Blog
Trump’s new Schedule F executive order is smarter, but could still backfire
President Trump’s re-instatement of his “Schedule F” executive order, making it easier to fire career federal employees,…
Blog
Trump picks gig economy fan for DOL’s number 2 spot
President-elect Donald Trump has raised more than a few eyebrows in the world of labor policy when he nominated the frankly…
Products
Free to Prosper: Labor and employment
News Release
Economy adds 256,000 jobs in December, uncertainty remains with upcoming tariff policies: CEI analysis
The job numbers released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show 256,000 jobs were added to the economy in the last month of…
News Release
Biden blocks Nippon Steel purchase of U.S. Steel in baseless protectionist maneuver
With just days left in office, President Biden decided to block Nippon Steel from purchasing U.S. Steel, alleging it might “impair the national security of…
Citation
Could Nippon still buy U.S. Steel after Biden blocked the deal?
NPR’s Marketplace interviewed CEI’s expert on Biden blocking Nippon Steel’s purchase of U.S. Steel Listen to more at Marketplace…
National Review
The Teamsters’ Imaginary Strike against Amazon
There was a historic strike by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters workers at Amazon facilities over the Christmas holiday, yet it didn’t appear to slow Amazon’s…
The Washington Times
Retail industry projects surge in post-Christmas regifting and returns
The Washington Times quoted CEI’s expert on regifting in the retail industry The problem is that regifting ‘can suggest a certain laziness on the part…
Blog
Nice dock. Big shame if you modernized it, Trump warns ports
President Trump has signaled that if East Coast dockworkers go on strike, he will back them instead of the ports. This increases the odds that…
News Release
Senate stops Biden’s partisan NLRB maneuver, paving the way for Trump nominee
The Senate on Wednesday blocked President Biden’s attempt to re-nominate the Democrat chair of the National Labor Relations Board, Lauren McFerran. CEI labor policy expert…
Blog
Schumer moves to lock in place Democrat-majority labor board
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is attempting to ensure that the Democrats retain control of the National Labor Relations Board, the…
City Journal
Unions’ Choice
At first glance, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of one-term congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer to serve as Labor secretary is mystifying. The former congresswoman seemingly …
News Release
Economy adds 227,000 jobs in November, suggesting a steady labor market: CEI analysis
Today’s labor report for November suggests a steady job market, with 227,000 jobs being added to the economy last month. Considering the report, the…
CNN
Trump’s Labor secretary pick is surprisingly pro-union. It doesn’t mean his administration will be
CNN’s Chris Isidore relays Sean Higgins’s misgivings about the Trump Labor Dept. nominee “While it is hard to predict what (Chavez-DeRemer) would do as a…
Blog
Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer is not qualified to be Labor Secretary
President-elect Donald Trump is considering Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) for the position of…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Commentary: Automation could be a problem in retail theft
Headed into the holiday season, the retail industry is wrangling with a surge in shoplifting and possible solutions to prevent theft. The upsurge may be an…
Blog
Biden overtime rule overruled
A Texas court last week threw out the Biden’s administration’s attempt to rewrite the rules for overtime. The court said that the Department of Labor…
Blog
NLRB moves to silence employers during union drives
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the independent federal agency that oversees union activity, ruled Wednesday in a case involving Amazon…
Blog
Voters okay higher minimum wages, balk at more radical ideas
The ironic thing about Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ rhetoric is that it overlaps to a degree with old-school Democratic populism. This can be…
The Washington Times
Survey finds inflation chilling Christmas shopping plans
The Washington Times cited CEI’s expert on inflation “Before the pandemic, inflation was practically nonexistent, having fallen to 0.1% in May 2020,” said Sean Higgins,…
News Release
Boeing machinists strike ends, but union should face financial reality
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers in Seattle have ended their strike, as members approved a company pay raise offer. CEI labor policy…
Washington Examiner
Biden’s best efforts could not keep unions from declining or defecting to GOP
Washington Examiner cited CEI’s expert on Biden’s efforts on unionization Sean Higgins, a labor researcher at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, attributed the…
News Release
October adds 12,000 jobs to economy, far fewer than usual: CEI analysis
According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report, only 12,000 jobs were added to the economy in October, largely due to job losses…
Blog
The next president may face a ‘January Surprise’: Port strikes
The next president might face a test right as they are being inaugurated: a renewal of the International Longshoremen Association’s (ILA) strike against east coast…
Blog
The origins and lessons of the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1980s
Moral panics are just one of those things that free societies seem to go through on a regular basis. The “satanic panic” was the big…
Citation
2024 minimum wage ballot measures: What to know
The Washington Examiner cited CEI’s expert who commented on minimum wage mandates. But critics think that wages shouldn’t be completely set by the government…
National Review
How to Cool Down Labor Unrest at the Ports
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) almost brought parts of the U.S. economy to a halt in early October when it briefly went on strike at East Coast and Gulf…
Capital Research Center
Episode 336: Do You Need To Stock Up On Toilet Paper?
