This week, all eyes are on South Carolina as the Palmetto State votes on Saturday in the next Republican presidential primary contest. Jobs and the economy are rightly being debated by the entire political spectrum. It’s not the first time in the past year that South Carolina has been center stage when it comes to jobs in a country struggling to get back on its feet. Last year, the Obama Administration took aim at Boeing when the Seattle-based company sought to build a new assembly plant in Charleston, South Carolina, …
One of the officials President Obama illegally appointed to the National Labor Relations Board advanced policies in his position at a major labor union that hindered efforts to reform corrupt union locals. Incoming NLRB member Richard Griffin, formerly the general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, pushed a union rule in 2007 that barred union leadership campaign websites from being made available to the general public. We spoke with Mike Quigley, a member of IUOE Local 150, about his experience challenging a corrupt union official, and the difficulties …
What does it take to bring an airline to its knees? Uncompetitive union-negotiated labor contracts and a fundamental unwillingness to recognize that in a down economy, unions have a hard time raising wages without destroying jobs. That was a lesson that unions refused to learn in the case of American Airlines, which yesterday announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the last large U.S. full-fare airline to seek court protection from creditors. American was forced to take that action when the airline pilots union refused to budge on …
Tuesday in South Bend, Indiana, Governor Mitch Daniels (R) faced a question that’s been bubbling to the surface in the Hoosier State: Is making Indiana a “right to work” state a priority for his last year in office? It’s an issue that came to the fore in New Hampshire this year, too, where the state legislature passed a right-to-work law, only to see it vetoed by the governor. An override vote may succeed, and the measure could come up before the end of this year’s legislative session. And in Ohio, …
The House of Representatives is poised to pass legislation today that prohibits the National Labor Relations Board from interfering in the business decisions of U.S. companies. The bill would effectively end the NLRB’s complaint against Boeing’s expansion plans in South Carolina. Boeing came under attack from the NLRB in April after constructing a plant in South Carolina to build its 787 Dreamliner. The case is currently before an administrative law judge in Seattle. South Carolina Rep. Tim Scott wants to put an end to the matter now. The freshman Republican …
A business owner in Southeastern Michigan was shot last week after confronting a man carving “SCAB” into his car. John King, the shooting victim, owns King Electrical Services, the largest non-union electrical contractor in the area. Last Wednesday, King reportedly awoke at night to find someone in his driveway vandalizing his car. When King stepped outside, the man shot him in the arm and fled. King has been forced to endure other incidents of harassment by labor unions, the Daily Caller’s Matthew Boyle reports: Labor unions have attempted, unsuccessfully, to …
A New Jersey Superior Court issued an injunction against a local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers, which is one of the two unions currently on strike against Verizon Communications, and represents about 10,000 of the 45,000 striking employees. The injunction prohibits a range of activities, some of which have reportedly been employed by various union picketers in efforts to obstruct or harass the company or its workers since the strike began more than a week ago. Among the practices specifically forbidden under the court’s ruling: the throwing …
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that employers added 117,000 jobs in July, up from June’s dismal 18,000 but still below the number needed to keep pace with population growth. The unemployment rate also fell 0.1 percent to 9.1 percent. Get complete analysis from Heritage’s Rea Hederman and James Sherk, who produce a monthly jobs and employment report. All eyes will again be on Wall Street today. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 500 points yesterday, the world eagerly awaits reaction to today’s jobs report. …
The Obama Administration has seen its fair share of milestones this month. Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Protection Act, Obamacare is just over one year old, it has been more than 800 days since the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a budget, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened its doors on Thursday–the first new federal agency in nearly a decade. You’ll notice that no one is celebrating any of them. Perhaps it’s because those milestones have led to an even more ignominious one that the …
How secure are federal workers’ jobs? According to a recent USA Today study, death is the leading cause of job loss in 15 federal agencies. The federal government laid off or fired 0.55 percent of its workforce, according to USA Today – about one sixth of the firing/layoff rate in the private sector. A pair of agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, did not fire or lay off a single worker in the budget year that ended September 30, despite employing roughly 3,000 workers between them. …
