Worker Freedom
Business & Economics
The Biden Administration’s Push to Take One of California’s Worst Ideas Nationwide
The Biden administration has effectively declared war on gig work, with its Department of Labor proposing a new federal regulation inspired by California’s controversial AB 5 law that would limit people’s ability to be classified as independent contractors and work as they choose. As Bloomberg Law reports, “The US Labor Department’s new ...
Kerry Jackson
October 27, 2022
Blog
Los Angeles: the city that organized labor wrecked
Los Angeles kicked off its 2022 Indigenous Peoples Day celebration in inimitable style, with the release of a secret recording in which top Latino city officials are caught disparaging indigenous people – as well as African Americans, Armenians, Jews and (generally lost in the reporting) “white guys.” City Council President ...
Will Swaim
October 27, 2022
Blog
Carry a Stack of Studies? Moi?
This past week, Politico reported that our fellow think tankers (albeit left-leaning) at the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute were forming unions. I assumed that these think tanks were breaking ground, but it appears that they’re just playing catch-up. The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union had already successfully organized several prominent ...
Rowena Itchon
April 20, 2021
Blog
Supreme Court Hearing in Key Labor Case Could Impact Private Property Rights in California
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, a case regarding a California regulation that allows union organizers onto private farm property 120 days a year for three hours a day. The regulation specifies that organizers must not be disruptive and only speak with ...
McKenzie Richards
March 25, 2021
Blog
Trespassers Will Be Sued On Sight
When United Farm Workers organizers swarmed over a private farm in Dorris, Calif., during the 2015 harvest, it’s likely they had no fear of consequences. After all, unions enjoy a well-stocked basket of government-granted privileges and protections. Almost a half century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the United ...
Kerry Jackson
March 1, 2021
Blog
Big Agenda Facing Presidential Winner
As of this writing, we don’t know who has won the 2020 presidential election. Whoever wins, America’s next chief executive has many important policy decisions to make in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview of some of the big issues that the president will have to confront over the next ...
Tim Anaya
November 4, 2020
Blog
Another Victory for Worker Freedom
Last week, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that private sector unions can’t force workers to pay for union lobbying activities. Jeanette Geary, a Rhode Island nurse who is not a union member, waged a decade-long battle against the United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP), which collected funds ...
Rowena Itchon
September 24, 2020
Charter Schools
Warren’s ‘Big Fat Payoff to the Unions’ Education Plan
Recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren released her education plan titled “A Great Public School Education for Every Student,” but the scheme should have been named “My Big Fat Payoff to the Teacher Unions.” The publicity splash in Warren’s plan is her call to quadruple funding for the federal Title I program, which funnels ...
Lance Izumi
November 6, 2019
Commentary
Even post-Janus, worker freedom remains at risk in some states
The response by states to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Janus ruling, which said that it was unconstitutional to require non-union government workers to pay fees to public-employee unions, has ranged from underhanded attempts to save the unions’ bacon, to good-faith efforts to implement the spirit of the ruling. This dichotomy is ...
Lance Izumi
October 15, 2019
Blog
Celebrating Worker Freedom on Labor Day
On this Labor Day, we salute California’s hard-working men and women with a much-deserved three-day weekend while enjoying the unofficial end of the summer season. This Labor Day, we celebrate the fact that California’s public employees who don’t want to pay for their union’s political agenda, who don’t believe they ...
Tim Anaya
August 29, 2019
The Biden Administration’s Push to Take One of California’s Worst Ideas Nationwide
The Biden administration has effectively declared war on gig work, with its Department of Labor proposing a new federal regulation inspired by California’s controversial AB 5 law that would limit people’s ability to be classified as independent contractors and work as they choose. As Bloomberg Law reports, “The US Labor Department’s new ...
Los Angeles: the city that organized labor wrecked
Los Angeles kicked off its 2022 Indigenous Peoples Day celebration in inimitable style, with the release of a secret recording in which top Latino city officials are caught disparaging indigenous people – as well as African Americans, Armenians, Jews and (generally lost in the reporting) “white guys.” City Council President ...
Carry a Stack of Studies? Moi?
This past week, Politico reported that our fellow think tankers (albeit left-leaning) at the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute were forming unions. I assumed that these think tanks were breaking ground, but it appears that they’re just playing catch-up. The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union had already successfully organized several prominent ...
Supreme Court Hearing in Key Labor Case Could Impact Private Property Rights in California
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, a case regarding a California regulation that allows union organizers onto private farm property 120 days a year for three hours a day. The regulation specifies that organizers must not be disruptive and only speak with ...
Trespassers Will Be Sued On Sight
When United Farm Workers organizers swarmed over a private farm in Dorris, Calif., during the 2015 harvest, it’s likely they had no fear of consequences. After all, unions enjoy a well-stocked basket of government-granted privileges and protections. Almost a half century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the United ...
Big Agenda Facing Presidential Winner
As of this writing, we don’t know who has won the 2020 presidential election. Whoever wins, America’s next chief executive has many important policy decisions to make in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview of some of the big issues that the president will have to confront over the next ...
Another Victory for Worker Freedom
Last week, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that private sector unions can’t force workers to pay for union lobbying activities. Jeanette Geary, a Rhode Island nurse who is not a union member, waged a decade-long battle against the United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP), which collected funds ...
Warren’s ‘Big Fat Payoff to the Unions’ Education Plan
Recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren released her education plan titled “A Great Public School Education for Every Student,” but the scheme should have been named “My Big Fat Payoff to the Teacher Unions.” The publicity splash in Warren’s plan is her call to quadruple funding for the federal Title I program, which funnels ...
Even post-Janus, worker freedom remains at risk in some states
The response by states to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Janus ruling, which said that it was unconstitutional to require non-union government workers to pay fees to public-employee unions, has ranged from underhanded attempts to save the unions’ bacon, to good-faith efforts to implement the spirit of the ruling. This dichotomy is ...
Celebrating Worker Freedom on Labor Day
On this Labor Day, we salute California’s hard-working men and women with a much-deserved three-day weekend while enjoying the unofficial end of the summer season. This Labor Day, we celebrate the fact that California’s public employees who don’t want to pay for their union’s political agenda, who don’t believe they ...