Free Republic

Will County billboards that warned motorists about bridges stoked public-safety fears and helped convince state lawmakers of the need to approve a $45 billion infrastructure plan. The billboards and their impact arguably deserve to rank among the top political stories of the year, if not the decade. Construction unions paid to display the messages “Cross bridge at your own risk” and “Bridge ahead in critical condition” on electronic billboards near Interstate 80 bridges over the Des Plaines River in Joliet. The billboards heightened motorists’ fears about crumbling infrastructure and generated bipartisan support for the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program. Marc...

Union workers can say a lot while under the protection of American labor law. For example: “Go back to Africa, you bunch of —ing losers!” That was only one of the racial epithets shouted in 2012 by picketing Ohio tire workers at a group of replacement employees, many of them black. When the tire company fired one offender, its decision was overturned by an administrative judge. That ruling was upheld by the National Labor Relations Board in a 2016 decision, Cooper Tire . These kinds of precedents, employers say, put them in a bind between labor law and workplace standards—even...

The Universal Postal Union’s member nations agreed Sept. 25 to improve its payment system for the international exchange of Letter Post Packets. The international organization, also known as the UPU, has established a system that determines the amount a country will be paid for delivering international Letter Post products that originate in another country. This system is known as “terminal dues.” This week in Geneva, UPU members held a special meeting — known as an Extraordinary Congress — to discuss the current terminal dues system as it applies to Letter Post small packets that contain goods. The meeting provided an...

Union auto workers voted, by a large majority, to authorize strikes while the United Auto Workers (UAW) union negotiates contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler. UAW members voted about 96 percent to allow union workers to strike while UAW leaders negotiate contracts with GM, Ford, and Chrysler — a vote that merely authorizes strikes and does not indicate that strikes will be held. UAW President Gary Jones said in a statement:

Something usually not discussed on Labor Day weekend is the violence and thuggery which has always been part of the union movement. And it still happens. The history of the labor movement in the U.S. is littered with extremists who use violence to get their way. At the beginning of the union movement, the violence was outer-directed; toward the government, management, or the police who were using violence themselves to destroy the labor movement. As the movement matured, the abuse became directed inward, targeted towards keeping the rank and file “in line,” going after replacement workers, or sabotaging the particular...

Sanders, who is making his second straight bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, vowed “that war will come to an end when I am president. If we are serious about rebuilding the middle class in America, we have got to rebuild, strengthen and expand the trade union movement in America.” Sanders said if elected, he would aim to double union membership by the end of his first term in the White House in January 2025. His plan also calls for ending so-called "right to work" laws favored by Republicans and decried by organized labor for weakening a union’s ability to...

Former House Speaker John Boehner and former Rep. Joe Crowley are joining forces in a bipartisan effort to combat a looming pension crisis affecting nearly 1.3 million American retirees Opens a New Window. Boehner, the Ohio Republican who retired in 2015, is part of the Retirement Security Coalition, a leading force that is raising awareness to the underfunded multiemployer benefit plans. “The job Joe and I have taken on is to try to elevate the seriousness of this problem," he told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto Opens a New Window. on Thursday. "And Congress really does in fact need to act."...

There’s been a significant policy change at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and it’s one that’s been in the works for a while. In the future, when workers grow dissatisfied with their union at their place of employment, the employer, within ninety days of the end of a contract, will be able to suspend bargaining and announce that the union will be ousted at the end of their current contract. The rights of the workers to unionize will still be recognized, but a new election will need to be held to reestablish the union or bring in a different...

Four Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination honed in on the economic concerns of the black community during a forum Saturday in South Carolina, a state where nonwhite voters will play a major role in next year’s primary election. Appearing on stage one at a time, Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke all stressed the need to increase access to capital for black business owners as part of a broader effort to address wealth inequality. Warren expounded on what she’s called...

Workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted Friday night against forming a factory-wide union, handing a setback to the United Auto Workers’ efforts to gain a foothold among foreign auto facilities in the South. The vote of hourly workers began Wednesday and concluded Friday. Preliminary results show 833 employees voted against representation and 776 voted for it, the German automaker said in a statement. VW said about 93% of the roughly 1,700 eligible employees voted. “Our employees have spoken,” Frank Fischer, president and CEO of Volkswagen Chattanooga, said in the company statement. He said results are pending certification by...

