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CLEVELAND, OHIO — As a union carpenter, Dustin Wolf used to walk on stilts to work on grid ceilings. Now he works for the local chapter of his union, Interior Systems Local 373 of the Regional Council of Carpenters, which represents 35,000 carpenters across Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. A fourth generation union carpenter, Wolf will be voting for Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton because "the carpenters have endorsed Hillary Clinton, so that's who I'm voting for." Wolf is part of a long tradition of union members voting for the candidate endorsed by their union. But there are signs that tradition...

Black Lives Matter gathered in front of the Cleveland police union headquarters Tuesday evening to protest the union’s endorsement of Republican nominee Donald Trump. There were reportedly dozens, and maybe over 100, protesters gathered outside of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association (CPPA), out of concern the endorsement would elevate mistrust among minority groups towards law enforcement. The CPPA, which represents 1,450 officers and staff, overwhelmingly voted to endorse the Republican nominee Sept. 30, with Trump receiving 216 votes to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s 68 votes. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani visited the CPPA Tuesday, where he thanked the...

The three largest unions representing the three largest police departments in Colorado have endorsed Republican Donald Trump for president, the Denver Post reported. The Denver Police Protective Association, the Aurora Police Association and the Colorado Springs Police Protective Association on Monday announced their endorsements. Combined, the three unions represent more than 2,700 police officers serving communities in the crucial battleground state, which used to vote reliably Republican. However, years of immigration has essentially changed the demographic composition of the state, which Democrats hope to make more like New Mexico. In a news release, representatives from each union said “only” Mr....

It's been months since the passing of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but Democrats are still seemingly celebrating his death because it paves the way for their political purposes. At The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum on Thursday, Labor Secretary Tom Perez casually noted that Scalia's death helped pave the way for union membership across the country. ... Unfortunately, Perez's comments are not isolated. In August, Ohio Senate Candidate Ted Strickland actually said “the death of Scalia saved labor” at an AFL-CIO event.

IMPORTANT: This information should not be downloaded using government equipment, read during duty time or sent to others using government equipment, because it suggests action to be taken in support or against legislation. Do not use your government email address or government phone in contacting your Member of Congress. American public needs to elect lawmakers who will lead the nation forward WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. today issued the following statement:“Averting a government shutdown with only days to spare is no reason to celebrate. Congress has merely kicked the can down the...

Bullying and intimidation tactics -- that's what we've come to expect of Big Labor today. Two weeks ago in Texas, a jury awarded $5.3 million in damages to Texas-based Professional Janitorial Services of Houston (PJS) after a local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was found to have waged a campaign of misinformation and defamation against them. SEIU Local 5 had been trying to unionize Houston's large janitorial companies through its "justice for janitors" campaign for years, and but for the Professional Janitorial Services (PJS), it was successful. PJS remained the final holdout -- causing Local 5 to resort to nefarious...

Hillary's party of parasites has a lot to worry about. This is a war Democrats really fear losing. Next to the near-monolithic support of black voters, Democrats have been relying on the muscle and money of organized labor to pull out election victories for decades. But something different is happening this year. The Washington Examiner reports that the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president has spurred a sharp round of internal politicking within the AFL-CIO to herd its members into line to pull the lever for Democrat Hillary Clinton come November. In June, the organization conducted...

A Michigan state senator from the Upper Peninsula says the federal Environmental Protection Agency has done everything in its power to indirectly shut down a mine near Marquette. The issue is back in the news because a limited-government legal foundation announced last month it will represent the Marquette County Road Commission in a federal lawsuit against the EPA. The agency has blocked a plan to build a shortcut road to the Eagle Mine in the western Upper Peninsula. In a phone interview with Michigan Capitol Confidential this week, Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, suggested that the EPA’s real target in the...

With her unpopular positions and repulsive mindset, the real question is why isn’t Hillary Clinton 50 points behind in this election? In a bizarre video message this week to the Laborers International Union of North America, Hillary Clinton asked, “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” She seemed concerned that her opponent, Donald Trump, had closed the gap in the polls. Clinton claimed that Trump was staunchly opposed to labor unions, but she had a long history of support. She also noted her strong opposition to Right to Work laws. According to Clinton, “Right to Work is wrong for workers and...

ORLANDO — Hillary Clinton gave voice Wednesday to a question on the minds of many of her fiercest advocates in her race against the controversy-prone Donald Trump: Why isn’t she way, way ahead? The Democratic nominee raised the issue here during an address via video conference to a gathering in Las Vegas of the Labor International Union of North America. The former secretary of state ticked off her pro-union positions, including investing in infrastructure, raising the minimum wage and supporting collective bargaining. “Having said all this, ‘Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?’ you might ask?” Clinton said. “Well, the choice...

