Free Republic

Michigan Democrats’ repeal of right-to-work took effect this month, forcing unionized employees to belong and pay dues to their unions as a condition of employment. This marks the first time in 58 years a state has repealed a right-to-work law, which exists in 26 states and allows workers to opt out of union membership and dues. Eliminating right-to-work is Michigan Democrats’ payback to the unions who fund their political campaigns. But don’t expect anti-worker Democrats in the pocket of Big Labor to wait another half-century for their next victim. They’ve already set their sights on Wisconsin. Last week, Wisconsin Democrats...

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Friday signed a package of bills repealing the state's so-called "right to work" law that allowed workers to opt out of unions, a long-sought victory for labor organizers facing an era of diminished power. Whitmer became the first governor since the 1960s to roll back right-to-work legislation.

Never Trumper Bill Kristol called on Republican voters to support Democrat politicians “for a while,” and said he would support a 2024 presidential ticket led by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Kristol over the weekend addressed a crowd of disillusioned Republicans about the need to get rid of “Trump Republicans” from the party. “It turns out that once you let the toothpaste out of the tube, so to speak, demagoguery and bigotry and all that, some people like it. It’s hard to get it back,” Kristol said. “You can’t just give them a lecture.”

LANSING, Mich - The Michigan House has passed House Bill 4004 by a 56 to 53 vote which repeals the Right to Work Law in Michigan. The legislation will now to go the Michigan Senate. If the Senate approves the legislation it will then move to Governor Whitmer's desk for approval. The legislation was pushed by the Democrats who control the House, Senate, and the Governor's office.

Launch YouTube, Facebook, or a search engine in Illinois these days - or worse, make the mistake of turning on the television - and you will likely be deluged with television commercials about the so-called "Workers' Rights Amendment," which will appear on our ballot across Illinois next month. Depending on the commercial, this amendment could be presented as being about anything from patients in a hospital being viewed as dollar bills, or dangers in a workplace, or a threat to a worker's right to unionize. Talk about a proposed law being “all things to all people!” In truth, this state...

Angela Phillips grew up in Ohio and has run a family-owned manufacturing business there since 2009. In 2018 she was looking to expand the firm and, given her years of experience with labor unions, believed it made sense to grow in a right-to-work state. So in 2020 she opened a Phillips Tube Group plant right across the border in Richmond, Ind., which now employs more than 25 people. Phillips Tube isn’t alone in crossing state lines to benefit from a right-to-work law, which frees employees from being forced to belong or pay dues to a union. We recently published a...

The streamer is unsuccessful in getting a California appeals court to lift an injunction.Netflix may see fixed-term contracts for entertainment executives as a form of involuntary servitude, but on Thursday, the streamer experienced a tough legal loss when a California appeals court refused to accept that perspective and overturn an injunction that prevented Netflix from poaching executives at Disney’s Fox unit. Fox sued back in September 2016 upon the defection of production executive Tara Flynn and marketing executive Marcos Waltenberg. Netflix responded with a countersuit alleging that the executives’ respective Fox employment contracts were unenforceable as an illegal non-compete. Netflix...

The ruling is “a massive victory for California’s truck drivers, who for far too long have faced exploitation and misclassification at the hands of trucking companies that place corporate profit ahead of drivers’ safety and well-being,” the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in a statement.

Today, Landmark Legal Foundation filed a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court in Belgau v. Inslee. In this case, public-sector workers sued Washington Governor Jay Inslee and their union, AFSCME Council 28, the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE), over the deduction of union dues from their paychecks. This case is one of many arising from steps taken by public-sector unions to avoid the restrictions from a groundbreaking Supreme Court case in 2018, Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31. In Janus, the Supreme Court overruled forty-year-old precedent to protect workers’ First Amendment rights. No longer would nonunion members...

In 1978, when I was 17 years old, I worked as an usher at concerts and sporting events earning $2.25 an hour, the minimum wage. I had to surrender about 15 cents of this meager hourly wage to a union I was forced to join. I could never understand what a union was doing to help me since the company had the legal requirement to pay me $2.25. I was infuriated over the principle of this confiscation by labor bosses I had never met. I wanted out of the union, but they told me I must pay dues to keep...

