Free Republic

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — For two straight days this week, 2,000 union members converged on Wisconsin's Capitol to rally against a new right-to-work bill, chanting, marching and hurling profanities at GOP lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker. The tone of the rallies has been bitter and angry but hasn't come close to matching the energy that coursed through the building four years ago during massive protests against Walker's proposal to strip public workers of most of their union rights. This time around, union members said Republicans are moving too fast to organize large crowds. Some have even conceded it's a lost...

Lots of people sure hate the Koch brothers. The Kochs get death threats like this: "If I had a chance to murder a Koch brother in cold blood, I would surely take it." Jim Dean doesn't want to kill the Kochs, but he does want new laws to limit their influence. Dean's brother Howard was a Democratic presidential candidate, and Dean chairs a group called Democracy for America. "Get money out of politics," Dean says on my show this week. But Dean's not just unhappy because the Kochs have money to throw around. He doesn't like their politics. "The Koch...

When I talked to a top Wisconsin legislative leader a few months ago, he was worried about the protests that might erupt at the state capitol if the legislature took up right-to-work legislation. It was likely an aftershock from 2011, when public-employee unions besieged the statehouse, occupying it for weeks on end. “And 30,000 teachers looks a lot different than 30,000 Teamsters,” he told me. On Tuesday, the legislature took its first steps toward making Wisconsin right-to-work, holding hearings on a bill that would bar labor agreements requiring union fees. The bill was announced late last week, and the legislature...

Who said: "I've always believed the decline of the middle class could be tied to the decline of unions. And when you have 7%, 8% of the work force in unions, when you have CEO pay going up to record heights, you're going to have a hollowing out of the middle class." Was it a. Elizabeth Warren; b. Robert Reich; or c. Ed Schultz? Correct answer: d. None of the above. It was Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough prefaced his lament over the decline of unions by saying "It's been well-documented on Twitter: I'm a right-wing Republican stooge."...

Despite recent congressional action, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) multi-employer pension insurance program is “likely to be insolvent by the year 2024,” according to the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) latest list of 30 “High Risk” government programs. PBGC collects premiums set by Congress from employers to insure the pension benefits of more than 44 million American workers and retirees currently covered under defined benefit plans. The agency’s “single-employer program protects about 33.6 million workers and retirees in about 27,600 pension plans,” according to the PBGC website. “The multi-employer program protects 10.4 million workers and retirees in about 1,500 pension...

Link only due to copyright issues:http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/dangerous-candidacy-scott-walker

An Action 2 News reporter on the scene says a credible threat to safety has interrupted a hearing in the Senate Labor Committee about a right-to-work bill. Police escorted the senators out of the chamber immediately after they vote 3-1 to approve the bill. The hearing was halted 30 minutes before public comment was supposed to end.

Unnecessary occupational licensing laws limit free market competition and discourage employment by preventing people from entering the workforce. In recent years, hair braiding has been a focus of licensing battles within state courts and legislatures. Late last week, Arkansas and Iowa both took initial steps to expand opportunities for hair braiding businesses. In Arkansas, a bill that would exempt hair braiding from state cosmetology regulations, HB 1177, passed through The House of Representatives and now sits in the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee. This bill would provide certification to professional hair braiders following a certain period of practice....

It’s beginning to look like an all-out offensive by the Teamsters against the two largest education unions in Clark County. Teamsters Local 14 has filed a public records request for the names, job classification and work location for members of the Clark County Education Association, the union representing the School District’s 17,000 teachers. Teamsters Local 14 secretary-treasurer Larry Griffith confirmed the request was made but he wouldn’t say anything more. The move could be viewed as an organizing effort by the Teamsters to represent the district’s teachers, labor law experts said. The Teamsters are in the midst of a fight...

NEW CASTLE, Ind. – Should teachers be allowed to use students as props for their personal political causes? It happens all the time in school districts around the nation, particularly at the secondary level. Local teacher unions will protest the lack of a new collective bargaining agreement with a school board, and the next thing you know, high school and middle school kids are walking out of class in support of the teachers. Who do you suppose gets the students all riled up? But now some teachers are apparently willing to involve elementary-aged children in their labor wars. Or at...

Having lived through this two years ago in Michigan, I can tell you the insanity Wisconsin is in for, but then again the state that dealt with the Democrat fleebagger insanity isn’t going to be surprised by too much. Republican leaders in the Wisconsin Legislature have decided to fast-track right-to-work through the legislative process, and Gov. Scott Walker has indicated he’s ready to sign it: --snip-- Some will say Walker is only doing this to burnish his presidential bona fides. To that I would say two things: 1. It’s the Legislature that’s leading this charge; and 2. If the way...

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.

With the West Coast ports labor dispute involving 13,600 unionized dockworkers inflicting pain on 318 million Americans by causing billions of dollars a day in losses to the U.S. economy settling yesterday, now 30,000 unionized refinery workers across America intend to play the same leverage game by cutting off two-thirds of all U.S. diesel and gasoline supplies. Just after US Labor Secretary Tom Perez took to the television circuit to tout how the Obama Administration believes the US economy can “recover quickly” from the nine months-long port turmoil, the United Steel Workers (USW) launched the first nationwide oil refinery strike...

Almost immediately following Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's announcement that the Legislature will take up a right-to-work bill next week, speculation about the size and intensity of the opposition from unions and labor allies arose. That speculation will end on Tuesday noon when the first of two rallies planned by the Wisconsin AFL-CIO takes place at the Capitol in Madison. "Republicans are planning to ram this legislation through in an extraordinary session at lightning pace. An extraordinary session changes the rules, limits debate and makes a mockery out of our democracy," reads a statement on the WI AFL-CIO blog....

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...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Yellowhammer sources say the National Education Association (NEA), the national teachers’ union with which the Alabama Education Association (AEA) is affiliated, cleaned the AEA’s house late last night, ousting Executive Secretary Henry Mabry and revoking building access to former Associate Executive Secretary Joe Reed.

Yesterday, Walmart announced that, beginning in April of this year, the company will raise the pay of all its employees to at least $9 an hour. In 2016, the company’s minimum pay rate will again jump to $10. This move will affect approximately 500,000 Walmart employees and, along with several other changes such as increased training and scheduling options, is estimated to cost the company $1 billion. Walmart’s pay increase follows a number of businesses, including Aetna, Ikea and Gap Inc., that have announced an internal company minimum wage higher than the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. While some...

Education policy is taking top priority in state legislatures across the nation. Education funding formulas, opportunity scholarships, educational savings accounts and charter school reforms are just a few of the policy issues being discussed and debated. However, while all of these policy issues are imperative to the advancement of educational freedom, the Common Core State Standard Initiative (CCSSI) is quickly becoming the top concern for state legislators. The first installment, seen in the video above, was presented by Mike Petrilli from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Neal McCluskey from the Cato Institute and moderated by Jonathan Butcher from the Goldwater...

In rural Dickinson County, located in the Upper Peninsula on the Michigan-Wisconsin border, the cost of living is low and the median household income is about $44,000. Steve Zurcher, the owner of St. George Glass & Window located in Iron Mountain, pays his glaziers about $20 per hour. That’s the market wage for qualified glass-installers in the area. But the State of Michigan doesn’t care about market or privately-negotiated wages. Because of the state’s “prevailing wage” law, any glazier in Dickinson County who works on a taxpayer-funded construction project is mandated to be paid $43.53 per hour. Prevailing wage laws...

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...