March 2014

Will Illinois be the Next Wisconsin?

Jonathan S. Tobin takes a look at the Illinois primary, where political novice Bruce Rauner, primary winner, intends to reduce government employee union power over the state government, in Commentary Magazine. In the past few years, public-sector unions have faced severe challenges to their ability to dictate pension and benefit packages to states and municipalities…

From 2003-2013, Private-Sector Payroll Employment Grew More Than Twice as Fast in Right to Work States as in Forced-Unionism States

A black and white image of an eagle with its wings spread.

Earlier today, the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its estimates for total annual 2013 private-sector payroll employment in the 50 states. The BLS simultaneously released an array of other jobs data for 2013 and revised data for a number of previous years. (See the link below for more information.) For well…

Bid to remove Pa. exemption in labor disputes advances

Pennsylvania union bosses have used a little-knownlegal exemptionto avoid prosecution for stalking and harassment. With the recent spate of violence in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania House has voted to remove that exemption, but notably no politicians from Philadelphia voting in favor of revocation the exemption. Reflecting upon the recent spate of litigation brought against Philadelphia Jeremy…

NILRR Weekly News Clips March 14, 2014

Right-to-work bill dies in Kentucky House committee wave3.com, March 14, 2014 A Kentucky House committee’s vote killed right-to-work legislation for the rest of the year, but both sides say the issue will play a key role in November’s elections. Is It Really News to UAW Bosses That Their Political Partisanship Offends Many Workers? www.nilrr.org…

Is It Really News to UAW Bosses That Their Political Partisanship Offends Many Workers?

In a whiny commentary for The American Prospect published three days after workers at the Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga voted decisively against union monopoly bargaining last month, Harold Meyerson, the leftist magazine’s pro-forced unionism editor-at-large, bemoaned the role “cultural” considerations played in the campaign’s outcome. (See the link below to read Meyerson’s piece.) While…

Kentucky needs to be a right to work state

State Represenaatative Sal Santoroexplains why Kentucky should pass a Right to Work Law in cincinnati.com. USA Today recently published a report entitled “The Most Miserable States in the USA” that, based on survey results, ranked Kentucky as the second most miserable state in the country. Only West Virginia was ranked worse in the survey. It’s…

Union Bosses ‘Are Not Forced by Federal Law to Be Exclusive Bargaining Representatives; They Seek This Power of Their Own Volition’

Ever since then-Gov. Mitch Daniels signed a bill making Indiana America’s 23rd Right to Work state a little more than two years ago, top bosses of suburban Chicago-based Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) have been making outrageous legal arguments to try to get the freedom-protecting statute overturned in court. For…

Union Bosses Threaten Harm to Children

Authorities are investigating allegatons of threats and violence to workers as well as their children, in a year-long strike filled with violence and threats. Richard Read has the story on Oregonlive.com The National Labor Relations Board accused longshoremen this week of assaulting United Grain Corp. security officers and threatening to rape a manager’s daughter and…

The Really Big Money? Not the Kochs

Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel on union political spending and forced dues. It’s an extraordinary thing, in a political age obsessed with campaign money, that nobody scrutinizes the biggest, baddest, “darkest” spenders of all: organized labor. The IRS is muzzling nonprofits; Democrats are “outing” corporate donors; Jane Mayer is probably working on part 89 of…

NILRR Weekly News Clips March 07, 2014

The Really Big Money? Not the Kochs Wall Street Journal Online, March 6, 2014 It’s an extraordinary thing, in a political age obsessed with campaign money, that nobody scrutinizes the biggest, baddest, “darkest” spenders of all: organized labor. The IRS is muzzling nonprofits; Democrats are “outing” corporate donors; Jane Mayer is probably working…