Free Republic

Baltimore’s failing schools. Recent test scores found that there were 23 schools in the city where not even one child was doing math at grade level. These included Elementary Schools, Middle Schools and High Schools. Those were the extreme low end but the numbers also showed that city-wide just 7% of 3-8th graders were doing math at grade level. Today, Fox News highlights a similar report coming out of Illinois from a conservative group called Wirepoints. In this case, there were 53 schools where not one child could do math at grade level. Granted this is a small number of...

Another pro-President Joe Biden union just told it's rank-and-file members: Sorry, guys, you are all fired. Last week, the United Mine Workers of America union endorsed Biden's energy policies. Yes, you read that right. The coal-mining union bosses have embraced a bill that outlaws coal mining. This is about as dumb as the Pipefitters Union endorsing Biden for president. He repaid them with his first act as president -- killing the Keystone pipeline. So now we have the Pipefitters Union against pipelines and the coal miners union against coal. Did anyone bother to actually ask the rank-and-file members what they...

Crazifornia Election 2016, Smoking tobacco is bad, but Smoking pot is good in California. California politicians and their union bosses lack all shame in their self-enrichment at public expense. Their outrageous conduct has ravaged the once-prosperous Golden State, consigning taxpayers to $1.5 trillion in debt and another $1 trillion in pension debt. Yet the voting public seems oblivious. The rest of America has watched without much empathy as California’s politicians deal death-blow after death-blow to the once Golden State through insane, hypocritical and often unconstitutional legislation.

The Center for Union Facts found in its own analysis Friday that many union presidents hammer the corporate wage gap, but still make more money than the average CEO. The AFL-CIO found the average CEO of a S&P 500 company Tuesday made 335 times more money than the average worker in 2015. Union Facts countered the analysis, highlighting that S&P 500 companies tend to be among the largest. Instead, when all CEOs are taken into account, union presidents often get paid more. “Dozens of union bosses rake in cushy six-figure salaries on the workers’ dime,” Union Facts Executive Director Richard...

US unions plan attack on Donald Trump in attempt to derail presidential bid Concerned labor group leaders are organizing ad campaigns and phone banks as Trump’s populist message on trade and jobs draws in union voters The prospect of a Donald Trump nomination has labor leaders scrambling to hold the line as the Republican frontrunner’s appeal to disaffected working-class voters threatens to upset the traditional political calculus. The majority of America’s almost 15 million unionized workers can be usually be relied upon to back the Democratic candidate in a presidential year, but leaders are concerned by Trump’s populist message on...

A Michigan union fired back at workers who dropped off the membership rolls by urging its members to isolate them at work. Jeff Hagler, president at UAW Local 412 in Warren, Mich., sent out a newsletter to about 3,000 autoworkers who belong to the union in December. The letter includes a list of 43 mostly female workers who opted out of membership, as well as advice on how they should be treated in the workplace. "They have elected to quit paying union dues, but are still benefitting by continued representation by the union. Whether we feel this is fair or...

Two of the country’s most powerful and politically influential labor unions are backing President Obama in the recent court challenge to his 2014 executive action on illegal immigration, saying they support the president’s effort because "undocumented workers" need more workplace protection and their participation helps the U.S. economy. The AFL-CIO and the National Education Association on Monday each filed so-called amicus briefs in a federal appeals court case in which Texas and 26 other states are challenges the president’s 2014 memorandum on illegal immigration. The memorandum essentially expands work authorization and delayed-deportation programs for illegal immigrants. And it provides similar...

"......Right-to-work laws make collective bargaining more difficult by requiring that union members pay for the representation of nonmembers. Burdening those who desire union representation does not make economic sense, particularly now when, as researchers at the International Monetary Fund just concluded, the decline in union representation is “a key contributor” to the increasing share of income going to the top 10 percent instead of into workers’ pockets. That is what the juxtaposition of your two articles demonstrates, and that is what Governor Walker appears to want.

President Obama waded into 2016 waters Monday when he slammed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) for a new state law that curbs the power of labor unions. Democrats say Obama’s unusual shot at the likely GOP candidate, who sits atop early polls, could energize liberal opposition to Walker as he moves closer to a presidential run. But Republican allies of Walker believe the president’s broadside could actually help the governor’s impending candidacy by elevating his stature in the GOP field. It’s rare for Obama to single out state laws for criticism in White House statements. But that is what the...

Home-schoolers represent the only authentically radical social movement in the United States (Occupy Wall Street was a fashion statement) and so they must be suppressed, as a malevolent committee of leftist academics and union bosses under the direction of Governor Dannel Malloy is preparing to do in Connecticut, using the Sandy Hook massacre as a pretext. The ghouls invariably rush to the podium after every school massacre, issuing their insipid press releases before the bodies have even cooled, and normally they’re after your guns. But the Malloy gang is after your children. Malloy’s committee on the Newtown shootings is recommending...

