“Labor” on The Daily Caller

Despite improvement in the labor market, many workers are barely treading water as their wages fail to keep up with rising prices. (more)

Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Michigan Press Association (MPA) filed documents last week asking the state’s Supreme Court to reconsider a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) denial appeal the Court didn’t take up last December – when the court leaned more left. Now, though, the court leans right, so the Mackinac Center is looking for e-mails between teachers and their union bosses discussing a potential “job action,” which may include a strike – it is illegal for teachers to strike in Michigan. According to the Mackinac Center, many of those emails were sent, received or viewed on school computers in districts throughout the state. (more)

Every two years, compulsory unionism’s corrupting influence on America’s political system is on display. Union officials funnel huge sums of money, estimated to be in excess of a billion dollars, into federal, state and local elections. (more)

Wake Up, Wingers! Scott Walker’s anti-union team could suffer a big defeat in Wisconsin’s April 5 Supreme Court election. If Dem-backed JoAnne Kloppenburg defeats Republican David Prosser, she could lead a 4-3 majority to overturn Walker’s anti-union law. (Kloppenburg has telegraphed as much, saying “The events of the last few weeks have put into sharp relief how important the Supreme Court is as a check on overreach in the other branches of government.”) Worse, a Prosser loss will be played up in the national press as a voter repudiation of Walker and his agenda–a turning of the tide, second Tunisia, Spring Awakening, etc.  The left is already gloating over private polls that show the race close–not good news for an incumbent in a low-turnout election. … What’s more, it looks as if the left has the money advantage, in part because Prosser opted for public financing. … Aren’t there some rich Republicans who can save the momentum of the anti union push with an independent expenditure? … (more)

Is the Davis-Bacon Act–the federal law that inflates the cost of government construction and keeps unions in business by requiring payment of “prevailing wages”–unconstitutional? Newsalert posts this still-relevant 1993 Cato Institute argument. … If the case turns on the discriminatory or racist “intent” of those who first passed the law, Davis-Bacon is in trouble.  I’ve never been comfortable with using legislators’ ”intent” as the test of constitutionality–as opposed to what a law is and does–but I’m not the Supreme Court. … (more)

Is Walker Making the Sale? Heather Higgins, a supporter of  Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union reforms, thinks his side–and the reforms–are in trouble, with the possibility that they could ”not only lose, but lose badly” in upcoming judicial and recall elections. She’s got some of her own polling data to back this up (which echoes other data trumpeted by the left). …Why the underwater polls?  Higgins initially suggests that Walker’s personality is the problem. But would people think the governor was “dictatorial” and “radical” if they agreed with his reform? The bigger problem, as Higgins later notes, is that the case for defanging public employee unions is not an easy case to make in a blue state, where it indeed seems a radical step to take: (more)

The dispute in Wisconsin about collective bargaining and union power isn’t “over”; it’s just begun. (more)

The FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011, which the U.S. House of Representatives will soon be taking up, has put Big Labor on high alert. The legislation seeks to reverse a decision made by the National Mediation Board (NMB) that gives labor bosses the ability to forcibly unionize workers in the airline and railroad industries. (more)

Walker Update: ‘Who’s the turd?’ The Wisconsin supreme court election (Republican incumbent David Prosser is running against Dem-backed JoAnne Kloppenburg)  is widely seen as some sort of muddled referendum on Gov. Scott Walker’s recent bill defanging public employee unions–largely because it’s expected that the court will ultimately need to decide whether to uphold the law against various legal challenges. But it turns out the Walker union case may be decided by the time the winning judge’s term begins on August 1. … There are also other issues in the race. … The two candidates recently had a debate (video) where, of course, they both boasted of their impartiality. It seems to have been the rare judicial debate that zeroed in on the question “Am I the turd?” … I can find no polling data that has been made public. Prosser got 55% in the primary, and Kloppenburg 25%, but bets are off in a low-turnout election where one side (organized labor) has an intense interest. … (more)

On Friday, a Wisconsin judge issued a temporary restraining order to block Governor Walker’s recently passed collective bargaining bill. It is important to consider the merits of the bill and look at the protections that it provides to residents. (more)

While most of the nation focused on the Wisconsin government union fight in recent weeks, Michigan has been pushing major labor reforms in both the private and government sectors. The goal is to ease budget woes and make the state more economically competitive. Elected officials in Michigan face painful decisions about how to bring the state back from the brink. (more)

Glenn Loury on why public unions are a “perversion“–There’s no “surplus” within the organization to fight over. … I think this is the same thing as saying there are no profits to divvy up. …. [via Instapundit] (more)

Last week, as you might already know, AOL laid off over 200 U.S.-based employees, the vast majority of them from its Manhattan-based media operation. But that’s not the full tally of those who will lose their jobs as a result of the merger with the Huffington Post because that media operation, like an increasing number of media firms, also utilizes dozens of so-called permalancers — freelancers who function much as staffers but file Form 1099s rather than W-2s with the IRS. (more)

Who needs a working government more? The rich or the poor? Tish Durkin on public employee unions: (more)

It seems like lately at every turn the National Labor Relations Board tries something new to upend years of fair workplace practices and standards. As the board drifts more and more into being an official taxpayer-funded extension of Big Labor, it gives new meaning to the old adage, “if you can’t win the game, change the rules.” (more)