Posts tagged private sector
Shrinking unions grasp hold of power through ESG activism
May 11, 2026 // Under the ESG pretense, unions are pushing shareholder resolutions that would ditch secret-ballot elections at companies. That’s a key labor demand because it enables unions to harass and intimidate workers into publicly signing cards in favor of unionization. Unions also push shareholder resolutions ordering companies to adopt “non-interference policies,” ensuring a business can’t talk to its employees about the downsides of unionization. Practically, unions promote these policies in two significant ways. The simplest approach is to use their own pension funds, which invest hundreds of billions of dollars, to demand that the businesses they invest in adopt pro-union policies. Union officials are also appointed to pension boards, where they directly support activist investment strategies based on ESG. Public pension plans have great clout thanks to the trillions of dollars at their disposal, enough to take significant ownership stakes in banks or investment funds. Either approach lets organized labor push shareholder proposals that tilt the scales in unions’ favor.
Colorado Senate passes Labor Peace Act overhaul, sends bill to governor
May 7, 2026 // The Democratic governor has said since before this year’s introduction of House Bill 1005 that he’s very likely to veto the bill, as he did in 2025 over concerns that it doesn’t represent consensus between business and labor and could hurt Colorado’s economy. The fact that union and employer representatives haven’t sat down with him to negotiate a potential compromise — something they did last year — reinforces the notion that Polis has no inclination to take a different tact to what would be a major shift in state labor policy.
DAVIS: An Example Of A Big Government Overreach We Seriously Do Not Need
May 1, 2026 // A Mercatus Center analysis of 147 studies over three decades found that when union contracts are driven by outside pressure rather than mutual agreement, the result is slower job growth, reduced business investment, and a higher likelihood of layoffs down the road. Big wins at the bargaining table, secured by outsized union leverage rather than cooperation, have a way of costing workers more than they gained. The FLCA also isn’t a new proposal. It is a single provision pulled from the PRO Act, the Democrats’ broad rewriting of labor law. That legislation has failed to make it into law for good reason—it would hurt the very workers it claims to protect.
Opinion GOP’s fatal attraction to unions is the start of a bad romance
April 21, 2026 // Instead of offering flowers and chocolates, they aim to impress labor by slicing up the PRO Act and feeding it piecemeal to the rest of the GOP. The Faster Labor Contracts Act, sponsored by Hawley and Rep. Donald Norcross (D-NJ), is the first portion. It would allow federal mediators to essentially write union contracts for newly organized workplaces, if businesses and unions can’t agree on terms within four months of a union’s workplace-election win.
Potas: Trump cut federal employees — and the system didn’t break
April 14, 2026 // The federal workforce is smaller than at any point since the 1960s, the result of a deliberate effort by the Trump administration. Critics have asked how many employees the federal government can lose before it breaks. So far, the answer appears to be more than a 10% reduction. Most of the cuts were in white-collar roles: administrative, accounting and human resources.
NIH Withdraws Recognition from Union Representing Grad Students and Postdocs
March 19, 2026 // The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has withdrawn recognition from the union representing its postdoctoral and graduate student fellows. In the email announcing the decision, the NIH stated it withdrew recognition because the fellows are not “employees.” Unionization at federal agencies like the NIH is regulated by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), rather than the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which oversees labor relations in the private sector.
Commentary: Trump’s labor agencies get to work for independent workers
March 12, 2026 // Calming fears that appointing a pro-union Labor Secretary meant the Trump administration would side with Big Labor rather than American workers and businesses, the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board are taking steps to protect independent workers and business relationships outside Big Labor’s orbit.
Pennsylvania EMS/Rescue Workers Unanimously Vote to Remove Teamsters Union After Union Boss Delay Tactics
March 10, 2026 // Emergency workers submitted multiple petitions asking for vote to escape Teamsters union officials’ exclusive “representation” powers and demands for money
Modeling the Impact of Sectoral Bargaining for U.S. Workers
March 5, 2026 // New statistical modeling suggests that sectoral bargaining could more than double collective bargaining coverage in the United States and generate big gains in union density.
National Labor Relations Board Schedules Vote for St. HOPE Charter School Teachers Seeking to Remove SCTA Union
March 4, 2026 // Despite union’s legal attempt to block vote, NLRB schedules election for March 11 in response to majority-backed petition from teachers to decertify union