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
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…
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…
Search Posts
Blog
New York Snow Debacle Shows: It’s Government Unions vs. Taxpayers
The longstanding alliance between Democratic politicians and government employee unions has come under increasing strain, as I recently noted in a Washington Times op…
Blog
Media Continue Spreading High-Speed Rail Misinformation
Following the Obama administration’s decision to revoke Ohio and Wisconsin’s High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Program funding that was included in the American Recovery…
Blog
Update on D.C. Metro Bag Inspections
Last night, a crowded audience gathered at the WMATA headquarters to discuss the recent decision to begin randomly screening passengers bags for potential explosives. It…
Blog
Highway Trust Fund’s Funding Guarantees are the Problem
Streetsblog laments incoming Republicans’ alleged attempt to “hoard” Highway Trust Fund dollars as a budget gimmick. At issue is a proposed change to…
Op-Eds
Rekindling The American DREAM
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) died a slow death before Christmas, failing to gain the 60 votes necessary to…
Blog
TSA’s High Failure Rate Is the Least of its Problems
If policymakers were rational, they would give twenty times more attention to lightning strike prevention than to terrorism. But they aren't, and they don't.
Blog
Union Holds New York Hostage
Public anger over New York City’s botched snow plowing effort this week has turned to the city’s sanitation workers union — for good reason.
Blog
The College Diploma Fraud and Its Consequences
Retired professor Robert Weissberg has a fascinating article at The American Thinker called “The College Diploma Fraud.” It describes how worthless many college degrees have…
Citation
Union Snow Cleanup
CEI Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio discusses the union impact on the NYC snow cleanup.
Blog
Alfred E. Kahn, 1917-2010
The man behind airline deregulation passed away yesterday at age 93. Let us learn from his example of a life well lived.
Blog
Time for Big Cuts in Education Spending?
America spends far more on education than countries like Germany, Japan, Australia, Ireland, and Italy, both as a percentage of its economy, and in absolute…
Blog
The Streetcar Delusion: Minneapolis Receives Funding to Bolster Wasteful Rail Transit
Delusional Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood continues to flush taxpayer dollars down the toilet on increasingly idiotic rail programs. The latest example of LaHood’s anti-mobility…
Blog
The Obama Administration’s Misguided War on For-Profit Colleges
In Forbes, economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University documents the blunders behind the Obama administration’s war on for-profit colleges that wiped out $8 billion…
Blog
CEI Podcast — December 21, 2010: What’s Next for Immigration Reform?
CEI Policy Analyst Alex Nowrasteh goes over the good and the bad of the DREAM Act, which recently stalled in the Senate, and offers his…
Study
Allow Immigrants to Help Fill America’s Need for Workers
Congress should implement more flexible, less restrictive immigration laws, with the ultimate goal of an immigration system that lets law-abiding workers from anywhere fill any…
Study
Allow Workers and Employers to Work without Burdensome Regulation
Full Document Available in PDF One of America’s greatest economic…
Citation
Public Employee Unions Bankrupting States
CEI Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio discusses who will confront public employee unions over their unsustainable pensions.
Blog
Rip-Off: College Tuition Bubble and Debt Burdens Grow Worse
Forbes magazine recently blew the whistle on how skyrocketing college tuition is ripping off the public. Thanks to some colleges’ greed, and the federal and state financial…
Blog
High-Speed Rail as the New Political Football?
Over at National Journal‘s Transportation Experts blog, Fawn Johnson asks whether or not high-speed rail has become a new political football in the United…
Blog
Live Blogging: “Fixing The World Economy: Stresses And Solutions”
This is a Live Blog of a Thomson Reuters Event on “Fixing the World Economy.” The speakers are Dominique Strauss-Kahn, International Monetary Fund and Chrystia…
Blog
Useless College Degrees Proliferate; Millions Waste Lives in Academic Bubble
“Do we need more college grads?,” asks John Leo in Minding the Campus. The answer is surely no: a study highlighted in the Chronicle…
Citation
Construction Costs Could Rise in Louisiana if Union Plan Advances
Op-Eds
Democrats Diverging From Unions
Government employee unions have long been one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal and dedicated constituencies. For years, Democratic politicians have supported public employee unions’…
Blog
Unemployment Benefits Keep People from Working
Wintery Knight has an interesting discussion of how unemployment benefits keep people from working, drawing on coverage from The New York Times and academic…
Citation
Wal-Mart Case Bigger Than Company
Blog
More Disincentives to Work, Thanks to the Federal Government and the Stimulus Package
Thanks to food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies, and other welfare benefits, many “poor” people have far more disposable income than self-supporting households earning $40,000…
Blog
Are Government Employee Unions Losing the Democrats?
