Whether it is exposing legislation and regulations that benefit unions, lawyers or management at the expense of workers, detailing the folly of occupational licensing laws; supporting the expansion of state right-to-work laws; or highlighting the overreach of lawmakers, bureaucrats, and courts; CEI advances reforms in this crucial, often overlooked policy area. Our op-eds, policy papers, media appearances, coalition work, and innovative research serve as crucial counterweights to the aggressive efforts by unions and their allies to frame the policy debate.
Labor and Employment Issue Areas
Featured Posts
![The Supreme Court sends warning shot to NLRB](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1280px-US_Supreme_Court_Building-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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…
![June jobs report indicate hiring slowdown: CEI analysis](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/GettyImages-613537246-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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…
![Biden’s pro-labor policies will linger past fall election](https://cei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/NLRB-seal-578x324-c-default.jpg)
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…
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Collective Bargaining: Mythical Right Turned Constitutional In Michigan?
Everyone knows that our Founding Fathers’ primary motive during the revolution was to preserve collective bargaining for the carriage industries. That as Washington crossed the…
Blog
Fact Checking Lilly Ledbetter’s False Speech At The Democratic National Convention
Former pay-discrimination plaintiff Lilly Ledbetter, in speaking at the Democratic National Convention on September 4, repeated the false claim that she learned about the…
Blog
CEI Podcast For September 6, 2012: Modernizing Air Traffic Control
America's air traffic control system can be charitably described as an antique. Land-use and Transportation Policy Analyst Marc Scribner describes some of the problems the…
Blog
Modernizing Air Traffic Control In The United States
In The Washington Examiner, a story citing me provides an overview of where the United States is in modernizing its air traffic control system.
Blog
Time for workers to take back Labor Day
Fox News On Monday, September 3, millions of Americans will celebrate Labor Day. For most, it will mean nothing more than the unofficial end…
Op-Eds
Time for workers to take back Labor Day
On Monday, September 3, millions of Americans will celebrate Labor Day. For most, it will mean nothing more than the unofficial end of summer, a…
Op-Eds
Best Practices for Reforming State Employee Pensions
Full Document Available in PDF Summary: Bloated pensions and retirement benefits for unionized government employees threaten the finances of states and localities…
Blog
International Boilermakers: Labor Union Or Business Tycoons?
The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers strikes again -- with a slap in the face to its members. The Boilermakers…
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Diverse GOP Voices Emphasize Immigrant Contributions
[caption id="attachment_59817" align="alignleft" width="266"] Former-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice[/caption] Even as the Republican National Committee adopted a platform advocating strict immigration enforcement, several influential party…
Blog
Worker Choice vs Forced Fraternity
Openmarket.org Public support and perception of labor unions is dwindling significantly. Even Hollywood is throwing them under the bus with the new film, Won’t Back…
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Worker Choice Versus Forced Fraternity
Public support and perception of labor unions is dwindling significantly. Even Hollywood is throwing them under the bus with the new film, Won’t Back Down.
