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 harm is the process: Unconstitutional NLRB proceedings halted
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals threw a wrench into the gears of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week, and for good reason.
News Release
Federal appeals court rules on NLRB unconstitutionality
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals today issued a ruling suggesting the structure of the federal government’s top labor dispute regulator, the National Labor Relations…
Blog
Virginia regulations guarantee secret ballots for public sector union elections
New regulations from the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry on “Local Government Union Requirements and Employee Protections” became effective July 30, 2025. An…
Search Posts
News Release
Corporate Campaigns: How Unions Take the Secret Ballot Away from American Workers
Washington, D.C., May 18, 2012 – Labor unions are resorting to imtimidation strategies called “corporate campaigns” to strong-arm companies into eliminating the secret ballot in…
Citation
NLRB’s Ambush Rule Overturned For the Moment
From Bob Adelman’s article at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Nation: According to labor policy specialist Vincent Vernuccio at the Competitive…
News Release
New Smartphone App Gives Labor Union Info in Real Time
Washington, D.C., May 7, 2012 – CEI and Workplacechoice.org have launched a new smartphone application that gives citizen activists real-time information on labor union…
Blog
Court Slaps NLRB — Again
In yet another victory for workers and job creators, a federal district court has struck down the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) ambush election rule.
Op-Eds
The Flawed Case Against Immigration
We all know the buzzwords–no amnesty, no unfunded mandates, no immigrant welfare. Opponents of sensible immigration policy repeat these lines so often you’d think that…
Blog
Labor and Occupy: Comrades in Arms
CEI Brookes Warren Fellow Matt Patterson Featured in Openmarket.org The Washington Examiner is reporting that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is helping Occupy…
Blog
The Highway Bill and Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s Anti-P3 Propaganda
I've written extensively about federal surface transportation reauthorization, which is currently pending in conference. CEI, along with The Independent Institute and Reason Foundation,…
Blog
Austerity Is Mythical, But It Would Have Real Benefits
Left-leaning commentators are wrong to decry “austerity” in Europe, since, as the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes, such “austerity” is largely mythical: European nations have not…
Blog
PATTERSON AND KOVACS: Labor bosses demand their dues
CEI Policy analyst Trey Kovacs and CEI Warren Brooks Fellow Matt Patterson. Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/10/labor-bosses-demand-their-dues/ Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 10, 2012: Freeing Our Farms
Current immigration policy keeps many immigrants in dangerous black markets, raises food prices for consumers, makes it difficult for farmers to hire workers and create…
Blog
Legacy Risks
European and American political and private institutions have made many non-sustainable retirement promises over the last 50 years. These promises cannot be kept and that…
Washington Times
Labor Bosses Demand Their Dues
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. – United States Constitution, 13th Amendment…
Blog
Labor and Occupy: Comrades in Arms
CEI Warren Brookes Fellow Matt Patterson Featured in Openmarket.org The Washington Examiner is reporting that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is helping Occupy DC become…
Blog
Labor and Occupy: Comrades in Arms
The Washington Examiner is reporting that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is helping Occupy DC become a “more permanent fixture” of the Washington, D.C., landscape…
Blog
H-2A Visas: Open in Theory, Closed in Practice
[caption id="attachment_54582" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="An Immigrant Worker in Idaho"][/caption] “Our immigration problem’s not going away.” That was the title of my article for…
Washington Times
Immigration Policy is an Economic Meltdown Trifecta
Three seemingly unrelated news stories have converged to create a disturbing picture. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently unleashed another wave of intimidation against…
Washington Times
Our Immigration Problem’s Not Going Away
The Pew Hispanic Center’s recent report on the decline of unauthorized immigration has elicited a flood of responses. The report’s finding that “the net…
Blog
Law Professors: I’m Shocked to Find Gambling In This Casino!
Just as a character in Casablanca claimed to be shocked to find gambling in a casino, race-conscious employers typically deny that they considered race…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 3, 2012: Paving the Way for Innovation and Job Creation
Unemployment remains stubbornly high, more than three years after the financial crisis hit. John Berlau, CEI’s Senior Fellow for Finance and Access to Capital, suggests…
Blog
On May Day, Why Do We Still Have Unions?
Openmarket.org Big Labor and Occupy are using May Day protests in hopes of reinvigorating their movements. Unions are digging up the same old talking…
Blog
How Elites Milk Racial Preferences for Their Own Gain
One of the pitfalls of race-based affirmative action is that many disadvantaged people are less able to take advantage of it than the legal and…
Blog
On May Day, Why Do We Still Have Unions?
Big Labor and Occupy are using May Day protests in hopes of reinvigorating their movements. Unions are digging up the same…
Washington Times
Stakeholders Examine State Immigration Laws, Offer Solutions
From C-SPAN: The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) brought together legislators, law enforcement officers and activists to discuss solutions to immigration problems.
