Blog
Customers, Not Regulators, Should Hold Southwest Accountable
Southwest Airlines’ scheduling meltdown over the holiday weekend has prompted Capitol Hill lawmakers to propose hearings and federal regulators like Transportation Secretary Pete…
Blog
Bailout Suggests It’s Time to Rethink Multiemployer Pensions
President Biden announced last Thursday that the government would give $36 billion to bail out the multiemployer Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. It is…
DJ Journal
NLRB Doesn’t Want Workers to Hear Both Sides on Unions
Amazon isn’t the only corporation to face such charges. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was hit in October for comments regarding unions, indicating that the…
Inside Sources
NLRB Doesn’t Want Workers to Hear Both Sides on Unions
News Release
Job Gains in November 2022 Amid Inflation, Economic Problems: CEI Analysis
The U.S. economy added 263,000 jobs in November while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent, according to the Labor Department. CEI experts break…
News Release
House Premature on Rail Strike Intervention: CEI Analysis
The House today voted today on a resolution aimed at averting an impending strike by freight rail workers on December 9 – over a…
Wall Street Journal
House Approves Imposing Railroad Labor Deal, Paid Sick Leave Measure
The White House said Mr. Biden broadly supports providing more sick leave for rail workers, but he opposes measures that could slow down passage of…
Blog
Biden Hits the Brakes on Possible Railroad Strike
President Biden’s call on Monday for Congress to intervene in contract negotiations between railroad workers and the industry to prevent a strike is…
Blog
Somebody Better Hit the Brakes Soon in Railway Dispute
Three railroad unions have now voted to reject a contract negotiated by the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) that had been accepted by eight other…
News Release
US Economy Added Jobs in October, but Unemployment Remains High – Signs of Cooling
The U.S. added 261,000 jobs in October, while unemployment ticked up to 3.7 percent, according to data released today by the Labor Department. That’s more…
Blog
NLRB Seeks to Gag Amazon Management
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently alleged that Amazon chief executive office Andy Jassy violated federal labor laws by publicly saying that he…
Blog
Mandatory Union Fees are Junk Fees
The White House yesterday called up federal agencies to target “junk fees” charged to consumers, arguing that these hidden costs are exploitative and drag…
Blog
Workers Should Be Able to Hear from Both Sides Before Union Votes
Workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Albany, New York, opposed forming a union by a nearly two-to-one margin last week. It was the…
The Center Square
Washington Supreme Court ruling could boost the cost of public works
Washington state constitutional questions aside, Competitive Enterprise Institute research fellow Sean Higgins doesn’t believe the law is an improvement. “‘Prevailing wage laws’ are…
News Release
Biden Labor Department Rule Makes “Employee” or “Freelancer” Even Harder to Determine
The Biden Labor Department today announced plans to use not a formal rulemaking but an interpretive rule to upend guidelines that help businesses determine whether…
Reason
Biden Chips Away at Trump’s Deregulatory Legacy With New Gig Worker Rule
Sean Higgins, a labor policy researcher at the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute, says that litigation chaos is unlikely given that the DOL…
News Release
September Jobs Report Shows Signs of Business Recovery but Inflation Remains a Problem: CEI Analysis
The federal government today released its data on how many jobs the U.S. economy added during the month of September: 263,000. CEI experts offer analysis…
Blog
Illinois Ballot Measure to Allow Unions To “Keep Our Foot on the Gas”
Here’s a riddle: Why would unions in Illinois promote a ballot measure to establish a right to collective bargaining when that state is…
Blog
FTC To Use Algorithms in Bid to Hobble Gig Economy
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it will use its “full authority” to investigate “unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practices” by so-called gig…
Inside Sources
Looming Railway Strike Puts Biden on Collision Course With Unions
Blog
Why Railway Unions Oppose the Deal Biden Helped Arrange
The Chamber of Commerce today urged Congress to step in and impose a settlement should talks between the rail industry and the its…
The Washington Times
Critics of NLRB’s ‘joint employer’ rule predict job losses, more red tape for businesses
The Washington Times cites Research Fellow Sean Higgins on the NLRB joint employer rule: The board’s apparent goal is to encourage collective bargaining, according…
News Release
NLRB Democrats Unveil New Rule Expanding Joint Employer Liability…Again
Democrats on the National Labor Relations Board have put forward a new rule expanding “joint employer” liability for businesses nationwide. CEI labor policy expert…
Blog
NLRB Proposes Third Rewrite of Joint Employer Rule in Four Years
As expected, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has proposed a new version of the “joint employer” rule, which establishes when a…
National Review
Unions’ Cynical Minimum-Wage Gambit
We want California to be the first in the nation as it is in so many fronts, and to be able to spread this to other…
The Hill
This Labor Day, let’s ensure that individual workers are empowered, too
Ideas never die. If they become unpopular, people forget about them, but then they bounce back when a new generation rediscovers them. And whatever made…
News Release
CEI Experts React to August Jobs Numbers
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 315,000 new jobs in the month of August, slightly below market expectations. The unemployment rate rose to…
Blog
Starbucks Alleges an NLRB Whistleblower Reveals Election Shenanigans
A challenge by Starbucks to a recent union election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) includes a remarkable claim by the company: There…
Blog
How the Inflation Reduction Act Favors Unions over Taxpayers
The word “prevailing” appears 27 times in the text of the misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by Congress Sunday and…
News Release
U.S. Economy Adds 528k Jobs In July Amid Inflation and Shrinking GDP, but Congress isn’t Helping: CEI Analysis
The U.S. economy added 528,000 in July, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Blog
How to Make Official Time Even Worse
“Official time” is the practice of allowing members of public sector unions to conduct union business while getting paid for the regular government job…
Blog
Regulators Going off the Rails on a Crazy Train
One year after a supply chain crisis caused shortages across the nation, the Biden administration is trying to prevent railroads from modernizing and automating.
