Free Republic

Pete Buttigieg is getting a hard look from anxious Democrats. ... As a result, he’ll be getting more scrutiny for his ideas, and on Friday he released what he called “An Economic Agenda for American Families.” For a candidate who wants to occupy the moderate lane, Mr. Buttigieg’s policy details veer notably left. Some highlights: • $700 billion—presumably over 10 years, but the plan doesn’t specifically say—for “universal, high-quality, and full-day early learning.” That includes giving “lower-income families” free care “from birth through age five.” • $500 billion “to make college affordable.” That means free tuition at public universities for...

Striking Chicago teachers who are seeking smaller class sizes and higher pay also are demanding that the nation’s third-largest city do more to lower housing costs and put more resources into helping homeless students. The demand for affordable housing citywide — for students and their financially-strapped families as well as for school employees — stands as a dramatic example of organized labor’s effort to expand bargaining beyond bread-and-butter issues.

ANALYSIS/OPINION: Imagine each working day, federal employees report for work but do not perform any governmental duties. Instead, they work for a private enterprise void of any public purpose — their union. Taxpayers pay for these employees’ wages, pensions and health care benefits. Taxpayers pay for office space, supplies and travel, too. Unfortunately, there is no need to imagine. It is a longstanding and wasteful practice, known as union official time. Generally, federal employees on official time perform union business such as negotiate contracts, file grievances, attend union conferences and even lobby Congress. The latest data from the Office of...

Minneapolis Liberal Mayor trying to "bully" President Trump out of Minnesota, says Police head of Police union.

Union auto workers voted, by a large majority, to authorize strikes while the United Auto Workers (UAW) union negotiates contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler. UAW members voted about 96 percent to allow union workers to strike while UAW leaders negotiate contracts with GM, Ford, and Chrysler — a vote that merely authorizes strikes and does not indicate that strikes will be held. UAW President Gary Jones said in a statement:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reversed course late Friday, agreeing to key union demands as nearly two-thirds of its research staff will leave the agency rather than move to new headquarters in the Kansas City area. The announcement follows a tumultuous few weeks at the USDA where employees were given a month to decide if they would uproot from D.C. by Sept. 30 or lose their jobs that same day. Employees at both the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) — two of the major research wings within USDA — unionized in...

A federal grand jury indicted Illinois State Sen. Thomas Cullerton this morning on embezzlement charges related to a job with Teamsters Local Union 734. Prosecutors allege he received $275,000 in salary, bonuses, health and pension benefits for “little or no work” as a union organizer. The Villa Park senator, 49, worked for the union before assuming office in November 2012. In a statement, Cullerton’s attorney denied any wrongdoing and suggested Cullerton was the victim of Teamsters boss John Coli. Coli is cooperating with federal investigators as part of a plea deal in an extortion case related to Cinespace Studios on...

FairTube is a campaign to get more fairness and transparency for all YouTube Creators. Our proposals Publish all categories and decision criteria that affect monetization and views of videos Give clear explanations for individual decisions — for example, if a video is demonetized, which parts of the video violated which criteria in the Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines? Give YouTubers a human contact person who is qualified and authorized to explain decisions that have negative consequences for YouTubers (and fix them if they are mistaken) Let YouTubers contest decisions that have negative consequences Create an independent mediation board for resolving disputes (here...

Sen. Bernie Sanders is one of the many faces that make up the progressive left within the Democratic Party. HeÂ’s an unapologetic democratic socialist. He has an economic agenda that would cost us trillions of dollars. And heÂ’s staunchly pro-labor union. That is until his campaign staff starts making demands for better pay, right? Yeah, it seems so. The Sanders campaign has unionized and is demanding $15/hour for staff nationwide and so far the left-wing candidateÂ’s leadership is silent on the matter. You just canÂ’t make this up. The far left guy unionizes the staff, makes minimum wage hikes part...

About 1.3 million Americans could have their retirement funds at risk if Congress can't come up with the money to pay the benefits people were promised. That is because a number of multiemployer pension plans are on the brink of running out of money. This week, Congress took a stab at solving the problem with the markup of the Rehabilitation for Multiemployer Pensions Act. Though it garnered far less attention than the testimony of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who was on Capitol Hill talking about interest rates and the economy, it was no less important. Retirees' financial futures hang...

