Unions
February 16, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Iowa, like so many other states, has gone Republican. What happens when you have a Republican legislature and a Republican governor? The corrupt public sector union spigot gets turned off. Public sector unions in Iowa will have less authority to negotiate working conditions for teachers, nurses and correctional officers under a bill passed Thursday in the new Republican-controlled Legislature that critics say is aimed at crippling organized labor in the
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July 26, 2016 — Steven Hayward
One thing conspicuously missing from both party conventions is any talk of government debt and deficits. Even Democrats usually acknowledge grudgingly that our deficits are a time bomb waiting to go off, though this is usually in service of their Great White Whale obsession, which is to raise taxes on Great White Males. So it is with considerable interest that I note the increasing visibility of the real-time collapse of
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January 11, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Public sector unions are probably, nationwide, the number one obstacle to progress. Today a critically important case relating to public employee unions, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, was argued in the Supreme Court. My colleague Kim Crockett, who works with me at the Center of the American Experiment, is a leading voice in Minnesota on employee freedom. She was at the Supreme Court this morning to support Rebecca Friedrichs and
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September 29, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Fox News reports that the Teamsters union has decided not to endorse Hillary Clinton for president at this time. According to James Rosen, the union’s 26-member board decided unanimously to withhold endorsing Clinton. Rosen’s Teamsters source cited three reasons. First, the Teamsters are unhappy with Clinton’s recent announcement that she opposes construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Second, they want to see whether Joe Biden will enter the race. Third,
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August 27, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Clark Griffith explains why he thinks “Tom Brady will lose and baseball players win.” It’s because “in Major League Baseball, grievances are heard and decided by an impartial arbitrator. In the National Football League, the person who hears and decides grievances is the commissioner.” I want to focus on a more general question: Why has the Major League Baseball Players Association consistently negotiated more favorable contracts on a full range
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July 1, 2015 — Steven Hayward
In no particular order: • Remember the famous Fox Butterfield headline in the New York Times: “Crime Keeps on Falling, But Prisons Keep on Filling”? Well yesterday the Times outdid itself with an early edition headline on the Greek crisis: “Trillions Spent, But Crises Like Greece’s Persist.” Gee: I wonder if there’s a connection? Maybe someone can ask Fox Butterfield. One wonders what the Times headline will be when it
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May 14, 2015 — Steven Hayward
The Wall Street Journal editorial page this morning explores why Chicago’s debt has been downgraded to “junk” status, reviewing the unsustainable structure of its public school teacher pensions, which are only the one small aspect of Illinois’s public sector pension crisis. But the precipitating event that caused Moody’s to downgrade Chicago’s debt to junk was the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court last week that the state may not alter
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April 7, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Today voters in Chicago are at the polls voting in the mayoral runoff between “Rahmbo” Emanuel and a candidate much further to his left, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, in what has been a surprisingly tight race. Emanuel may very well lose, to someone who might make de Blasio look moderate by comparison. One thing is certain: turnout will be very very low. This is increasingly typical of urban politics today, and Fred
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November 8, 2014 — Steven Hayward
Back in May I suggested, less than half facetiously, that if we are indeed to consider paying reparations for slavery, the Democratic Party should have to pick up the entire tab, for all of the obvious reasons. I was reminded of that idea when stumbling across the most interesting story on the front page of today’s New York Times: “Finding $816 Million, and Fast, to Save Detroit.” The details are
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June 30, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
Conservatives hoped that the Supreme Court would take the opportunity presented by Harris v. Quinn to strike down a 1977 decision holding that full-fledged public employees “who choose not to join a public-sector union may nevertheless be compelled to pay an agency fee to support union work that is related to the collective-bargaining process.” The Supreme Court did not do so. This does not mean, however, that the 1977 decision
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June 30, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
The Supreme Court today issued its final two decisions of the term. One of them constitutes a clear defeat for the left. The other looks like a minor defeat. In the Hobby Lobby case, the Court held that closely held corporations cannot be required to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees. The five center-right Justices formed the majority for that proposition. In Harris v. Quinn, the Court, again with the
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May 25, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Bloomberg News reported last week on a protest near McDonald’s headquarters. The protest seemed to have something to do with the minimum wage: More than 100 McDonald’s (MCD) employees and some labor and clergy members were arrested after protesting for increased wages near the fast-food chain’s headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois. The event, the latest in a series of demonstrations by workers demanding $15-an-hour pay and the right to form
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March 2, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
A friend from California writes: I use software for my taxes and noticed for the first time when going through the Q & A that there’s a question about union dues related to deductions for job expenses. I’ve never paid union dues and have never paid much attention to this, but it raises a serious issue. Unions charge a member, say, $500 per year and spend much or most of
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February 14, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
VW workers in Tennessee have rejected the United Autoworkers Union bid to unionize them. They voted against UAW representation by 712 to 626. The vote was viewed as a test case for the UAW and for unionization of industrial workers in the South. Accordingly, the Detroit Free Press calls the result a “devastating defeat” for the union. Similarly, Reuters proclaims it “a stinging defeat that could accelerate the decades-long decline
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October 2, 2013 — John Hinderaker
It appears that the Obama administration is violating the First Rule of Holes. Yesterday the administration looked awful when it “closed” and barricaded the World War II memorial on the Mall. The memorial is, by its nature, open. There is nothing to close. And the administration knows that every day, tour groups consisting of WWII vets, now mostly in their late 80s or early 90s, come to Washington to visit
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August 29, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Where did the fast-food protests around the country come from? In case you missed them, they are taking place at various franchisees of Burger King, Domino’s, McDonald’s and Wendy’s near you in cities including Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Kansas City, Milwaukee, New York, and St. Louis. So report CBS News and the Los Angeles Times, among many others. The protesters seek to prevent franchisees from hiring entry level employees without marketable
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August 21, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Old habits die hard. When people talk about the U.S. auto industry, they often think it still means G.M., Ford and Chrysler. In fact, more than a dozen automobile manufacturers make cars in the United States. The “big three” are different not because they make automobiles here, but because their work forces are unionized. Thus, when people talk about buying American cars, what they really mean, much of the time,
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