Free Republic

In the wake of Labor Day, there might be at least one union we want to bid farewell to. The California Teachers Association (CTA) does little to protect its most vulnerable members, former CTA member Rebecca Friedrichs averred in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation last month. Friedrichs is currently a fellow at the State Policy Network. When novice teachers get laid off under the "last in, first out" rules that the unions pressed for, the CTA does nothing more than show these unemployed teachers how to file for unemployment benefits. Moreover, the smallest portion of the union dues that...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It’s possible there could be additional delays before a decision is made on the constitutionality of the West Virginia Workplace Freedom Act following an hour of oral arguments Tuesday before the state Supreme Court. Justice Margaret Workman questioned the decision by the office of state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey to bring the right-to-work law to the Supreme Court before there’s been a full hearing on the merits of the case in circuit court. “I just think you all are taking a shortcut coming up here wanting all of the answers without the lower court having made any...

#DefendDACA : Educators Urge Congress to pass the Dream Act of 2017 NOW.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka made the following statement on today’s announcement that the Trump administration will terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program: President Donald Trump’s move to terminate DACA and strip work authorization away from 800,000 productive members of our society is cruel and wrong. Ending DACA will increase the pool of vulnerable workers in our country and embolden employers to retaliate against working men and women who dare to organize on the job or speak out against abusive working conditions. This indefensible act will make our workplaces less fair and less safe and will undermine our freedom...

The recent acquittal of four Boston Teamsters charged with attempting to extort the producers of the popular “Top Chef” television show is the latest illustration of a loophole in federal law that permits organized labor to engage in acts of extortion that would be illegal if anyone else tried it. Since a 1973 Supreme Court decision exempted union extortion and racketeering actions from the Hobbs Act, so long as the object being extorted constituted a legitimate union objective, union thugs have been getting a free pass on violence and threats such as what occurred in June 2014. Perhaps inspired by...

The basic case for right-to-work is simple: Forcing workers to pay money to a union they don’t support is wrong. This is why polling consistently shows that Americans overwhelmingly support right-to-work, including strong majorities of independent, Republican and Democratic voters. There are other reasons to support right-to-work, too. Workplace freedom is an economic engine, with private-sector job creation rates in right-to-work states double those in forced-unionism states between 2006 and 2016. Plus, right-to-work laws make union officials more accountable to rank-and-file members. Without right-to-work, employees must pay up or be fired. With voluntary dues, workers can withhold financial support from...

Kicking off the political campaign season, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh denounced President Trump’s policies at Monday’s annual Labor Day breakfast, saying Trump has turned his back on working families. But as he took aim at the White House, Walsh also had some choice words for union members who showcase their labor connection on the back of their cars alongside Trump bumper stickers. “Those union numbers stand for something,’’ said Walsh, highlighting the gains labor has made through the years. “They stand for healthcare; they stand for pensions and annuities; they stand for the rights and protections [of workers] ......

Professor Richard FeynmanWhat does Labor Day celebrate? According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the holiday is “a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.” Labor Day is a “yearly national tribute” to the “contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and wellbeing of our country.” – Newsweek Odd, then, that Big Labor is opposed to Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda. On its face Trump’s platform would seem to promote positions Big Labor has traditionally supported. Such as: Restricting immigration to the legal channels where it can...

Every Labor Day, unions repeat assertions of advancing the interests of all workers. But those claims are false. Unions harm most American workers. Project Labor Agreements Unions use government-delegated powers to restrict competition from other workers, extracting higher wages for their members. But higher wages mean fewer job openings because each worker is more expensive to the employer. That forces workers to move to other jobs, increasing the supply of labor services in non-union employment and reducing wages for all workers in those jobs. With far less than 10 percent of private sector workers in unions, more than 90 percent...

As temperatures plunged from 94 degrees into the 60s on a recent August evening, Lodi grower Brad Goehring dispatched his crew of Mexican workers into a field to pick Pinot Gris. The grapes were finally sweet enough, and the 2017 wine harvest had begun. Despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to step up deportations of undocumented immigrants, there’s little evidence of field workers being rounded up in California this year. “We haven’t heard of a single ICE raid in California fields,” said Goehring. An estimated 70 percent of California’s roughly 600,000 farm workers are undocumented, according to United Farm Workers Vice...

Teachings on Human Labor from the Catechism Msgr. Charles Pope • September 4, 2016 • Today is Labor Day in the United States. With this in mind, I thought it would be good to reflect on some teachings about human labor that are given in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The text from the catechism is shown in italics, while my commentary is in blue. Human labor precedes original sin and hence is not an imposition due to sin but part of our original dignity. God places [Man] in the garden. There he lives “to till it and...

I believe every citizen deserves the right to work and the right to organize and I don't believe these rights should be mutually exclusive I come from a union family. I grew up in a union home. The good pay and benefits gained by one of America’s greatest unions provided for my room and board every day that I lived at home. My father and my uncles were all proud union members. My brother and some of my best friends spent their entire careers as union workers and the unions are providing them with generous pensions and great benefits. I...

Even as Hurricane Harvey once again demonstrates the essential nature of public safety agencies, few Americans know that the Democrat political machine has been systematically robbing local police, fire and health care services throughout the nation of lawfully mandated funds, intentionally depriving local people throughout the nation of essential first responder services. Government derives much of its moral authority to tax from its obligation to provide public safety, health and education. Yet as public-sector pension plans create ever-greater demands upon local and state financial resources, The Democrats’ machine funnels so much tax revenue into the corrupt bargain the party made...

The president of the AFL-CIO stepped down from a council advising the White House on Tuesday, hours after President Trump reiterated that both sides were to blame for deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacist groups rallied over the weekend. "President Trump’s remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. He announced that both he and AFL-CIO leader Thea Lee would step down from Trump's Manufacturing Advisory Board. "We must resign on behalf of America’s working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups."...

United Auto Workers (UAW) president Dennis Williams called the bribery allegations brought against the widow of a former union executive "appalling," adding that they may have led Nissan workers to reject unionization, but denied that they reflect the larger organization.In July, the Department of Justice indicted Monica Morgan, the wife of the late UAW vice president General Holiefield, and former Fiat Chrysler vice president Alphons Iacobelli for funneling $1.2 million from a worker training center to pay off Morgan's mortgage, buy luxury cars, and pay for personal travel. The indictment came just one week before the UAW held a historic...

AFL-CIO group paid D.C. consultants $431,114 for grassroots petition effort Union activists, with the help of a Washington, D.C., firm, reportedly have enough signatures to block Missouri from implementing its right-to-work law and force a ballot measure on the question in 2018. Missouri AFL-CIO President Mike Louis said that the We Are Missouri movement, which shares headquarters with the union, has gathered almost 300,000 signatures supporting the ballot measure—three times more than the 100,000 needed to force an election. The union plans to deliver the signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State's office after assembling at the state capitol on...

Longtime nurse and union president, Cathy Glasson, is offering a clear vision of how bold, progressive policies can improve the lives of average Iowans. Glasson is exploring the run for governor in a swing state, which in 2016 voted in favor of Trump, but also Obama in 2008 and 2012. In the following Q&A, Glasson talks universal health care, raising the minimum wage, and how she can improve the life of the average Iowan. Q: Why are you considering a run for governor? I’m exploring a run for Governor because I’m tired of watching working people in this state get...

In a test of labor’s ability to expand its reach in the South, workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi have overwhelmingly rejected a bid to unionize. Out of roughly 3,500 employees at the Canton-based plant who voted Thursday and Friday, more than 60 percent opposed the union. It was an emphatic coda to a yearslong organizing effort underwritten by the United Automobile Workers, which has been repeatedly frustrated in its efforts to organize major auto plants in the region.

ANALYSIS/OPINION: As a 21-year autoworker in Michigan, and a forced dues-paying member of the United Auto Workers for 19 of those years, I have watched union officials waste millions of dollars attempting to organize manufacturing facilities in the South. It has done so as workers in those factories have clearly rejected their efforts, time and again. *** This time, the target is the 6,400-plus workers at Nissan’s facility in Canton, Mississippi, who will have a secret-ballot election August 3-4. Those workers should proceed with caution and pay heed to the long-term consequences of their decision. *** Organizers will make many...

CRESCO, Iowa — It wasn’t long after Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic presidential nomination that Laura Hubka realized how little excitement there was for Clinton among Howard County residents. “I went out and started knocking on doors for Hillary Clinton, and making phone calls,” Hubka, who leads Howard County’s Democratic Party, said when I met with her in late June. “I got hung up on, some guy chased me out of his yard with a rake, the unions complained a lot. There was a lot of yelling at doors.” Iowa and Howard County, with fewer than 10,000 people, had never...