Union Activism, Pork, and Sarbanes-Oxley

Union Activism

The National Labor Relations Board surprised many when it threatened to sue Boeing over the building of a new plant in South Caroina.

Policy Analyst Ivan Osorio explains.

“The NLRB’s case against Boeing rests on a thin reed. The Board seized on a statement by Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh that an overriding factor in the decision to locate the plant in South Carolina was that the company cannot afford to have a work stoppage ‘every three years.’ The NLRB cited that statement as supposed evidence that Boeing was trying to retaliate against unionized workers in Washington State. In fact, Albaugh was not referring to any specific union job action.”

Pork

The USDA lowered its recommended safe cooking temperature for pork from 160 degrees Fahrenheit to 145.

Senior Fellow Greg Conko commends the USDA’s change.

“It’s been reasonably well known for some time that cooking whole cuts of meat — including beef, lamb, and even pork — to a lower internal temperature could kill a sufficient portion of harmful bacteria to make the food safe to eat (though ground meats should still be cooked to the higher temperatures because the grinding and mixing process could move substantially more bacteria from the heated outside part of the cut to the inside). And USDA cooking recommendations for beef and lamb have reflected that reality for some time now. But the higher cooking temperature for pork remained, primarily as an artifact of largely bygone concerns about trichinosis — a disease caused by parasitic worms once common in pork and wild game. But due to changing pork industry practices, trichinosis from pork is now fairly rare.”

Sarbanes-Oxley

This week in Investor’s Business Daily, Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia and Research Associate Jacqueline Otto explain how Sarbanes-Oxley is affecting tech startups’ decisions about whether or not to go public.

“For the sake of today’s entrepreneurs and investors, Congress needs to take a close look at burdens that discourage companies from seeking public offerings. Revisiting the Sarbanes-Oxley Act would be an excellent first step. Section 404, which purports to prevent conflicts of interest, should be scrapped. The section establishes duplicative layers of oversight that are exorbitant to maintain. For instance, companies must assess for fraud, assess the measures to assess for fraud, then assess the assessors!”