Blog
California Pension Reform Plan A Step In The Right Direction But Not Enough
California Governor Jerry Brown (D) yesterday announced a pension reform agreement, which if approved by the legislature, likely will help narrow the Golden State’s…
PJ Media
Higher Education Bubble Spawns Demographic Decline Among Educated Americans
From Instapundit: HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Higher Education Bubble Spawns Demographic Decline Among Educated Americans. As college…
Blog
Higher Education Bubble Spawns Demographic Decline Among Educated Americans
The Washington Times takes note of the burgeoning higher education bubble in a recent editorial: The cost of a college education has…
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The “Gift Clause” Would Force Camden Police Union Bosses To Do Police Work
Openmarket.org While Camden New Jersey is being devastated by budget cuts, homicides are accumulating at record pace and unemployment is skyrocketing. Despite the city’s…
Blog
The “Gift Clause” Would Force Camden Police Union Bosses To Do Police Work
While Camden New Jersey is being devastated by budget cuts, homicides are accumulating at record pace and unemployment is skyrocketing. Despite the city’s plight, the…
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Obama Justice Department Recruits Lawyers With “Severe Intellectual Disabilities,” But Excludes Conservatives
Reality is often stranger than fiction. A former Justice Department lawyer, who publishes at PJ Tatler, has obtained documents from the Justice Department detailing…
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Colorado Voters Ready To Tell State to Follow Constitution
Openmarket.org, NewWallofSeparation.org In Colorado, Douglas County School Board members are questioning the district’s current collective bargaining system due to arcane provisions and a decaying…
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CEI Podcast for August 23, 2012: Bailouts as Corruption
Senior Fellow Matt Patterson argues that when government is big and powerful enough to dispense favors like bailouts, special interests will flock to Washington to…
Blog
Colorado Voters Ready To Tell State To Follow Constitution
In Colorado, Douglas County School Board members are questioning the district’s current collective bargaining system due to arcane provisions and a decaying relationship with their…
Blog
Government of unions, by unions, for unions
The Washington Times In 2009, the U.S. government bailed out the auto industry, ostensibly to save the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who work for…
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Prominent Lawyer: Obama Administration Illegally “Eviscerates Welfare Reform”
In The Washington Times and a recent study, attorney Andrew Grossman explains in detail how the Obama administration violated the law in claiming…
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Tampa Express Lanes Planning Director Corrects Record Distorted By Honolulu City Planner
Over at Peter Samuel’s invaluable TOLLROADSnews, we learn that Marty Stone, director of planning for Tampa’s successful all-electronic reversible tolled Lee Roy Selmon Expressway,…
Blog
Imagine There Are No Countries
“Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do,” John Lennon once told us. Ignoring Lennon's grammatical error, that is exactly what University of Wisconsin-Madison…
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New Moody’s Standards Give Clearer Picture Of Public Pension Crisis
The public pension funding crisis has led to a vigorous debate over how those pension liabilities are valued and how large they are. The debate…
Blog
Struggle Over Union-Owned Bank Is A Sign Of Union Weakness
Shifting deposits to the union-owned Amalgamated Bank has become a leftist cause celebre, as several Democratic and progressive groups try to be seen as…
PJ Media
A Deep Secret That Labor Unions Don’t Want Workers to Know
Labor unions often claim to favor democracy in the workplace in principle, but in practice is another story. Big Labor’s recent push for the so-called…
Blog
What The New York Times’ Ron Nixon Doesn’t Understand About Northeast Corridor Travel
In today's New York Times, reporter Ron Nixon has a remarkably misleading article on travel in the Northeast corridor (NEC). Three major distortions stick out:…
Blog
Equal Pay Should Be For Equal Work, Not Unequal Work
Yesterday, I criticized the assumption that people should receive equal pay for unequal work, such as requiring the average woman to be paid exactly…
Daily Caller
Left Banks With SEIU
Some prominent Democratic and progressive groups — including the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Governors Association, and America Votes — are shifting accounts, or at least…
Capital Research
Hospital Unionization Harms the Sick
Full Document Available in PDF Summary: Nursing is a valued career in a civilized society. It combines helping people with the economic demand for…
Blog
When Wage Gaps Are Fair
When I and my wife first got married, she worked shorter hours than I did, and used her additional time outside the workplace for activities…
Blog
Union contracts driving pension crisis
The Washington Examiner Maryland’s $37 billion public pension system earned a pitiful 0.36 percent return on its investments last fiscal year. How embarrassing is…
Capital Research
Union contracts driving pension crisis
Maryland’s $37 billion public pension system earned a pitiful 0.36 percent return on its investments last fiscal year. How embarrassing is that? Even the fiscal…
Blog
Yes, Obama Did Gut Welfare Reform
Earlier, I wrote about how the Obama administration gutted welfare reform. Now, the New York Times is claiming that the Obama administration did…
Blog
CEI Podcast For August 9, 2012: Getting TSA To Follow The Law
When the TSA installed full-body scanners in airports across the country, they did so illegally. Land-use and Transportation Policy Analyst Marc Scribner explains how a…
Blog
Teachers Unions Defend Institutional Incompetence
Openmarket.org No good deed goes unpunished. Take Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s brave decision to lay off 3,600 employees — including teachers and principals — of…
