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
Blog
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 that…
Blog
‘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 the…
News Release
Economy adds 139,000 jobs in May, labor market growth slows: CEI analysis
May added 139,000 jobs to the economy, with the unemployment rate staying unchanged at 4.2 percent. Trump’s policies, namely his mission to shrink the…
Search Posts
Blog
Pro-Pedestrian Advocates Push Deadly Policies
One thing that never surprises me is how often anti-car zealots fail to consider trade-offs before blindly screaming for their preferred policies. Take, for example,…
Blog
Spitzer, Seoul, and Wall Street
Eliot Spitzer, who occasionally publishes over at Slate, wrote yesterday about President Obama’s “disastrous Asia trip” and decried America’s fall from grace as a world leader.
Op-Eds
Texas Should Not Copy the Arizona Anti-Immigration Law
Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle made headlines recently for introducing an Arizona-style immigration law called HB 17. An Arizona-style anti-immigration law would be disastrous for…
Citation
Where Do All Those Union Dues Go?
Blog
The TSA Can’t Help Being Annoying
With the holiday travel season approaching fast, public anger at the federal Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) increasingly invasive airport passenger screening procedures — full…
Op-Eds
Bill Would End Right to Work in All States
Samuel Gompers, the first and longest-serving president of the American Federation of Labor, once said, “There may be here and there a worker who for…
Op-Eds
Debbie Riddle’s Arizona-Style Immigration Law Would be a Disaster for Texas
Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle made headlines last week for introducing an Arizona-style immigration law called HB 17. An Arizona-style anti-immigration law would be…
Blog
November 24: National Opt Out Day
OptOutDay.com the website and group is urging air-travelers on November 24 (one of the busiest travel days of the year) to refuse to submit…
Blog
Obama’s Labor Department Again Pushes Forced Unionism
You are at work one day and a couple of police vehicles pull up. They go into the administrative office area and the next thing…
Blog
America: Where “High-Speed Rail” is Not High-Speed Rail
Yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood addressed a crowd of Midwest rail fans, saying, “Twenty-five years from now, because of the president’s vision, we will…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on Card Check
Watch the interview on YouTube. …
Citation
A Union Pension Bailout During the Lame Duck Season in Congress?
Op-Eds
The Election’s Over, So Let’s Get Back to Business
President Obama recently warned that the current high unemployment could be “a new normal” in the United States. If his administration doesn’t change course…
Citation
Many Threats Loom in Lame-Duck Session
Citation
Vincent Vernuccio on Card Check
Competitive Enterprise Institute Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio explains how unions plan to create rules that effectively…
Citation
Democrats Support Yet Another Bailout
Citation
Democrats Support Yet Another Bailout
Op-Eds
Big Labor May Still Reap Benefits Despite Election Losses
Organized labor’s fears were realized Tuesday when Republicans won a decisive majority in the House, almost eviscerated the Democrat majority in the Senate and picked…
Blog
Will the NLRB Push Big Labor’s Agenda?
