Free Republic

A dark storm is brewing in the world of private pensions, and all hell could break loose when it finally hits. As the Washington Post reports, the Central States Pension Fund, which handles retirement benefits for current and former Teamster union truck drivers across various states including Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, New York, and Minnesota, and is one of the largest pension funds in the nation, has filed an application to cut participant benefits, which would be effective July 1 2016, as it "projects" it will become officially insolvent by 2025. In 2015, the fund returned -0.81%, underperforming the 0.37%...

Just over a year ago, Wisconsin became the 25th state to adopt a “right to work” law, as states are allowed to do under Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Many people misunderstand what the phrase “right to work” (RTW) means. A RTW law does not guarantee anyone a job. Nor does it damage or prohibit unions, as Big Labor advocates often suggest. All that a RTW law does is to deny the validity of collective bargaining contract clauses that require the company to fire a worker because he or she refuses to pay the union dues. But...

The union that represents most teachers in Maryland called on the Worcester County school system to block Donald Trump's campaign from using a high school gym to hold a rally Wednesday evening. "Donald Trump and his divisive, fear-mongering rhetoric have no place in the halls of Maryland's public schools," Maryland State Education Association president Betty Weller said in a statement. "Trump's eagerness to bully minorities would be unacceptable if it came from any of our students." Liberal group Progressive Maryland issued the same call and launched an online petition that had been signed more than 500 times by Tuesday afternoon....

Illinois' public school districts are roughly $20 billion in debt, a staggering figure fueled in part by decades of special deals in Springfield that have given districts exemptions so they can keep borrowing beyond limits set by law. Today, that debt exceeds long-term school borrowing in most other states. It equates to about $10,000 for every Pre-K to 12th-grade public school student in Illinois... All the borrowing is a drain on taxpayers who have to repay the debt, as well as school budgets that must steer billions of dollars annually to principal and interest payments — money that could be...

Illinois' 859 local school districts consume nearly two-thirds of the $27 billion in local property taxes collected across the state each year. Illinois has nearly 7,000 units of local government. That’s the highest count of any state in the nation, and the runner-up is not even close. One of those units of government is the Naperville Township Road District, where seven employees maintain less than 20 miles of road at a cost of $116,000 per mile. City officials have said they could maintain the same distance at half the cost, and have moved to take over the road district’s duties...

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell challenged Hillary Clinton's campaign manager Bobby Mook ahead of Thursday's Democratic debate to defend the Democratic candidate's presence on a Verizon picket line. How can she have the audacity to stand with the striking employees, Mitchell asked, if she has accepted over $225,000 from the company? Clinton Campaign Manager Pressed On Clinton's Paid Speech Hypocrisy "Time and again in her career, Hillary Clinton has stood with people against powerful interests," Mook insisted.The MSNBC anchor gave Mook a second chance to explain Clinton's hypocrisy. He again deferred a straight answer, this time changing the subject to Bernie Sanders' Senate campaign that was funded by...

: In Brooklyn, a coalition of protesters, including union, Black Lives Matter, and New York communist party activists, has put up a barricade in front of a McDonald’s, although it remains open. A march started at Brooklyn’s Supreme Court, complete with a marching band and dancers. The protesters told Breitbart News that they were the same people out at 5 AM this morning, and they plan to be at Grand Central Station this evening.

36,000 Verizon workers have walked off the job Wednesday after failing to reach a new labor agreement. This is the largest strike in the United States since Verizon workers last walked off the job in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That strike involved 45,000 workers. Most of the striking workers service the company's landline phone business and FiOS broadband network -- not the much larger Verizon Wireless network. They have gone without a contract since August, and their union, the Communication Workers of America, says it is fighting to get Verizon to come to the table...