Blog
A Closer Look at The Guardian’s “The Uber Files”
On July 11, 2022, The Guardian published an expose of rideshare giant Uber’s business practices, based on a trove of leaked documents it obtained. However,…
News Release
U.S. Economy Adds 372,000 Jobs in June – Good News for Recession Worries
The U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs in June 2022, according to a new tally released today by the government. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate held steady…
Blog
Supreme Court EPA Ruling A Warning Shot to Agencies like NLRB
The Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency that the EPA exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act is…
News Release
CEI Experts React to Supreme Court’s West Virginia v EPA Decision
WASHINGTON—In deciding West Virginia v. EPA today, the Supreme Court held that Congress never authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions from…
Blog
Federal Agency Tries to Extend Reach with Joint Employer Standard
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal labor law enforcement agency, is likely planning to vastly expand its reach through a rulemaking on something…
Blog
Biden Says He Wants to Be the “Most Pro-Union President in the History of the United States”
Flattering the audience is one of the handiest tools a person has when giving a speech. It’s a simple way to establish a positive tone…
Blog
As Gas Prices Rises, Ridesharing Industry Adjusts
Rideshare companies are currently feeling the pinch from high gas prices, but some of their drivers are weathering the change better than others. High gas…
The Hill
Authorizing congressional unions won’t end Democrats’ labor troubles
The Hill cites CEI Research Fellow Sean Higgins discussing congressional unions: Regarding unions, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Sean Higgins explains that then-Speaker of the…
Freedom Works
AUDIO: Sean Higgins of CEI on job gains
CEI Research Fellow Sean Higgins discusses job gains on Freedom Works Radio.
Blog
Dead Man’s Switch: Biden Administration Fights Railroad Automation
Of all modes of transportation, one would think that railways would be at the leading edge of automation. After all, they don’t use public roads,…
News Release
Latest Employment Report Shows COVID Effects Lingering, Inflation Taking Toll
WASHINGTON—The Department of Labor reported today a gain of 390,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent, as did…
Blog
EEOC Nominee Kalpana Thinks Transparency Is an Important Value, Less Clear on Need to Abide by It
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission may become a lot less accountable in its decision making than it was under the Trump administration should President Biden’s…
Blog
Court Tells NLRB Sometimes a Joke Is In Fact a Joke
In a significant win for common sense, a federal appeals court has found that sometimes a joke is just a joke, even when it…
Blog
Let’s Not Allow Davis-Bacon to Further Clog Job Arteries
The Biden administration is proposing to make government contracting even more expensive by revamping the Davis-Bacon Act. This law requires that related workers on…
Comment
CEI Letter Opposing the Department of Labor’s Proposed Changes to the Davis-Bacon Act
Via Regulations.Gov Hon. Marty Walsh Secretary of Labor United States Department of Labor 200 Constitution Ave NW Washington, DC 20210 Updating the Davis-Bacon and Related…
Blog
House Staffers Can Now Unionize
The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved, for the first time ever, allowing congressional staff to form unions. This will be an interesting experiment. How…
The Washington Times
Teachers’ unions scrutinized over Harvard study of COVID-19 learning
The Washington Times cites CEI Research Fellow Sean Higgins on teachers’ unions: Sean Higgins, a research associate at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, said these…
News Release
April 2022 Job Gains Demonstrate Government Intervention Not Necessary
Today the federal government reported that the U.S. economy gained 428,000 jobs last month (similar to the number added in March). Those gains demonstrate that…
Blog
Unions Are Getting Smarter by Returning to Old-School Organizing Tactics
A new wave of union activism has swept the country in recent months with workers at Starbucks, Amazon, and even Apple pushing to organize. The…
Wall Street Journal
Amazon Takes On the National Labor Relations Board
Amazon is pushing back against the recent union election at its Staten Island facility in a novel way: by taking on the National Labor Relations…
Blog
NLRB General Counsel Calls for End to Secret Ballots in Workplace Elections
The general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is calling on the agency to unilaterally adopt “card check” rules for all union…
The Washington Times
Tech Companies Offer Big Money to Summer Interns for In-Person Work
The Washington Times cites research Fellow Sean Higgins on the future of in-person versus remote internships: “This may lead to internships morphing into something…
Blog
NLRB General Counsel Targets Mandatory Attendance Meetings
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is taking aim at “captive audience meetings” held by employers, arguing that it is unfair…
Blog
Amazon Union Wins in Staten Island with Backing of 32 Percent of Workers
Key to understanding the union organizing win at Amazon’s Staten Island facility is that there were enough workers who wanted a union, or at…
News Release
New Job Gains for March 2022 Shows Businesses Open with Jobs to Offer: CEI Analysis
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today that the U.S. economy added over 400,000 jobs in the month of March – good news…
Blog
Weil, That Was a Close One!
