Posts tagged sectoral bargaining
Op-ed: Other states should copy NC’s model labor policy
October 21, 2026 // In both the public and private sectors, North Carolina protects employees’ right to choose. It gives private employees a right to opt out of union dues. And it protects public employees from having a union contract foisted on them. In effect, it respects choice by preventing coercion. But elsewhere, public policy is moving in a different direction — a direction that sacrifices choice in favor of more union membership. The prime example is a recent proposal by academics at Harvard University, which would create a statewide system of “sectoral bargaining.” Sectoral bargaining is the opposite of choice: It funnels every employee in an industry into a single union, whether an employee voted for the union or not. The proposal’s premise is that unions are automatically good for workers, so workers should automatically be put into unions. Choice is beside the point.
Freelance Busting: “They All Had A Different Answer”
October 20, 2026 // Senator after senator described statewide confusion about the rule among business owners, attorneys, accountants and constituents. Senators said people are constantly asking them about the legality of continuing to hire every conceivable kind of working person, from financial advisers to babysitters. One senator described what’s happening in some industries as “panic mode.” Another said he convened accountants in his district to ask about the independent-contractor rule, and “they all had a different answer.” Yet another asked, “Who’s the guru of the determining if you pass or fail the ABC Test?” and wondered aloud if there was going to be a Division of ABC Test Clarification within the state’s Labor Department.
Big Labor’s bid for a red workplace
October 16, 2026 // The culmination of these policies to make the workplace red is sectoral bargaining, which structurally forces all workers in an industry under the control of union cadres in the name of class consciousness. It would be a decisive Trojan Horse, entering the American workplace blessed by certain figures on the right disillusioned by the consequences of contemporary American labor relations.
Illinois’ new rideshare union law could hurt drivers, passengers
September 23, 2026 // The law could lead to job losses for rideshare drivers if they become more expensive to the companies than emerging self-driving technologies. Companies such as Waymo are already replacing human drivers with autonomous vehicles. In February, Waymo started the process of mapping out the city of Chicago for its fleet of driverless vehicles and announced that “we look forward to serving the city in the future.” While autonomous vehicles haven’t rolled out in Illinois yet, Waymo will be ready if lawmakers approve legislation to allow them to operate.
Commentary: Are Unions Rising from the Political Grave?
September 21, 2026 // Here again, however, there may be less than meets the eye. Despite its surprising bipartisan support, the FLCA would raise significant constitutional questions if enacted. By relying on a government-mandated arbitration panel to resolve labor disputes, the law effectively empowers the state to impose contractual terms on private parties—a form of what constitutional lawyers call “state action.” As attorneys Alex MacDonald and Vinnie Vernuccio observe: “[S]tate action opens the door to a slew of constitutional requirements and restrictions, notably to protect rights of free speech and association.”
Commentary: And Now, Chicago
August 28, 2026 // These “core services” bills are yet another variation on trying to achieve the goals that unionists detailed in 2018, when they called for “admittedly radically different” policies to try and shift entire industries into unionizable employee status. You don’t have to be a genius to anticipate that more “core services” bills are about to pop up in more cities soon.
Unions Are Coming for Your Uber Driver
August 4, 2026 // The sectoral-bargaining approach made headway in 2022, when California signed the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Act, or FAST, into law. The act was replaced by a compromise agreement before going into full effect. But under the original provisions, it would have established a 10-member Fast Food Council appointed by the governor and state Legislature to set labor rules for the Golden State’s fast-food industry. The FAST Act marked a pivot toward sectoral-bargaining strategies in America, importing the tactic from Europe and Australia. For decades before the FAST Act, the United Auto Workers used tactics like “pattern bargaining” in negotiations with the Big Three automakers.
Op-ed: Congress is fast-tracking a bill to bring Europe’s failing labor union model to US shores
June 23, 2026 // While FLCA does not establish sectoral bargaining, it moves labor relations to a necessary first step: the creation of a centralized apparatus to determine the terms of private labor contracts. And, to be sure, Big Labor and its allies have their eyes on sectoral bargaining as a means of boosting union rosters. But either way, FLCA signals a significant departure from the traditionally decentralized American model with voluntary bargaining — and toward a more centralized, Euro-bureau approach to labor relations.
Your Uber Driver May Soon Be Unionized. At What Cost?
June 15, 2026 // In fact, this result has already been seen in locales that have pushed aggressive minimum wage laws for gig workers—another one-size-fits-all progressive labor policy that left-leaning cities have begun importing to gig work in recent years. For instance, the waitlist to become an UberEats driver in New York City grew to 27,000 after the Big Apple passed a minimum wage ordinance for app-based food delivery in 2023; the minimum wage rules forced Uber to limit drivers in an effort to control spiking labor costs. Unfortunately, draconian sector-wide labor rules will also raise labor costs for these platforms, with the costs inevitably being passed along to riders in the form of more expensive Uber rides. (Such a passed-along price increase has also already been seen with the minimum wage mandates for food delivery.) The gig worker unionization drive that is spreading acr
Cannabis industry, citing low profits, opposes move to set mandatory wages
June 4, 2026 // Joe Calderone, president of the Cannabis Farmers Alliance, said that "as farmers we know the value of good labor." "But this bill, introduced in the waning days of session, sacrifices many of the goals of the (law that legalized marijuana in New York) simply to bolster labor unions," he continued. "We have serious concerns about the overbroad powers and authorities of the proposed wage board and fear that the costs of compliance will simply push consumers and operators back into the illicit market."