Free Republic

This winter semester, more UW-Madison students are bundled up inside, counting on app-based delivery robots to feed their appetites. The maker Starship launched a fleet of thirty self-navigating campus food carriers in November. Since then, Peter Testory, the university’s director of dining, said orders have jumped more than 700 percent. Testory said there’s also a correlation between bad winter weather and service use. When the order comes in with a “ding,” dining staff prepare the food at a campus kitchen. Runners or, oftentimes, kitchen managers take the food to the delivery bots parked outside. Once runners close the lids, the...

TAMPA, Florida — Vice President Mike Pence told Breitbart News exclusively on Thursday that the Senate’s passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement is a “huge win” for American workers and farmers. Pence’s exclusive interview with Breitbart News, which came on his bus tour between Tampa and Orlando, for which he was conducting a campaign swing up the all-important I-4 corridor in the Sunshine State, came moments after the U.S. Senate passed the USMCA, 89-10. The overwhelming Senate vote came a month after the House in mid-December similarly passed the deal with overwhelming bipartisan support, as the USMCA sailed through...

NEW YORK, January 10 (C-Fam) Even with adjustments for longer, healthier living, the UN’s latest population figures show rapid aging and economic unpreparedness across the globe. By each of the three metrics used in the latest UN report on aging, only Africa is projected to avoid the harsh effects of aging in the coming decades, a world where the number of elderly is projected to more than double, reaching more than 1.5 billion. According to World Population Prospects 2019, by 2050, one in six people will be over the age of 65, up from one in eleven in 2019, as...

The lead contractor for a Mississippi River bridge is involved in a now-public feud with the state of Iowa over whether the bridge is buildable. The I-74 bridge is meant to replace a bridge on the same location connecting Moline, Ill, and Bettendorf, Iowa. Known as the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge, the bridge is a pair of suspension bridges located near the geographic center of the Quad Cities. The original bridge was designed by engineer Ralph Modjeski. The first span opened in 1935 as a toll bridge. In 1961, an identical twin span, built from the same blueprint, opened to facilitate...

Floridians will vote next year on whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026, an amendment initiative led by Orlando attorney John Morgan that’s already drawing opposition from Republican leaders and the business community. The initiative that will be called Amendment 2 made the November ballot after its wording was approved by the Florida Supreme Court in a decision released Thursday. Court review was the last obstacle to getting the measure on the ballot after Morgan’s Florida For A Fair Wage collected more than 770,000 of the required 766,200 signatures. The amendment would raise the...

You’re not supposed to see them like this, their polyester prince costumes unbuttoned and backpacks hanging from the shoulders of their colonial period dresses. Flip flops on, lunch boxes in hand, legions of workers stream into an employee parking lot at Walt Disney World, weary from another shift of making magic at the world’s busiest theme park. This is the place where the pixie dust loses its sparkle. It’s where the low-wage workers who power Orlando’s tourism machine leave the attractions, hotels and eateries and fade into a community that doesn’t have enough affordable housing, public transportation or opportunities in...

Most Americans have to work to earn a living. But the rich are different: They get most of their income not from labor but from what they own — companies, stocks, real estate and the like. These income-generating assets are what economists call capital. And because capital is heavily concentrated among the rich, the U.S. government taxed earnings derived from capital at a higher rate than earnings made through labor for the entirety of the 20th century. But that’s no longer the case, according to economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley. In their...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a leading 2020 Democrat presidential primary candidate, is vowing to “fight” for back pay for illegal aliens. As part of Warren’s “Empowering American Workers and Raising Wages” plan, illegal aliens who have worked illegally in the United States — sometimes by stealing Americans’ identities and Social Security numbers — would become eligible to receive back pay for their previous work by amending the National Labor Relations Act.

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:

The Census Bureau is hiring — and officials plan to employ more than 500,000 part-time and temporary workers across the country. Between Westmoreland and Allegheny counties, officials expect to field about 12,000 applications, census spokesperson Susan Licate said. “The hiring needs within each county vary and are ongoing,” she said. “For example, to properly staff Westmoreland County, we estimate reviewing nearly 3,000 applications so as to identify the right candidates for the positions. Allegheny County, 9,000 applications.” According to the census website, workers in Westmoreland County will make $16 per hour, while Allegheny County workers will make $18.50. Available positions...

