Posts tagged Ronald Reagan
Op-ed: MARY KATHARINE HAM: Teachers union bosses put themselves first, teachers and students last
April 23, 2025 // Just recently, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst uncovered $3.3 million in taxpayer money, and 87,000 hours spent at one agency alone over just two years that went to thousands of hours of union-related activities instead of the American people. Elsewhere, the IRS union is negotiating for its members to show up only once a week in person and retain a bunch of generous bonuses. An unwelcome April surprise, just like your tax bill!
‘Trump and Musk are setting the example’: how companies are becoming emboldened to be more anti-union
April 10, 2025 // That tougher behavior under former president Ronald Reagan sped the decline of private sector unions. Today, just 6% of private sector workers are in unions, while 32% of public sector workers are. Anti-union ideologues are increasingly targeting public sector unions, which often support Democrats. “Because almost half of the labor movement is now in the public sector, the assault that we’re seeing now is really focused on the public sector,” McCartin said. “That really threatens to break the spine of the labor movement.”
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: The Old Left and the Reds
March 10, 2025 // American labor radicalism has come a long way from Soviet agents in the Congress of Industrial Organizations through the UAW-funded Students for a Democratic Society to today’s SEIU purple-shirted demonstrators and red-shirted UAW anti-anti-Hamasniks. As Big Labor has declined, what independence the labor movement had from the progressive Left has diminished to the point where, with rare divergences, it effectively has ceased to exist. The causes of the Long Decline are many, and the causes of Big Labor’s leftism are also many, ranging from financial incentive structures of union officials to the structure of collective bargaining. Today, organized labor is a full member of the Everything Leftist coalition, not just in economic issues and labor organizing but also in social and foreign policy.
Trump fires EEOC and labor board officials, setting up legal fight
January 29, 2025 // Due to existing vacancies, Wilcox's ouster leaves the board with just two members, short of the quorum it needs to adjudicate even routine cases. (The board, when fully staffed, has five members.) With this move, Trump has effectively shut down the NLRB's operations, leaving the workers it defends on their own, AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said in a statement.
Unions face a moment of truth in Michigan in this year’s presidential race
October 18, 2024 // Union leaders have said his first term was far from worker-friendly, citing unfavorable rulings from the nation’s top labor board and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as unfulfilled promises of automotive jobs. They emphasize Democratic achievements in states like Michigan, including the recent repeal of a union-restricting right-to-work law enacted over a decade ago by a Republican-controlled legislature. With membership dwindling in states like Michigan, Fain will need to attract more than just union workers to secure a victory for Harris, who has campaigned in the state alongside him. If the union president cannot deliver Michigan after all these efforts, it could raise questions about his union's political influence in future elections.
Biden Backs ILA Strikers Warning Shippers on Price Spikes
October 2, 2024 // “Now is not the time for ocean carriers to refuse to negotiate a fair wage for these essential workers while raking in record profits,” Biden said in a statement from the White House. “My administration will be monitoring any price gouging activity that benefits foreign ocean carriers, including those on the USMX board.”
Op-Ed: Union leaders need Trump more than he needs them
July 18, 2024 // Collective bargaining is a right and workers should be supported in it when that represents an honest expression of their collective will. It’s part of the First Amendment’s right to “peaceably” assemble. However, that’s not the same thing as accepting the claims of leaders like O’Brien that they need more leverage to pressure workers into joining unions for their own good. Workers can make their own choices. O’Brien spoke to the GOP convention in part because many of his own members are already Trump supporters and he needed to demonstrate to his folks that he’s willing to at least talk. Trump has thus far avoided catering to union leaders and has instead talked directly to the workers. It has worked for him too, getting the Teamsters boss to sing his praises. In short, O’Brien needs Trump more than Trump needs him.
Commentary Big Labor’s Decline and Left Turn: Membership Decline
March 23, 2024 //
Op-ed: The Price of Bent Unions Is Red Unions
March 2, 2024 // It’s important to point out that the lesson of this pattern isn’t that corrupt unions are somehow “better” than their ideologically fanatical alternative. Every political activist, no matter how wrong on policy, deserves to have money that he or she voluntarily contributes to advocacy groups be used for the purposes for which it was contributed, rather than lining the leaders’ pockets. (Inclination to this sin does not distinguish by party or ideology, it must be said.)
From Hollywood to auto work, organized labor is flexing its muscles. Where do unions stand today?
November 9, 2023 // There are also limits for organizers under current labor law. That means that what worked in auto workers' labor campaign, for example, may not look the same or be possible in other industries. Larger, more established unions typically have more bargaining power — and that's reflected in new contract wins seen today. “We have a labor law that was designed in the era in the 30s and 40s, when auto plants of 10,000 workers (were organizing)," he said. Starbucks is “split into these small coffee shops of 15 workers. ... They need to join together to have any kind of bargaining power against a big employer. But our labor law isn’t structured to help them do that,” Colvin said. Service jobs can also be hard to organize due to part-time work and high turnover rates. The same can be said for Amazon warehouses, where there have been pushes for unions.