Back in 2011 Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took on the state’s powerful unions and the Wisconsin Legislature enacted a dramatic labor law reform. Several lawsuits filed since the bill passed claimed Walker’s overhaul was unconstitutional. These lawsuits have been percolating through the courts ever since. The latest decision comes from a federal judge, who has...
Following complaints about ObamaCare made by many of its constituent unions, the AFL-CIO has rendered its verdict on the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, commonly referred to as ObamaCare. From the labor federation’s convention in Los Angeles come four pages of finely tuned verbiage spiced with numbing bureaucratic minutia that boil down to “We love...
“We love what you were trying to do but we hate what you actually did.”
Labor unions are losing influence, popularity and the fight over labor policy in many states. To soften their fall, unions have dramatically increased political spending.
Labor unions are losing influence, popularity and the fight over labor policy in many states. To soften their fall, unions have dramatically increased political spending. A study from the Center for Public Integrity shows labor unions have notably increased political spending nationally in the first half of 2013. During the six-month period, unions contributed $10 million to...
Judge John Sedia of the Lake County, Ind., Superior Court has held that the state’s Right-to-Work law violates the state constitution. While the Sept. 9 decision is disappointing, neither union officials nor union critics should put much stock in it. The state will appeal the case to the Indiana Supreme Court, which is very likely to reverse...
A year ago, schoolchildren throughout Chicago were returning to class as the Chicago Teachers Union, or CTU, and Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, officials reached an agreement, ending a bitter nine-day strike. Looking back on the strike and its aftermath, there were few clear winners; but there were many losers. In the wake of the...
Labor law reform has been popular in a lot of neighboring states, with Wisconsin passing an overhaul of its government union law, and Michigan and Indiana adopting right-to-work. The move toward greater union accountability could pick up again if Missouri sets up a referendum on right-to-work, as it might as early as next year. Labor...
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka presides over a union establishment that continues to lose members – more than 1.6 million between 2002 and 2012. The Obama administration’s more union-friendly posture hasn’t helped much – union members made up 12.4 percent of the workforce in 2008, but that declined to 11.2 percent in 2012. Making matters worse,...
Unions exist to give workers greater leverage in negotiating over compensation and working conditions, and to give them some protection from unfair treatment at the hands of management. If union officials are doing their jobs well, workers should be receiving better wages and benefits, and should be more secure in their jobs. But that’s not...
Does giving workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union make a difference? A new report from the Mackinac Center – our sister think tank in Michigan – says yes, it does. Ball State University professor Michael Hicks teamed up with Mackinac’s Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive to produce a sophisticated analysis of employment, income...
With college football starting up on this Labor Day weekend, it’s the perfect time for a Top 25 list of the most highest-compensated government union officials in Illinois. Unlike the football polls, there’s no argument over who’s No. 1; it’s all pretty cut-and-dried. The big question is: What exactly have they done to earn these...
The fallout from the Biogenesis scandal in Major League Baseball – New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez fighting a long suspension, a dozen other players accepting 50-game suspensions – reveals a big problem with U.S. labor law: how unions deal with disciplinary problems. How far should a union be willing to go to protect a member...
About a year ago, the city of Chicago released its 2012 Annual Financial Analysis. Back then I noted that many of the city’s challenges, especially high employee costs and growing pension debt, were aggravated by a heavily unionized workforce. With a new year comes newer, more disturbing financial figures – and the same old union problem...