Washington Times
Flight Attendant Unionists Tell Customer To Drop Dead
Nerves are fraying as attempts to restructure American Airlines into a viable, freestanding company through the bankruptcy process drag on. Last week in Forbes, I…
Washington Times
Union Sues Indiana, Says Right-to-Work Law is Slavery
From Michael P. Tremoglie’s article on LegalNewsline: F. Vincent Vernuccio, labor policy counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, addressed this issue for the…
Blog
Student Loans Drive Up Tuition, Create Demographic Time Bomb and Higher-Education Bubble
Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds writes in the New York Post about how student loan programs have contributed to skyrocketing debt and rising defaults:…
Capital Research
Corporate Campaigns
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka once called a corporate campaign the “death of a thousand cuts.” He was referring to a type of union organizing strategy…
Capital Research
State Lawmakers Only Have Eyes for SB 1070
From Laurie Roberts’ column in The Arizona Republic: On Tuesday,Landfried’s group is joining with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Texans for Sensible Immigration…
Blog
Diversity Training Doesn’t Work, But It Persists Anyway, Due to Compulsion
Diversity training doesn't work, according to an article in Psychology Today. In it, Peter Bregman notes, “Diversity training doesn't extinguish prejudice. It…
Capital Research
There’s Nothing Libertarian About Arizona’s Immigration Law
“As a civil libertarian … I don’t want a police state. I want a reason to do something.” That was Arizona S.B. 1070 author Russell…
Blog
The Awful Truth about the Highway Bills
If you ever needed additional proof that the politics of Washington are not just broken, but soaked with gasoline and set ablaze in a ditch…
American Enterprise Institute
More Than Good Enough for Government Work
The American is the official magazine of the American Enterprise Institute. State lawmakers face an uphill battle in trying to bring their governments’…
Blog
What the Washington Post Cited: “Severe Shortage of Skilled Factory Workers As Government Encourages Students to Pursue White Collar Jobs”
The Washington Post cited my blog post, “Severe Shortage of Skilled Factory Workers As Government Encourages Students to Pursue White-Collar Jobs,” in a…
Blog
SB 1070 Summary: Read Arizona’s Controversial Immigration Law!
Arizona’s controversial immigration law -- SB 1070 -- heads to the Supreme Court this week. One can only hope that the Justices do a…
Blog
Super Mario Hasn’t Saved Italy’s Entrepreneurs
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is full of optimism these days. He has claimed to achieve “historic” reform in Italy’s labor market and to beat…
American Enterprise Institute
US Airways And American Airlines Seek A Deadly Embrace
As the legacy airlines limp toward oblivion crippled by expensive labor contracts, efficiency-killing work rules, and massive unfunded pension liabilities, word comes that the pilots,…
News Release
CEI to Score Senate Vote on NLRB Ambush Election Rule
Washington, D.C., April 23, 2012 – This week, the Senate is expected to vote on S.J. Res 36, the Joint Resolution of Disapproval to…
American Enterprise Institute
Right to Work
Vincent Vernuccio on Right to Work…
American Enterprise Institute
Labor Union Sues Indiana, Calls Working Alongside Nonunion Employees ‘Slavery’
From David Martosko’s article in The Daily Caller: Competitive Enterprise Institute labor policy counsel Vincent Vernuccio told the Mackinac Center that “it’s insulting to the…
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 19, 2012: Right to Work Laws and Compelled Speech
Indiana is becoming a right to work state, which means unions will no longer be able to force workers who don't want their representation to…
American Enterprise Institute
Compulsory ‘Free’ Speech
What is free speech? Is it the right to speak out and give money to causes, politicians and push ideas? Is it the ability to…
Blog
What the Redskins Can Teach Loudoun County
Proponents of Phase II of Dulles Rail often appeal to the notion that having a metro station marks a community as significant. Metro seems to…
American Enterprise Institute
Union PACs
Vincent Vernuccio on Union PACs…
Blog
Department of Transportation Bureaucrats Fail Tolling 101
Peter Samuel's extremely valuable TOLLROADSnews brings us this gem, "FHWA Office of Highway Policy Information - sloppy & stupid”: So under Toll Facilities, New…
Blog
Union Recalcitrance on Race Relations
Openmarket.org Recent events have exposed unions’ troglodytic views on race relations. Basically, unions seek to preserve the current racial makeup of their workforce, regardless of…
Blog
Union Recalcitrance on Race Relations
Recent events have exposed unions’ troglodytic views on race relations. Basically, unions seek to preserve the current racial makeup of their workforce, regardless of changes…
Blog
99% Spring: An Anatomy of Destruction
Openmarket.org The establishment left’s weeklong protest training, deemed the 99% Spring or Shareholder Spring, is an effort to train 100,000 activists in civil disobedience…
Blog
On the waterfront: Mob stench still fouls New York Harbor
CEI Policy Analyst Trey Kovacs and Research Associate Jack Mann Featured in New York Post As he tries to clean house at the bloated…
Blog
99% Spring: An Anatomy of Destruction
The establishment left’s weeklong protest training, deemed the 99% Spring or Shareholder Spring, is an effort to train 100,000 activists in civil disobedience to achieve…
Blog
Big Push for Costly “Comparable Worth” Legislation Coming? Lilly Ledbetter Returns to the Stage
Lilly Ledbetter, who made false claims about her pay discrimination lawsuit, has returned to the political arena, as you can see at…
