- Labor Department wants to shut down consignors-as-volunteers consignment-sale business plan [Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Sean Higgins/Examiner]
- Operating Engineers Local 17: “Legality of union violence at heart of court case” [Buffalo News]
- Alternative to “Ban the Box”: revisit extent to which old convictions stay on the books [Eli Lehrer; Baltimore Sun on municipal proposal]
- Human capital investment by women has narrowed gender pay gap, desire for time flexibility crucial in explaining what remains [Tyler Cowen on Claudia Goldin paper]
- Carl Horowitz on UAW push to organize VW in Chattanooga [Capital Research Center]
- Seyfarth Shaw’s 10th annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report [Seyfarth, Daniel Fisher]
- Sixth Circuit: transfer can count as adverse action even when employee had previously requested it [Jon Hyman]
Posts Tagged ‘labor unions’
“Government should not force people into unions”
Columnist George Will cites the Cato Institute amicus brief in Harris v. Quinn, the Supreme Court case over whether states may properly herd home caregivers reimbursed by government checks into collective representation [syndicated]. Earlier here. More: Ilya Shapiro, Michael Greve.
More: Reports on the oral argument from Ilya Shapiro, Cato, and from Reuters.
Mayor Bloomberg, in valedictory, warns of “labor-electoral complex”
The phrase “evoked the ‘military-industrial complex’ about which President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned the nation in a speech days before he left office in 1961.” [Times-Union]
Public employment roundup
- Detroit: pension trustees’ sins come home to roost [Steve Malanga, City Journal; Aaron Renn/Urbanophile; Steven Greenhut (CALPERS next?)] Role of binding arbitration [Malanga, IBD]
- Since declaring bankruptcy San Bernardino has given police $2 million in raises [Scott Shackford] Twenty-eight members of Santa Monica police force made more than $200K last year [Ira Stoll, Future of Capitalism] “Do other big city balance sheets resemble Detroit’s?” [Public Sector Inc.]
- Phoenix firefighters sue insurance company over workers’ comp denials [ABC 15]
- Under new California law, county worker who stole $360,000 may forfeit pension [San Diego Union-Tribune]
- “Crime Rate in Camden, NJ Going Down After Unionized Police Force Sacked” [Ed Krayewski, Reason (“On any given day, 30 percent of the force was absent because of the liberal sick policies.”)]
- Trying to drop one’s membership in the Michigan Education Association can be a long-drawn business [Sean Higgins, Washington Examiner]
- Lawrence Harmon, Boston Globe; Police unions fight to protect even worst of bad apples [Greenhut, City Journal on California and use of “Brady lists”]
Labor and employment roundup
- Ostrowsky v. Con-Way: “Alcoholic Truck Driver’s Relapse Is Grounds for Firing, Third Circuit Rules” [Legal Intelligencer]
- “Most minimum-wage workers are members of families with an average income of $42,500” [Richard Rahn] “Increases in the minimum wage actually redistribute income among poor families by giving some higher wages and putting others out of work” [David Henderson] “Most Americans Favor Raising the Minimum Wage, Unless it Costs Something” [Emily Ekins]
- Time Warner case: “Is the denial of paid paternity leave discriminatory?” [Jon Hyman]
- We’d never saddle consumers with the sorts of harassment/discrimination liability we saddle businesses with; let’s consider why [Bryan Caplan]
- “Special Exemptions: How Unions Operate Above the Law” [Kevin Mooney, CPPC UnionWatch]
- Should free-marketeers appreciate “alt-labor” (worker centers, etc.) as less coercive than the New Deal union model? [Robert VerBruggen, Ben Sachs, more]
- Worker hands office colleague an article titled “De-clawing cattiness at work” and nothing good ensues [Employers Lawyer]
UNITE HERE v. Mulhall
Sean Lengell of the Washington Examiner quotes me in a preview of the upcoming Supreme Court case about whether the provision of federal labor law barring employers from giving a labor union a “thing of value” prohibits “neutrality agreements” in which an employer provides its employee lists or free office space to union organizers. A broad ruling to that effect would wrest a major weapon away from unions, which is one reason I’m doubtful it will happen:
“Those that would like to rein in this type of union agreement, whether it be business or conservatives, shouldn’t get too overconfident,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. “Getting the justices to see the logic of Mulhall’s argument is one thing; getting them to act and sign a decision [in his favor] is something else.”