As NFL labor negotiations Opens a New Window. loom over the 2019 season, the NFL Players Association is already warning players to save money Opens a New Window. to prepare for a possible work stoppage in 2021. In a Tuesday email, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith advised NFL agents to tell their clients to budget their income to account for a player strike or lockout by ownership. The NFL’s current collective-bargaining agreement expires after the 2020 season, and negotiations on the next deal are widely expected to be contentious.

Joe Biden officially earned the endorsement of the firefighters union Monday, putting in his corner a powerful organizing force that stayed on the sidelines of the 2016 race. The executive board of the International Association of Firefighters met and voted to ratify its endorsement of the former vice president within hours of his formal entry into the race on Thursday. The union had warmly welcomed Biden to their annual Washington convention last month with signs of “Run, Joe, Run!” General President Harold Schaitberger made the endorsement official in an online video. “Joe’s a lot like our firefighters. He's a problem...

<p>New Mexico is prohibiting local governments from enacting right-to-work ordinances that prevent employees from being required to join a union or pay union fees.</p> <p>Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday signed legislation that asserts the state’s exclusive jurisdiction over union security agreements.</p>

Reading aloud a letter addressed to her supervisors about retaliation she faced after reporting sexual misconduct within SEIU, Njoki Woods, a 42-year-old African American single mother of 4, begins to cry. Prior to joining the staff at SEIU United Healthcare West in 2015, Woods had spent a decade organizing her fellow co-workers as a certified nursing assistant and unit secretary at Riverside Community Hospital in Southern California. After leading a successful effort as a rank and file member to organize residual workers at nearby St. Mary’s hospital, Woods was offered a staff job in May of 2015. “I was excited....

Democrat Sherrod Brown brought a pro-worker message Saturday to Las Vegas casino workers who are members of what’s considered Nevada’s most powerful labor union, declaring that if he decides to run for president, he will be “the most pro-union candidate.” Brown, a U.S. senator from Ohio, said he’s going to make a decision about 2020 in the next month. He addressed workers in the union hall of the Culinary Union as he kicked off a trip to the early Western caucus state, which is seen as a key test of a candidate’s appeal to diverse demographics. Brown is the first...

The association that represents thousands of FBI agents says the partial federal government shutdown is affecting the bureau’s operations. The FBI Agents Association sent a petition Thursday to the White House and congressional leaders encouraging them to fund the FBI immediately. The association’s president, Tom O’Connor, told reporters in a conference call that Friday will be the first day that FBI personnel will not receive a paycheck. …

Need a career change? NJ Transit is hiring — and the job comes with big bucks. The nation’s second-busiest rail system has been struggling to keep its trains running on time, sometimes canceling as many as two dozen a day. Officials blame this commuting nightmare in part on a lack of engineers — the people who operate the trains. The shortage is exacerbated whenever a slew of engineers call out sick. The agency has been scrambling to fill training classes with recruits. Prospective job applicants might jump at the opportunity when they find out just how much the job pays....

Trade unions at Air France called Thursday for the company to name a French chief executive amid reports that the board is set to nominate Canadian Ben Smith at the helm of the group. Nine out of ten unions issued a joint statement, saying it was “inconceivable that the Air France company, French since 1933, falls into the hands of a foreign executive whose candidacy is being promoted by a competitor”. The statement appeared to be referring to Delta Airlines, the US airline which owns 8.8 percent of the capital of Air France-KLM, the parent group formed out of the...

The Trump administration announced Tuesday it planned to end what it suggested was an illegal Obama-era rule allowing unions to collect dues from state subsidies intended for home health workers -- including family caregivers. Federal law generally prohibits states from skimming money from Medicaid payments bound for independent in-home personal care workers. But in 2014, the Obama administration created an exception, saying that states could divert some of that Medicaid money to unions, on the theory that these workers effectively were public-sector employees. Eleven left-leaning states have used that provision to raise more than $200 million a year for unions...

The French government has agreed to absorb €35 billion in debt from the state railway SNCF, a top union official said Friday, as it seeks an end to nearly two months of strikes. Luc Berille, the head of the UNSA union, said that the state had proposed taking on €35 billion ($41 billion) of the SNCF’s €46 billion of debt, starting with €25 billion as soon as 2020. “The prime minister was specific,” Berille said after talks with premier Edouard Philippe, adding that the government would increase infrastructure investment by €200 million a year to reach an annual total of...