Organized labor expended enormous amounts of resources and effort to give Democrats control of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. For this…
Study
The 2010 Union Pension Bailout Bills
Get ready to give some of your hard-earned cash – again – to the cronies of Congress who are pushing for yet another bailout. Two…
Blog
Jobs Saved or Created: Armed Security to Guard Unemployment Offices
Here is a must-read for naysayers ready to indict current regulatory policies’ ability to create or save jobs! With December looms the deadline for folks…
News Release
Big Labor Tries to Retain Influence in Congress
Washington, D.C., November 4, 2010 — America has voted and the power in Congress has shifted. House Democrats who kowtowed to union special interests have…
Blog
Election 2010: Union Losses, Worker Gains
Yesterday’s election results will make it much more difficult for organized labor to advance its agenda in Congress. This is good news for the American…
Blog
A Bizarre Defense of High-Speed Rail
Perhaps “bizarre” is not the appropriate word, as Matthew Yglesias is employed by the Obama administration’s barely unofficial think tank/PR shop Center for American…
Citation
Contrarian Says U.S. Needs More H-1B Workers
Blog
Touting Government Failures As Successes: Chris Zimmerman and Metro
Arlington County Board member Chris Zimmerman is touting “his experience on the Metro Board of Directors, of which he is the longest-serving member.” This…
Citation
Contrarian Says U.S. Needs More H-1B Workers
Citation
Unions are Hijacking our Democracy
Citation
Think Tank Opposes Caps, Fees, Time Limit on H-1B Visas
Blog
Obamacare to Wipe Out 800,000 Jobs Through Work Disincentives
Obamacare is going to wipe out 800,000 jobs through its disincentives to work. That contrasts sharply with false claims by House Speaker Nancy…
Blog
The Stealthy Public Pension Time Bomb
As state and local government budgets have come under increasing stress, greater public attention has come to focus on government employees’ compensation. This greater scrutiny…
Citation
Fireman Strikes in Our Future
Blog
D.C. Minimum Wage Contributes to Decade of Heightened Unemployment
In a daring new approach to employment analysis, a report out today from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute advises implementing a higher minimum…
Blog
Washington Subway Terrorist Bomb Plot Leads to Arrest
Federal authorities arrested Farooque Ahmed for plotting to bomb the Washington Metro subway system. Ahmed, who immigrated from Pakistan, “conspired with people he thought…
Blog
Marlo Lewis on Hyundai’s Zero Emission Advertisment
Hyundai’s newest advertisement features their attempts at producing a “green” commercial. One of Hyundai’s slogans is “Prepare to want one,” yet as Marlo Lewis notes…
Blog
Common Sense Fact of the Day: Only 5 Countries Have Pension Systems That Can Survive (Hint: Not the USA)
This issue keeps showing up over the Internet, so it makes it an easy story to address: Most government pension programs are unsustainable. As…
Blog
Obama Pumps More Money into “High-Speed Rail” Boondoggles
The Department of Transportation announced today that another $2.4 billion is being doled out to high-speed rail projects around the country. This is on…
Blog
CBO: Obamacare Discourages Work
Even the Congressional Budget Office, which allowed supporters of Obamacare to hide its costs through gimmicks and dodges, admitted last “Friday that…
Blog
Clarity Regarding What the Left Believes
Recently, I wrote about french protesters shutting down France and destroying Paris. This is all due to the fact that Sarkozy is asking citizens…
Blog
The Nobel Case for Immigration
In today's American Spectator, my colleague Alex Nowrasteh and I make the case for expanding skilled immigration.
Citation
H-1B Visas: A Case for Open Immigration of Highly Skilled Foreign Workers
American Spectator
The Nobel Case for Immigration
Only 1 in 20 people on earth live in America. But Americans won 4 of 11 Nobel prizes this year. Last year, it was…
Blog
William Lind’s Absurd “Conservative Case” for More Transit [Waste]
Over at enviro-blog Grist, conservative William Lind is interviewed on the subject of transit. Lind is an anomaly of sorts in the center-right transportation camp in…
Blog
Unemployment Jumps Under Obama, Pelosi, and Reid
Unemployment averaged about 5.2 percent under both Clinton and Bush, but rose to an average of 9.43 percent under Obama (the current rate…
Blog
Government Unions Buying More Power
Yesterday The Washington Examiner showed how public sector unions are buying their power though campaign donations. In their excellent editorial “Public employee unions…
American Spectator
Union Campaigns Against Fast Food Industry Should Concern Young Workers and Consumers
Blog
Union Infringes on Freedom of Speech and Disses Military
While setting up for an Obama rally in California, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 33 fired, Duane Hammet, a stagehand union member for…
Blog
The Chevy Volt: Just Another Hybrid
It turns out GM wasn’t being completely honest when they touted the Chevy Volt as an all electric vehicle. From Edmunds: GM Lied: Chevy…
Blog
Starbucks Slowdown
Proof that inefficiency is not only for government: Starbucks ordered baristas to slow down this month, capping coffee production at 2 drinks at a time.
