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
Inflation increased by 0.2 percent in November but year-over-year inflation remains above the Fed’s target
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for November showed a 0.2 percent increase in inflation across all sectors, lower than market expectations. But the…
News Release
US economy added 64,000 jobs in November but underemployment and stagflation cause concern: CEI analysis
The US Labor Department released its report today on jobs added to the economy in November 2025, a modest gain. But underemployment and the…
Blog
Court rejects New York bid to take over federal labor enforcement
An effort by the New York legislature to usurp the role of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the main federal labor law enforcement agency,…
Search Posts
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…
CEI Planet
CEI Planet: September – October 2009
To view this issue of the CEI Planet, please click here to download the PDF file. Below are selected articles from the September-October 2009 issue: …
The Cato Institute
Mr. Franken’s Arbitration Amendment
Kathleen Parker rightly criticized Sen. Al Franken’s amendment banning defense contractors from enforcing arbitration clauses [“The ‘rape supporter’ ploy,” op-ed, Oct. 25]. Although the…
Blog
False Claim About Justice Scalia from Liberal Reporter: No, He Didn’t Say He Would Have Voted to Uphold Segregation
Liberals are busy sending each other twitters falsely claiming that Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the more conservative members of the Supreme Court, said…
Blog
Obama Administration’s Pay Caps Reward Failure and Political Connections
The federal government has no problem paying exorbitant sums of money to people who head failed government agencies like Freddie Mac. Its CEO will receive…
Blog
Obama Accepts “Blasphemy” Exception to Free Speech
In USA Today, liberal law professor Jonathan Turley is criticizing the Obama administration for endorsing a “blasphemy” exception to free speech: “Around the…
Blog
Franken Uses Inflammatory Rape Claim to Destroy Arbitration of Employment Disputes, Including Disputes Totally Unrelated to Rape
Recently, the Senate voted to ban defense contractors — that is, much of American business — from contractually mandating arbitration of employment discrimination disputes. The…
Newsletter
Teacher Unions, Obama’s Climate Czar and Public Choice
Director Bob Bowden exposes corruption and waste in public schools in the new film The Cartel. Critics object to the potentially sweeping powers of President…
Blog
Defending free trade: the pending FTAs
The pending U.S. Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia are languishing in limbo, despite the fact that all three agreements will improve…
Blog
Eliot Spitzer Wants your Pension
Today, Slate features a rant by disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer that includes distortions and falsehoods so blatant that they wouldn’t merit…
Blog
How Much Harm Do Teacher Unions Do?
Plenty, according to the new film, The Cartel. The film purports to show “educational system like we’ve never seen it before. Behind every dropout…
Blog
More on Public Sector Unions
Slate blogger Mickey Kaus explains how public sector unions are driving state and local governments to the brink of bankruptcy (via Nick Gillespie at…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 60: Hybrid Car Noise
One advantage of hybrid cars is that they are quiet. Too quiet, some would say. Blind pedestrians may not hear a hybrid coming around the…
Blog
The Wages of Government Unions
The Economist‘s current Lexington column highlights the growing public resentment at the widening disparity between compensation and job security in the private and public…
The Cato Institute
Our Nobel Prize Winning Immigrants
Americans dominated the 2009 Nobel Prizes for the sciences. Eight of the nine winners were American citizens. What is even more striking is that…
The Cato Institute
Pomeroy’s Lucre for Labor
Rep. Earl Pomeroy, North Dakota Democrat, is drafting legislation that would amount to a massive, employer-crippling bailout for struggling union pensions. The congressman is trying…
The Cato Institute
ACORN’s Pension Shell Game
Blog
Unemployment Rises to 26-Year High of 9.8%; Obama’s Policies Worsen Unemployment and Credit Crunch
Unemployment has risen to 9.8 percent, a 26-year high. That’s much higher than the Obama administration predicted unemployment would rise, if Congress had refused…
Newsletter
Questionable Stimulus, EPA on CO2 and Underfunded Union Pensions
Experts question the economic wisdom of government stimulus spending. Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions point out the cost…
Blog
Stimulus Packages Don’t Work; Obama’s $800 Billion Stimulus Will Shrink the Economy
“Stimulus” packages that increase government spending don’t work, notes Harvard economist Robert J. Barro in the Wall Street Journal. The administration claimed that Obama’s…
The Cato Institute
High-Stakes Board Games: What Obama’s NLRB Might Do for Big Labor
News Release
Labor Unions Aim to Roll Back Pension Protections, Ramp Up Political Investments
Labor Unions Aim to Roll Back Pension Protections, Ramp Up Political Investments Pensions Should Invest to Profit Workers – Not Promote Union Politics…