Blog
Teachers Unions Defend Institutional Incompetence
No good deed goes unpunished. Take Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s brave decision to lay off 3,600 employees -- including teachers and principals -- of 24 of New…
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Unions Claim Moral High Ground, Kick Off Sleazy Smear Campaign
Openmarket.org UNITE-HERE, the nation’s largest hospitality union, has assembled a new coalition of pro-union organizations to target Hyatt hotels with the goal of organizing…
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Unions Claim Moral High Ground, Kick Off Sleazy Smear Campaign
UNITE-HERE, the nation’s largest hospitality union, has assembled a new coalition of pro-union organizations to target Hyatt hotels with the goal of organizing the chain’s…
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Update On TSA’s Lawlessness Over Body Scanners
As I noted previously, the Transportation Security Administration has failed to comply with a court order demanding that they initiate a notice-and-comment rulemaking regarding…
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Obama’s jobs council a total flop
The Washington Times When President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness last gathered in January, he boasted, “This has not been a show council. This…
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Maryland’s Public Pension Debacle Is Likely to Repeat Itself
The Maryland public employee pension system announced this week that it had achieved a dismal return rate on its investments of 0.36 percent — a…
Blog
Postal Service Set To Default On Multi-Billion Dollar Retiree Payment
Openmarket.org Today, the United States Postal Service (USPS) takes one step closer toward a taxpayer bailout. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of…
Blog
Postal Service Set To Default On Multi-Billion Dollar Retiree Payment
Today, the United States Postal Service (USPS) takes one step closer toward a taxpayer bailout. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the current…
Blog
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick One Signature Away From Health Care Mistake
Massachusetts is the latest in a string of states to transform private home health care providers into government employees. The disingenuous legislation will raise the…
Capital Research
President Obama’s Deportation Deferral Order Is Legal
“We will see each other down the line in litigation.” That threat was leveled by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) at Department of Homeland Security (DHS)…
Blog
Alternative Teacher Certification: Opening the Education Market
Almost everyone can remember that one teacher who changed their life; the teacher who stimulated education and personal development of their students by virtue of…
Blog
Bloomberg Calls for Anarchy
Openmarket.org Here we go. Another mass shooting, another round of mass stupidity from progressive politicians and pundits. Latest example: In the wake of the…
Capital Research
Answers to Your Questions on Skilled Immigration
From The New York Times‘ Economix blog: Q. Do you agree with David Bier from the Competitive Enterprise Institute that “highly skilled foreign…
Blog
Pension Fund Activism Threatens Workers’ Retirement Security — And Taxpayers
While the underfunding of union pensions cannot be ascribed to any one cause, there is one that is troubling because it is so avoidable: pension…
Blog
To Fix The PBGC, Free Its Premiums
Setting the heavily underfunded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on a sound financial footing has got to be one of the toughest jobs anywhere. The…
Blog
The Coming Public Pension Meltdown
While the impact of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s (GASB) new public pension reporting requirements won’t be known for some time, some indications of its…
Capital Research
High-Skilled Immigration Restrictions Are Economically Senseless
Employer discrimination based on national origin has been illegal in the United States since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, yet American immigration…
Blog
San Diego Mayor Questioned Over Pension Improvement Initiative
Before current San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders assumed office, the city faced a massive fiscal crisis. The previous mayor, Dick Murphy, had just resigned in…
Blog
CEI Podcast For July 19, 2012: Congress Takes On High-Skilled Immigration Reform
Congress will soon vote on a package of reforms for holders of the H-1B visa for high-skilled immigrants. Policy Analyst David Bier unpacks the proposed…
Blog
CEI Files Amicus Brief In Support Of EPIC’s Petition To Force A TSA Rulemaking On Strip-Search Machines
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) filed a brief of amici curiae in support of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's (EPIC) petition for writ…
Blog
Robert De Niro Admits Progressivism Kills Economies
Question: What do you get when a left-leaning state enlists a progressive celebrity to brag about how un-leftist the state is? Answer: The hilarious…
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Yes, President Obama, Howard Johnson “Built” Your Favorite Motels, And Private Equity Saved Them
Over the weekend, President Obama sent a message to all American entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs. The message was, "Nothing special about you!" At a campaign…
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Obama Administration Urged Self-Reliant Hispanics To Go On Food Stamps
The government encouraged self-sufficient Hispanics to apply for food stamps, in a Spanish-language radio campaign that continued until English speakers finally became aware…
Blog
Labor Update: Spreading The Wealth Around
Under a law signed by former President George W. Bush, all unions must publicly disclose their assets and expenses. Such disclosures reveal the political contributions…
Blog
SEIU Fails To Disclose Donations, Dues Skimming Continues
Unions were originally created to protect workers and fight for their rights. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), however, has lost sight of this principle.