Olson added the justices may be looking for a way out of having to make a definitive ruling.
“I think the court’s instincts are not to pull too hard at the columns of the temple on labor law, because they’re not sure where it’s going to fall,” he said.
Update: reactions to Mulhall oral argument from Jack Goldsmith (and more), Ben Sachs, Cato’s Trevor Burrus, and William Gould/SCOTUSBlog.
Food roundup
- As we warned at the time: Food Safety Modernization Act shaping up as severe burden for many small, local and artisanal producers [Tom Philpott, Mother Jones via Tim Carney, Dave Runsten and Brian Snyder, CivilEats]
- Bloomberg’s City Hall wants to keep secret the inputs to its food-scold policies. Open up, says Keep Food Legal [Reason]
- More coverage of Heritage food freedom panel I was on [Sihan Zhang, Scripps Howard Foundation Wire, Joe Daly/Accuracy in Academia, earlier]
- How shipping unions sunk food aid reform [Center for Public Integrity]
- California enacts a strong cottage food law, but needs to work on farmers’ markets [Baylen Linnekin; related on Texas]
- Law and public health profs inveigh against “Mountain Dew Mouth,” but is it a real thing? [Reason, Bill of Health, Andrew Sullivan]
- Canada’s OPEC-like maple syrup cartel fights thieves and legitimate competition alike [Lowering the Bar]
Labor and employment roundup
- Reminder: Second Amendment rights run against the government, not against your employer or other private parties [Eugene Volokh]
- Invasion of privacy? Employees continue to win awards and settlements by way of surreptitious recording devices in workplace [Jon Hyman]
- Gov. Brown signs bill creating overtime entitlement for California nannies, private health aides [Reuters, L.A. Times]
- Does rolling back a benefit under a public employee pension plan violate the Contracts Clause? [Alexander Volokh, Reason Foundation]
- Even as anti-bullying programs backfire, some propose extending them to workplace [Hans Bader, CEI, earlier]
- Background on Harris v. Quinn, SCOTUS case on herding family home carers into union fee arrangements [Illinois Review, earlier]
- “California unions target business-friendly Dems” [Steve Malanga]
Richard Epstein on Carnegie Hall’s $419,000 stagehands
Yes, the New York City arts scene has a lot of money sloshing around in it, that of Minneapolis-St. Paul much less, but in neither instance are performing-arts labor unions doing well at reaching a livable accommodation with the needs of high culture. [Hoover “Defining Ideas”]
Maryland roundup
- You might as well live: estate and inheritance tax make it highly inadvisable to die as a Maryland resident [TaxProf]
- “Foreclosures: The Chickens Come Home to Roost” [Calvert Institute, earlier]
- Courts task force created earlier this year will study costly and open-ended Civil Gideon proposals [courts]
- For your own good: state’s commissioner of financial regulation goes after banks that service payday lenders [Funnell]
- Governor candidates angle for union support, bids include “greater use of collective bargaining agreements on state construction projects” [WaPo]
- Really, it won’t kill you to respect people’s consciences on Frederick County boards and commissions [Bethany Rodgers, Frederick News Post on Pledge of Allegiance controversy, update, Ken at Popehat (“Freedom of conscience is like the good couch in the living room; it’s there to be had, not to be used.”), Gene Healy background] About time: city may ease restrictions on bed and breakfasts [Jen Bondeson, Frederick News Post]
- Only a handful of states join Maryland in policy of unionizing home child carers [Go Local Providence, more]