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
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…
News Release
April adds 177,000 jobs to economy, tariff policies yet to majorly shakeup labor market: CEI analysis
The job numbers for April show 177,000 jobs were added to the economy, with the unemployment rate staying steady at 4.2 percent. While job growth…
Blog
CEI suggests DOT put the brakes on train two-person crew rule
The Transportation Department recently asked the public for comments on how to reduce the regulatory burden. One thought that the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)…
Search Posts
Blog
Myths About Green Energy: The Truth Is, It’s Corporate Welfare That Destroys American Jobs
In The Washington Post, Robert Bryce debunks five myths about green energy: it won’t create jobs, won’t help the environment, and won’t make America…
Citation
Senate Considers Union Pension Bailout
Blog
Concessions Can Bridge Budget Gaps
In 1958, Chicago opened the 7.8-mile Chicago Skyway, an elevated tollway linking the downtown Chicago Loop with the Indiana Toll Road. Due to poor…
Newsletter
ClimateGate, Immigration and Discrimination Law
CEI files a lawsuit to force NASA to turn over documents relating to ClimateGate. The Department of Justice may sue over Arizona’s immigration law. The…
The Washington Times
Look for the Union Fable
Flanked by representatives from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, YRC Transportation and ABF Freight Systems, Sen. Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat, proposed a massive bailout…
Blog
California: Leading the Way in Failure
As one might expect of California, successful transportation public-private partnerships (P3s) face many government hurdles. In the early 1990s, the California Department of Transportation…
Blog
Get Spit On, Take Three Months Off
Last year, angry New Yorkers spit on bus drivers 51 times. The average driver took 64 days of paid leave to recover.
Opposing Views
NYC Bus Drivers Take 3 Paid Months Off After Passengers Spit on Them
New Yorkers have a reputation for being rude. But they are also a sensitive lot. Especially bus drivers. Last year, angry customers literally spit on…
Blog
Stimulus Package Increases Trade Deficit: Replaces U.S. Jobs with Foreign “Green Jobs”
The $800 billion stimulus package is shipping American jobs overseas. More than 79 percent of “green jobs” funding under the stimulus package went to…
Blog
The Increasing Role of Road Concessions
Increasing private sector involvement in transportation should be seen as a positive development. However, there are right ways to involve private firms, and…
Blog
Senate Passes Financial “Reform” Bill, 59-39; Will Wipe Out Jobs and Increase Credit Card Costs
The Senate has just passed a 1,500 page financial “reform” bill that deliberately leaves unreformed the corrupt mortgage giants that spawned the financial crisis–while…
Opposing Views
Mexican Hypocrisy? U.S. Neighbor Has Its Own Tough Take on Immigration
Newsletter
Immigration Reform, SCOTUS and “Market Fundamentalism”
The New York Times reports that younger people are more likely to favor liberalized immigration policy than the baby boomer generation. The Supreme Court’s decision…
Blog
Preempting State Pension Bailouts
Congress has long used its control of the federal government’s purse strings as a club with which to force states to change laws that fall…
Opposing Views
Immigration Reform Should Focus on Security
The recent arrest of Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bombing suspect, has reopened the debate on immigration and national security. Shahzad is an immigrant…
Blog
Radical Law Professor Goodwin Liu Approved as High-Ranking Judge by Senate Judiciary Committee, on Party-Line Vote
Radical law professor Goodwin Liu was approved to sit on the federal appeals court for the Ninth Circuit in a party-line, 12-to-7…
Newsletter
Drug Ads, Debit Card Fees and Labor Finances
The Food and Drug Administration moves to crack down on the advertising of prescription medicines for “off-label” uses. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) pushes for limits…
Blog
Democrats Block Reform of Corrupt Mortgage Giants; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Will Receive Billions More in Bailouts for Government-Sponsored Enterprises
In a party-line, 56-to-43 vote yesterday, Senate Democrats blocked any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the corrupt, government-backed mortgage giants that…
Blog
D.C. Rail Fetishists Propose “Free” Trolleys
If you believe the “city of northern charm and southern efficiency” is geared solely toward imposing stupid, expensive directives on the rest of the country,…
Blog
Taxpayers to Put Up Billions More for Bailouts of Greece and Corrupt Mortgage Giant
Government-sponsored mortgage giant Freddie Mac is demanding another $10.6 billion in bailouts, which the Obama administration is expected to give it. Obama’s so-called…
Blog
General Motors Accused of Fraud Over Misleading Claim That It Paid Back Taxpayers; CEI Files FTC Complaint
The Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a complaint today against General Motors with the Federal Trade Commission, over…
Opposing Views
GM’s Tricky Payback
President Obama’s tax-cheat treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, is trumpeting the fact that General Motors has paid back a small fraction of what taxpayers…
Blog
ObamaRail: Great for Railfans, Bad for Transportation
In 2000, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment (the “Monorail Initiative“) authorizing the creation of a high-speed intercity rail network. However, as the economy…
