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UPS -2.21% United Parcel Service (UPS) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters reached a tentative new five-year collective bargaining agreement covering approximately 330,000 delivery and warehouse workers. The agreement, if finalized, would avert the largest single strike against a company in US history and an estimated $7 billion hit to the US economy. The union's current contract with the delivery giant expires Aug. 1, and the Teamsters had threatened that drivers would walk off the job without a deal. Talks between the two sides restarted today after stalling earlier in the month. "We’ve reached a win, win, win agreement," a...

In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote that there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Fifty years later, anti-Trump journalists have been experiencing the first four simultaneously since Wednesday, when former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified before two House committees. The Trump-hating media can’t come to terms with the final stage – acceptance of their grief. And that will elude them even if President Trump is reelected and stays in the White House until 2025. Journalists wrote and broadcast countless stories saying Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Many have never been...

"Positive rights" and "negative rights" are the confusing terms applied to the types of individual rights recognized under different forms of government. The U.S. Constitution recognizes the "negative" right of individuals to be free from government restrictions on what we can say, what church we attend, who we associate with, and more. These rights can't be taken away from a person even if a majority of citizens vote to do so. Importantly, the government doesn't have to do anything for you to exercise these rights — it just has to not do anything that infringes your free exercise of them....

The Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest public school employee organization, has claimed that a recent email from Mackinac Center Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh is “exposing the (Center) for what it really is,” because McHugh briefly stated, “Our goal is (to) outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan. …” The idea that this is “exposing” anything hidden is bizarre; the Center has long questioned collective bargaining in government and has publicly recommended its repeal. Significantly, however, the MEA is mounting the attack at the very time when policymakers are finally beginning to address the worst excesses of collective bargaining for...

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"I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy." Noman wasn't aware of anyone suggesting such a thing, and might join the President to protest if he were. He does recall Republican Governors of several states, most notably Wisconsin, moving to eliminate collective bargaining in the public employee context because the conditions that make collective bargaining a right in the private sector context don't afflict the proliferating number of government workers. You need antagonists on both sides of the table arguing from different premises with different interests, and a presumption...

Bills strengthening the hand of public employee unions in bargaining for pay, pensions and working conditions are moving through the Legislature, usually on party-line votes with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. The new governor, Jerry Brown, dismayed fellow Democrats last week by vetoing a bill making it easier for farm workers to unionize in the private sector. Now he is likely to receive a number of bills pushed by powerful public employee unions. Having a Democrat in the governor’s office, who relied on union contributions as he defeated a self-funded Republican who set a spending record, gives labor leaders...

MADISON, Wis. -- The state Supreme Court has asked attorneys for reasons why it should take up a lawsuit challenging Gov. Scott Walker's divisive collective bargaining plan. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne has filed a lawsuit alleging Republican legislators violated Wisconsin's open meetings law during debate on the plan before Walker signed it into law in March. Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi has blocked the law from taking effect while she considers the lawsuit. Sumi is expected to make a decision on the case after May 23. The state Justice Department last month asked the Supreme Court...

FROM THE “NOW WE’VE SEEN EVERYTHING” DEPARTMENT Pigs have flown. Hell has frozen over. Democrats have voted overwhelmingly to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of their collective right to bargain over health care. This is not a misprint, nothing is wrong with your computer, and the Rat’s not lost his mind (yet). Remarkably, the 111-42 vote was led by Democrats, who say the new bill will save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns. Democrats? In Massachusetts? This is the state that will probably build a Teddy Kennedy theme park some day. What the hell...

By 45%-42%, voters back Republican efforts to balance state budgets by limiting collective bargaining rights for government unions, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. That stance is backed by Republicans, 80%-8%, and by independents, 46%-36%. Even 14% of Democrats say limit collective bargaining. That’s a switch from last month when an IBD/TIPP poll asked whether voters favored Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker or the state public employee unions in that state’s showdown over bargaining rights. That poll found the public supported the unions, 49%-43%. Democrats backed the unions, 83%-11%, while independents backed them, 47%-42%. Republicans backed Walker, 82%-11%.

