Free Republic

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court seemed poised on Monday to deliver a severe blow to organized labor. The justices appeared divided along familiar lines during an extended argument over whether government workers who choose not to join unions may nonetheless be required to help pay for collective bargaining. The court's conservative majority appeared ready to say that such compelled financial support violates the First Amendment Collective bargaining, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, is inherently political when the government is the employer, and issues like merit pay, promotions and classroom size are subject to negotiation. The best hope for a victory...

hen did unions cross the line from being workers who want to collectively negotiate with their employers to becoming gangs that threaten non-members? Or has it always been that way? In Michigan, which has moved on from being a hard union state to one where workers have a choice about joining, a United Auto Workers chapter has put out a hit list of nonmembers it believes deserve intimidation. Local 412, based in Warren, Mich., suggests that its members refuse to "share any tools, knowledge or support" with "any of these employees who choose not to pay their fair share."

Two prominent Israeli leftists have appealed to like-minded liberal Americans to join forces with them to help the Israeli Left regain power, after a series of sound defeats in democratic elections - the latter of which occurred despite extensive support from foreign liberal donors. Zionist Union/Labor MK Stav Shaffir and Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit were speaking at a plenary meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism last week, which they both used as a platform to attack the current Israeli government, and joined with Union of Reform Judaism President Eric Yoffie in calling on American Jews to be more vocal...

This updates years 2007 - 2015 of an earlier post of Federal Government Economic Data covering several decades. Both include links to the government agencies' tables. Updates include additional foreign-born data and annualized data for 2015 using 3rd quarter data.

They also linked Roosevelt with socialists and, further to the left, communists. Communists, of course, had very progressive ideas about gender roles and race equality. So the opponents of the New Deal said, “Look, he is just a communist and communists are atheists, want women working outside the home and want to help Mexican-Americans in California organize and essentially challenge white supremacy.” They associated Roosevelt’s liberalism with what they saw as radical changes in gender roles, racial hierarchies, and religious attitudes in California.With the notable exception of #tcot and National Review’s Kevin Williamson, most informed and engaged observers of American...

If conventional labor and finance capital have lost their scarcity value, then the era in which financialization reaped big profits is ending. Why is wealth/income inequality soaring? The easy answer is of course the infinite greed of Wall Street fat-cats and the politicos they buy/own. But greed can't be the only factor, for greed is hardly unknown in the bottom 90%. The only difference between the guy who took out a liar loan to buy a house he couldn't afford so he could flip it for a fat profit and the mortgage broker who instructed him on how to scam...

Since McDonald's launched an all-day breakfast menu last week, a number of their franchisees are not 'lovin' it' and say it has been a nightmare. Franchisees say that serving breakfast all-day has slowed down service, lowered average bills and sparked utter chaos in the restaurant giant's kitchens. Twenty-nine operators overseeing 226 different locations in the US were surveyed by Mark Kalinowski, an analyst for the Japanese finance company Nomura. He found that since the new menu items were added last Tuesday, many of the franchisees were struggling. 'In small stores, the problems are vast with people falling over each other...

While politicians seem to never tire of proposing new ways to regulate the workplace, I want to propose a radically different idea: get government out of the workplace altogether. If that’s too radical for you, here is a compromise proposal: allow parallel systems under which workers in the same industry can choose to work as employees or work as independent contractors in an essentially unregulated labor market. Public awareness of the “gig economy” seems to have started with Uber, a company with 4,000 employees and 160,000 drivers who are not employees. A class action lawsuit in California seeks to have...

In a note seeking to "explain" why the US labor participation rate just crashed to a nearly 40 year low earlier today as another half a million Americans decided to exit the labor force bringing the total to 94.6 million people...... this is what the Atlanta Fed has to say about the most dramatic aberration to the US labor force in history: "Generally speaking, people in the 25–54 age group are the most likely to participate in the labor market. These so-called prime-age individuals are less likely to be making retirement decisions than older individuals and less likely to be...

Sweden, birthplace of ABBA, IKEA, and Volvo, may soon have another celebrated export: the 6-hour workday.The practice is not yet universal, but companies across multiple sectors report positive results from the shorter day.Brath, a tech startup, made the move three years ago for its 22 employees. Maria Bråth, the CEO, says her firm has tracked productivity and found that her team exceeds output when compared to similar tech shops. One of the biggest advantages is that it helps them hire and keep employees, Ms. Brath writes in a blog post:Recommended: Think you know Europe? Take our geography quiz. We also...

