Free Republic

America’s foremost labor federation is asking Congress to block the “fast track” authority that President Barack Obama seeks to advance trade deals being negotiated with numerous nations. But the Chamber of Commerce says the authority would significantly expand U.S. exports and jobs. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka tells a Senate committee the fast-track legislation has pitfalls. The bill would let Congress reject or endorse—but not amend—proposed trade deals. …

The leader of the United Auto Workers union has rejected a third tier of lower wages for members who make auto parts. Speaking Wednesday at the union’s national bargaining convention in Detroit, President Dennis Williams said the UAW already has too many tiers of lower wages. Williams was responding to reports that General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. may propose a third tier of pay. He already is under pressure from union members to end a second tier of wages that’s about half the $28 per hour made by longtime workers. He told delegates that he heard people talking...

A machinists union is seeking an election at a Boeing plant in South Carolina. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is asking a federal agency to set an election so more than 2,400 Boeing production workers in South Carolina can vote on whether to form a union. Fred Wszolek, spokesman for the Workforce Fairness Institute, says the move is surprising. "It's interesting that it's a much smaller number than the actual number of Boeing employees in Charleston. It's only about a third," he observes. "They must have defined some sort of micro-union that they think they can win...

LaKiesha Allen is a 35-year old Lansing school secretary who pays the Michigan Education Association $38 a month in union dues from her $23,000 annual salary. Local union officials have threatened to get her fired if she stops paying those dues. So Allen was stunned to learn that MEA President Steve Cook, a man she has never met, swung a deal with her employer to parlay his six-figure union salary into a richer pension payout. Cook's payout will come from the same pension fund that Allen is counting on for her own retirement – a fund that is currently underfunded...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the Southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for if there is any one on God's earth who loves the ladies I believe it is myself. (Immense applause and laughter.) I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to elevate...

Thousands of Wisconsin union workers rallied at the Capitol Saturday to protest a “right-to-work” proposal that would outlaw the mandatory payment of union dues, but the crowd was much smaller than those in 2011 against Gov. Scott Walker’s law stripping public sector unions of much of their power. Speakers at the event jeered Walker’s comment Thursday that fighting against protesters during the 2011 debates prepared him to battle terrorists as president. Walker has not yet announced his presidential campaign, but is expected to do so later this year. “What we are doing here today is the heart and soul of...

I HAVE A FAVOR to ask of the union members who've been picketing the Pennsylvania Convention Center: Leave the Philadelphia Flower Show alone. As in for real, guys. If you're planning to disrupt the show the way some members of the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters disrupted the Philadelphia Auto Show on Feb. 7 - don't argue they didn't; we're not idiots - please just don't.

KING, Wis. — At the old union hall here on a recent afternoon, Terry Magnant sat at the head of a table surrounded by 18 empty chairs. A members meeting had been scheduled to start a half-hour earlier, but the small house, with its cracked walls and loose roof shingles, was lonely and desolate. “There used to be a lot more people coming,” said Magnant, a 51-year-old nursing assistant, sighing. The anti-union law passed here four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more transformative...

The first nationwide oil refinery strike in more than 30 years was expected to grow by four more plants over the weekend, including the largest refinery in the U.S., the Motiva Enterprises refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. The United Steelworkers union said Saturday workers at the Motiva Enterprises refinery started their strike at midnight Friday. Employees at two other refineries and a chemical plant in Louisiana planned to strike at the end of Saturday. The union said in a statement that it expanded the strike that started Feb. 1 at refineries largely in Texas and California because the industry has...

Arrogant oil refiners concerned more about profits than the safety and workplace concerns of thousands of USW-represented oil workers forced the union to call an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike.The industry, represented by Royal Dutch Shell, gave the USW no other option when it refused to bargain in good faith over a national contract even though the union was prepared to continue talking beyond the midnight deadline.“Shell refused to provide us with a counter-offer and left the bargaining table,” International President Leo W. Gerard said. “We had no choice but to give notice of a work stoppage.”The negotiations for a...

