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
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,…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Questioning the AI jobs doomsday with Sean Higgins
In this week’s episode we cover making home appliances great again, fighting price controls on health care, research on AI-fueled…
Blog
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,…
Search Posts
Blog
Honoring Entry-Level Positions
Today, as has been publicized for weeks now, fast-food workers across the country are expected to walk off the their jobs. The union organized movement…
Huffington Post
Don’t Let Entrepreneurs Become a Casualty of the Immigration Impasse
Eberhard Anheuser came to America as a soap and candle maker in 1842. When he died, his company had pioneered the pasteurization of beer. Marcus…
Huffington Post
Activists and workers protest minimum wage and working conditions at fast food restaurants across Boston
Critics of the fast food protest movement say that the minimum wage was never meant to support a family and that the government should not…
Study
America Still Needs a True Entrepreneurship Visa
Immigrant entrepreneurs have long helped drive America’s economy. However, bureaucratic restrictions make coming to America to start a new business extremely difficult, and the current…
News Release
America Needs More Immigrant Entrepreneurs
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 28, 2013 – As Labor Day approaches, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is spotlighting one of the hardest working groups of…
Blog
Playing Politics with Public Pensions
Many public pension plans around the nation are severely underfunded. The 2008 financial crisis, which wiped out many pension investments, has focused the public’s and…
Blog
Lobbyists at the State Public Trough
Who is a public employee? The answer to that should be simple: Someone who works directly for a government entity. But in 20 states, the…
Blog
Union Special Privilege Under Scrutiny
In response to a Miami Herald report, a Miami-Dade County Commissioner is sponsoring legislation to eliminate or reduce the practice of allowing government employees…
Blog
President Obama: Cut Law School from Three Years to Two
President Obama, a lawyer who once was a lecturer at the University of Chicago, recently urged law schools to reduce the length of study from three years…
Blog
Big Labor versus the Obama Administration
In the 2012 federal election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 91 percent of labor unions campaign funds went to Democrats. One would…
Blog
Court Strikes Down another Obama NLRB appointment
If you cant' get legislation through Congress, then make policy through regulation. Until the courts get in the way. The former has been the Obama administration's…
Blog
Fast Food Workers Should Be Wary of Union Tactics
A Big Labor backed coalition is calling for a nationwide strike among fast-food workers on August 29. The walkout is part of a larger campaign,…
Blog
Worker Centers Need Oversight
In response to Rep. John Kline and Phil Roe’s letter to the Department of Labor asking for a determination whether or not “worker centers” should…
Blog
Detroit’s Pension Fight: Coming to a City Near You?
The bankruptcy of Detroit is an unusual event, but its uniqueness lies mainly in its severity. Municipal governments across the nation are struggling to bring…
Huffington Post
United Auto Workers fairy tales
Once upon a time, in Chattanooga a young girl made her way to work, picking flowers to add to her basket of posies which she…
Blog
Labor Unions Blast Obama’s American Airlines-US Airways Merger Lawsuit
Last Tuesday, the Department of Justice and six state attorneys general filed suit to block the planned merger of American Airlines and US Airways. I…
Blog
Labor Department Meddles in California Transit Dispute
California public transit unions seem to have found a new, powerful bargaining tactic: If you don’t get your way in the legislature, threaten your state’s…
Blog
3 Things You May Not Know about the US Airways-American Airlines Merger Lawsuit
On Tuesday, August 13, the Department of Justice, six states, and the District of Columbia filed suit to block the planned $11 billion merger…
Blog
Let in More Foreign Doctors to Fix Looming Shortage of Physicians Aggravated by Obamacare
“Bring on the foreign doctors,” writes Slate’s Brian Palmer: If President Obama’s health care reform plan is implemented in its current form, the United…
Blog
ALEC Puts Forth Ideas for State Pension Reform
Public awareness of the scope of the state public pension crisis seems to be growing every day. That's a welcome development, in that it has…
Blog
CEI Podcast for August 15, 2013: Justice Department Blocks Airline Merger
Fellow in Land-use and Transportation Studies Marc Scribner thinks the charges are overblown, and has ideas of his own for increasing competition.
Blog
Federal Income-Based Repayment Plan Encourages Skyrocketing Law School Tuition
A recent item in The Washington Post explains "how Georgetown Law gets Uncle Sam to pay its students’ bills," averaging $158,888 over three years,…
Cleveland
NLRB, Now With All Members Confirmed by Senate, Begins First Week Reviewing Labor Cases
This week marked the first in a decade in which all five National Labor Relations Board members were confirmed by the U.S. Senate. . .