Capital Research Council cited CEI’s expert on the state of the economy As the country moves through a contentious election season, where the state…
Blog
Longshoremen stood down when they realized wrecking the economy wasn’t popular
Thursday’s announcement that the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) was ending its strike at east coast and Gulf of Mexico ports after…
News Release
US adds 254,000 jobs in September signaling a strong economy: CEI analysis
The US economy added 254,000 jobs in September, beating out economists’ predictions and indicating that the economy remains strong. While wages continue to rise…
Blog
White House has several options in dockworkers strike, none of them good
President Biden likes to call himself “Blue Collar Joe” and declare his support for union workers, but his administration has been…
Daily Caller
‘Sleeping Giant’: US Could Be Inches Away From Another Economic Crisis As Massive Port Strike Looms
Daily Caller cited CEI’s expert on the border economy “The Biden administration has a record of stepping in and forcing a deal if they…
Rumble
Rumble- Mike Ferguson in the Morning 10-02-24
NewsTalksSTL cited CEI’s expert on deregulation…
News Release
Port strike threatens another supply chain crisis: CEI analysis
Today marks the beginning of a union strike against East and Gulf Coast ports that could trigger a similar supply chain crisis like that of…
Blog
The real issue in the port strike: Automation
Most news reports on the east coast dockworker’s strike are focused on the issue of wages, which obscures the real reason for the strike:…
Washington Examiner
What a looming disastrous dock strike would mean for the nation
Read more at the Washington Examiner…
Reason
Instead of Vote-Buying Tax Promises, Let’s Have Real Plans for Tax Relief
Reason cited CEI’s expert on exempting overtime pay On a more serious note, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Sean Higgins thought exempting overtime pay “wouldn’t necessarily be…
Blog
Teamsters non-endorsement: Outlier or sign of things to come?
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters’s internal poll on who to endorse in the 2024 presidential election was so lopsidedly in favor of Republican nominee Donald…
The American Thinker
Labor unions are turning into roach motels for generations of workers
The American Thinker quoted CEI’s expert on unionized workers Sean Higgins, a former colleague at Investor’s Business Daily, now at the Competitive Enterprise Institute,…
Blog
Teamsters’ non-endorsement exposes internal divisions
The announcement that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will not endorse a presidential candidate this cycle is a sign of the internal struggles within…
Washington Examiner
Trump’s ‘no taxes on overtime’ proposal: What to know
Washington Examiner quoted CEI’s expert on no-tax-on-overtime proposal Sean Higgins was quoted in the Washington Examiner concerning Trump’s dubious no-tax-on-overtime proposal. “It’s not clear how many people…
Blog
Removing taxes on overtime would have only marginal impact
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s proposal to remove the taxes on overtime would likely have little effect on the workers and the economy. It…
Issues & Insights
What We’re Reading: Urbanist Dreams, Kamala’s ‘Bluetooth’ Earrings, Climate Indoctrination … And More
Issues & Insights cited CEI’s article for some headlines that caught their eye. Just 5 percent of private sector workers voted for their unions —…
Blog
Just 5 percent of private sector workers voted for their unions
Imagine if you lived in a country where a vote held decades previous determined which party held control of the government and people had little…
News Release
Unemployment rate edged down in August, all eyes on Fed’s next move: CEI analysis
August’s jobs numbers show an addition of 142,000 jobs to the economy, edging the unemployment rate down to 4.2 percent compared to July’s 4.3…
Washington Examiner
Red Dawn is a misunderstood masterpiece
If ever a film has been ripe for rediscovery and reevaluation, it is Red Dawn, John Milius’s 1984 movie about a group of Colorado…
DC Journal
Counterpoint: Workers Are Not Better Off
The perennial question in presidential elections is, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” For American workers, the answer is, lately, not…
Blog
Proof of price gouging is harder to find than Bigfoot
The concept of “price gouging” is a lot like Bigfoot. Lots of people think it exists and have been chasing it for decades. Yet actual…
The Washington Times
Report suggests that real wages have fallen as inflation rose over past four years
The Washington Times cited CEI’s experts on real wages & rising inflation Sean Higgins, an analyst at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the Pew…
Blog
Labor issues
Labor Day was established in the late 1800s to celebrate workers and their achievements. Back then, manual labor was the dominant type of work for…
TheLarsLarsonShow
Sean Higgins What Do The Revised Job Numbers Tell Us About The Future Of Our Economy
CEI expert was featured on TheLarsLarson Show to comment on the financial state of the economy Listen to more at TheLarsLarson Show…
News Release
Big revision in job numbers spells bad news for the economy: CEI analysis
The economy added 818,000 fewer jobs between March 2023 and March 2024 than previously reported, according to preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics data. CEI…
National Review
J. D. Vance’s One-Track Mind for Railroad Regulation
Ohio senator and GOP vice-presidential nominee J. D. Vance has something of a soft spot for unions, as evidenced by his co-sponsorship of the…
Blog
Scrapping tipping taxes is now a bipartisan issue. Good.