Government employee unions have long been renowned as one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal and dedicated supporting constituencies. For years, Democratic politicians have supported…
Blog
New Fast Food Restaurants Banned in South Los Angeles
New fast-food restaurants are now banned in South Los Angeles. Say goodbye to many entry-level jobs in that poor urban area. The cockamamie idea behind this ban is…
Blog
Stimulus Impact: Zero, or Less Than Zero?
In The Wall Street Journal, economists John F. Cogan and John B. Taylor argue that the impact of the $800 billion “Obama stimulus” was…
Blog
17 Million Unnecessary College Degrees; Obama Administration Seeks to Increase the Number
In America today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees. Over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees. So do thousands of janitors.
Blog
Supreme Court to Hear Wal-Mart v. Dukes
The Supreme Court voted to hear Wal-Mart v. Dukes, granting Wal-Mart’s petition for certiorari. The Supreme Court will decide whether a class-action rule…
Blog
Deal to Explode Deficits by $900 Billion Will Burden States and Employers With More Unemployment Costs
President Obama and Republican leaders reached a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years — and temporarily reduce social security payroll taxes…
Blog
Why D.C. Metro Escalators Are Always Broken: Incentives Matter
For Washingtonians wondering why Metro is always on the fritz, check out my piece over at The Examiner about how WMATA unions pay employees…
Blog
Seattle Land-Use Regulation Liberalization Redux
Stephen Smith of Market Urbanism responds to my response to his question, asking if I thought Seattle’s proposed land-use liberalization bill was a…
Citation
Vincent Vernuccio on Federal Worker Pay
CEI Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio discusses the truth about President Obama's recent pay freeze for federal employees. Many workers will still see their pay…
Blog
Unemployment Jumps to 9.8 Percent; Stimulus and New Regulations Wipe Out Jobs
Unemployment has jumped to 9.8 percent. The population has grown recently, but the number of jobs has remained virtually flat. The White House…
Blog
The College Debt Bubble: Is It Ready to Explode?
“Is the College Debt Bubble Ready to Explode?,” asks Laura Rowley at Yahoo! Finance. College tuition has skyrocketed much more than housing did during…
Citation
Best of the Web Today: Daffy Ducks
Citation
The Not So Big Chill
Citation
Vincent Vernuccio on the Federal Pay Freeze
CEI Labor Policy Counsel Vincent Vernuccio explains how President Obama’s recent pay freeze will still allow pay…
Blog
Seattle Land Use Liberalization Bill Fails to Address Key Problems
Stephen Smith of Market Urbanism asked me what I thought of proposed legislation in Seattle that would remove some restrictions on land use…
Blog
Federal Pay Freeze Discussion: Pointlessly Partisan
This week the White House announced its brave new plan to fix the economy: Freezing the salaries of federal employees. But wait! This is…
Op-Eds
Federal workers will still receive raises despite pay freeze
Among the many suggestions for deficit reduction in the recently released Fiscal Commission report is a 15 cents-per-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax. This…
Op-Eds
Federal workers will still receive raises despite pay freeze
Appeared in: Yahoo! News, FoxNews.com President Obama’s proposal of a pay freeze for federal employees is a small step towards curbing government spending.
American Specator
Not Triangulation but Regulation
American Spectator discuss regulations with CEI's Vincent Vernuccio, Myron Ebell, and Wayne Crews. Democrats failed miserably in legislative attempts to eliminate the secret…
American Specator
Union Officials Spend More on Politics than Representation
Blog
An Intrusive, Ineffective, Unionized TSA?
Much has been written about the backlash against the TSA’s intrusive new screening methods. Law professor Jeff Rosen has argued that they violate…
Blog
America’s Wealthiest County Used Bailout Money to Give Teachers a Paid Vacation
The richest county in America, Loudoun County, Virginia, used money from the Obama administration’s $10 billion teacher-bailout program to give teachers a…
Blog
TSA Backlash Directed at Failed Screening Methods, Not Airport Security
Contrary to what mouth-frothing Obama apparatchiki claim, critics of the current TSA screening practices are not hyper-partisan corporate shills. Nor are we irrationally…
Blog
Unions Still Hampering Free Trade
Watching politicians stammer on in attempts to justify short-sighted policy never gets boring. The interview referenced by Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady…
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