When teacher Stephen Hall leaves his union in 2018, he hopes that House Bill 5829, the “Worker’s Choice” bill, will be law and that he, not his union, can represent himself in work-related issues. “I believe if people are going to leave the union, they need to accept the responsibility of not receiving union services. That’s only fair. If you leave the union, you don’t get that service anymore,” said Hall. Michigan became a right-to-work state in 2013. While that act gave workers the choice not to belong to a union and pay dues, it did not give them freedom...

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police announced Sunday night that it is officially endorsing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election. In an email, FOP Lodge #5 President John McNesby confirmed to PhillyVoice that the union is bound by the national Fraternal Order of Police, which endorsed Trump last Friday and released the following statement. "[Trump] has seriously looked at the issues facing law enforcement today," said Chuck Canterbury, the FOP's national president. "He understands and supports our priorities and our members believe he will make America safe again." The announcement from Philadelphia's police union comes nearly two...

It was a deal that wasn’t supposed to cost taxpayers an extra dime. Now the state’s annual tab is in the billions, and the cost keeps climbing. ith the stroke of a pen, California Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation that gave prison guards, park rangers, Cal State professors and other state employees the kind of retirement security normally reserved for the wealthy. More than 200,000 civil servants became eligible to retire at 55 — and in many cases collect more than half their highest salary for life. California Highway Patrol officers could retire at 50 and receive as much as...

<p>America’s union leaders are not expending a lot of energy trying to win back members drawn to Donald Trump’s populist, anti-trade message.</p> <p>Donald Trump is wooing working-class voters by promising to renegotiate trade deals and bring back lost manufacturing jobs, some unions are re-calibrating their usual election-year outreach to members on behalf of Hillary Clinton to account for his appeal.</p>

Following a meeting of the group's national board where two-thirds voted to support GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, the largest police union—Fraternal Order of Police—announced its endorsement. Chuck Canterbury, the FOP's national president, called the choice "an easy decision. The contrast between the candidates is as stark as any we've ever seen. Trump is for law and order. He supports civilized behavior and public safety. Mrs. Clinton appears to have sided with the enemies of these values." In contrast to Trump's avid courting of the police union, Hillary Clinton disdained "to stoop so low as to try to curry favor...

In the history of data from The Fed, this has never happened before... Aggregate Auto Loan volume actually fell last week... And less loans means one simple thing... less sales (because prices have never been higher and no one is paying cash)... Which is a major problem since motor vehicle production continues to rise as management is blindly belieiving the Hillbama narrative that everything is (and will be) awesome. The problem is... inventories are already at near record highs relative to sales (which are anything but plateauing)... In fact, the last time inventories were this high relative to sales, GM...

America’s coal miners have sacrificed much for our nation, and we have an obligation to support them and their families. Unlike Donald Trump who says he’s with us but has nothing to show beyond the bluster, Hillary Clinton has our back. She proved it with a detailed $30 billion plan to revitalize coal communities, while Donald Trump says ‘trust me.’ She is proving it again today with her support of the Miners Protection Act. From the bargaining table to the ballot box, working people know who stands with us, not by words, but action.

It has gotten so bad that the phrase “Pension Crisis” made it into Wikipedia. It’s the perplexing reality that municipal, state, federal, and corporate pensions in the US and similar schemes around the world are so badly underfunded that it will be impossible to fulfill the promises by a wide margin. By many trillions of dollars. With state and municipal pension funds in the US, the situation is particularly tricky because the beneficiaries are voters and employees of the government, and politicians of all stripes bought their votes with promises of low contributions and rising benefits. They got away with...

Donald Trump, who has called himself the "law-and-order" candidate, secured the endorsement Friday of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest police union. "He understands and supports our priorities and our members believe he will make America safe again," wrote Chuck Canterbury, president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, in the union's endorsement letter.

The proportion of Michigan workers who belong to a union has plummeted 38 percent over the past 32 years. Just over 1 million Michigan workers belonged to a union in 1983. That number had fallen to 621,952 in 2015, according to the website Unionstats.com, which compiles data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That data includes private and public sector workers. The number of union members in this state has dropped despite an increase in the number of people who are working. The decline started long before Michigan's right-to-work law went into effect in 2013. In 1983, 3.3 million...