Free Republic

Many of the minimum wage laws passed in recent years, including in major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, include waivers allowing unionized businesses to pay their employees below the minimum.The waivers in effect make unionizing workers a low-cost option for businesses unwilling or unable to pay the new minimum wage, which in cities such as San Francisco and SeaTac, Wash., which also has a waiver, will climb as high as $15 an hour when fully phased in. In those cities, businesses can sign a collective bargaining agreement with a union that sets the wages below the...

The billionaire owner of hyperlocal news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist shut them down Thursday — just a week after staffers voted to join a union. Joe Ricketts, a supporter of President Trump who made billions as the founder of TD Ameritrade, yanked the sites at 5 p.m. and sent an email to employees to let them know they lost their jobs. “I’ve made the difficult decision to begin the orderly wind down of the DNAinfo/Gothamist business,” Ricketts wrote. “Reaching this decision wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t one I made lightly,” he said in the email, most of which was also...

In 2015 we voted unanimously at the NEA Representative Assembly to confront institutional racism in our schools. That means looking at the structures and processes that advantage some students and disadvantage others, especially students of color. Those structures and processes include the harsh disciplinary practices that directly or indirectly push students out of school and into the criminal justice system. We call this the school to prison pipeline. We’re standing together to shut down the pipeline and bring an end to the unfair imposition of discipline that alienates far too many students from their own schools. NEA is building awareness, educating members and the community...

Scott Courtney, an executive vice president at Service Employees International Union, has resigned, according to a statement Monday from SEIU spokesperson Sahar Wali. "This morning, President Mary Kay Henry accepted Scott Courtney's resignation as an elected officer and member of SEIU. This comes a week after she suspended him from his assigned duties based on preliminary information that surfaced through an internal investigation launched to look into questions about to potential violations of our union's anti-nepotism policy, efforts to evade our code of ethics and subsequent complaints related to sexual misconduct and abusive behavior towards union staff," the statement reads....

Thomas Frank, the author best-known for "What's the Matter with Kansas?" who's also a Washington political journalist, places the blame for the election of President Donald Trump squarely on the back of the Democratic Party and its abandonment of working-class Americans. "They love it when unions work hard for them and give them campaign funds," Frank said in a telephone interview. "But they aren't deeply concerned with the problems faced by working-class people," he said. "They need to stop taking those people for granted." What they got in exchange for that neglect was Trump, he said. Frank will be in...

Moody’s Investor Service issued a dire warning to lenders Thursday: Hartford will likely default on its debt by November and, if the city does not change course, will run up annual deficits exceeding $60 million through the next twenty years. On Sept. 26, Moody’s downgraded the city’s bond rating to Caa3 from Caa1, reflecting the investor service’s belief that “in the likely event of a default, bondholder recovery will be 65%-80% of principal,” it stated Thursday. Moody’s projects the city’s operating deficits will reach $60 million to $80 million per year through 2036, largely driven by fixed costs, which command...

If you live in the Bay Area, you’ll be hearing a lot about Senate Bill 595 over the next year or so. If you’re a regular user of any of the region’s seven state-owned toll bridges — that’s all of them, except the Golden Gate Bridge — you’ll want to pay close attention. SB 595, which won final passage Thursday and now awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature, provides for a vote in the nine Bay Area counties next year to raise bridge tolls by as much as $3. If the Bay Area Toll Authority, the agency that oversees the bridges,...

In an otherwise predictable New Jersey election season, the state’s largest public sector union has come out behind a Trump-supporting Republican facing an incumbent Democrat. The New Jersey Education Association, which is New Jersey’s top political spender, is backing Republican Fran Grenier against Steve Sweeney, the Democratic state Senate president and New Jersey’s second most-powerful elected official. The controversial endorsement has angered liberal allies, but the union remains unapologetic in its message: Democrats cannot take teachers for granted. It’s a contentious move, but one that is unlikely to change the ultimate outcome of the election. Democrats are expected to control...

Late last week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will add a case critical to the future of public-sector unions to its docket. With President Donald Trump's appointment of conservative-leaning Justice Neil Gorsuch, many expect the court to rule against the unions. Such a decision would energize the recent resurgence of state laws that effectively reduce the power of unions in both the public and private sector. Expecting the worst, unions are already preparing for a potential exodus of members and a loss of revenue. “I’d place a bet that this doesn’t bode well for public-sector unions,” says Patrick...