Never let it be said that Democrats think that Donald Trump is always wrong. Vice President Kamala Harris recently endorsed an…
News Release
Unemployment news may signal difficult inflation fight: CEI analysis
The jobs report for July shows an addition of 114,000 jobs to the economy, pushing unemployment to 4.3 percent. A cooled off labor market…
Blog
The NLRB’s Orwellian ‘Fair Choice – Employee Final Voice Rule’
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that oversees union elections, has a funny idea about what constitutes giving employees an honest say…
Blog
Kamala Harris’s California quid pro quo for unions
Kamala Harris is now the Democrats’ likely nominee to succeed Biden and she may pull the administration’s already pro-union labor policy even further leftwards. A…
Blog
NLRB backs down on Joint Employer
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has withdrawn an appeal of a district…
Blog
Union leaders need Trump more than he needs them
Credit where credit is due, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien faced a tricky tightrope walk when he spoke before the Republican National Convention…
National Review
Teamsters for Trump?
Among the speakers at the GOP convention this year will be International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien. He will be…
Blog
The Supreme Court sends warning shot to NLRB
Only one of the Supreme Court’s cases this term dealt directly with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), but several addressed the broader question of…
News Release
June jobs report indicate hiring slowdown: CEI analysis
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released June’s jobs numbers which reported an addition of 206,000 jobs to the economy compared to May’s…
Blog
California’s Newsom grants exception to state law so restaurants can cope with other state law
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation over the weekend that exempted restaurants in the Golden State from…
Blog
Biden’s pro-labor policies will linger past fall election
The Biden administration is trying to cement a pro-union labor policy into place for the next four years, even if likely Republican candidate Donald Trump…
Blog
Even SCOTUS liberal wing skeptical of NLRB moves
The most notable thing about the Supreme Court’s ruling last week against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Starbucks Corp.
Blog
Yes, make tipping tax-free
Republican candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to make tips tax-free is a good idea, and not just because it will be a…
The Washington Times
More than 75% of hotels report nagging labor shortages despite wage hikes
The Washington Times cited CEI’s experts on wage hikes The problem is that immigrants have better job options in a “historically tight” labor market, said…
Blog
The inherent contradictions of unionized political campaigns
President Joe Biden is the first candidate expected to win their party’s presidential nomination with a unionized staff. Whether this is…
News Release
May jobs rebound, skilled workers still needed: CEI analysis
The job situation for May 2024 indicates employment numbers are rebounding with 272,000 jobs added, though employers are still struggling to find the right…
Blog
Unions outdo Donald Trump in crying foul over election losses
The US labor movement is rivaled only by Donald Trump when it comes to throwing out claims of election fraud. Like the Republican presidential candidate,…
Blog
UAW revival gets flat tire in Alabama
The United Auto Workers (UAW) on Friday lost a high-profile bid to organize 5,000 Mercedes-Benz workers in a plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The loss…
Blog
UAW loses 13,000 members
The United Auto Workers (UAW) lost 13,000 members in the last year, according to filings the union made to the Labor Department. The UAW said…
Blog
R.I.P. Roger Corman, Filmmaker and Free Marketer
American cinema lost one of its great entrepreneurs last week when producer and director Roger Corman died at age 98. In a career that…
Blog
NLRB seeks to revoke First Amendment for management.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last week sent a warning that literally anything management says about a union organizing bid…
Blog
Biden’s veto of joint employer rule CRA a blow to small businesses
President Biden’s veto Friday of a Congressional Review Act (CRA) bill rolling back the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) “joint employer”…
National Review
CA’s $20 Fast Food Minimum Wage Is a Regressive Tax
California’s new $20 an hour minimum wage for fast food restaurants has turned into a regressive tax on the state’s low-income residents. People who wanted…
National Review
The Biden Administration Is Working Overtime to Make Work Less Flexible
The Biden administration has been putting in extra hours to quash the burgeoning trend of employment flexibility, and its latest effort is overhauling overtime rules. It may…
Blog
California’s $20 fast food worker minimum wage a regressive tax
California’s new $20 an hour minimum wage for fast food restaurants has turned into a regressive tax on the state’s low-income residents. People who wanted…
The Center Square