Capital Research
Why Everyone Should Fear E-Verify
“The only people who have to be afraid of the E-Verify system are illegal aliens and the employers who hire them.” That was Pennsylvania House…
Blog
$14 Billion More in Improper Government Payments
As CNN notes, federal and state governments overpaid unemployment benefits by $14 billion in 2011 — or approximately 11 percent of all benefits paid.
Blog
Sign A Petition Requiring The Transportation Security Administration To Follow The Law!
Over at the White House’s “We the People” site, a petition rapidly gathering signatures that demands that the Transportation Security Administration abide by a…
Capital Research
When Corporate Welfare is Illegal — the ‘Gift Clause’
From Tim Carney’s column in The Washington Examiner: When the Rhode Island government gave a $75 million loan guarantee to Curt Schilling’s software…
Blog
Unions: Political by Nature
Two items in The Wall Street Journal today highlight a feature of organized labor that distinguish it from other special interests: Unions, as they have existed in…
Blog
TSA Roundup
Everyone's favorite sexy-searchers are back in the news, but not for the right reasons.
Blog
Regulation Of The Day 224: Competing With Taxis
A cool startup company called Uber operates in about half a dozen cities in the U.S. and Canada, and is growing fast. Think of…
Blog
Wrongfully Detained Citizen Challenges Immigrant Detention Regime
“What's needed is immigration reform that finally lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and as a nation of immigrants,” President Obama…
Blog
Quotas Limiting Male Science Enrollment: The New Liberal War on Science
Quotas limiting the number of male students in science may be imposed by the Education Department in 2013. The White House has promised…
Blog
More Evidence Of A Higher Education Bubble: Even Scientists Can’t Find Jobs In Their Field
Even “very good chemists with PhDs from Stanford can’t find jobs” in their field, and end up working in menial positions, like "low-wage office…
Capital Research
Obama’s Secret Anti-Immigration Campaign
President Obama’s recent decision to defer deportations for certain children of undocumented immigrants and his administration’s lawsuit against Arizona’s tough immigration law could leave the…
Washington Post
Letter to the Editor: Why Politicians Answer to Unions
George F. Will’s discussion of grossly excessive public employee compensation [“Rahm and the teachers,” op-ed, July 5] rightly noted that unions exist to…
Blog
Scott Walker, Union Slayer
Capital Research Center On January 3, 2011, Scott Walker was sworn in as Wisconsin’s new governor. The state’s finances were a mess; the economy stalled.