As businesses struggle to keep their doors open and employees on the payroll, Congress is about to deal a major blow to thousands of businesses across the country resulting in significant job loss and stripping away employees’ right to privacy if they enact the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. Despite the name of the legislation, the PRO Act goes far beyond just extending the union rights of employees. While the legislation attempts to increase union density and leverage, it fails to consider the negative impact it would have on workers, businesses and the U.S. economy. The bill would...

The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy is reiterating its long-standing call for the state Legislature to repeal Pennsylvania’s Prevailing Wage Law. “Many studies over the years involving many states have demonstrated the higher construction costs … that are caused by prevailing wage laws that require ‘prevailing wages and benefits’ be paid to employees on projects using government funds,” says Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Pittsburgh think tank. The prevailing wage and other compensation are the union wage in most states. But repeal has not been entertained in the Keystone State “because of the political power of the law’s supporters,” the...

Joe Biden campaigns as a moderate, yet his labor policy is anything but. He supports the most radical rewrite of federal labor laws in U.S. history, and American workers should be afraid. Biden’s plan is sweeping. He would strip states of their ability to regulate their own affairs, end workers’ freedom to choose whether to join a union, and destroy independent contracting and the “gig” economy. If elected, Biden will push an agenda that would eviscerate the rights of tens of millions of workers, put labor unions in control of the economy, and impose a one-size-fits-all labor system on the...

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Monday threatened to impose “a personal price” on business leaders if they resist attempts to unionize during his presidency. Biden made the threat as he vowed to be the most pro-union president in history during a Labor Day webstream with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “I’m going to hold company executives personally liable for interfering with workers who are attempting to unionize. It’s not enough just to have their corporations pay a fine. If they’re part of the problem, they are going to pay a personal price,” Biden said. “I’m going to be the strongest...

A majority of West Virginia’s Supreme Court has upheld the right to work law that has been argued in the court system for years after it first passed the state’s Republican majority Legislature. Justices reversed a Kanawha Circuit Judge’s earlier ruling that overturned key aspects of the law. The case was remanded back to the lower court, but only to enter summary judgment on behalf of the state. “Because we have found the Act does not infringe upon association, property, or liberty rights protected by the West Virginia Constitution, we reverse the February 27, 2019 order of the Circuit Court...

Ten years ago Democrats chose not to use their 60-vote Senate majority to pass card-check legislation letting unions avoid secret-ballot elections. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to bring up the bill for a vote. How political times have changed. House Democrats last week passed the PRO Act, 224-194, that would impose a back-door card check and gut the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act in the most sweeping pro-union legislation since the 1935 Wagner Act. The bill codifies Obama -era National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings that overturned decades of labor law. Employers would have to hand over workers’ private information to...

... Democrats are expected to pass a package of labor union-backed policies through the House even though the chances that the Senate will consider the bill are roughly nil. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) would insert new language into the National Labor Relations Act to compel the payment of union dues even by non-members working in unionized professions. That means the passage of the PRO Act would effectively undo so-called "right to work" laws on the books in many states.* The PRO Act would also implement a veritable grab bag of policies that labor unions have...

Democrats in Virginia aren’t wasting time with their first statehouse majority in 26 years—by repealing the state’s 70-year-old right-to-work law that has helped the commonwealth thrive. Twenty-seven states including Virginia have right-to-work laws that give workers a choice of whether to belong to a union. According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, the rate of job growth was two times higher in right-to-work states between 2008 and 2018 than in states where workers can be compelled to join unions or pay dues as a condition of employment. This disparity is the result of a confluence of pro-growth policies...

Something usually not discussed on Labor Day weekend is the violence and thuggery which has always been part of the union movement. And it still happens. The history of the labor movement in the U.S. is littered with extremists who use violence to get their way. At the beginning of the union movement, the violence was outer-directed; toward the government, management, or the police who were using violence themselves to destroy the labor movement. As the movement matured, the abuse became directed inward, targeted towards keeping the rank and file “in line,” going after replacement workers, or sabotaging the particular...

Sanders, who is making his second straight bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, vowed “that war will come to an end when I am president. If we are serious about rebuilding the middle class in America, we have got to rebuild, strengthen and expand the trade union movement in America.” Sanders said if elected, he would aim to double union membership by the end of his first term in the White House in January 2025. His plan also calls for ending so-called "right to work" laws favored by Republicans and decried by organized labor for weakening a union’s ability to...