Free Republic

As you watch your children board the school bus for the first day back to classes, consider this: That school bus driver is likely forced to pay fees to a union as a condition of driving that bus. Why? Because he or she works in one of the 25 forced-unionism states in America — states where it is lawfully permissible to force a worker to pay fees to a union as a condition of employment. You're not alone if this sounds absurd. According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly 80 percent of your fellow Americans agree: No worker should be...

Detroit — General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson wants the federal gas tax boosted as much as $1 a gallon to nudge consumers toward more fuel-efficient cars, and he's confident the government will soon shed its remaining 26 percent stake in the once-bankrupt automaker. "I actually think the government will be out this year — within the next 12 months, hopefully within the next six months," Akerson said in a two-hour interview with The Detroit News last week. He is grateful for the government's rescue of GM — "I have nothing but good things to say about them" — but...

The anti-business agenda of Obama and the Democrats is a major factor. The only way a job is created is for someone to risk their money to start or expand a business. Anyone considering that must look at current and future economics. That look shows an increasing level of financial risk and headaches as Obama keeps pushing for higher taxes, higher energy costs, more regulation and more forced unionism. Obama Care has a new accounting nightmare, that requires a 1099 for all financial business transactions over $600... Obama is still pushing for the card check bill, which eliminates the secret...

Europe of today is an economy running at half speed. Despite being in possession of all the technological and financial know-how accessible to man and despite being home to many of the richest countries on Earth as well as the leading world currency, the Globe's financial capital and a population of 500 million inhabitants, Europe at large remains an economical failure. It seems Paris needs to be liberated again. As a European, I give my full support to Sarkozy! The article: "France has endured a second day of travel chaos as transport unions continued to strike against President Nicolas Sarkozy's...

Other than a three-day weekend, most Americans don't give much thought to what they're supposed to be observing on Labor Day. In practice, it's become little more than the unofficial celebration of the end of summer. Back in 1882, when New York City's Central Labor Union inaugurated the holiday, the labor movement was quite a different thing than it is today. Once upon a time, workers had valid grievances regarding pay, hours, conditions and safety. Unions served a positive role in leveraging the collective influence of their members to pressure management to redress those grievances. But labor unions are political...

Proposed Mexican Social Security Overhaul Sparks Violent Protests, Late-Night Senate Debate By Will Weissert, Abilene Reporter News August 5, 2004 MEXICO CITY- Fierce debate over a bill that would reform Mexico's Social Security Institute's pension system stretched well past midnight Thursday on the Senate floor. Hours of final discussion of the measure followed massive protests by institute union members, who blocked main avenues across Mexico's capital, surrounded the Senate building and fought with police in protest of the would-be law. One group of demonstrators tried to block a convoy of buses taking senators to the legislative chambers and a scuffle...

Mention standardized testing for high-school pupils and teachers, or dare suggest that a core curriculum be enforced in the nation's schools, and the educational establishment goes on the offensive. There is nothing that riles these politicized special interests – led by the largest union in the country, the National Education Association – more than the threat of performance-based evaluation (testing) and compensation (merit pay). The latest muscle-flex by this mafia has come in response to the not exactly exacting requirements of Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative. As best-selling author Peter Brimelow points out in his pathbreaking, "The Worm...

"Gay" activists are pushing an agenda in Canadian schools aimed to have students, teachers and principals "celebrate" homosexual and transgendered people, reports the Vancouver Sun. Two men leading the charge – Murray Warren and Peter Cook – filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal to compel teachers to deliver positive messages about homosexuals and transgendered people in every subject, in every classroom. The complaint alleges discrimination by the education ministry for ignoring calls for homophobia and "heterosexism" to be addressed in the classroom. "People want to see us [teachers] address homophobia across the board," Warren, a Coquitlam...