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Biden administration working overtime to regulate working overtime
The Biden administration issued a new rule this week that vastly expands of the number of workers covered by federal overtime rules. While some…
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What you don’t know about the Wagner Act
What stance does the National Labor Relation Act, the main federal law regarding union rights, take towards workers joining unions? A long-held article of…
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The Paycheck Protection Act gives Congress a chance to defend the little guy
Freshman Missouri congressman Eric Burlison (R) has introduced legislation called the Paycheck Protection Act. The act, a project of the nonprofit American Legislative…
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Hollywood and the collateral damage of strikes
The current Hollywood strike by writers and actors has forced several others who don’t have an issue with the studios to stop working.
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Teamsters’ UPS win suggests more strikes coming
Tuesday’s announcement that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and UPS have agreed on a contract is a likely sign that strikes and other union…
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Actors and writers unions are fighting technological change. Expect change to win.
The current strike by Hollywood writers and actors is a reactionary, rear-guard effort against changes in technology. The members of the WGA (Writers Guild of…
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The Teamsters want UPS drivers to go on strike
UPS’s drivers will likely go on strike at the end of the month. It would be a huge disruption to the broader economy – and…
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Supreme Court’s Janus case 5 years later: Workers are invoking their rights
A common argument made by unions and their allies is that workers want to belong to unions but that big business uses all manner of…
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Biden Labor pick Julie Su claims she cannot recall her Prop 22 vote
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su claimed multiple times Wednesday that she could not recall how she voted on California’s Proposition 22, the ballot initiate…
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Romney slams Labor nominee Su’s ‘so severely lacking’ record
Julie Su, the White House’s pick to replace outgoing Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, had her first of two Senate hearings Thursday. Sen. Mitt Romney…
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Freelancers Find Little Sympathy from Left In Fight over Worker ‘Misclassification’
Kim Kavin is a freelance writer and an activist in the current political fight over the issue of worker classification. As co-founder of the activist…
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In Chicago’s Mayoral Runoff, It’s a Question of Which Union Wins
In Chicago’s upcoming mayoral race, the question is not whether organized labor will win, but rather which public sector union walks away with bragging rights.
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Michigan’s Right To Work Repeal Is a Repeal of Individual Rights
If right to work laws are so bad than why do their critics have such a hard time talking about what precisely the laws do? …
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DOL Nominee Julie Su An Aggressive Enforcer, Inept Manager
President Biden’s announcement Tuesday that he would nominate Department of Labor Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su to replace departing Labor Secretary Mary Walsh is…
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Walsh Skates out of the Biden Administration
The news that Marty Walsh will be stepping down as Secretary of Labor seems to reflect the diminished agenda that Joe Biden will have…
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Philip Howard’s Not Accountable Focuses on Reform of Public Sector Unions
Of the 14.3 million people that the Department of Labor says are currently union members, almost half, 7.1 million, work in public sector jobs.
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Unionization Is Down to 10.1 Percent of the Workforce, Lowest Level on Record
The Department of Labor annual survey of union density, released today, shows that unions have fallen to just 10.1 percent of the overall workforce,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…