September 2013

Nine of the Top 10 States For 2002-2012 Private-Sector Job Growth Have Right to Work Laws

Total full-time and part-time employment by industry (SA25, SA25N) Compensation of employees by industry (SA06, SA06N) Today the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) issued its initial estimates for total 2012 private-sector, nonfarm employment in the 50 states. The BEA simultaneously issued revised estimates for overall state personal income and an array of…

Big Labor’s Tacit Alliance With Tech Elitists Is Bizarre

Twitter And The Real Economy Of Jobs Four times a year, the nonpartisan Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) calculates and publishes indices ranking each of the 50 states with regard to their cost of living relative to the national average. MERIC’s indices consistently show that, on average, the cost of living is substantially…

Union Bosses Monopoly-Bargaining Privileges a Means of Controlling NonMembers

Fact Sheet: Union Monopoly Bargaining Contracts Hurtful In a fact sheet now available for reading or downloading from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research web site, I explain why vast numbers of union nonmembers and reluctant union members who are legally compelled to accept the officers of a single union as their monopoly-bargaining agents…

Fact Sheet: Union Monopoly Bargaining Contracts Hurtful

Union Nonmembers Are’Made Worse Off’ Monopolistic Unionism Hurts Talented Employees Economically, and Top Union Officials Seem Aware of That (Click to download Fact Sheet) By Stan Greer Because the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) empowers union bosses to represent workers who don’t want a union, Big Labor apologists contend, it must also empower union bosses…

‘Why Would I Go For Ballpoint Pens? Why Would I Not Start With the Most Valuable Assets?’

A group of trains that are on the floor.

Scranton police/fire unions get $21M judgment against city; may … Scranton, a modest-sized city of roughly 76,000, but nevertheless the largest in Northeastern Pennsylvania, has been struggling for decades. Scranton’s current population is barely half of what it was at the beginning of World War II, more than 25% lower than what it was in 1970,…

‘Unionized Firms Offer Performance-Based Pay Less Than Half as Often’ as Union-Free Businesses

Why Should the Government Prevent Union Members from Earning RAISEs? Most Americans who aren’t close observers of labor-management relations assume that, whatever other faults they may have, union officials can at least be counted upon to fight consistently for higher pay and benefits for employees. Unfortunately, this assumption is naive and incorrect. As James Sherk…

‘Students Learn Less in States With Stronger Teachers’ Unions’

State Teacher Union Strength and Student Achievement While grass-roots opponents of compulsory unionism tend to focus on the simple unfairness of laws and legislation under which the individual employee’s Right to Work is contingent on forking over dues or fees to a union even if he or she would never voluntarily join it. But academics…

Seventeen of the 18 Most Rapidly Graying States From 1990-2010 Lacked Right to Work Laws

TheNortheast is getting older, and it’s going to cost them In 1990, Florida had already long been established as a mecca for retirees weary of snow and ice, and, with a median age of 36.2, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it was the oldest state in the country. By 2010 Florida’s median age had…

Pending Supreme Court Case ‘Challenges President Obama’s Right to Make Up His Own Rules’

Rex Obama and SCOTUS’ Labor Pains : The Freeman : Foundation … It seems incredible that two and a quarter centuries after the Constitution was ratified, it is falling upon the U.S. Supreme Court this fall to determine whether or not the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and other federal agencies may, if they are illegally constituted,…

Union Boss-Negotiated Pension Plans Are a Bad Deal For Most Teachers

Teacher pensions are a bad deal for teachers- Public Sector Inc… A new study prepared for the Manhattan Institute (MI) by Marcus Winters and Josh McGee, and summarized in a post last week for the MI’s Public Sector Inc. blog (see the link above), adds to the mountain of evidence that union officials who purport…