Commentary: Welcome to the dysfunction of Illinois government Diana Sroka Rickert I walked into the Thompson Center on my first day, not knowing what to expect. In many ways, my new workplace was like any other large organization: big building, thousands of people and plenty of broken computers. Except this building is dilapidated, many of the employees are political hires and the computers will never be repaired, ever. And it’s all paid for by you, Illinois taxpayers. “Welcome to state government,” said a new colleague, as we boarded the elevator for the 16th floor. This summer I got to see...

FEMA Administrator Brock Long ripped San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for her attacks on the agency Sunday, saying "we filtered out the mayor a long time ago" and he didn't have time for "political noise." President Donald Trump visited the Hurricane Maria devastation in Puerto Rico on Tuesday and praised relief efforts there, but Cruz criticized him for his "abominable" behavior when Trump threw paper towel rolls to storm survivors and said his visit was a publicity stunt. It was the latest in the war of words between the two after Trump said last weekend she had exhibited poor...

Even as Democrats publicly and loudly decry corporatist political “dark money,” billionaire Democrats and other donors funnel hundreds of millions to radical and violent causes.   Barely a week had passed after Donald Trump’s historic upset in the November 8 presidential election, but some of the world’s richest individuals were already launching a counteroffensive. George Soros and his fellow deep-pocket funders of the Democratic Party and left-wing causes gathered with a lineup of party activists and luminaries from Hollywood, K Street, and Wall Street for a three-day “investment conference” (November 15-17) at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C....

If you’ve ever seen Planes, Trains, and Automobiles or Meet The Parents—two films I can think of from the top of my head that show flight attendant abuse (for lack of a better word)—you know that the job is difficult. Heck, forget the movies, I’m sure there has been some instance in which an unruly passenger just lays into a flight attendant. And then there are cases where the flight attendants are just as curt and surly towards the passengers. Well, for one Southwest flight attendant, Charlene Carter, she found herself out of a job because she was pro-life and...

RUSH: Try this headline from the Washington Times: “NFL Players’ Union Teamed Up With Soros to Fund Leftist Advocacy Groups.” Folks, do not ever doubt me. When this whole protest the anthem thing began, I told you that left-wing activist groups were behind it, that they were running the players on this. It was how you get the players to take action that is actually harming the NFL when the players think that they are acting in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick in protesting the cops. That’s not what they were doing. They were inflicting damage on the NFL. And even...

Tax documents show NFLPA activism goes beyond take-a-knee protests Even before its feud over the national anthem with President Trump, the NFL Players Association wasn’t on the same political team as many of its fans, judging from its contributions to leftist advocacy groups. Tax documents released by 2ndVote show the NFLPA donated $5,000 in 2015 to the Center for Community Change Action, a group active in the anti-Trump resistance and bankrolled by a host of liberal foundations, including top Democratic donor George Soros’s Foundation for Open Society. A member of the AFL-CIO, the NFLPA also contributed in 2013 and 2015...

California governments likely will make do with fewer teachers, parks employees and other public workers while they struggle to absorb fast-rising pension costs in the next few years, a former state lawmaker argues in a study released this week through Stanford University. Former Democratic Assemblyman Joe Nation projects that many cities, counties and school districts will double their spending on pensions by 2030, “crowding out” their ability to fund public services.

The media, having found a successful play to cripple a Republican president, is trying to run the same play against President Trump. They forget that their entire playbook has been thrown at Trump since he announced his candidacy in 2015, without any success. Hurricane Katrina was thought to be a turning point in the George W Bush presidency. The less than stellar response from the federal government was hung around his neck. Successfully. Despite ineptitude at the state and local levels. The New Orleans mayor at the time, Ray Nagin, is now in federal prison for bribery and fraud. They...

Public sector unions. George Orwell would be proud of the term. Public sector really means government, and our government includes large levels of bureaucracy. So public sector unions are really alliances within bureaucracies, and they’re working against the interests of the general public with power that private unions don’t possess.A chance is coming in the next year to start reining them in. In Janus vs. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely  prohibit government employees from being forced to pay dues to unions whose politics they disagree with. These unions are almost entirely Leftist so they’re backing politicians a good...

The reason for truck drivers not showing up? The Puerto Rican Teamsters Union, Frente Amplio, is refusing to move the product.

Puerto Rican born and raised, Colonel Michael A. Valle (”Torch”), Commander, 101st Air and Space Operations Group, and Director of the Joint Air Component Coordination Element, 1st Air Force, responsible for Hurricane Maria relief efforts, has the following comment: …They have the generators, water, food, medicine, and fuel on the ground, yet the supplies are not moving across the island as quickly as they’re needed. “It’s a lack of drivers for the transport trucks, the 18 wheelers. Supplies we have. Trucks we have. There are ships full of supplies, backed up in the ports, waiting to have a vehicle to...