... Under an obscure provision of the city's wage hike, unionized hotels were granted an exemption allowing them to pay their employees less... ... a series of loopholes that cut union workers out of the very pay increases their leaders have championed... San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and Santa Monica have all adopted union waivers in their most recent minimum wage laws... At the Sheraton Universal Hotel, a longtime union property, bellhops, waiters and banquet servers make California's current minimum wage: $10 an hour... Those doing the same jobs at a non-union Hilton less than 500 feet away make at...

union hypocrisy and betrayal of its membership ... a series of loopholes that cut union workers out of the very pay increases their leaders have championed. ... written into the fine print of wage ordinances in a dozen California cities at labor leaders’ urging. San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and Santa Monica have all adopted union waivers in their most recent minimum wage laws. L.A. city officials are expected to indicate whether they will include such an exemption in their own $15 minimum wage at a hearing next week. ... Thanks to the “union waivers” agreed to by union leaders,...

Because nothing quite says "liberty" like coercing workers to join a union against their will. Yes, this is an issue of freedom versus tyranny.

Wisconsin’s right-to-work law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down Friday as violating the state constitution. Attorney General Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident it would not stand, noting that no similar law has been struck down in any other state. […] Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. […] The unions argued that Wisconsin’s law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who don’t...

Industrial Policy: Hillary Clinton’s $10 billion “investment” plan for manufacturing didn’t get much attention. But it should, since it would be a disaster if she ever had the chance to act on it

The IT group IBM apparently is planning massive job cuts in Germany. According to the trade union Verdi, the Group has informed on Wednesday about the planned reduction of nearly 1,000 jobs by March 2017th This was announced by Verdi in a newsletter. Primarily affects service segments. The group had invited the workers' representatives to negotiations for a social plan and balance of interests. In Hannover, a region should be shut down with about 200 employees, said a Verdi representatives. The Hanover stay but generally preserved. "IBM has informed the participation and invited to negotiations," confirmed an IBM spokesman. A...

Establishment voices of economists, government and business officials argue that trade deals are critical in a global economy, and great for America. But critics such as organized labor call them “death warrants.” And in blue collar communities in Wisconsin and across the industrial Midwest, that economic angst, coupled with some sense of betrayal, helps explain the roiling politics of 2016. Wisconsin votes Tuesday. But soon after come other industrial states, including Pennsylvania. And all could be battlegrounds this fall in the general election. And a lot will look like Milwaukee, once known as “the machine shop to the world,” now...

Bill Clinton delivered four rambling speeches to labor unions across the city Thursday in support of his wife’s presidential bid. In one wordy riff at District Council 37 in Tribeca, Clinton, 69, spoke vaguely of the country facing “the darkness before the dawn” while urging support for Hillary. “That is what I am telling you today. You will never have the chance to vote for a better change maker in your life, and this country needs a change maker. You got to decide if you believe we are just this close to coming back. I do. I believe it with...

The Michigan Education Association — the state's largest teachers union — is praising a Republican state senators' plan to give authority over Detroit schools to a commission picked by the same interests that have presided over the long-running collapse of the city's school district. MEA President Steve Cook: "While we still have some significant concerns, the Michigan Education Association applauds the process Senate Republicans have used." ForTheRecord says: This is the "look" Republicans should expect when a union that has fought every significant public education reform for the last 50 years gives your team an "atta boy" for its most...

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump believes education is one the most essential functions of the U.S. government. It’s right up there with security and providing health care for the nation, he told a crowd in Wisconsin Tuesday night. Yet Trump has called for the elimination of the Department of Education, meaning he would destroy the agency responsible for doing what he claims is so important for the country. On Tuesday, Trump appeared at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee, a week before the state’s primary election. An attendee asked what he views as the “top three functions of the United...

A case that seemed poised to deal a major blow to public unions ended in a 4-4 tie on Tuesday at the Supreme Court, effectively delivering a big victory to the unions.

The Supreme Court announced a tie vote today in what labor law experts had called a "life-or-death" case for public employee unions. The split decision preserves a long-standing rule that requires about half of the nation's teachers, transit workers and other public employees to pay a "fair share fee" to support their union.