Free Republic

The debate has America split—literally. With Wisconsin's adoption of so-called right-to-work legislation earlier this year, 25 states now prohibit mandatory union dues, and with legislation being pushed in several more states, the right-to-work movement is talking about a national "tipping point." Under right-to-work legislation, no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join a labor union or pay dues. Republican legislators in Missouri passed a right-to-work measure this month, but Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has said he will veto the bill. A bill almost passed in New Mexico, and backers are pushing similar...

This has to be the month's top entry in the "Just when you think you've seen it all" category — and it will be more than a little interesting to see how the nation's press handles it. As the Associated Press reported a week ago, the City Council in Los Angeles, by a vote of 14-1, ordered the drafting of a law mandating a citywide minimum wage of $15 per hour by 2020, noting that "the support of Mayor Eric Garcetti virtually guarantee its eventual adoption." Now that it's almost a done deal, labor unions whose members earn less want...

Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces. The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business...

Jefferson, a member of the gentry of Old Virginia, was always regarded as one of the best and brightest of his generation, a gentleman of the finest intellect, taste, and manners. Although Jefferson loved and was loyal to the Union, he was a Virginian first and an American second; Virginia, Jefferson avowed, was his “country.” This order of allegiance – State over Union, or “Society” over “the State” – was firmly rooted in the Old South. Accordingly, in the emerging conflict between the North and the South, Jefferson sided with his own country. “It is true that we are completely...

The state Education Department has rejected all 15 applications for new charter schools, including 12 in New York City, claiming they failed to meet academic standards. “We always look for quality and these applications didn’t measure up,” Education Department spokesman Dennis Tompkins said Wednesday. “We invited several of the applicants to reapply in June and we gave them suggestions on how to improve their applications.” But charter-school advocates weren’t buying it, saying the rejection of all the applicants reeked of pro-teacher-union politics. “The timing and nature of these blanket rejections should raise serious concerns for New Yorkers ... Mayor de...

Michigan’s “prevailing wage” law costs residents more than $224 million each year, according to the Anderson Economic Group. Now there’s a website that brings the impact of that even closer to home. Created by the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) of Michigan, the new site, www.TimeForRepeal.com/waste-calculator/, lets people learn the cost of prevailing wage mandates for individual school districts. ABC of Michigan, which represents commercial, governmental and industrial construction industries, has consistently advocated for eliminating the state’s prevailing wage law, which essentially requires construction firms doing work for the government to pay union scale wages and follow union work rules....

Clerical workers and classroom assistants at an intermediate school district headquartered in Cadillac have voted to decertify the Michigan Education Association local as their exclusive bargaining unit. The 60 members of the Educational Support Personnel Association of the Wexford-Missaukee Intermediate School District will form their own independent union, according to the current president of the union local. “This is not an anti-MEA decision,” said Deb Kasza, the president of the support personnel local, in an email. “We would like to have more autonomy and to keep our money to do things for our members and our community. We are proud...

Scott Walker is certainly ambitious, and planning a run for president may seem par for the course. But for a long time—most of the 1990s, in fact—Walker was content to be a backbencher in the state assembly and didn’t do much to advance himself up the party ranks. While the seniority he gathered in his state assembly career (1993–2002) from his safe Republican district just outside Milwaukee allowed him to chair some committees, the most attention-grabbing thing he did was to protest the hiring of a Wiccan as a chaplain in a state prison. The idea that he would become...

What if you won an election butt the incumbent refused to leave?I know, silly isn’t it? However that’s exactly what happened in Alabama. Employees of an Alabama plant will be voting for the fifth time on whether it will oust the United Auto Workers union. The union has lost three of the four previous votes at NTN-Bower Corporation, but has filed appeals with the National Labor Relations Board alleging management interference.The one vote won by the union was nullified for voting irregularities. In that January vote, only 139 of the plant's 140 workers voted, but a total of 148 ballots...

"With Dues Depleted, three AFSCME Councils Merge" Here: Wisconsin’s three AFSCME councils are merging four years after the state rolled back public-sector union rights, prompting two out of three dues-paying members to drop out.