Why is Communism relevant today? Ignorance! Just ask around. You may be shocked to find that nearly no one under twenty-five has ever heard of Stalin, whose genocide exceeded Hitler's by a factor of five. Communism is being repackaged in this atmosphere of ignorance. Films like “Motorcycle Diaries” and “Young Marx” portray Che and Marx as wise, prophetic figures fighting for mankind's betterment. Idealistic youth is responding enthusiastically in their need for heroes. If you travel abroad, say to India or South America, you can see full-scale marches complete with red banners and portraits of Stalin. How do you get...

Cindy Orozco didn’t expect to be punched in the head by a delivery worker when she arrived at her job at Good Pizza in Los Angeles last March. The blow came from an enraged food delivery worker who stormed into the tiny pizzeria demanding, “Where’s my f—ing order?” When she told him it wasn’t ready, he threw the contents of a tip jar across the small Playa Del Ray eatery, according to interviews and surveillance video footage obtained by The Post. Things escalated when Orozco and the courier — who was sent to Good Pizza by food delivery giant DoorDash...

by Jenn Carter President Donald Trump’s administration has quietly reactivated a computer check that warns employers when their new employees are most likely illegal immigrants. Democrats and Soros-funded open-borders lobbyists, however, are not keeping quiet, erupting in fury at the new push to protect American families from illegal immigrants in the nation’s job market. The so-called “no-match” letter warns employers that their employees’ claimed Social Security Numbers are suspect — and so allows the employers to minimize their legal risks by quietly firing the employees who do not have a right to work. Why is Trump's action a "revival"?...

A few years ago, during a panel discussion at the 47th annual Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) was the opening speaker on the topic of “Putting Black America to Work: the New Skilled Trade Workforce.” Lawrence noted that the industry supported by skilled trade workers will need an infusion of youth because the average age of workers was 53 years old. Rep. Lawrence said, “We are building a new bridge from Detroit to Windsor (Canada). I’ve been told we are bringing in welders from Vietnam to help build it.” It seems unfathomable that the United States, a...

David Stephenson, store manager of Cedar City Deseret Industries, promised his team that if they met their sales goals, he would run at least 200 loops around the roundabout outside of their office—and he would do it in his work clothes: a shirt, tie, and slacks. “Where I work, we train individuals to get better jobs,” he explained. “They all face different challenges in their lives, so I’m always looking for any opportunity to show them that you can do hard things, even if some thing seem impossible—or not the smartest thing to do, in my case—you can still accomplish...

Federal Goverment Workers have only themselves to blame for their current negative financial position. If you had acted immediately by going after Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer & the entire Democrat Party, you never would have had your paychecks missing. Heed my words...going after POTUS, Trump will gain you nothing, not one thing!!! I mean how dumb can you folks be? Nancy Pelosi was getting Botox treatments in Hawaii on vacation, drinking "MAI-TAIs", while you folks were payless. At least, POTUS, Trump, cared enough about you folks to stay in the White House over the holidays...not so with your Democrat allies...

Thousands of federal workers in the Fresno area could receive eviction notices and struggle to feed their families in the near-future as they miss their first paycheck this week due to the partial government shutdown, and their work stoppage could soon impact millions of non-government workers as tax season approaches. About 125 employees gathered outside the Internal Revenue Service’s processing center in southeast Fresno on Thursday. Some held signs depicting crossed-out chess pawns or reading “We want to work. We want to get paid. End the shutdown.” B. Rodriguez stood near the front of the group holding a bright pink...

You may have to go all the way back to the late 20th century to recall an article in Harper’s magazine that was worth reading, but the current issue features an article from the controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq that defends Donald Trump (“Donald Trump Is a Good President“) in ways that will drive just about everybody out of their minds But what’s most remarkable about the new American policies is certainly the country’s position on trade, and there Trump has been like a healthy breath of fresh air; you’ve really done well to elect a president with origins in...

President Trump is expected to speak at what the White House is describing as the inaugural meeting of the President's National Council for the American Worker on Monday. The president praised the efforts of first responders after Hurricane Florence lashed out at the East Coast. "Will not rest until that job is done and done perfectly," the president said, according to the White House press pool. "... It's a very dangerous situation. You have collapses. You have slides. Its very scary." The council was formed to develop a national workforce strategy to help students and workers have access to the...

Monday at a Labor Day breakfast in Boston, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Democrats “will be there” for workers if they take back the House and Senate in the midterm elections. Warren said, “Here is my promise: you give Democrats power in Washington, you give us back the House and the Senate, and Democrats will be there for unions and for workers across this country.”