Op-Ed: To win the South, unions should embrace right to work
The United Auto Workers’ recent success organizing a Chattanooga, Tenn., Volkswagen factory and an upcoming vote at a Mercedes-Benz factory in Alabama raise the possibility…
The Center Square
As the U.S. adds jobs, Illinois continues to lag in unemployment numbers
CEI’s Sean Higgins is cited in The Center Square on worker shortages: Researcher Sean Higgins with the Competitive Enterprise Institute said despite the robust job…
Blog
Seattle’s new minimum wage rule undermining delivery drivers
A new Seattle minimum wage law meant to boost the incomes of app-based delivery drivers has instead backfired, resulting in less work for drivers. Some…
Blog
Biden says his steel tariffs totally different from Trump’s, speculates uncle was eaten by cannibals
President Joe Biden vowed Wednesday that he would get tough on China’s steel dumping by tripling tariffs on imports. He argued this was totally different…
News Release
Economy adds 303,000 jobs in March, unemployment stays stable: CEI analysis
The Labor Department’s March jobs report show 303,000 jobs were added last month, with unemployment staying steady at 3.8 percent. Employers show that they…
Blog
OSHA tries to walk union officials into workplaces
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued a new rule Friday that will result in union organizers accompanying agency representatives during worksite inspections.
Blog
California laggin’: As Golden State minimum wage rises, so does unemployment
California has been a pioneer in raising the minimum wage for decades, consistently putting its state-wide minimum well above the federal rate. Over that same…
Washington Times
Past the tipping point? Survey finds most Americans say tipping is ‘out of control’
CEI’s Sean Higgins is cited in an article on the Washington Times about tipping in American businesses: Sean Higgins, an analyst at the libertarian…
Daily Caller
This Union Is Plotting To Take Over The Auto Industry. Can It Be Done?
CEI’s Sean Higgins is cited in the Daily Caller a union agenda to take over the auto industry: “Chattanooga is anybody’s guess,” Sean Higgins,…
Blog
Diversity, equity, and exclusion: How the NLRB’s double standard on job-related speech hurts workers
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is supposed to protect workers who publicly raise questions about the policies in their workplace. A few recent cases…
Blog
ACLU said NLRB’s general counsel Abruzzo ‘lacks authority’
Here’s some news that slipped through the cracks last year: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the legitimacy of Jennifer Abruzzo’s appointment…
Blog
Gov. Youngkin vetoes two-crew minimum bill in defiance of railroad unions
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently vetoed a slew of bills by the commonwealth legislature. One rejection in particular was well-deserved: nixing an ill-advised…
News Release
NLRB Should Let Stand District Court Ruling On Joint Employer Rulemaking
Just days before the National Labor Relations Board’s new joint employer rule was set to go into effect, a federal judge in Texas struck down…
Blog
Beware the labor regs of March!
A new rule from the federal government meant to protect workers is set to take effect today, March 11. It will instead leave most workers…
News Release
275,000 jobs added in February, employers watching economy and new labor rules: CEI analysis
The economy added 275,000 jobs in February, but the overall unemployment rate is higher than this time last year, sitting at 3.9 percent compared…
Blog
FTC declares mergers to be union-busting
In a classic case of regulatory creep, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently asserted jurisdiction over labor unions and collective bargaining. The agency is…
Blog
NLRB ruling on college athletes may foul foreign players
Nothing produces untended consequences like government action, and no one can say that the National Labor Relation Board’s (NLRB) isn’t producing its fare share. The…
Blog
Amazon primal: Retailer calls NLRB unconstitutional
Amazon has joined the growing chorus of businesses declaring that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) may be unconstitutional. Along with SpaceX and Trader Joe’s,…
Blog
NLRB v. EEOC: Damned if you fire, damned If you don’t
The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) aggressive new enforcement stance is creating a terrible bind for some businesses: if they try to avoiding penalties from…
Daily Caller
Biden Is Pushing Unions To Strike — But Not Just In The Way You Think
CEI’s Sean Higgins is cited in Daily Caller on union related strikes: “Inflation is likely spurring some of the strike activity,” Sean Higgins, a…
Blog
FTC commissioner wants to regulate worker misclassification, decries ‘unfair competition’
Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya has announced that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will get into the business of enforcing labor law. That was the…
Washington Times
Two-thirds of hotels report staff shortages despite record wages
CEI’s Sean Higgins was cited in the Washington Times on hotel staffing shortages: However, Sean Higgins, an analyst at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute,…