as acting secretary of labor, Julie Su ’94 helped to implement the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, extend overtime pay for salaried workers, and facilitate agreements between employers and unions for autoworkers, longshoremen, school bus manufacturers, and airplane machinists. In those contract negotiations, Su, a labor rights activist, often heard from employers that the wage increases demanded by workers were too high because they were “above the market wage.” She pushed back on that premise, she explained in remarks at the Feb. 14 graduation of the Harvard Trade Union Program (HTUP).