Blog
Mayo, Mustard, or Communism? Radical Union Tries to Organize Minneapolis Sandwich Shop
This morning voting started at nine Jimmy John’s restaurants in the Minneapolis area. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is attempting…
Blog
General Motors’ Losses Hidden by Deferral of Union Pension Obligations
Any General Motors bonds issued this year will be classified as junk by a key ratings agency. Why? There’s some risk GM will go…
Blog
Ray LaHood’s Smoke and Mirrors
This morning, The Wall Street Journal‘s Washington Wire quoted me “disapproving” of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s TIGER II grant picks. LaHood “countered” critics of…
Study
H-1B Visas: A Case for Open Immigration of Highly Skilled Foreign Workers
To bring workers they need into the United States, American companies sponsor their H1-B work visas. The rapid pace of technological and scientific development is…
American Spectator
CEI: Open Borders to High Skilled Workers
Blog
Exploiting the Poor: International Trade
On last week’s Stossel (no video available yet), was mentioned that rich countries gain their wealth through the exploitation of poor countries. Professor Marc Hill of Columbia University…
Blog
Exploiting the Poor: The Minimum Wage
Many people believe that the minimum wage is a major source of America’s prosperity. Actually as of 2009 only 4.9 percent of (employed) workers…
American Spectator
What Democrats Are Hiding & Why They’re Really Scared
Blog
Meager Part-Time Work Masks Unemployment
Unemployment is often masked by part-time work, since people who would prefer to work full-time are not treated as unemployed by government statistics if they…
American Spectator
Would You Like a Union With That, Comrade?
Workers at some of America’s fast food restaurants could be in for some interesting times soon. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is attempting…
American Spectator
Armageddon: What Democrats Are Hiding & Why They Are Really Scared
Blog
Killed by Pension Accounting
Think accounting rules are a boring topic? You wouldn’t if the fate of your business rested on it. Indeed, a rule change may be coming…
Blog
“Livability” versus Mobility: TIGER II
Since the early 1990s when advocates of so-called Smart Growth took control of federal transportation infrastructure policy, we have increasingly heard transportation projects described as…
Blog
Mackinac Appeals Court Decision that would Unionize Independent Home Daycare Workers
Yesterday, the Mackinac Institute of Michigan took another step in its lawsuit challenging the forced unionization of independent daycare workers. The litigation is in response…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on Public Sector Unions
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYSkSxWFWo8 285 234]…
Blog
Teacher Accountability in Public Schools
The second-largest teachers union in the country recently dropped its former president’s speeches from its website. Are they trying to hide the fact that their…
Blog
Government Workers Oppose Cuts in Government Jobs…Really
It turns out that government workers have a vested interest in opposing cuts in government jobs. Who knew, right? The Washington Examiner today ran…
Blog
New Jobless Claims Rise to 462,000
New applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 462,000, and unemployment is at 9.6 percent. Employers are reluctant to hire because of…
American Spectator
The Firemen Next Time
“So the question is, do you want to live in the kind of society in which this happens?” So wrote New York Times columnist…
American Spectator
Vincent Vernuccio on Public Sector Unions
Competitive Enterprise Institute Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio explains why unions are decreasing in the private sector…
Blog
A Moment on the Lips; A Lifetime on Pay Slips
New studies suggest that very thin women earn proportionately more money than do average-sized women. Comprising only women within 25lbs of doctor-recommended weight, the…
Blog
Status Quo Elitist Attacks Contrarians for Being Elitist Members of the Status Quo
Michael Lewyn, a law professor and anti-“sprawl” activist, has a post on Planetizen about how he and his ilk are supposedly unfairly maligned as…
Blog
Pension Insanity in France
Many people in France are waking up to the reality that they cannot sustain the welfare state indefinitely. Apparently, it isn’t economically feasible to have…
Blog
Our Driverless Future?
