Posts tagged North Carolina
Report: The Battle for Worker Freedom: Grading State Public Sector Labor Laws
September 10, 2026 // Union executives are prioritizing recruitment. The fastest-growing category of public sector labor legislation expands collective bargaining into new workplaces. On the strength of these new laws, union executives are slowly replacing their membership losses since 2018. From 2018 to 2025, the country’s four largest government unions report a net decline in membership of 87,919, or 1.3 percent. However, they also report a collective gain of 232,502 members, or 3.5 percent since 2024. This report awards full letter-grade increases to Idaho (now A) and Louisiana (now B) due to their adoption of pro-worker labor reforms this past legislative session. However, the drops in grades—Nebraska (D), Nevada (D), and Rhode Island (F)—are the result of these states prioritizing union executives over workers and enacting laws helping unions recruit, politick, organize, and strike. Thirteen states now have an “A” or “A+” grade—up from twelve in the previous edition of this report—while six states earned an “F”—up from five over the same time period. Overall, the research finds 25 states fall below a “C.”
A Durham-based union worker ends 40-day hunger strike protesting Amazon work conditions
September 9, 2026 // Medelius ended his 40-day hunger strike, Sept. 2, 2026, during noon Mass at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Durham. Medelius is 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 113 pounds at the end of his hunger strike, down from 150 pounds. "Eating a wafer and drinking watered-down wine lit up all my senses," said Medelius. "It was an incredible experience." Family, friends and Amazon workers attended mass with Medelius, a show of support. Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams was also present. Members of the Durham City Council have also supported Medelius, including Matt Kopac and Javiera Caballero.
Defend worker freedom this Labor Day
September 9, 2026 // “States with right-to-work laws enjoy lower unemployment rates, higher job growth, and higher wage and income growth compared with forced union states.” That’s according to a 2022 John Locke Foundation report from F. Vincent Vernuccio, former US Department of Labor official and current president of the Institute for the American Worker. Specifically, the report notes that between 2000 and 2019, personal income in right-to-work states grew by 56.4%, compared with just 40.6% in states without such laws. Also during that time, private-sector jobs in right-to-work states grew by 23.1%, which was almost double the 12.1% of growth in non–right-to-work states. The report also cites lower unemployment rates in right-to-work states. In states with the highest unemployment rates, the majority of them lacked such protections. Based on these superior worker outcomes, Vernuccio declares, “Right-to-work laws are decidedly pro-worker.” He concludes by saying, “In the end, right-to-work is about one thing: freedom. It protects workers by taking away a union’s ability to get them fired for not paying union dues.”
Labor Day: Americans Flee Forced-Unionism States and Move to Right-to-Work States
September 6, 2026 // Among the top ten growth states in the U-Haul index, nine have a Right-to-Work law that protects workers from being forced to pay dues to union bosses as a condition of employment. -Among the bottom ten states in the U-Haul index, NONE has a Right-to-Work law. All are forced unionism states. -Of the 25 top ranked cities in the U-Haul Growth Index, 24 are located in Right-to-Work states.
Sentencing for convicted ex-Boilermakers union leaders continued until December
September 2, 2026 // Court filings show the defendants requested that the sentencing date be pushed back, and Senior U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree granted the requests on Friday. That action also could affect the sentencing dates for several other former union employees who have pleaded guilty in the federal corruption and embezzlement case. A jury on June 5 convicted Jones, his wife and a retired union executive of racketeering conspiracy, embezzlement and other felonies, concluding a monthlong trial over the alleged theft of millions from the Kansas City-based International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.
Teachers unions lose another fight against school choice
August 26, 2026 // Why are teachers unions so hostile to school choice? Because it threatens the system from which they derive their power, in which all but the wealthiest parents are trapped, and prey to an unresponsive monopoly, while union leaders collect dues regardless of educational outcomes. School choice gives families a way out and, more importantly, introduces competition into a system unions have spent decades trying to control. Parents and children need elected officials willing to resist unions, and they need institutions such as the Goldwater Institute willing to fight when unions turn to courts and ballot campaigns to take choice away. Arizona’s victory should be a model.
Op-ed: Why teachers unions fear, and fib about, new federal program
July 7, 2026 // Perhaps the unions are right to be scared. Anything that introduces competition into the educational landscape threatens their monopoly. When you read between the lines of Weingartner and Pringle’s letter, you can almost hear the death rattle. But in the end, this isn’t about the unions. This is about kids who deserve a high-quality education regardless of their household income or zip code. And anybody who gets between them and their parents would be wise to choose their words more carefully.
NC couple, execs stole $20M from union for ritzy trips, meals & salaries, jury finds
June 10, 2026 // Nearly $2 million more in salaries and benefits were paid to others for jobs that did not require them to work, including $1.8 million paid to Kateryna Jones, documents show. She got some of the money while she was dating Newton Jones and still living in Ukraine, they said. The Chapel Hill couple also enjoyed date night meals that totaled over $160,000 and charged shopping trips and other personal expenses to the union, prosecutors said. Over $5 million was spent on “unnecessary and lavish international travel,” including executive meetings held “for no apparent purpose in extravagant hotels” in Paris, Rome and other cities.
Report: The diminishing power of teacher unions
May 29, 2026 // The result is A Crowded Table: Teacher Union Strength in 2026. Building on our original study, the authors set out to gauge teacher union strength in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). Collectively, the 59 measures—which include 29 new measures that were not in the original report—seek to quantify union strength in five key areas: Resources and Membership; Involvement in Politics; Labor and Bargaining Policies; Policy Wins and Losses; and Perceived Influence, which draws from an original survey examining how stakeholders in each of the 50 states and D.C. perceive teacher union strength today. The states with the strongest teacher unions are Vermont, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Hawaii. The states with the weakest teacher unions are Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Mississippi. (See our interactive table on the report website for the overall rankings alongside the rankings for each of the five areas.)
600 groups with $2B in revenue mobilize 3,000 May Day protests in a ‘red-blue’ alliance, probe finds
May 1, 2026 // The California Democratic Party is using the pro-Democratic tech platform, Mobilize.us, to promote "Workers over Billionaires May Day rally" protests, like at the corner of Monroe Street and Highway 11 in Indio, Calif. In its publicity material, the California Democratic Party notes it's "the largest state party in the nation with more than 10 million members." The Ohio Democratic Party Progressive Caucus, North Carolina’s Young Democrats of Moore County, Young Democrats of Wisconsin and the Yuba County Democratic Central Committee are on the official list of organizers for a coalition, "May Day Strong," promoted online.