David Weil, the Biden administration’s pick to be the administrator of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division, was rejected by…
Blog
The Best Thing the Department of Labor Can Do for Freelancers is Keep the Trump-era Rule
In a surprising move, a federal court has thrown out the Biden administration’s attempt to throw out the Trump administration’s new rule to determine…
Blog
Biden Administration Seeks to Redefine Word “Prevailing”
The Biden administration has come up with an innovative way to aid its union allies: redefining the word “prevailing” to mean its opposite. The…
Blog
Inflation Numbers Show a Minimum Wage Hike Is Still A Bad Idea
Like a slasher movie villain who refuses to die, the push to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour seems to have a…
Blog
How Newt Gingrich Laid the Groundwork for Congressional Staff Unionizing
The current effort by congressional staff to unionize builds on a legal groundwork laid decades ago by Republicans. In fact, the idea was…
News Release
U.S. Economy Adds 678,000 Jobs in February, but Inflation, Russia, Government Mandates Remain a Problem
The U.S. economy added 678,000 jobs in February, according to newly released government figures. CEI economic and labor policy experts praised the good news…
Citation
AUDIO: Sean Higgins Joins the Bob Harden Show
Research Fellow Sean Higgins joins the Bob Harden Show to discuss unions.
The Hill
You’re the Boss: Unionized Staff Would Force Democrats to Take on Management’s Role
A group of congressional Democratic staffers are attempting to form a union. It might not be a bad idea. A major problem with Congress is…
Blog
The One Area Where Voting Rights Isn’t Sacred: Union Elections.
There is one area of voting rights where many Democrats don’t seem to want every voice to be heard: union elections. Democratic lawmakers have accepted…
Blog
Unions Likely Received $36 Million in Improper PPP Loans
It is possible that labor unions improperly received more than $36 million in “loans” under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The program was intended…
News Release
U.S. Economy Added 467,000 Jobs in January 2022, Signaling No Need for Govt Meddling
The good news jobs gain in January gives President Biden and Congress ample reason to step back and let businesses and workers chart a…
News Release
House Democrats’ China Bill Would Make the U.S Less Competitive and Harm Consumers
The House of Representatives is considering the America COMPETES Act this week, a bill described by sponsors as a “China competition bill.” The wide-ranging legislation…
The Washington Times
American Consumers See Drop in Restaurant, Retail Quality from Labor Shortage, Study Finds
The Washington Times cites Research Fellow Sean Higgins on costs of pandemic to restaurant business: Sean Higgins, a research fellow specializing in labor and…
The Boston Globe
Workers Organizing at McLean Hospital Face Staunch Resistance
The Boston Globe cites Research Fellow Sean Higgins on union membership: Given that only 6 percent of the private-sector workforce is organized, many employers…
Blog
Even Most Democrats Favor Right to Work Laws
For being so controversial, right to work laws are pretty popular. A majority of states, 27, have them and even Democrats will give…
Blog
Rising Pay Undermines Push for Increasing the Minimum Wage
A Department Labor report released Friday shows wages rising 4.5 percent, evidence that the Biden administration’s plan to raise the federal minimum wage…
Blog
Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Is Still a Bad Idea Even If Properly Enacted
The best that can be said about the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw the executive order for its COVID-19 vaccine mandate and instead try to…
Blog
As Numbers Stagnate, Unions Continue to Look to Congress For Salvation
The Department of Labor’s latest statistics confirm that the union movement in the U.S. remains stagnant and slowly declining. Only 10.3 percent of U.S.
