Posts tagged Michael Watson

    EXCLUSIVE: Powerful Union Suddenly Courting Republicans Spent Millions On Liberal Advocacy, New Report Reveals

    June 20, 2024 // One of the biggest chunks of the Teamster’s advocacy spending, worth roughly $2.5 million, went toward “registered Democrats, Democrat Party-funded initiatives, Democratic campaigns and organizations that focus on advancing the interest of the Democratic Party,” according to the report. Recipients of union funds included The National Democratic Club, a social organization in D.C. where liberal elites meet to hobnob, failed Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ voting rights group, Fair Fight Action, and the inaugural committee of Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The over $2.6 million in political donations made by the Teamsters’ PAC this election cycle have also skewed heavily to the left, with the vast majority of their funds going to Democrats and Democratic-aligned PACs like the Senate Majority PAC, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association, according to Federal Election Commission records.

    InfluenceWatch Podcast #212: A New ERA

    April 1, 2022 // ...for supporters of individual employee rights, there is now an alternative model of labor relations reform: The Employee Rights Act, recently re-introduced with an expanded vision of the modern workplace. Joining me to discuss the proposed legislation is Vinnie Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker.

    Contesting the PRO Act’s Coercive Vision

    April 1, 2022 // The Employee Rights Act presents a firm contrast with the vision outlined in the PRO Act and supported by Big Labor and its allies in Congress and the Biden administration. Where the PRO Act increases union financial coercion of workers to aid its political allies, the ERA reduces it. Where the PRO Act infringes on workers’ informed consent on union formation, the ERA protects it. Where the PRO Act limits worker privacy, the ERA expands it. Where the PRO Act fails to provide financial transparency and scrutiny in union operations, the ERA provides it. And where the PRO Act endorses Big Labor’s every-job-a-factory-job vision, the ERA promotes modern understandings of compensation and flexibility in working arrangements.

    A Misguided Republican Gift to Big Labor

    February 8, 2022 // At the 35,000-foot level, a works council is a collective forum that petitions the employer on improving working conditions, receives communications of proposed changes to working procedures, and engages in formalized labor-management dispute resolution. Typically, the works councils are not empowered to call strikes or other industrial actions but are granted some power to bargain with the employer on behalf of the workers at their given work sites.