Laborers, carpenters, electricians, machinists, sheet metal workers, police officers, firefighters, teachers, actors, writers and pharmacists from Illinois and surrounding states marched from corners of the Loop, waving pro-union banners and chanting “We are one.” From the stage, organizers warned that workers in other states, including Illinois, could face union-busting legislation similar to the Wisconsin law and urged them to be prepared. “We didn’t pick this fight. We didn’t start this fight,” USAction President William McNary said. “But if it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you are going to get.” [snip] Civil rights activist and former union leader Bill...

CHICAGO (AP) — Top Republican lawmakers in Illinois say union restrictions like the ones approved in neighboring Wisconsin aren’t the way to go. But Republican Senate leader Christine Radogno (rah-DOH’-nyoh) is calling on unions to cooperate when it comes to fixing the state’s budget crisis. She says Illinois can’t afford the level of raises that some employees have gotten. Radogno spoke to reporters Monday after appearing at an unrelated news conference with Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk and House Republican leader Tom Cross. Cross says the state also has to deal with its underfunded pensions and that it behooves everyone...

Besieged by state proposals to eviscerate collective bargaining, eliminate teacher tenure, and make it harder to collect dues, teachers’ unions are fighting back. Lawsuits supported by local union affiliates have for now blocked anti-union legislation in Alabama and Wisconsin. Unions are drawing on membership networks, e-mail “blasts,” and phone banks to mobilize teachers and connect them to local politicians. Rallies and demonstrations, meanwhile, have kept the issue in the minds of the public. Most of the action is occurring at the state level, but by providing state and local affiliates with specialized aid, the National Education Association and the American...

Over the weekend, public employee unions held a rally in Madison where the list of speakers included Bill Franks of the American Federation of Teachers. Franks had this to say about rank-and-file Republicans: ... the would-be Republicans, anybody making $30-40,000 who think they can afford to be a Republican is not living in any kind of reality. Real Republicans don't recognize them. Because the real "haves" are them. And these people who think they can afford these [conservative] principles, they can't afford them. That's not in their self interest. That's what we gotta cure as a pathology. This is a...

In Wisconsin, using what’s being called “the nuclear option,” Governor Scott Walker and the state’s Senate Republicans stripped out the financial components of the governor’s unpopular budget repair bill. That allowed them to vote on provisions to eliminate collective bargaining without the presence of the 14 Senate Democrats who had fled to Illinois to prevent its passage. In Idaho, the state legislature passed several bills to overhaul education, including a bill to strip teachers’ rights and end decades of positive collaboration between teachers and their districts. Similar attacks are underway in states across the country. Despite these setbacks, we will...

........And they all will receive something of value: a regularly scheduled vote about whether to be represented by their unions, ....And that is the real source of the rage on the left: Mandatory union representation, empowered by mandatory collective bargaining and mandatory dues deductions enforced by the state, creates an enormous flow of cash for Democratic political candidates and their pet causes. From 1989 to the present, five of the ten biggest donors to American political campaigns have been labor unions, including public-sector unions such as the National Education Association and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees....

As of this writing, Wisconsin Democrats are still hiding out in Illinois in an attempt to block a vote on a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights (privileges?) of state employees. Predictably, the rhetoric continues to fly. Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader Mark Miller said Wednesday Democrats will "join the people of Wisconsin in taking back their government," but he refused to say when.- - FoxNews / AP If Miller wishes to “join the people of Wisconsin,” he can start by returning to work and doing the job he was elected to do. He can face the fact that his...

My hubby said he thinks the republican's screwed up in Wisconsin. He said he thought public opinion would turn against them now. He thought they should have just waited the democrats out and let them sweat it out in IL. Comments and keep in nice :) it's late and I don't feel like getting yelled at.

Madison — The Senate abruptly passed a controversial budget-repair bill Wednesday night – without Democrats – and sent the measure to the Assembly, which is expected to pass it Thursday. The bill eliminates almost all collective bargaining for public workers. It passed18-1, with Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) casting the no vote. The Assembly passed an almost identical version of the bill Feb. 25.

Government workers are victims of slavery at the hands of Union Fat-Cat Leaders. Teachers who work for the government are denied their right to freedom and choice. Government (i.e. public) workers: * cannot have the job if they do not submit to the slavery imposed by the Union Fat-Cats, * are forced to pay the steep dues that Union Fat-Cats demand – taken directly out of their paychecks, and they * are forced to live with whatever the Union Fat-Cats gin up at the collective bargaining table. Democrat D. C. Mayor Adrian Fenty agrees with Governor Scott Walker: Video Democrat...