Posts tagged sectoral bargaining
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."
Ruben Gallego, Flirting With 2028 Bid, Backs Key Demands of Labor Unions
June 3, 2026 // Sectoral bargaining “stops employers from trying to attract top talent by outbidding their competition,” argued the Institute for the American Worker, a right-leaning think tank, in a paper. “This would be a huge problem as American employees typically see larger raises by switching jobs rather than simply waiting for a salary increase at their current workplace.”
Rachel Greszler: The New Right wants to help workers. Its labor policy will hurt them
May 13, 2026 // Wage mandates reduce employment, particularly among younger and less experienced workers. Sectoral bargaining risks cartelizing labor markets, reducing competition, and innovation. Legislation such as the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which would impose binding arbitration on employers, and the Warehouse Worker Protections Act, which would dictate warehouse operations, may aim to help a subset of workers. But the actual outcome would be less growth, reduced flexibility, and a step toward central planning: a guaranteed way to suppress and impoverish workers — just ask the former Soviet Union and East Germany. The Right is right to care about workers, not just for the economic benefits, but because work is a primary source of human dignity.
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.
Watson Commentary: Making the AFL-CIO great again: labor policy in 2026
January 20, 2026 // The biggest labor issue of all might be the changing composition of what remains of the union movement. Goodbye, manual-labor men; hello purple-haired they/them grad students.
Pro-Worker or Pro-Union? Why Choice—not Coercion—Is the Future of Labor Policy, Disunion: The Government Union Report; Commonwealth Foundation
December 18, 2025 // This week on Disunion, host David Osborne is joined by Austen Bannan of Americans for Prosperity and Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, to break down a sweeping new report: How to Empower Workers: Embracing a Pro-Worker Agenda Built on Choice. With Congress rolling out a flurry of labor bills—from right-to-work reforms and secret ballot protections to proposals backed by unions and even some Republicans—this episode cuts through the noise. The panel explains why many so-called “pro-worker” policies actually empower union bosses and government regulators, not workers themselves.