Posts tagged State Policy Network

    MICHIGAN: Unions licensed to deceive (editorial)

    December 28, 2024 // With the enactment of Senate bills 790 and 791 in October, Michigan homecare providers are classified as public employees. Those are individuals — many of whom care for elderly or disabled family members — who receive a stipend from government programs for their work and sacrifice. The state law sets up homecare workers to be pressured into union membership and made to pay dues to the Service Employees International Union. Those caregivers get no benefit from union membership, because the amount of the stipend is decided legislatively and is not subject to collective bargaining. Providers need every cent available to them as they minister care.

    Commentary: The Rise of “Pro-Labor” Conservatism

    September 9, 2024 // Yet O’Brien’s move has attracted the attention of commentators from both sides of the political spectrum who see it as a bellwether. It is what conservative commentator Sohrab Ahmari has called a “brave gambit” and veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse dubbed a “huge gamble.” “A glacier of hostility has divided the GOP from organized labor for two generations,” Ahmari wrote in Compact. But the Teamsters president “took a pickaxe to that glacier” by speaking at the RNC. Ahmari attributes the rise of this strain of pro-labor, anti-union conservatism to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), a MAGA firebrand who has come out as perhaps the lone GOP senator to oppose right to work legislation, the anti-union laws on the books in 28 states.

    The history of right to work, 75 years later

    June 27, 2022 // “Right to Work is on the move,” Mix said despite Big Labor’s efforts. Five states passed Right to Work laws over the past decade and the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in a NRWLDF-won case in 2018, he notes. In Janus v. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court held that forcing any public sector worker to pay union dues as a condition of employment violated their First Amendment rights. Mix and others are urging Congress to instead to pass the National Right to Work Act, which would eliminate forced union dues powers from federal law and provide Right to Work protections for employees nationwide.

    THE GREAT RESIGNATION: WHY ARE SO MANY AMERICANS LEAVING THEIR JOBS?

    March 30, 2022 // Employers cannot control external factors that take employees out of the workforce, like personal health issues. However, they can attract workers by offering the maximum amount of flexibility, including enough flex to be able to care for children or other family members while employed. Employers must also reexamine their compensation packages to ensure they are competitive in the post-COVID environment with record-breaking inflation. Government, for its part, must not saddle businesses with needless burdensome requirements that restrict how businesses can adapt to attract workers.