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
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…
Blog
Initiative 82 will hopefully get 86’d
The city of Washington, DC has belatedly realized that passing a law whose purpose is to make a product or service more expensive will cause…
The Daily Signal
How Many Biden Appointees ‘Burrowed in’ to the Permanent Bureaucracy?
The Daily Signal cited CEI’s expert on political career placements Sean Higgins, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, also highlighted the threat of…
Search Posts
Blog
TSA Praises Itself After Year of Security Lapses; Obama Administration Backs TSA Unionization at Public Expense
In a year-end message to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff, the agency praised itself for a “very good year” in airline…
Blog
MI Senate not “FAIR” and it’s a good thing
The Michigan Senate recessed last week without passing the proposed insurance reforms that would, among other things, prevent insurers from using factors such as…
Newsletter
Fewer Hurricanes, Union Lobbying and the Individual Mandate
Financial losses from natural catastrophes decline significantly from 2008. Labor unions continue to lobby for the mis-named Employee Free Choice Act. Health care legislation may…
The Economist
Letter to the Editor in the Economist
SIR – Public-sector unions have entrenched their privileges through a combination of political dynamics that have proven extremely difficult to overcome. For example,…
Blog
Say No to EFCA in 2010
Given the amount of palm-greasing that was required to get reluctant moderate Democratic senators to vote to end debate on Obamacare, it's unlikely that those…
The Economist
No Government in the Bedroom
Three cheers for the judge in Los Angeles who dismissed the petition to mandate condom use in adult films. While the spread of sexually…
Blog
Michigan’s population leak
In a preview to the 2010 census, Michigan learned this week that it was one of only three states to lose members of its…
Blog
Terrorist Charged After Trying to Blow Up Plane; Government Undermines Airline and Railroad Security
An alleged terrorist from Nigeria has been charged with plotting to blow up an airliner. He carried explosives onto a plane…
The Economist
Comprehensive Redux
The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act (CIR ASAP) was introduced last week by Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois…
Blog
An unhappy ending for CA’s adult film industry?
One reason people enjoy pornography (apart from the obvious benefit) is that it allows them to fantasize about activities in which they cannot or do…
Blog
FDIC Prepares for “an even-larger number of bank failures” in 2010
[T]he increase is intended to “ensure that [they] are prepared to handle an even-larger number of bank failures” in 2010.
Blog
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Helps Highly Skilled Immigrants
Section 320 of the The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 H.R. 4321 (CIR ASAP) is fantastic. It exempts…
Newsletter
Immigration, Smoking Bans and Sarbanes-Oxley
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) introduces comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The Colorado Supreme Court upholds a ban on smoking in stage performances. The battle over the…
Blog
The Economist on Government Employee Unions
The current issue of The Economist leads off its United States section with a story on public sector unions that breaks down the issue very…
News Release
Comprehensive Immigration Bill Helps H-1Bs, But Hurts All Employers
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill a Mixed Bag Bill Helps H-1Bs, But Hurts All Employers Washington, D.C., December 15, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute obtained an…
Newsletter
EPA Power Grab, Antitrust for Insurance and an Immigration Stimulus
The Environmental Protection Agency finds that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. The Senate may vote to repeal health insurance companies’ longstanding exemption from…
The Economist
Immigration Limits Don’t Protect Us
Patrick J. Buchanan’s "Halting immigration would be an instant stimulus package" (Dec. 9) blithely ignores economic reality when he states that a moratorium on…
Blog
Tarp the TARP and give small biz relief from Sarbanes-Oxley and other burdensome regs
Statement of John Berlau, Director of CEI’s Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs, on extending TARP for small business and on Rep. Barney Frank’s plans to…
Blog
Did Deregulation Cause the Great Recession?
Over at RealClearMarkets, I explain why the answer is a resounding no. Over 30,000 total new rules passed during the Bush years. Hardly any were…
Newsletter
Credit Card Fees, Immigration Reform and Heading off an EPA Power Grab
The U.S. looks to Australia’s experience with regulating credit cards fees. Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs softens his longtime anti-immigration stance. Environmental groups petition the…
The Economist
Let Immigrants Power America’s Scientific Prowess
The melee surrounding President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize distracted everyone from another potential Nobel controversy. Of the eight American citizens who received Nobel…
Study
Organization Man
How Andrew Stern Plans to Transform the Union Movement…
The American Spectator
SEIU as Driving Force Behind the Employee Free Choice Act
The American Spectator
Beyond Card Check
Blog
“Would ObamaCare Reduce Innovation?”: Health Care Bill Would Cause Preventable Deaths
“Would ObamaCare Kill Medical Innovation?” That’s the question posed by health care expert Michael Cannon. His answer is yes: “President Obama’s…
The Cato Institute
Vallejo Con Dios
Full Study Available In PDF Study Co-Authored by: Don Bellante and David Denholm Rates of unionization in the United States today are…
Blog
How Capitalism and Property Rights Saved the Pilgrims From Starving
Law professor llya Somin notes a “lesson of the original Thanksgiving: that the Pilgrims nearly starved to death because…
The Cato Institute
More Cowbell
How do you turn a company from a small Internet start-up into a billion-dollar-a-year business? We wish we knew, but we can tentatively say…
Blog
Moderates Criticize Health Care Bill As It Advances in Senate; Experts Gave Bill A “Failing Grade”
On Saturday, the Senate voted 60-to-39, along party lines, to press towards passage of a massive health care bill, by blocking a…
Newsletter
Health Care in the Senate, Hacking Climate Research and a Union Power Grab
The Senate advances Democrat-sponsored health care legislation in a party-line vote. Hacked emails from a leading climate change research center reveal questionable practices and methods.
