Posts tagged top story
Unions sue Trump over immigrant drivers license crackdown
October 28, 2025 // The employee unions challenged a rule implemented by Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy restricting foreign individuals from receiving commercial drivers licenses. Commercial drivers licenses are used for operating large vehicles such as tractor-trailers and buses. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia allow unauthorized immigrants to receive commercial drivers licenses. In California, more than 25% of commercial drivers licenses were improperly issued, according to a Department of Transportation press release.
America Doesn’t Have Enough Weapons for a Major Conflict. These Workers Know Why.
October 28, 2025 // Historically, in the fight against their bosses, unions have had only one real weapon to wield: their numbers. The primary goal of a labor strike is to blockade production and inflict pain on the company so that it will negotiate better terms. But in Orlando, it was hard for the union to enlist enough workers for the fight. Florida is a “right to work” state, meaning that union membership is optional. Workers in an organized factory are free to return to their stations and get back to work, leaving everyone else on the picket line to fight for a contract that would eventually apply to everyone.
Opinion: A Union Sandbags Newsom With a Wealth Tax
October 27, 2025 // The SEIU-UHW collected $136 million in worker dues and agency fees in 2024, according to the union’s most recent U.S. Labor Department filing. Much of this has financed ballot campaigns and political lobbying to promote its own interests and the progressive agenda more broadly. The wealth-tax initiative is a case in point.
CALIFORNIA: Unions opposing Trump agenda pouring money into Proposition 50 campaign
October 27, 2025 // Besides opposing pleas from former President Obama and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s powerful, left-leaning labor unions are another factor that may influence the outcome of the Nov. 4 special election. Unions representing California school teachers, carpenters, state workers and nurses have plowed more than $23 million into efforts to pass Proposition 50, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosure reports about donations exceeding $100,000. That’s nearly one-third of the six-figure donations reported through Thursday. Not only do these groups have major interests in the state capitol, including charter school reform, minimum wage hikes and preserving government healthcare programs, they also are deeply aligned with efforts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats to put their party in control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 election.
NLRB Challenges California’s AB 288 as Preempted by Federal Law
October 22, 2025 // The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed suit against the State of California and the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) seeking to block enforcement of Assembly Bill 288, a new law that would allow California to step into the NLRB’s shoes under certain conditions. The NLRB contends that AB 288 is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and that it violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. As discussed in our prior update here, California recently joined New York in passing legislation that would allow state agencies to assume powers delegated to the NLRB by Congress
Arkansas teachers union’s dues revenue drops 36 percent in one year
October 21, 2025 // A new Freedom Foundation analysis of tax returns filed by the Arkansas Education Association (AEA), the state teachers union and an affiliate of the Washington, D.C.-based National Education Association (NEA), shows a modest decline in AEA’s revenue from membership dues following the collective bargaining ban, but reveals a staggering 36 percent decline in union dues collection in the first full year following passage of SB 473. As a baseline, the AEA’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 tax return for the tax year ending August 31, 2020, reported nearly $2.4 million in revenue from membership dues.
Caregivers sue state over ‘false’ public employee classification
October 20, 2025 // The practice drew widespread condemnation when the Mackinac Center brought it to light early in the previous decade. But the SEIU refused to accept defeat after the Legislature ended the practice. The union struck back with a 2012 ballot initiative that failed by a 56% to 44% vote. Following that failure, SEIU used various means to keep alive the idea that home care workers are employees of the government. The union got its second chance last year, when the Democratic trifecta under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer quietly enacted laws classifying home care workers as public employees and opening caregivers’ personal records to the union. As happened in 2005, the SEIU got its win, but with a very small vote.