Posts tagged Jimmy Carter
Op-Ed: Federal union bosses: To ‘save democracy,’ let us finish destroying it
June 30, 2025 // How are federal union bosses reacting now that a president is finally taking action to put a halt to a system that, as former union attorney Kurt Hanslowe foresaw back in 1967, empowers “entrenched and mutually supportive government officials and collective bargaining representatives” over whom the public has “diminishing control” to make joint decisions about tax rates and other public policies? True to form, union officials are claiming Trump’s efforts to restore representative government are anti-democratic! For example, American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley, whose union filed the pending lawsuit to block E.O.14251, unsurprisingly claims the Trump Administration’s actions “represent a clear threat” to “every American who “values democracy.”
Labor Watch: Republicans and the Teamsters, a Bad Relationship
June 12, 2025 // By ingratiating itself with the intellectual successors of the Eisenhower-era “eastern Republican group,” both policy advocates like American Compass and officeholders like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the Teamsters hope to break the Taft-Hartley Consensus and secure major privileges for itself and all the other unions that are openly Everything Leftist. American Compass argues to force effectively every single American worker to accept a union contract and a union-dominated workplace, whether they want one or not. Sen. Hawley hopes to resurrect Barack Obama’s not-so-free-choice legislation. Sean O’Brien is more than happy to provide presenting sponsorships or small campaign contributions to his former adversaries as they make mistakes made first long ago. The rest should learn from history so as not to repeat it.
A ‘War’ on the Civil Service or Controlling a Powerful Union Political Machine?
May 17, 2025 // Fed unions remain unable to strike — enforced by President Reagan’s firing striking air-traffic controllers — so unions became powerful in more subtle ways. A study by the Institute for the American Worker documents how Federal government unionization works today. “Generally, federal employees are not permitted to strike, and their unions are limited in what conditions of employment they may bargain over.” Management rights and other matters “specifically provided” for by federal statute are still not bargainable. “This includes pay, health insurance, retirement, and certain workplace insurance (e.g., workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance), among other benefits.” The study continues,
Op-ed: As unions fight reform, Trump should assert executive power
February 26, 2025 // Unfortunately, for decades, unions and their collective bargaining agreements have hamstrung presidents and the people they’ve chosen to run federal departments and agencies in all the wrong ways. Under a bill President Carter signed in 1978, the president cannot simply reject a proposed union agreement but must go before the Federal Service Impasses Panel, or arbitrator that can make him accept terms he doesn’t want. Also, union agreements prevent incompetent or unethical employees protected by a union from being fired or even having negative notes placed in their files without notice and an opportunity to bring grievance proceedings, where unions will back even the least deserving member to the hilt.
Teachers’ Unions vs. Teachers, Parents, and Children: The NEA and AFT
September 20, 2023 // Between them, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have nearly five million members. Their national associations report annual revenues of approximately $370 million and $200 million, respectively, which are drawn overwhelmingly from dues paid by those members, and that doesn’t include the hundreds of millions in revenue that their local affiliates collect. The Bigfoot lobbyists of the NEA and AFT want more more more when it comes to spending, as lobbies invariably do, but they are frequently found in a negative posture, for no one hates the idea of reform quite as much as a teachers’ union. Vouchers, charter schools, education savings accounts, merit pay for teachers…you name it, the teachers’ unions are against it.
Will Starbucks’ union-busting stifle a union rebirth in the US?
August 28, 2023 // Many baristas say one Starbucks strategy in particular has discouraged workers from unionizing. In May 2022, Schultz announced that Starbucks would give certain raises and benefits to workers at its more than 9,000 non-union stores, but not offer those raises and benefits to its unionized workers. Starbucks insists it would be illegal to impose any raises or benefits on its unionized stores without first negotiating about them, but the NLRB’s general counsel asserts that this policy constitutes unlawful discrimination against Starbucks’ unionized workers. Under this policy, Starbucks has given its non-union workers, but not its unionized ones, a more relaxed dress code, increased training, faster sick leave accrual and, most important, credit card tipping. (Workers at the first few Starbucks stores to unionize had asked early on for credit card tipping.)