Posts tagged President Biden
Opinion: UAW settlement will increase cost of new vehicle
January 12, 2024 // These additional labor costs will add about $900 to the price of a new vehicle. Manufacturing output per hour in the U.S. has grown by just .02% since 2009. As a bargaining strategy it makes sense for John Fein, president of the UAW, to argue that auto manufacturers are enjoying significant profits, and that some auto executives are paid giant salaries. However, what is not as well publicized is that productivity in the domestic automobile industry, as measured by output per hour, has declined by 32% since 2012. Some of this precipitous drop in productivity can be blamed on the pandemic, but such drastic productivity decreases were not as apparent in Asia. Simply put, American auto manufacturers and workers are not very efficient.
Las Vegas hotel and casino workers reach tentative deals to avoid strike
November 13, 2023 // erms of the deals weren't immediately released, but the union says that the proposed five-year contracts will provide workers with historic wage increases, reduced workloads and other unprecedented wins — including mandated daily room cleanings. Before the pandemic, daily room cleanings were routine. Hotel guests could expect fresh bedsheets and new towels by dinnertime if a "Do Not Disturb" sign wasn't hanging on their hotel room doors. But as social distancing became commonplace in 2020, hotels began to cut back on the service. More than three years later, the once industry-wide standard has yet to make a full comeback. Some companies say it's because there are environmental benefits to offering fewer room cleanings, like saving water.
Biden-backed wind power company cancels New Jersey projects despite $1B in subsidies
November 1, 2023 // Under the Inflation Reduction Act, renewable developers stand to receive tax credits of up to 30% for qualifying investments that use union labor, and more credits if the project meets additional criteria. White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa said in a statement that “momentum remains on the side of an expanding US offshore wind industry,” despite the collapse of the Ocean Wind project. “While macroeconomic headwinds are creating challenges for some projects, momentum remains on the side of an expanding U.S. offshore wind industry — creating good-paying union jobs in manufacturing, shipbuilding, and construction; strengthening the power grid; and providing new clean energy resources for American families and businesses,” Kikukawa said.
Will Biden Labor Nominee Julie Su Suffocate the Gig Economy?
October 13, 2023 // Su, and other progressives like Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan, want to force a 20th century model of a heavily regulated and controlled labor market on the 21st century gig economy. They also want to impose 20th century style trade unionism, replete with mandatory union dues that (coincidentally I am sure) can in part be used to support progressive candidates and causes in the gig workforce. This is one reason why a bipartisan majority of the Senate is right to oppose Su’s nomination, and why President Biden was wrong to nominate her as Labor Secretary, and certainly wrong to defy the will of the Senate by keeping her as acting Secretary for an indefinite period of time. Biden should pick a new nominee. While no one nominated by Biden will support a free-market labor policy, the nominee should at least understand that massive federal regulations on the labor markets and compulsory unionism are relics that do not fit the economy of the future.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IGNORES PROTOCOL – INSTALLS UNCONFIRMED ACTING LABOR SECRETARY JULIE SU TO PRESIDENTIAL LINE OF SUCCESSION
September 25, 2023 // “Beyond keeping Su as Acting Secretary, she’s been added to the official Cabinet webpage in the presidential line of succession — ahead of sitting Cabinet members who actually received a vote of confirmation.” Withe concluded, “President Biden champions himself the most pro-union president in our nation’s history — but what he really means is that he’s been bought and paid for by Big Labor bosses for his entire career, and now those labor leaders are calling in their favors.”
UAW widens strike against GM and Stellantis but not Ford
September 24, 2023 // GM called the strike escalation “unnecessary” and accused union leaders of “manipulating the bargaining process for their own personal agendas.” “We have now presented five separate economic proposals that are historic,” the company said. The 20 percent raise in its latest offer would boost 85 percent of GM’s UAW workforce to base-wage earnings of $82,000 a year by the end of the contract, the company said this week. It is also offering two weeks of paid parental leave and other perks. Stellantis said it submitted a new offer to the UAW on Thursday but has not received a reply. It said its 20 percent wage increase offer would boost all its full-time UAW workers to earnings of $80,000 to $96,000 annually by the end of the contract. The company questioned “whether the union’s leadership has ever had an interest in reaching an agreement in a timely manner.”
Biden ESG rule survives challenge from 25 red states
September 24, 2023 // Kacsmaryk’s 14-page ruling rejects the red states’ argument that the environmental and sustainable governance (ESG) rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, which regulates retirement plans. He wrote that the Biden administration rule still complies with those statutes, because it prioritizes financial considerations over environmental ones and thus has no “overarching regulatory bias in favor of ESG strategies.” “[W]hile the Court is not unsympathetic to Plaintiffs’ concerns over ESG investing trends, it need not condone ESG investing generally or ultimately agree with the Rule to reach this conclusion,” he wrote.
Opinion: FACT CHECK: Does Unionization Have Positive Spillover Economic Effects?
September 21, 2023 // Most notably, a 2021 Harvard University report found that right-to-work states boasted more positive spillover effects. Compared to unionized areas, right-to-work (RTW) states boast 1.6% higher employment, 1.4% higher labor participation, and 0.34% lower disability receipts. The study also found RTW laws are “associated with lower childhood poverty rates and greater upward mobility”—with “children at the 25th percentile of the parental income distribution during childhood have a 1.7 percentage point higher probability of reaching the top income quintile during adulthood if they grew up in a RTW location.” Greater upward mobility is also observed in states that give workers latitude over joining a union or not. Moreover, right-to-work laws are shown to improve the well-being of both non-unionized and unionized workers.
Op-ed: Workplace Democracy Dies in Darkness at the NLRB
September 19, 2023 // A current unionization campaign shows the threat. After losing an April election at a New York City store, the Trader Joe’s United union claimed that management tainted the election. How? By informing their employees about the company’s views on unionization and putting limits on posting union flyers on bulletin boards and break-room tables. The union wants the NLRB to force Trader Joe’s to bargain, yet regardless of whether that happens, unions will take advantage of Cemex and launch a new wave of organizing campaigns, even ones they’d normally lose. The Cemex decision should be seen for what it really is: A blatant handout to unions — and a blatant assault on workers and job creators. The best answer to the NLRB ruling is the Employee Rights Act, which, among other things, would permanently ban card check and protect workers’ right to a secret ballot. Workers would get a second election instead of being forced into an unwanted union. Businesses and workers are also likely to challenge the NLRB in federal court. They deserve to succeed. If unions want to represent workers, they should win a vote in a free and fair election.
My job, my choice: The National Labor Relations Act does not require unionization
September 7, 2023 // “[A]mbiguities of language and the absence of enforcement powers [in the NIRA] have enabled a minority of employers to deviate from the clear intent of the law and to threaten our entire program with destruction,” Wagner said in a March 11, 1934, New York Times op-ed. He repeatedly stressed it had to be the individual worker’s decision to join a union, and bristled at the claim that the Recovery Act pushed workers into unions. “[T]his bill does not do anything of this kind except that it does make a worker a free man so he may decide whether he wants a union or not,” and, Wagner said during the Senate hearings on the legislation, “if he wants one, what particular union he wants to represent him, or whether he wants to remain unorganized.” The text of the NLRA does state that federal policy favors “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining,” but those words are almost always taken out of context. They follow a long preamble about “eliminat[ing] the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce.”