“Labor” on The Daily Caller

House Republicans took aim Wednesday at President Obama’s proposed federal pay freeze, saying that his promise is bogus because the freeze still allows for automatic wage increases that also should be put on ice. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The NFL’s lead labor negotiator says the league offered to give the players’ union financial information that the league doesn’t even give its 32 clubs. (more)

Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement. (more)

Republican Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio and Dan Burton of Indiana are asking House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, California Republican, to dig into the Obama administration’s decision to cut more than 20,000 private-sector workers’ pensions and eliminate their health and life insurance plans during the General Motors (GM) bailout in 2009. (more)

Wisconsin’s Scenic Caves: Chuck Lane catches his WaPo colleague Ezra Klein in a moment of intellectual honesty and makes sure he pays for it: (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Timeout, NFL. And NFLPA. (more)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — With barely a whimper of the protests that have convulsed Wisconsin, legislation to curb public employee unions is speeding toward passage in Ohio, an even bigger labor stronghold. (more)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The bargaining rights of public workers in Ohio would be dramatically reduced and strikes would be banned under a bill narrowly passed by the state Senate on Wednesday. (more)

Federal employees who owe Uncle Sam could face pink slips if a new bill gets passed by Congress. (more)

The inadvertent byproduct of a government shutdown is that it lets Americans in on a secret — they can do without many federal employees, at least for a short period of time. (more)

Kevin Drum Gives Up on Unionism: Isn’t it odd that the defense of unionism on the left by Paul Krugman and Mother Jones‘ Kevin Drum focuses almost exclusively on labor’s role as “countervailing” political power to business–especially its role in supporting the Democratic party with money and manpower? Time was pro-labor economists argued mainly about the actual effect of unions within individual firms and industries–they raised wages, we were told, not only redistributing profits but providing workers with a “voice” that even resulted in increased productivity. You don’t hear these arguments that much anymore. After the collapse of two of the three big UAW auto firms–beaten in the market by non-union American factories run by Honda, Hyundai and Toyota–the idea the unions actually help employers compete has apparently become too implausible for Drum and Krugman to advance with a straight face. (more)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker criticized President Obama on Monday after the president made a reference in a speech to public employees being “denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon.” (more)

Lawmakers and governors in many states, faced with huge shortfalls in employee pension funds, are turning to a strategy that a lot of private companies adopted years ago: moving workers away from guaranteed pension plans and toward 401(k)-type retirement savings plans. (more)

Private-sector workers should be the ones striking in the streets of Wisconsin. They’re the ones who have to support government workers’ bloated salaries and pensions. But private-sector workers can’t afford to take a day off, let alone a week. Doesn’t that say everything? Only government employees, with their powerful unions, lifetime job security, short workweeks, loads of sick days, nonstop holidays, early retirement, and huge pensions, can afford to stand in the street protesting. Common sense tells us anyone with this much time to protest and the ability to abandon their work duties is greatly overpaid. (more)

I unintentionally was misleading in using a quote from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in support of collective bargaining in yesterday’s blog. The quote from FDR stood up for the fundamental principle that Americans have a fundamental right under our Constitution to freely associate, organize and to designate an individual to negotiate on their behalf. He said that was the distinction between our system of government and despotism — and that was my reason for choosing his quote. But the perils of Internet research are borne out here, especially when done quickly. In fact, as many readers of my blog have pointed out, FDR was against, in principle, the concept of government employee unions and their right to collective bargaining. He said “the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” Then he added that “I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place” in the public sector. “A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government.” (more)

Wisconsin’s teachers are required to teach children about the history of the labor union movement and collective bargaining in the United States, per a law former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle signed in December 2009. Wisconsin’s Assembly Bill (AB) 172 requires the state’s teachers to incorporate “the history of organized labor in America and the collective bargaining process” into their lesson plans. (more)

Most people don’t think “government unions” when they hear the words “special interests.” As the battle royal in the Wisconsin statehouse shows, though, they should. (more)

In 1981, when the air traffic controllers went on strike, Ronald Reagan fired them all. Can you imagine? Air traffic controllers — unique individuals with rare and valuable skills, thought irreplaceable, fired en masse. And we never noticed. Supervisors filled their shoes for months while new ones were trained. Not a single accident. What happened to those air traffic controllers who lost today’s equivalent of $100,000-per-year jobs? Few ever found jobs with that kind of pay again. (more)

As we follow events in Wisconsin, a history lesson is appropriate. History has a message for Governor Scott Walker and the people of Wisconsin whose electoral mandate he seeks to implement. It is, very simply, that Mr. Walker should not compromise. Principled leadership will prevail over the orchestrated thuggery of the public unions, notwithstanding the unions’ conspicuous support from our nation’s most aggressive “community organizers.” (more)

Democratic members of the Indiana House fled the state this week to avoid a vote on a bill that would establish Indiana as a “right to work” state. (more)