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Italy Kicks the Can on Labor Reform
Italy continues to put off addressing its most fundamental economic problem: impossibly rigid labor regulation. In this letter to The Wall Street Journal, I explain why…
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Politicians’ Incentives to Give in to Government Union Demands
In his column today, George Will identifies a key problem in addressing overly generous government employee compensation: incentives. While he rightly places the blame…
Blog
A Dream Deferred: An Independence Day Story About Becoming An American Citizen
On July 4, Popehat’s Ken White posted a touching story about Filipino World War II veterans belatedly given their promised American citizenship in the…
Blog
Against the First Amendment: How Public-Sector Unions Neglect Free Speech
No one should be forced to join or contribute to any organization if they do not want to do so. This principle forms the bedrock…
Washington Post
38 Studios and the ‘Gift Clause’
Rhode Island’s $75 million loan guarantee to former baseball star Curt Schilling, like most government subsidies, promised to fulfill certain public objectives. Supporters of the…
Blog
Sunday Reflection: After the recall, big trouble for Big Labor
The Washington Examiner When it rains it pours, and right now organized labor is getting drenched. On June 5, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survived…
Blog
How Restricted Borders Replaced Free Migration
By the late 19th century, liberalism had essentially defeated mercantilism as the West's dominant economic philosophy. With its ascent, state attempts to control trade and travel…
Daily Caller
Senate highway bill contains ‘smoothing’ pension gimmick
From Angela Malik's article on The Daily Caller: Marc Scribner, a transportation analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, explained that smoothing “in theory…
Daily Caller
Sunday Reflection: After the Recall, Big Trouble for Big Labor
When it rains it pours, and right now organized labor is getting drenched. On June 5, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survived a union-driven recall election,…
Blog
Highway Bill Passes Congress, WSJ Blasts “Fiscal Accounting Hocus Pocus”
This afternoon, both the House and Senate approved the conference report of the largely Senate-crafted MAP-21 surface transportation reauthorization. The bill, which is expected…
Blog
Pension Reform: Could Michigan Be A Model State?
Appalled by the $22.4 billion fiscal millstone that the public teacher pension fund (MPSERS) has become, Michigan lawmakers hope to make long-overdue structural reforms.
Blog
Union Bosses: Are They Con Men?
The definition of a con man is “a dishonest person who uses clever means to cheat others out of something of value.” Nowadays, a fitting…
Blog
Former GAO Auditor: Public Pension Underfunding Worse than Pew Estimates
This week, GASB approved new standards that would require state pensions that are less than 80 percent funded to base income projections on lower — more…
Blog
Highway Bill Would Continue Pension Underfunding Shell Game
As if the Senate Highway Bill (S. 1813) could not become more of a lumbering monster, along comes its Section 40312, which allows "pension…
News Release
Threat of Pension Fund Bailouts Lurks in Senate Highway Bill
Washington, D.C., June 27, 2012 – Hidden in the ever-expanding Senate Highway Bill (S. 1813) is a provision that would make the already serious…
Blog
Georgia Offers “Amnesty” to Businesses From Its Tough Immigration Law
More amnesty from immigration laws by prosecutorial discretion! No, not the president’s order to defer deportation for certain children of undocumented immigrants, but the decision…
Blog
The Highway Bill’s Sleeper Funding Provision: Pension Smoothing
Things appear to have turned around for the stalled surface transportation reauthorization talks. Conference committee members worked over the weekend trying to come to a…
Daily Caller
Why Unions Don’t Want Workers to Earn More
During the recent debate on the farm bill, the Senate voted down an amendment that would allow unionized employers to give workers raises based…
Blog
The Growing Threat of a PBGC Bailout
Everyone hates a bailout. Or at least that's what everyone says, until circumstances force some business leaders to seek them and politicians to grant them…
Blog
Will New GASB Rules End States’ Fuzzy Pension Math?
Today, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) voted to approve new government accounting standards that will provide a clearer picture of the liabilities taxpayers across the…
Blog
Supreme Court Limits Arizona’s Anti-Immigration Law
The Supreme Court has struck down portions of Arizona’s SB 1070 — the controversial immigration law that targets undocumented migrant workers. The Court ruled that…
News Release
Supreme Court Immigration Ruling a Modest Victory for Free Market Reforms
Washington, D.C., June 25, 2012 – The Supreme Court has struck down portions of Arizona’s SB 1070—the controversial immigration law that targets undocumented…
Gold Water Institute
The Gift Clause: Big Government Kryptonite
Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election victory and California ballot measures garnered the bulk of headlines this month. The results indicate voters are fed up with…
Blog
Who’s the Outsourcer-in-Chief? Obama
Earlier, after discussing all the jobs that have been sent overseas by the Obama administration using taxpayer subsidies, I dubbed President Obama the “…
Blog
The Gift Clause: Big Government Kryptonite
Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election victory and California ballot measures garnered the bulk of headlines this month. The results indicate voters are fed up with…