Google has been making headlines after the company revealed over the weekend that its driverless cars have logged nearly 140,000 miles on public roads…
Blog
Jobs: Created, Not Made
Welcome to October, the start of a new government fiscal year. 2010 was the year of “jobs created or saved.” Bank and business bailouts may…
Blog
Stimulus Money Went to Prisoners and Dead People
17,000 prison inmates received checks courtesy of the $800 billion stimulus package, notes the Associated Press. $18 million in checks went to dead…
Blog
CEI Weekly: United Auto Workers Shut Down GM Plant
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI staff. This week features Vincent Vernuccio's October 1st interview on Fox Business' Varney &…
Blog
How Not to Tackle Congestion
The Transport Politic’s Yonah Freemark today posted an article praising the anti-automobile policies of Paris’ Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoë and delivering what he seems to believe…
Blog
Private Employers Cut 39,000 Jobs in September
The private sector shed 39,000 jobs in September. Liberal journalists claim this was “unexpected.” This reveals their shaky grasp of economics. If you…
Blog
Vincent Vernuccio on Union Shutting Down GM Plant
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31i-rRUnMc8 285 234]…
Blog
Skilled Immigrants: More, Please
For every H-1B position requested, U.S. technology firms increase their employment by five workers. The government's artificial limit on skilled immigration is prolonging the recession.
Blog
Job Losses and Productivity Gains
I came across this chart tracking U.S. manufacturing jobs and U.S. productivity over the past 38 years (posted yesterday by Mark Perry). It’s worth…
Blog
Sharing Isn’t Caring
Late last month, Washington, D.C. launched its Capital Bikeshare (“CaBi” to its groupies) program to much acclaim from the usual suspects — New Urbanists and…
Blog
Texting on the Stygian Ferry
“Border collie jill surveying the view from atop the sand dune.” Those were the last words of Malibu plastic surgeon Frank Ryan, best known for…
Blog
CEI Weekly: CEI Hosts Labor Policy Reception
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI staff. This week features CEI's Labor Policy Reception.
American Spectator
Raise the H-1B visa cap
Rupert Murdoch’s and Michael Bloomberg’s testimony Thursday on Capitol Hill about immigration reform missed one timely and important mention. October 1st marks the beginning of…
American Spectator
Vincent Vernuccio on Union Shutting Down GM Plant
Competitive Enterprise Institute Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio explains how the UAW chose to shut down a GM plant in Indiana instead of accepting a…
Blog
New EPA Rules Will Cost More than 800,000 Jobs
New EPA rules will cost more than 800,000 jobs, probably far more, according to a newly released congressional report. That includes the EPA’s…
Blog
An Unpaid Internship at the White House
@whitehouse on Twitter alerted me this morning that applications for internships at the White House are due by October 3. I couldn’t help but look…
American Spectator
U.S. Citizenship: A Brass Ring for Terrorists?
Products
So. SEIU’s Andy Stern Leaving, or Pushed Out
Blog
Unfair ‘Paycheck Fairness Act’ Shafts Workers With Hazardous Jobs
We wrote earlier about the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill of Orwellian deception that would result in employees unfairly receiving equal pay…
Blog
Distracted Driving Kills, But What About Dysfunctional Policy?
The Obama administration, having succeeded in bringing about economic recovery and having nation-built a democratic Afghanistan, has set its sights on another pressing…
Blog
General Motors Now Admits It Didn’t Repay Bailout Money
Contrary to its claims in TV ads earlier this year, General Motors has now admitted that it did not repay…
Blog
Senators Challenge Administration’s Big Labor Giveaway
Despite all they have gotten from the Obama administration, many union leaders have vented their frustration over Democratic lawmakers’ failure to enact the unions’ top…
Blog
Michigan Child Care Workers May Get their Day in Court against Forced Unionization
Today, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered a lower court to explain its dismissal of a class action lawsuit challenging a forced unionization scheme for…
Blog
The Dead Weight Loss of Union Disputes
At Reason Hit & Run, Tim Cavanaugh provides a good observation on the ongoing dispute between the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and…
American Spectator
California’s Union War
Voting began Monday in one of the most disputed union elections in recent years. The contest pits the powerful Service Employees International Union…
American Spectator
The War Between SEIU and NUHW: What it Tells Us About Card Check
The battle between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) started coming to a close at several northern California…
Blog
Two Health Care Unions Battle Each Other for Members
Voting began today in one of the most disputed union elections in recent years. The contest pits the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU)…
Blog
Obama Administration Mandates More of the Risky Loans That Spawned the Mortgage Crisis
The federal government is now expanding the affordable-housing mandates that helped spawn the mortgage crisis by goading mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to…