News Release
Supreme Court Blocks Biden Vaccine Mandate, Cites CEI-Related Case on Separation of Powers
The U.S. Supreme Court today blocked the Biden administration’s controversial test-or-vaccine mandate to be imposed on countless employers nationwide – and cited to a 2010…
News Release
Disappointing Job Gains for November 2021 Speak to Government Barriers to Economic Recovery
The U.S. economy added 210,000 jobs in November, far short of what economists expected. CEI experts say government mandates and restrictions remain a big part…
Blog
The Bizarre Logic of the NLRB’s Decision in the Amazon Union Case
The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) order overturning the workers’ rejection of a union at an Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama, and ordering…
The Washington Times
Biden Administration Probe of Supply Chain Woes Slammed as ‘Demagoguery’
The Washington Times cites Research Fellow Sean Higgins and Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on the current supply chain crisis: But researchers at the Competitive…
Blog
The Invisible Hand, Not Washington, Is Easing the Supply Chain Crisis
The supply chain crisis is showing signs of receding. This is happening not because of any action by the White House or Congress. The market…
Blog
Build Back Better’s $1.5 billion Gift to Unions
Hidden in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan is a provision that amounts to a $1.5 billion gift to unions. It is intended to…
Blog
We Wanna Negotiate This – Unions Cool to Biden Vaccine Mandate
The nation’s top unions have reacted coolly to the Biden administration’s proposed vaccine mandate, with many rejecting the administration’s unilateral approach and saying that workers…
News Release
US Economy Added 531,000 Jobs in October, but Biden Vaccine Mandate, Govt Spending Pose Real Threat
The American economy added 531,000 jobs in October, according to the U.S. Labor Department. CEI experts pointed to Covid declines but also warned that…
News Release
OSHA Vaccine Mandate — Trouble for Employers, Rough Time in Courts
The Biden administration today published its much-anticipated vaccine mandate for businesses that employ 100 or more people. This “emergency temporary standard” by the Occupational…
The Washington Examiner
Longshoreman Union Boss Sits on Long Beach Harbor Commission Making Policy
The Washington Examiner cites Research Fellow Sean Higgins on the current supply chain crisis: Sean Higgins, a supply chain expert with the Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
There Is Less to Biden’s Ports Deal than It Appears
President Biden on Wednesday announced that the two main ports on the West Coast will start operating 24 hours a day to help address…
News Release
Jobless Claims Just Fell, but Government Barriers Remain a Problem
The number of new jobless claims fell below 300,000 for the week ended Oct. 9 — the first time since COVID-19 hit. Continuing claims…
News Release
Jobs Added to U.S. Economy in September Show Signs of Hope and Hesitancy: CEI Analysis
The U.S. economy added 194,000 jobs added in September, and unemployment dipped. CEI experts Ryan Young and Sean Higgins say this is encouraging because it…
Blog
Why Don’t U.S. Ports Operate 24/7? Ask the Unions
There has been a massive backlog for months now of cargo ships waiting to drop their goods at West Coast U.S. ports. As I…
Blog
America Needs More Truckers on the Road
Severe backups and bottlenecks in the nation’s ports, particularly on the West Coast, have created severe logistical and supply problems throughout the country. This is…
Blog
Fighting Income Inequality Won’t Help Workers
I just learned of the latest forthcoming study focusing on the issue of income inequality, this one promising to explain how regulations can exacerbate…
Blog
Are Unions Losing Hope for the PRO Act?
In a sign that unions are losing hope that the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act can pass Congress, they are now…
Blog
Unions on Biden’s Vaccine Mandate: That’s Not in Our Contract
President Biden’s vaccination mandate announcement on Friday has drawn a notably cool reaction from unions. While none appear to have come out against it, few…
The Hill
PRO Act limits worker rights
The Protecting the Right to Organize Act bears the interesting distinction of being supposedly “pro-worker” legislation that mostly rolls back individual workers’ rights. The legislation’s…
The Hill
PRO Act limits worker rights
National Review
Unions Look to Congress for Survival. They Should Try Listening to Workers Instead
Inside Sources
New AFL-CIO Leadership Should Orient to Worker Recruitment Strategies, Not Politics and Laws
The American labor union movement has a unique opportunity to choose a leader to transform unions into dynamic, responsive representation that will attract new members.
Blog
The Cost of Uncertainty in Dealing with the Pandemic
If there is one thing that businesses want more than anything else when it comes to regulations, it is predictability. That’s one case where what’s…
News Release
Disappointing August Job Gains Tied to Covid Restrictions, Politics
Competitive Enterprise Institute experts commented on today’s disappointing news about August job gains, urging policy makers to reject restrictions and politics and look for ways…
Blog
Mexican Workers Deserve Secret Ballot Elections; So Do U.S. Workers.
Today, U.S. labor leaders applauded Mexican workers for getting rid of an allegedly corrupt union at a General Motors (GM) plant in Silao, in…