The former head of Michigan's largest teachers union was able to spike her pension by basing it on a union executive salary rather than her past earnings as a teacher. This special deal means taxpayers are on the hook for part of the extra $100,000 in annual pension benefits. Former Michigan Education Association President Iris Salters draws an annual pension of $140,000 from the state of Michigan. That's in line with longtime educators who reached the top of their profession — from school district superintendents to community college presidents. However, Salters didn’t get her six-figure government pension payout from reaching...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey's top court weighed the budget repercussions of ruling on a pension dispute between Gov. Chris Christie and public workers' unions on Wednesday while one justice wondered if the state had engaged in a "bait and switch." The state Supreme Court probed whether the state has a contractual obligation to pay what it agreed to in a 2011 pension overhaul law and tried to get lawyers from both sides to explore whether such a finding would represent an overstepping of the courts' role and put it in the middle of the state budget process every...

Gov. Scott Walker wants to make the most public fight of his administration a national issue should he run for president. In an interview with Radio Iowa, the Wisconsin Republican made the case for a national “right to work” law: “As much as I think the federal government should get out of most of what it’s in right now, I think establishing fundamental freedoms for the American people is a legitimate thing and that would be something that would provide that opportunity in the other half of America to people who don’t have those opportunities today.”Currently, twenty-five states have right-to-work...

Two months ago, Michigan Capitol Confidential broke the story that the Lansing School District had allowed the president of the state's largest teachers union to remain on its payroll for years as part of a “pension spiking” scheme. Last week legislation was introduced in the state Senate to prohibit such schemes. As reported by Michigan Capitol Confidential, under an arrangement with the Michigan Education Association, the Lansing School District contributed $51,976 annually to the state-run school pension system on behalf of union president Steve Cook, and was then reimbursed by the MEA. The deal will let Cook collect a much...

Fire Chief Deleted a Comment on a Scott Walker Pic But Forgot One Key Thing: The Internet is Forever This week, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin attended a ground-breaking ceremony for Werner Electric, a company that will bring nearly 100 jobs to the Badger state’s Grand Chute area. Walker commemorated the event with a Facebook post: Groundbreaking for 250,000 sq. ft. building at Werner Electric in Grand Chute. Expansion will create 97 new jobs. Image: Facebook Many comments in response to the post were positive:.... .....But not everyone was pleased: .....Perhaps the most intense criticism, however, came from another of...

Imagine what would happen if we passed a law that required every elected representative in the U.S. to take a phone call from a minimum of 10 constituents a day (and I mean individual constituents, not lobbyists and interest groups). Under this law, representatives would also be evaluated by Likert scale surveys on how well they meet the needs of their constituent callers. Anytime survey scores slip below a certain numerical threshold of acceptability, the elected official is fired from office, regardless of the results of democratic election or the prescriptions of the state or federal constitutions. By such standards...

AFL-CIO President Karla Swift told a group in Lansing on Tuesday that belonging to unions is the way women could get equal pay. One news site headline read: “Swift: Want Pay Equity Working Women? Join A Union!” Except, that’s not accurate, according to figures compiled by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Or at least not accurate in the literal sense that Swift and other speakers at the event have themselves used to frame the issue. When the different skill and experience levels of different workers and the jobs they do are considered it may be that Swift is...

Wal-Mart faces a potential labor injunction from a union group asking the company to rehire all 2,200 employees affected by the abrupt temporary closing of five stores a week ago. One affected store, in Pico Rivera, California, has been a hotbed for worker protests against Wal-Mart. A union is asking labor regulators to go to court to force Wal-Mart to rehire all 2,200 employees affected by the abrupt temporary closing of five stores a week ago. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union filed the charge on behalf of OUR Walmart with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday,...

A Democratic district attorney who has pursued Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker over alleged campaign finance violations told a fellow prosecutor that his crying wife, a union official, drove him to hunt the governor and his conservative allies because of his anti-union laws feared by organized labor. The explosive revelation came Tuesday as lawyers for Milwaukee DA John Chisholm began two days of oral arguments in a Chicago courtroom over earlier rulings that effectively ended his wide-ranging investigation. The investigation aimed to show that conservative groups were illegally working hand-in-hand with Walker's office when they ran 'issue ads' pressing the...

Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning — very early — and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from — or bringing — trouble. “It was so hard. I’d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.” She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. “People came pouring in. For a second I thought it was a home invasion. It was terrifying. They were yelling and running, into every room in the house. One of the men was in my face, yelling...