Gov. Scott Walker’s public sector collective bargaining reforms of 2011 have not prevented union officials from making hefty six-figure salaries even as some of their organizations struggle to retain members. A review of U.S. Department of Labor filings shows that at least 159 union officials in Wisconsin made six-figure salaries in fiscal year 2012. ... The SEIU has used its political clout to recently push for a minimum wage hike for some Milwaukee County employees and government contractors. While decrying the current minimum wage, the SEIU conveniently lobbied for a carve-out that exempted employers from the requirement if they joined...

Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, one of the most aggressively pro-freedom city councilmen, is under siege from the unions in one of the most corrupt local elections in the country. Along with a few other government officials around the country, which include Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker, he tried to reign in the out-of-control and unsustainable increasing costs of government employees, particularly their pensions. Up for reelection this year, DiCiccio is being challenged by union-backed Democrat insurance executive Karlene Keogh Parks. The unions unsuccessfully attempted to recall him in 2011. DiCiccio wants to cut $79 million in government waste from...

Imagine you’ve finished a long, trying day at work. You’ve picked up your two toddlers from childcare, and stop at your local Walmart store on the way home to pick up some groceries. After successfully managing your shopping cart and two squirming little ones you finally reach the checkout aisle, sighing with relief as you realize that your day is almost done. But once there, you find that Big Labor protesters, most of whom don’t even work at Walmart, have taken over the store. They are chanting loudly and yelling directly at cashiers because they are not currently union members...

Mary Jo White is a poor choice to head the SEC. As a U.S. attorney, she demonstrated a lack of political independence and competence. In the late 90's prosecution of the Teamsters money landering scandal, White won several guilty pleas from low-level has-beens, but gave a pass to prominent union figures who played a key role in the Democratic political campaign of 2000, and every one since. The magnitude of White's dereliction of duty can be seen in who was not prosecuted- Richard Trumka, Andrew Stern and Gerald McEntee. In the 1996 Teamster election, incumbent President Ron Carey narrowly defeated...

When American Federation of Teachers President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten proposed a “bar exam” of sorts for teacher prospects, it was hailed as a step forward in improving teacher quality, EAGnews.org reported. But some of Weingarten’s underlings don’t know what all the fuss is about. She either didn’t run the idea past her deputies, or they didn’t approve and she trotted it out anyway. Norwalk Federation of Teachers President Bruce Mellion said if teachers would be subjected to such a test, they better get a pay raise. "What we're doing is testing, testing, testing, testing. At some point we need to...

The tiny, cash-strapped town of Central Falls, Rhode Island, is expected to know Monday whether it is officially bankrupt. Robert Flanders, the town's state appointed receiver, will work through the weekend to decide whether he will file for bankruptcy on behalf of Central Falls... ... Central Falls faces a $4.9 million budget shortfall. The real financial problem, however, is the city's $80 million public pension debt and it's public safety worker pension fund is on track to run out by October. A Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filing would give Central Falls the opportunity to change it's union agreements. But it...

Back in the 1970s my daughters used to say: "Let's play princesses!" and a grand old time they had. I imagine that in progressive families, the cry was different. "Let's play community organizers!" No doubt a grand old time was had by the baby radicals too. The trouble is that some people don't grow up. It's one thing to play community organizers in the back yard when you are a kid. It's another thing when real lives are at stake, as in Wisconsin. A better name for "community organizer" is "radical suit," because community organizers are really the lefty version...

The Service Employees International Union plans to send 25,000 rank-and-file workers on 500 buses to Washington this weekend to protest the Tea Party movement, Republicans and Fox News. If SEIU members had any sense, they'd be demonstrating at their own bosses' DC headquarters. It's the Big Labor left, not the Tea Party right, that is flushing union workers' hard-earned dues down the collective toilet in these hard times. The co-organizer of the so-called "One Nation" protest by a coalition of progressive groups is George Gresham, president of the behemoth SEIU Local 1199 based in New York. Perhaps Gresham should pay...

As Gov. Bill Ritter continues his efforts to make his coalition with Big Labor look reasonable, one Colorado union is showing just how out of touch with reality union bosses really are. United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 7 had introduced five statewide ballot initiatives that if approved for the November ballot and passed by voters, would collectively and significantly raise the cost of hiring new workers. At a time when the U.S. economy continues to shed thousands of low-skilled jobs each quarter, the timing of the Local 7’s proposal is extremely questionable. One of the initiatives would require...

Colorado will be turned into a union paradise under a proposed policy formalizing union access to state employees, angry Republicans say. The new guidelines, put forth by Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration Director Bill Gonzales, would require the state to provide employee organizations with space to hold meetings, e-mail addresses of all employees and use of state mailrooms. Gonzales, an appointee of Gov. Bill Ritter... Republicans, who read the draft rules obtained by the Rocky Mountain News, said Friday that they amounted to a back-room administrative fiat by a Democratic administration trying to pay back the public employee unions...