Shortened title. Full title: Border Patrol Union VP: There’s Video of AOC Going Up to Border Agents and “Being Very Threatening and Very Abusive” – We Hope This is Released Border Patrol Union VP Hector Garza joined Neil Cavuto on Tuesday morning to discuss the situation at the Border Patrol holding facilities. This comes after Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez visited the El Paso holding facility on Monday. Hector Garza told Neil Cavuto: Speaking to agents that were at that facility, they say that AOC walked in there beginning a war against our agents. And just to let you know, Neil,...

Service Employees International Union Local 775, it seems, would do anything for a buck, including continuing to collect dues from a former member. It’s now learned its limitations. On March 29, the Seattle-based union reached an out-of-court agreement with a Spokane home caregiver, Cindy Ochoa, following its admission that one of its canvassers had forged her signature on a membership card. Ochoa, with the help of a nonprofit legal group, the Freedom Foundation, had filed a lawsuit in federal court in October alleging the union had violated her First Amendment rights, unlawfully withheld part of her wages, and caused emotional...

Former Vice President Joe Biden may consider himself a “union man,” but one California union won’t be giving him a warm welcome this week. The National Union of Healthcare Workers plans to hold an informational picket line outside a Biden fundraiser slated for Wednesday in Los Angeles, according to Sal Rosselli, the union’s president.

It may not be the biggest state, nor the one with the most students, but Illinois leads the nation in school district spending on administrators. Even amid a looming statewide financial crisis, the state’s 852 districts spent more than $1 billion in fiscal year 2016, the most in the nation ... Illinois also spends twice as much per pupil on school administration as the national average — $544 in Illinois to $226 nationwide. Measured per pupil, that is the third highest rate in the country, nearly double New York at $349 and nearly five times as much as California, where...

Negotiations between Stop & Shop and the UFCW local unions continued Monday, five days after workers first walked off the job and onto the picket line at all 90 stores in Connecticut. Striking employees are scheduled to receive paychecks on Wednesday. “That’s it,” said Denise Tartaglia on the picket line outside the Whalley Avenue store. “We don’t get another one until we go back to work.” While some stores are staying open with minimal staff, the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop in New Haven is closed except for the People’s United Bank. ... Normally, Cathy Conklin from Hamden doesn’t shop...

The Writers Guild of America says it has instructed its 13,000 members to fire their talent agents at midnight on Saturday, unless their agents sign a new "Code of Conduct" agreement that promises they will do away with packaging fees and their stakes in production companies. The bottom line: Most of the Guild's writers agree with the Code of Conduct, but most of the agents who represent them don't. The hope was that the 2 sides would come up with a compromise before the current negotiations expired on Friday. Without a deal, Hollywood is stuck in a messy limbo that...

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat running for president in 2020, delivered donuts and coffee to picketing Stop & Shop workers in Somerville on Friday, and urged shoppers to take their business elsewhere. “Do not cross the picket line,” Warren said. “Understand people on the picket line are not just fighting for their families. They’re fighting for all our families. They’re fighting for basic fairness and equality in this country.” On Thursday, the unions representing 31,000 Stop & Shop workers across Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut voted to go on strike. Their contract expired in February, and they have...

The former president of a St. Helens-based manufacturer’s labor union who embezzled $32,000 from the union was sentenced Wednesday to five years of probation and ordered to complete 50 hours of community service. John Jason Burgess, 43, of Hillsboro has paid back a portion of the money he took, but has another $10,621.92 left in restitution. In December, he had pleaded guilty to concealing or destroying the union’s financial records, particularly receipts of union purchases he made for his personal gain.

Reading aloud a letter addressed to her supervisors about retaliation she faced after reporting sexual misconduct within SEIU, Njoki Woods, a 42-year-old African American single mother of 4, begins to cry. Prior to joining the staff at SEIU United Healthcare West in 2015, Woods had spent a decade organizing her fellow co-workers as a certified nursing assistant and unit secretary at Riverside Community Hospital in Southern California. After leading a successful effort as a rank and file member to organize residual workers at nearby St. Mary’s hospital, Woods was offered a staff job in May of 2015. “I was excited....

The overwhelming majority of public schools in the United States suffer discontent and strife because of the rapacious teachers unions, the AFT and the NEA Go online and do research on the recent West Virginia teachers strike, and low and behold, the Democratic Media Industrial Complex all get in line to report on this non-catastrophe. They are all there: National Public Radio, the New York Times, CNN, USA Today, CBS News, and Time Magazine—to get behind the teachers union like Pavlov’s dogs. As the West Virginia House of Delegates killed a bill that would allow for charter schools and private...