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How inflation pushes people toward collectivism
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that 50,000 drivers recently (exactly when is unclear) officially signed cards to join the…
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California forces rideshare drivers into a union
A reported 50,000 rideshare drivers for Lyft and Uber in California have recently signed cards to join the existing California Gig Workers…
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The ‘no hire, no fire’ era is starting to crack
Families gathering around the barbeque next Monday to celebrate the national day off from work will probably be grilling more hot dogs and cheap…
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When driverless vehicles are attacked, look for the union label
Self-driving cars are coming to major cities, and one group in particular is not happy about this: unions. An effort to bring self-driving vehicles…
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The AI Jobs apocalypse gets postponed, as CEI predicted
The prophesies of doom that artificial intelligence would destroy jobs have been put on hold recently. Businesses, including the ones that use AI technology,…
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Why Big Tech is postponing the AI jobs doomsday
The heads of big tech have recently changed their tune regarding artificial intelligence’s effect on jobs. The emerging technology will bolster the workforce,…
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CEI and the minimum wage
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) recently proposed a bill to increase the federal minimum wage to $25. Listed below are 18 arguments against raising the…
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Murphy’s minimum wage bill would stiff waiters and waitresses
Among its other bad features, Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour would also eliminate the…
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The Faster Labor Contracts Act would force workers into unions they never voted for
Unions and their allies in Congress say that the Faster Labor Contracts Act is needed to prevent businesses from endlessly delaying workers’…
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State legislatures targeting noncompete clauses
At least 15 states have enacted significant restrictions on noncompete agreements, ranging from minimum income thresholds to outright bans. Eight states have passed…
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DOL gets flexible on overtime
The Department of Labor (DOL) will formally reverse a Biden-era rule that expanded the number of workers eligible for overtime on Friday. Courts…
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The party is over for Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Of all the Trump administration cabinet officials who have exited early and unceremoniously, Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer can arguably…
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The Fast and the Spurious: Teamster allies push Faster Labor Contracts Act
Union allies in Congress are trying to force the House to vote on legislation called the Faster Labor Contracts Act. The legislation would…
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Pardon me boys, is this the Special Interest Express?
The Washington Post published a smart editorial on Monday on why the proposed Railway Safety Act is a bad idea. The legislation…
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Déjà vu all over again as Trump administration move to protect freelancing
The Department of Labor has proposed a new worker classification rule to replace the previous administration’s 2024 rewrite. This new version…
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Yes, Trump has shrunk the government
President Trump’s big jobs boast in his State of the Union address Tuesday was that under his watch every job created in the…
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Freelancers want to be free
The labor movement has been trying for years to organize gig economy workers, claiming that they are traditional employees being exploited by their bosses. The problem is that gig employees don’t view themselves that…
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Yes, executive branch employees should answer to the executive
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued a new rule that has some in Washington aghast. The rule says that…
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Courts reject states’ efforts to take over union law enforcement
A California court late last month struck down a law that would have allowed the Golden State to usurp the role of the National…
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Court rejects New York bid to take over federal labor enforcement
An effort by the New York legislature to usurp the role of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the main federal labor law enforcement…
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New York, California make a play for federal labor law enforcement
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the main federal labor law enforcement agency, currently lacks a quorum to act. Ordinarily, that type of…
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Impasse over NLRB nominee may be just what unions want
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee yesterday approved one of President Trump’s nominees to serve on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the…
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Next BLS head needs be an innovator, not a loyalist
President Trump nominated E.J. Antoni to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) because he wanted someone to modernize and update the agency’s…
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The White House’s new visa fee is another tariff
President Trump’s announcement that H1-B visas will now require a payment of $100,000 is best understood as an extension of…
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Progressive states plan end run around federal labor law
The five-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the main federal labor law enforcement agency, is currently down to just one member and therefore…
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BLS data is faulty, not rigged
The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has struggled in recent years to produce an accurate measure of the national employment situation. President…
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How to end the ‘free rider’ problem with union representation
Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA) has re-introduced the Employee Rights Act, legislation that would codify several individual…
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California’s fast-food minimum wage is super-sizing job losses
Minimum wage increases would be a fine idea if they worked the way that their fans assumed that they did: increasing the take-home pay…
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Supreme Court likely to decide fate of federal unions
A matter likely to end up before the Supreme Court soon is the right of federal government employees to form unions. Whether they retain…
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‘With you or without you’ – The growing rift between unions and Democrats
A rift is growing between the Democratic Party and the labor movement. It was caused in large part by the party’s inability to move…
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The flaw in Justice Kagan’s defense of the NLRB
Justice Elana Kagan authored a lengthy dissent to the Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday granting the Trump administration’s request to keep the Gwynne…
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Initiative 82 will hopefully get 86’d
The city of Washington, DC has belatedly realized that passing a law whose purpose is to make a product or service more expensive will…
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CEI suggests DOT put the brakes on train two-person crew rule
The Transportation Department recently asked the public for comments on how to reduce the regulatory burden. One thought that the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
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Trump’s tariffs: Look for the union label
One of the biggest boosters of President Trump’s tariffs has been the United Auto Workers (UAW). The venerable union wants to see domestic factories…
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Why government reform may hinge on ending federal unions
President Trump’s executive order ending collective bargaining for a wide swath of federal cabinet agencies and other government entities is a laudable…
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Trump’s push to remake the NLRB
Things are a bit topsy-turvy currently at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that oversees labor-management disputes…
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Five ideas for Secretary Chavez-DeRemer
President Trump’s newly-confirmed labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, has been viewed with suspicion by many on the free-market right. She can rectify…
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Hawley’s bill speeds up union elections by removing guardrails
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) thinks workers are having too hard of a time forming unions. His solution to that is to fast-track the…
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Chavez-DeRemer exemplifies Trump’s complicated relationship with unions
The Senate confirmed former Oregon Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer in a 67-32 vote Monday as President Trump’s new labor secretary. CEI and…
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You want hiring freezes with that? The effects of California’s minimum wage increase
California officially raised its minimum wage to $20 an hour last April in an attempt to help the state’s working poor. What those…
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White House requires federal agencies to disclose time spent working for unions instead of taxpayers
The Trump administration has restored reporting and transparency requirements for so-called “official time,” the practice where government workers are allowed to act exclusively on…
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Trump labor department pick signals pro-market stance on joint employer, independent contract rules
Keith Sonderling, Trump’s pick to deputy secretary of labor, the department’s second-ranking position, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee…
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Trump labor secretary pick backs right to work, disavows past support for union-tilted PRO Act
President Trump’s pick to be labor secretary, former Oregon Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, disavowed her past support for the union-tilted …
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Trump says labor law cannot prevent him from cleaning house at labor umpire agency
President’s Trump’s letter firing National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chairwoman Gwynne Wilcox and the NLRB’s general Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, makes the bold claim…
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No, Virginia, there was no Amazon worker strike
The labor protests launched by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters against Amazon over the Christmas holiday were nothing more than a hollow …
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Hawley offers gift to union leaders, not workers
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) reportedly has proposed a “pro-worker framework for the 119th Congress” that amounts to a watered down wishlist of items wanted by unions…
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Trump follows Biden precedent in sacking NLRB general counsel
President Trump’s decision to fire National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chairwoman Gwynne Wilcox and general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is controversial and will likely be…
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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…
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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…
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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…