Posts tagged Georgia
Sen. Hawley Introduces Bill to Raise Minimum Wage to $15
June 10, 2025 // Some business advocacy groups still oppose minimum rate hikes, including Hawley's proposed bill. "This proposal would more than double the minimum wage and slash over 800,000 jobs," Rebekah Paxton, research director at the Employment Policies Institute, said in a statement to The Hill. "An overwhelming majority of economists agree that drastic minimum wage hikes cut employment, limit opportunities for workers and shutter businesses."
Goldwater Backs Proposal to Rein in Federal Bureaucracy
June 1, 2025 // Goldwater Institute submitted a formal public comment to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in support of a Trump Administration proposal to reclassify thousands of federal employees with policy-influencing roles to at-will employment status. The Institute’s comment makes clear that this is an encouraging step forward to ensure accountability in government, and when necessary, rein in abuses in the federal bureaucracy. States like Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Texas, Utah, and Florida have classified state workers as at-will employees for years. As the Institute noted in its letter, “oversight and accountability are central features of efficient management practices for government employees,” both at the state and federal levels.
College staff threaten to quit after administration orders them to return to office 5 days a week
May 29, 2025 // Georgia's public universities are now requiring staff to return to the office five days a week, causing backlash from employees who claim the mandate will cause additional problems. The University System of Georgia, which governs public university institutions in the state, announced at the start of the year that faculty must be present on campus during core business hours. Last month, USG's chancellor Dr. Sonny Perdue told presidents and administrators at a Board of Regents meeting, 'If that’s not what y’all want, you let me know, because that’s where we’re going,' the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Mercedes-Benz is yanking 400 jobs out of Michigan — and ‘doubling down’ on Georgia
May 27, 2025 // Georgia is on its way to becoming a key automotive hub in the U.S. Porsche (VWAGY) opened its North American headquarters there in 1998. Kia (HYMTF) opened its first North American plant in West Point in 2010. More recently, Hyundai opened an EV factory there in March 2025, touting it as “the largest economic development project in the state’s history [...].” Back in Michigan, a Mercedes-Benz Financial Services spokesperson told the Detroit Free Press that the company is maintaining 180 R&D jobs in the state. “That number will grow to up to 200 total technical roles in Michigan for Mercedes-Benz,” said communications director Melinda Mernovage. “The roles leaving Michigan are not layoffs, and all employees will have the opportunity to transfer to the Atlanta headquarters.”
Starbucks at Ansley Mall will close its doors this summer
May 15, 2025 // Nick Julian, a shift supervisor at the Atlanta Ansley Mall Starbucks, previously said the store had faced many challenges over the last few years. "So the biggest thing was scheduling. Our hours have been cut by corporate for no apparent reason; week to week was inconsistent with regard to hours that we were getting because most of our employees are hourly. It really affected everyone's paychecks. We really didn't have any other reasoning as to why we were experiencing," Julian previously said.
President Trump is making government accountable again
May 8, 2025 // But the American people would benefit most of all. They need a government that’s more efficient, effective and most of all, accountable — a government that advances the agenda that voters backed at the ballot box. Trump’s reform would help make that vision a reality, making it easier for him and future presidents of both parties to enact their priorities and deliver for voters.
New Trump civil-service reform rule nearer to going into effect
May 7, 2025 // According to former Department of Labor official Vincent Vernuccio, who is now president of the labor nonprofit Institute for the American Worker, OPM may amend the rule or issue it as it’s proposed, which could happen within the next few weeks or months. “So, you’re talking about 50,000 federal employees—about 2% of the workforce who will become ‘at will’,” Mr. Vernuccio said. “These are still career employees,” he said. “They still have protections. They’re not changing that. It’s just that if they are in a policy-influencing position, they’re ‘at will’, and they can be removed if they’re throwing sand in gears of policy.” He added, “And if they simply don’t want to do their jobs and they don’t want to implement the policies that the people’s duly elected representatives have implemented, they can be removed.”
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.