WAUWATOSA, Wis. – Union protesters targeted Gov. Scott Walker’s private residence Monday with a protest over cuts in the Governor’s most recent budget proposal. Schools and Communities United, an amalgam of unions and left-wing activist groups, issued a press release Monday that reads: Schools and Communities United is organizing a Presidents’ Day action in opposition to Walker’s proposed budget cuts near Scott Walker’s house on Monday, February 16 at 4:30pm.

Hundreds of people armed with shovels met at the Old Bayside Expo at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning to help dig out the city’s subway. The MBTA put out the call to unions over the weekend, saying that they needed people with shovels to dig out parts of the Red and Orange Lines. Three hundred people showed up and were paid about $30 an hour. […] The MBTA hasn’t been advertising the temporary shovel jobs or tell us how much they're willing to spend. […] The MBTA is also using prison inmates to help clear the tracks. …

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told a gathering at Georgetown University that Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown were on “a collision course”, which ultimately resulted in Brown’s fatal shooting, because we have “not been invested in our nation’s infrastructure” and “because we have allowed collective bargaining to weaken.” “Darren Wilson and Mike Brown were on a collision course,” Ellison says in a video posted by the Georgetown University Campus Ministry last week. “What brought them into collision was the economic abandonment of their city. It was the fact they have been bleeding jobs, through I believe, unfair trade agreements. It...

Missouri took a step toward joining 24 other states with right-to-work laws when its House voted to bar the collection of fees from workers who choose not to join a union. The vote of 92 to 66 with two lawmakers voting present, marks an advance for supporters of right-to-work because a similar measure last year had failed to achieve a constitutional majority of 82 lawmakers in favor. […] The measure still faces a second House vote and would have to be approved by the Senate before going to Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon, who opposes right-to-work. …

Members of the National Right to Work Foundation believe two German labor groups have failed to completely disclose their full level of involvement in the United Auto Workers’ attempts to set up shop in Chattanooga. As previously reported, the UAW wants to formally establish itself at Chattanooga’s Volkswagen plant. The UAW’s attempts have so far been unsuccessful. VW workers, by a tally of 712-626, for instance, voted in February not to join the UAW. Members of the NRTW represent an unspecified number of VW workers who oppose the union. They say that VW’s Global Works Council and IG Metall, a...

Yuengling bills its Pottsville, Pennsylvania, brewery as the oldest in the nation, but its beer won’t be served at Democrat Gov.-elect Tom Wolf’s inaugural celebration. […] Yuengling’s president Richard Yuengling Jr. is a GOP activist who supports “right to work” laws barring mandatory union dues and membership. Wolf received major support from organized labor in his campaign. …

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is facing a second lawsuit from business groups upset about a controversial rule they contend will unfairly speed up union elections. The business groups are challenging what they refer to as the NLRB's "ambush election" rule. The Texas chapters of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) filed the lawsuit late Tuesday in federal court seeking to overturn the rule. "We are proud to join the legal fight against the ambush rule, which is designed to deprive employers, particularly small businesses who typically do not employ legal counsel,...

The Michigan Education Association has threatened to file an unfair labor practice complaint against the Northport Public Schools superintendent because of conversations he had with local union officials over removing illegal language discovered in the district's labor contract. The contract, signed on June 24, 2013, states: “Each bargaining unit member shall, as a condition of employment … join the Association (union) or pay a service fee to the Association.” Under the Michigan right-to-work law enacted in 2012, workers in a unionized workplace can no longer be forced to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. Union contracts...

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union is a heavyweight on the labor scene. It pays its president $350,000 a year. It’s holding its next executive board meeting in February at a swanky beachfront resort in Hollywood, Florida. And it just doled out nearly $8 million to influence the last election and lobby Washington. But when it comes to standing by the obligation unions made to provide pensions to retirees, UFCW pleaded poverty in persuading Congress to let chronically underfunded union pension plans cut the benefits of workers, including those already retired.“Declining participation and factors like the Great Recession have...

French taxi drivers have succeeded in persuading the French government to ban rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft. A harsh new law takes effect in January. The move is good for taxi drivers, but will cost consumers money. […] Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesperson for the French Ministry of the Interior […] said that as of January 1, the operators of mobile apps like UberPOP that connect non-professional drivers and riders would face punishment of up to two years in prison and a fine of €300,000 if convicted. Those provisions were specified under a new law that had been passed earlier...