Blog
Florida’s Unwrapped Gift to Taxpayers
People who don’t do their jobs are usually held accountable, right? Not if you work for Miami-Dade County. Robert Akras, a Miami-Dade County property surveyor…
Blog
Senate Immigration Bill Authorizes E-Verify as Surveillance Tracking
The Senate immigration bill (S. 744) is immense, so most Americans (and, more importantly, journalists) can be forgiven for missing the part that authorizes…
Blog
Not Going Gently: Rogue NLRB Lands One More Blow
For the first time in a decade, the National Labor Relations Board is composed of five legitimately appointed members. However, one of the last decisions…
Cleveland
Uber Wars
Instead of playing favorites with existing cab services that are resistant to change, city officials should encourage competition, Matt Patterson, a labor-policy analyst with the…
Blog
Senate NLRB Deal Backfires on GOP…Again
Just over a week ago, Democrats suckered Republicans into a deal to avert what Senator Harry Reid referred to as the “nuclear option” that would…
Blog
The Misleading Push for the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Last year, the Senate did not ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with supporters falling just short of the two-thirds…
Blog
‘Universal’ Health Care Universally Loathed
Once upon a time labor unions and all their Labor Bosses loved Obamacare. But not anymore. Unions are slowly opening their eyes and accepting the…
Blog
Raul Labrador’s Sane Immigration Policy Reflects His “Libertarian Streak”
Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) has led the effort in the House to fix immigration laws in the most conservative and free market way possible.
Blog
Detroit Bankruptcy Focuses Attention on Public Pensions
For people watching it from afar, the bankruptcy of Detroit — the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history — may have brought a sense of…
Blog
Meet the New Boss(es): NLRB Nominees Clear Senate
Well, it's official: We finally have a fully staffed National Labor Relations Board. On July 30 the Senate, as part of a deal worked out…
Blog
House National ID E-Verify Bill: 6 Dangerous Provisions it Includes (And 5 Worker Protections it Excludes)
The House of Representatives has passed out of committee a bill (H.R. 1772) to mandate E-Verify electronic employment verification for all employers. This bill…
Blog
House National ID E-Verify Bill: 5 Worker Protections it Excludes (And 6 Dangerous Provisions it Includes)
The House of Representatives has passed out of committee a bill (H.R. 1772) to mandate E-Verify electronic employment verification for all employers. This bill…
Blog
Not Lovin’ It: Angry Fast Food Workers Strike
"Hold the burgers, hold the fries, make our wages supersize!" This is one of the many chants shouted by the thousands of fast food workers…
Blog
Big Labor and NLRB Tactics Evolve
With total union membership at its lowest rate since 1916, Big Labor is desperate to organize non-union workers. Labor unions latest approach comes in the…
Blog
The Rip-Off that Is Occupational Licensing
Occupational licensing rules allow trade schools in some states to force students to attend them, enabling the schools to charge students lots of tuition for…
Blog
Is the AFL-CIO Biting off More than it Can Chew?
Organized labor has long been a major force within the broader progressive coalition at the Democratic Party’s left wing. Unions regularly work with environmental and…
Blog
Empire of Rust: How the UAW Killed Detroit
On Detroit’s east side, the abandoned Packard automaking facility looms tomb-like over 40 acres of once-prime real estate, its hollow buildings ringed with mounds of…
News Release
IRS Employees on Obamacare: “Not For Me, Thanks”
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 26, 2013 – IRS employees aren’t big fans of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—at least, not as far as it concerns their…
Blog
CEI Podcast For July 25, 2013: The UAW And Chattanooga
The United Auto Workers union is campaigning to organize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Senior Fellow Matt Patterson talks about his recent trip to…
Blog
More Economic Suffering Due to Obamacare
The Washington Post reports on the ever-growing number of people losing wages and facing pay cuts due to the 2010 healthcare law: For Kevin…
Blog
End Of Compulsory Dues Has Led To Plummeting Union Membership In Wisconsin
Gov. Scott Walker “can deny that he wanted to weaken public sector unions, but whatever his motivation, that’s what has happened.” Thus concluded an eye-opening…
Blog
California Close to Granting Big Labor Protections from Disclosure
California is going where only two other progressive bastions—Maryland and Illinois—have gone before in terms of providing unions with special privileges. If Assembly Bill 729…
Blog
Public Forum Re-cap: Chattanooga, UAW & Free Markets
WPC’s Matt Patterson was invited to speak at a public event about the possible costs and consequences Tennessee might face should the United Auto Workers…
Blog
D.C. Council Bows to UFCW, Votes No on Walmart, Yes to High Prices
Washington, D.C., has some of the highest living costs in the country. Its metro area contains six of the nation’s ten wealthiest counties, making it…
Blog
Motor City Runs Out of Gas
And here it is, the news we’ve all been expecting: The Motor City has finally sputtered to a halt. On Thursday July 18, 2013, the…
Blog
Time To Make Federal Employees Accountable
Government labor unions have long been able to conduct union business while on the job and on the taxpayer dime, under a little-known policy called…
Blog
The Million-Dollar Bus Stop Breaks
A new cooling fan should arrive in the next two weeks. Until then, the super stop will be a bus stop like any other, unless…
Staff & Scholars
Sean Higgins
Research Fellow
- Deregulation
- Labor and Employment
Ryan Young
Senior Economist and Director of Publications
- Antitrust
- Business and Government
- Regulatory Reform
Ivan Osorio
Editorial Director
- Labor and Employment
Iain Murray
Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow
- Banking and Finance
- Trade and International