Newsletter
Anti-Immigration Backlash, Renewable Energy and Chris Horner’s “Power Grab”
California lawmakers call for economic sanctions against Arizona in retaliation for its new immigration law Documents show that Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi has…
Opposing Views
Seeing Red
On Monday in the Washington Times, Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger—a protégée of outgoing SEIU President Andrew Stern—defended her and…
Opposing Views
Conservatives, Disaster Awaits If We Don’t Embrace Immigration Reform
SB 1070, Arizona’s new and strict immigration enforcement law has torn a hole right through the center of American political discourse. Sold as an…
Opposing Views
Union Election May Signal a Shift in Strategy
Blog
Hypocritical California Government Boycotts Against Arizona Over Immigration Law
“Representatives at three levels of California government were quick to call for economic measures against neighboring Arizona this week in the wake of its…
Blog
“Nearly Two-Thirds of Americans Say the Stimulus Isn’t Working”
“Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not believe the $787 billion stimulus package the president passed last year has helped create jobs, according to a…
Opposing Views
General Motors Still Losing Billions (Letter to the Editor)
The Washington Times was right to criticize the Obama administration for its misleading hype about General Motors repaying $6.7 billion of the $50…
Blog
Supreme Court Overturns Ban on Cross; Gay-Marriage Opponents Will Lose Privacy Battle; Controversial Judicial Nominees; Wal-Mart Faces Mega-Lawsuit
In a splintered ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that a trial judge erred in issuing an injunction against a cross honoring veterans. It…
Opposing Views
Republicans Can Win the Immigration Reform Battle
Arizona’s new strict anti-immigration law SB 1070 is the most recent and loudest salvo in the immigration debate. President Obama and the Democratic leadership…
Blog
ObamaCare Vastly Expands IRS Red Tape and Power, Raises Medical and Insurance Costs, Taxes, and Deficits, and Harms Very Sick People
“Billions of more documents” will be have to be filled out by small businesses for the IRS so that a “spendthrift Congress can shake…
Newsletter
Illegal Immigration, SEC Porn and Financial Reform
Arizona’s new immigration bill has brought immigration reform to the forefront of national debate. The blogosphere is abuzz with the news that employees of the…
Opposing Views
Economists: Stimulus Didn’t Contribute to Economic Rebound
“The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government’s stimulus package and jobs bill had little to…
Reason
Legalize it (Immigration Edition)
American Spectator
Fixing America’s Immigration Black Market
From Arizona to the U.S. Senate, immigration is at the forefront of the national debate. Much of the concern revolves around this fact: There is…
Blog
“Economists: The Stimulus Didn’t Help”
“The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government’s stimulus package and jobs bill had little to do with…
Blog
The War of the SEIU Succession Is Over, or Is It?
The battle over who would succeed outgoing Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern (picture above, next to President Obama) appears to be over,…
Blog
Center-Right Coalition Letter Opposes Toxic Provisions in Dodd Bill
Below is a letter sent today to the Senate that was signed by several prominent groups in the Center-Right Coalition expressing “grave concerns about the…
American Spectator
Andy Stern’s Debts
Purple may be the official color of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), but Andy Stern is leaving the union deep in the red.
News Release
Gov. Brewer Signs Arizona Immigration Enforcement Bill
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Blog
Public Employee Unions’ Suffocating Grip on California
The current issue of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal features a must-read account of how government employee unions have turned California into “The Beholden…
Blog
General Motors Repays Tiny Portion of Taxpayers’ $50 Billion Bailout; Obama Backers Bash Critics of Bailout
President Obama’s tax-cheat treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, is trumpeting the fact that General Motors has paid back…
Blog
The Private Provision of Surface Transportation Infrastructure in the United States
Private sector involvement in surface transportation infrastructure is not new. Public and private turnpikes—roads that require the payment of a toll for passage—have existed for…
Newsletter
Salt Police, Pensions and Union Contracts
The FDA is launching a new initiative to limit the amount of salt in processed food. The White House task force on the middle class…
Blog
SEIU Recruits College Students as Muscle
At Biggovernment.com, the writer known as Liberty Chick offers a good, concise summary of the corporate campaign being waged by the Service Employees International…
Blog
Big Labor Pension Strategy: United States of Argentina?
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern made a big splash last week, when he announced his retirement from leading what is arguably America’s…
Blog
Taxpayers Take Another Hit from Obama; Administration Panders Yet Again to Big Labor
Taxpayers will pay billions more due to an executive order signed by President Obama that effectively restricts federal construction contracts to the minority of construction…
Newsletter
Unions, New Taxes and GM Crops
Andy Stern is leaving his post as head of the Service Employees International Union. The Obama Administration may soon propose a Value Added Tax (VAT).