Andy KierszOctober 2, 2015 The September jobs report was broadly disappointing, with very few points of optimism. Along with non-farm payrolls and wage growth missing expectations, the civilian labor force participation rate — the percentage of the US population that is either working or looking for a job — fell by 0.2 percentage points to 62.4%. This is the lowest reading since October 1977.(snip)

Under President Obama, federal agencies are doling out tens of millions of dollars to one of the Democratic Party’s most essential constituencies: big labor. The grants range from safety training to union membership recruitment to whipping up support for the president’s signature program called Obamacare, a Washington Times review of federal contracting records shows. Last week, for example, the Department of Energy awarded a $900,000-plus grant for the development of a safety regimen for workers facing hazardous duties in energy and waste jobs. It didn’t go to a safety firm or training school but rather to a labor union: Akron...

TEAMSTERS OFFICIALS WANT TO MEET WITH DONALD TRUMP! Teamsters officials met behind closed doors today. The union refused to endorse Hillary Clinton for president. The officials told FOX News they want to meet with Donald Trump. James Rosen reported: "Union executives told me they want to sit down with Republican candidates, most notably, front-runner Donald Trump who has collaborated with unionized work forces across his real estate career." Via Special Report: BREAKING: Teamsters Withhold Endorsement for Hillary Want to Meet With Donald Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6tot9T6ims

The Obama administration rewarded its union allies last month with a decision that threatens millions of jobs and thousands of businesses, from staffing agencies to cleaning services and auto-repair shops to construction companies. In a case involving Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided to unilaterally redefine the concept of joint employment—when more than one business is responsible for an employee or group of employees—and made it easier to unionize large corporations. This ruling could have a devastating effect on small businesses, job creation, and the U.S. economy.......... Before last week, two businesses were deemed joint employers...

The knifing of Tony Abbott will go down as one of the most destructive and arrogant acts of political bastardry this nation has yet seen. In many ways, it surpasses Labor’s two similarly bloody coups, so forensically explored in Sarah Ferguson’s superb Killing Season documentary, for the simple reason that Mr Turnbull’s treachery was done despite the knowledge that the electorate genuinely deplore such brutality. If there was, indeed, one clear lesson to come from the Rudd/Gillard danse macabre, it is that the voters prefer to do the knifings in the sanctity of the ballot box, and have little time...

Governor Scott Walker made his name reforming Wisconsin’s labor laws. Now he proposes to do the same at the federal level. In a speech yesterday, Walker detailed solid labor-policy reforms that conservatives should embrace. His reforms boil down to eliminating union power over the government and focusing private-sector labor law on employee choice. Walker sees creating government unions as a policy mistake that unnecessarily increases government spending. Neutering Wisconsin’s government unions enabled him to eliminate a $3.6 billion budget deficit and cut taxes by $2 billion. Federal unions are not as powerful as state and local government unions — they...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker plans to focus Monday on weakening labor by proposing to abolish unions for federal workers, create a national "right-to-work law" and eliminate the National Labor Relations Board.At a Las Vegas manufacturer, he also plans to call for requiring all unions to hold periodic votes so workers can decide whether they should continue to exist, according to his campaign. He will also cancel President Barack Obama's Labor Day order that federal contractors provide paid sick leave and work to end policies requiring some salaried workers to receive overtime—saying in some cases they should get time off instead."It's...

LONDON — A veteran anti-war campaigner known for his unapologetically socialist views has won a landslide victory to lead Britain's opposition Labour Party — an outcome that delighted supporters and dismayed others who never imagined he could be elected. The overwhelming support for far-left lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn, 66, was one of the biggest shake-ups in British politics in decades. His win Saturday marks a sharp left turn for his party — and will significantly challenge the tone of mainstream British politics, which is now dominated by Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives. "It's certainly the most high-profile position an overt socialist...

For the first time in a lifetime of political analysis, I find myself lost for words. Nothing I write can do justice to the calamity that Britain's Labour Party has just inflicted on itself. The best I can do, to give you a sense of the man newly elected as Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, is to summarize some of his opinions. Jeremy Corbyn is happy to talk to Irish Republican Army men, avowed anti-Semites and Hezbollah militants; but he refuses "out of principle" to talk to the Sun newspaper, a right-wing tabloid. He campaigns for the national rights of...

Every now and then the Oregonian, perhaps unwittingly, produces an article that should set Americans thinking about changing the status quo. This past weekend was one of those instances. In the September 6, 2015 edition, Joseph Rose wrote an article recalling the halcyon years of the Works Progress Administration or Works Project Administration (WPA) as it became known as in later years: