Free Republic

DOGE: While teachers scrape by, union "executives" like Randi Weingarten gorge themselves on salaries nearly eight times higher, raking in close to $600,000 a year. They neither teach a single child nor train a single teacher. They are not educators, they are parasites, draining a system they pretend to serve. ... She also flies in a private jet.

Andrew Cuomo has picked up another key hard hat endorsement Tuesday in the race for New York City mayor, winning the backing of the Laborers’ International Union. The New York affiliate of the Laborers Union represents 40,000 members in New York State, which further cements the former governor’s support within the construction trades. The union backed Cuomo’s rival in the June Democratic primary, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer, in the 2021 mayor’s race. “New York City is the cultural, economic, and social engine of the world—and leading it requires vision, grit, and proven experience,” said Donato Bianco, Jr., LIUNA vice...

Last night, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in the Western District of Texas on behalf of eight agencies against affiliates of the American Federation of Government Employees. Yesterday, the President issued an Executive Order entitled Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs. This order reflected the President’s determination that several federal agencies and subdivisions perform investigative and national security work and that those agencies may not be required to collectively bargain consistent with our national security. The plaintiff agencies have collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the defendants, which are locals, councils, and Division 10 of the American Federation of...

A federal judge in Maryland on Monday indefinitely blocked the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the sensitive personal data of about 2 million union members, student loan recipients and veterans. U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman ordered that the Department of Education, Department of the Treasury and Office of Personnel Management cease in divulging personally identifiable information to DOGE representatives. Those three agencies, she wrote, had already “likely violated” the Privacy Act and Administrative Procedure Act by granting DOGE affiliates sweeping access to systems containing plaintiffs’ banking information, social security numbers and other sensitive data. “No matter how important...

... Less than one year ago, tens of thousands of TSA employees who are members of AFGE signed a seven-year union contract. Today, the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security announced that “it is ending collective bargaining for the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Transportation Security Officers.” In other words, just tearing up the contract. DHS didn’t even really try to put a fig leaf of legality on this action. The agency said bad things about the union— “The union has hindered merit-based performance recognition and advancement—that's not the American way,” for example—but did not say anything that sounds like a...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) administration has faced lawsuits alleging it rigged the bidding process for the state’s controversial overhaul of a $9 billion homecare program. A December lawsuit alleged that the powerful healthcare union 1199 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) helped Public Partnerships LLC secure a multi-million dollar contract to take care of payment services for the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP). Several lawsuits have sought to unravel Hochul’s overhaul of CDPAP, two of which alleged a rigged bidding process by the governor’s administration.

A labor union representing farm workers that for more than a decade begged the Border Patrol to enforce immigration laws is now part of a lawsuit against the Border Patrol for doing just that. The lawsuit, filed by the United Farm Workers (UFW) and five Kern County residents, seeks to stop the Border Patrol from future enforcement actions that stop, arrest, and remove “community members” from the country. The lawsuit was filed in response to a week-long immigration enforcement operation conducted by Border Patrol agents assigned to the El Centro Sector of the United States Border Patrol in January. The...

The blockbuster three-team trade early Sunday morning had major financial ramifications for Luka Doncic. He was in line to receive a super-max contract from the Mavericks next offseason but is no longer eligible after being traded to the Lakers. The super max would have allowed Doncic to sign a five-year, $345 million contract with the Mavericks this summer. Instead, the most the Lakers can offer him next offseason is a five-year, $229 million deal, according to ESPN, a whopping $116 million less than what he could’ve gotten from Dallas.

"Only 41 percent of civil service supervisors are confident that they can remove an employee who engaged in insubordination or serious misconduct," Trump's executive order reads. A union for federal employees has sued President Donald Trump over an executive order regarding hiring and firing such government workers. The new class of employee, Schedule F, was created in Trump's executive order on Monday to allow federal employees working on policy to be like political appointees, so they can be swiftly hired and fired. This would allow such employees to be hired outside the traditional merit-based system for bureaucrats. “Congress has enacted...

A New Jersey law that removes a requirement for teachers to pass a reading, writing and mathematics test for certification will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. The law, Act 1669, was passed by Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy as part of the state’s 2025 budget in June in an effort to address a shortage of teachers in the state... Individuals seeking an instructional certificate will no longer need to pass a “basic skills” test ... Just months earlier, Murphy signed a similar bill into law that created an alternative pathway for teachers to sidestep the testing requirement....

(Reuters) - Amazon.com workers at seven U.S. facilities walked off the job early on Thursday during the holiday shopping rush, aiming to pressure the retailer into contract talks with their union. Warehouse workers in cities including New York, Atlanta and San Francisco are taking part in the "largest" strike against Amazon, said the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents about 10,000 workers at 10 of the firm's facilities. "If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon's insatiable greed," Teamsters' General President Sean O'Brien said late on Wednesday. [Snip] Amazon said it does not expect any impact...

Washington — President-elect Donald Trump said Monday that his new administration will challenge a deal reached between the Social Security Administration and its union that would allow employees to continue teleworking into 2029. During remarks at his South Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, Trump blamed the Biden administration for what he said was a "terrible" and "ridiculous" agreement that would allow tens of thousands of federal workers to continue working from home several days a week. The president-elect said "it was like a gift to a union, and we're going to obviously be in court to stop it." He said federal workers...

As the Biden regime prepares to exit, it has orchestrated a move as a cunning attempt to undermine the incoming Trump administration’s agenda to streamline government operations. In a last-minute deal, the Biden regime has locked in telework protections for 42,000 Social Security Administration (SSA) employees until 2029. The agreement, reached with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), ensures remote work privileges for these federal workers for the next five years, despite the Trump administration’s explicit plans to slash such arrangements, according to Bloomberg. The agreement, brokered between the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Social Security...

‘Why is it that all we hear from CTU is demands for more, but we never hear anything from the union about what its members owe the taxpayers (and parents) of this city,’ city newspaper asks Chicago public school teachers continue to demand high raises – despite 41 percent of them being deemed “chronically absent” from work. The Chicago Tribune editorial board recently criticized the Chicago Teachers Union, which continues to negotiate for a new contract. Initial versions had demanded free abortions, transgender surgeries, and even weight loss drugs. State records show 41 percent missed 10 or more days of...

A group campaigning for Kamala Harris served union workers in Wisconsin an “insulting” lunch — possibly put together by “prison labor” — as it made their 2024 pitch for the vice president last month, a tradesman told The Post. The uninspiring meal — consisting of a “single-slice-of-ham sandwich” on “stale” store-brand bread, a bag of chips and a “tiny apple” — was accompanied by an uninspiring speech, bashing President-elect Donald Trump, that workers building a $1 billion Microsoft data center in Racine County were subjected to on Oct. 21. “I mean, it’s not like we were expecting a steak dinner,...

East and Gulf Coast dockworkers could resume their strike on Jan. 15 if a deal isn't reached.. The union representing dockworkers at East and Gulf Coast ports walked away from the negotiating table with port employers this week over concerns about automation as the two sides face a mid-January deadline to finalize a deal and prevent the resumption of a strike.. The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port employers, were on their second day of talks this week when the ILA union left negotiations ... the ILA union is refusing to agree to...

The United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the major teachers’ union in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), passed a resolution last week backing an arms embargo against Israel proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The resolution, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, calls upon California’s Sens. Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler, both Democrats, to back Sanders’s resolution in the Senate’s “lame duck” session after the November election. The Times reported: Union materials prepared for a board of directors meeting, which were obtained by The Times, state the rationale for taking such a stand: “the arms named have been used...

CDR Poole has been assigned to the Office of Naval Re-search (ONR) since November 2001, working with the Naval Research Science and Technology Action Team (NRSTAT), ONR-Global and, currently, the Tech Solutions Program. A native of Albany, New York, Rich currently resides in Washington, DC. Mr. Christley is a retired Senior Chief Petty Officer who served from 1962 to 1982 on seven submarines ranging from diesel boats to fast attacks and missile submarines. After working in the field of submarine noise reduction until 1997, he started a third career in fine arts. Jim presently resides with his wife Peggy in...

A union representing roughly 1.8 million teachers and other educational workers used taxpayer-funded dues to book a trip to a famous casino and to pay for meals at luxury restaurants. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) spent over $370,000 on expenses at Caesars Palace, a luxury hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, disclosure forms show. In addition, the AFT also used dues collected from its members to help pay for trips to Europe and South America, as well as to pay off five-figure tabs at upscale restaurants. “My suspicion is that this is a case of ‘rank hath its...

In a move that should surprise no one considering that the Biden-Harris regime has treated the Border Patrol like dirt, the National Border Patrol Council announced Sunday at a campaign rally in Prescott, Arizona, that they were throwing their support behind Donald Trump. Union president Paul Perez minced no words as he eviscerated Kamala Harris for her utter failure to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the country:If we allow Border Czar Harris to win this election, every city, every community in this great country, is going to go to hell. The untold millions of people, unvetted, who she...