Blog
Healthcare Bill Advances in Senate, Despite Receiving Failing Grade from Health Experts; Democrats Block Filibuster in Party-Line Vote
The healthcare bill is on the verge of passing the Senate, despite the fact that it has received a failing grade from healthcare experts like…
Blog
Legal Challenge to Michigan Union Power Grab
With the Detroit auto industry floundering, the United Auto Workers is turning its attention to…day care provider. And to do so, the UAW partnering with…
Newsletter
FDA’s Tobacco Powers, Credit Card Fees and Cult-like Union Behavior
Anti-tobacco activists observe the “Great American Smokeout.” The Government Accountability Office finds that controlling credit card processing fees could hurt consumers. Union officials are accused…
Blog
“Cultlike” Union Organizing Tactics?
The row between the UNITE-HERE hospitality and textile union and Workers United — which broke away from UNITE-HERE earlier this year and joined the powerful…
The Cato Institute
The UAW’s Shell Game
The United Autoworkers (UAW) and GM are asking the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for a chance to play the old shell game. In back…
Blog
Senate Committee Rubberstamps Left-Wing Ideologue to Head Powerful OSHA Agency Despite His Anti-Gun and Pro-Junk-Science Views
David Michaels, a left-wing ideologue who supports junk science and seeks to restrict gun possession, has been approved by the Senate Health Committee…
Blog
Stimulus Package Creates Imaginary Jobs, Destroys Jobs in the Real World
President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package creates imaginary jobs, while destroying ones in the real world. Billions from the stimulus…
Blog
Labor’s Day at the Federalist Society
Workers may get violent if their wages are cut. The United Auto Workers union (UAW) has a monopoly and was an anchor on the…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 73: Snow Globes as Terrorist Threat
Yes, larger snow globes probably violate the TSA’s three-ounce limit for liquids. But they are not bombs. They are, in fact, snow globes.
Newsletter
Intel Reaches a Deal, Mandatory Purchase Health Care and Union Feuds
Chip makers Intel and AMD reach a deal over antitrust and patent disputes. Democrat-sponsored health care legislation continues to include a “mandatory purchase” requirement for…
Blog
Obama Administration Hits Brakes on Project Labor Agreement
The Obama administration this week called off bidding on what would have been a union-friendly federal construction project bidding process, in response to a contractor complaint over…
Blog
SEIU’s California Scheming V
The bitter ongoing fight between the national leadership of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the former leadership of a SEIU Oakland, California, health…
The Cato Institute
Union Pension Bailout Bill Would Burden Employers and Taxpayers
Blog
The government forgot about hiring the vet
With unemployment up yet again, it must be reassuring to Americans that job-seeking veterans are being helped so much by the government, and by all…
Blog
Get more doctors — get rid of H-1B visa cap
CEI’s champion of letter-writing, Alex Nowrasteh, has a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal today advocating removing the cap on H-1B…
Blog
Unemployment Skyrockets: “U.S. now beating European unemployment rates”
Unemployment is now higher in the U.S. than in Europe, reports the Washington Post. “The official U.S. unemployment rate, reported last Friday, now stands…
Blog
Poor Ford – They Thought They Were Operating in the Market
The Washington Times, “Greedy Autoworkers,” editorializes the overwhelming rejection of the UAW’s proposed labor agreement. Unlike GM and Chrysler, Ford elected to reject the…
Newsletter
Cybersecurity, Tariffs and Union Elections
The Department of Homeland Security opens a new operations center to battle cyber attacks. The federal government continues to add tariffs to inexpensive consumer goods…
Blog
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Change the Rules.
From attempting to manipulate the definition of “supervisor” to changing the way in which workers are organized, the above seems to be a…
Blog
Recession Over? Don’t Hold Your Breath
There is a clear political incentive for Geithner and others to make efforts to convince us that this economic slump is over. It is unfortunate…
