Tag: labor unions

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free trade & free markets regulation too much government

The AB5 Agenda

nanny state, freelancers, independent contractor, licensing, labor unions, regulations, general freedom

AB5 is the code name for legislation passed in California a few years ago to kill freelance work. 

Ex-freelancers hate AB5; employers who can’t afford to convert contractors into regular employees hate AB5. 

Unions, on the other hand, love AB5; lawmakers also love AB5.

A California citizen initiative partly reversed it. Then the Ninth Circuit at least temporarily reversed the reversal.

Though Democrats have made several attempts to bring it to the federal level, Congress has not passed a federal version of AB5. But now the Department of Labor is acting to impose a rule to challenge the status of many independent contractors, scheduled to take effect March 11. This AB5-like rule enunciates six criteria determining whether contract work may still be called contract work.

This affects what I do. One of my dozen jobs is citizen-initiative work. Various state governments have done all they can apart from comprehensive AB5-like rules to impede my ability to collaborate with petitioners to get citizen initiatives on the ballot. It is most efficient to pay these contractors per thing they do instead of earning a fixed salary or getting paid an hourly wage. 

Politicians and bureaucrats know this.

If the Labor Department’s new rule takes effect, will contractors working with me pass the test? Or will we all be thrown into chaos and confusion?

It is being challenged in court. 

Many voters — who are, after all, wage-earners or salaried employees — may not care very much; it may seem irrelevant to them. But it is time for them to inquire why some politicians and union bosses want to destroy the ability of freelancers to freely work for outfits short of becoming full-time employees.

For the ramifications will reach far beyond my niche “industry.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies social media

Low Fares. Something to Hide.

Southwest Airlines, Covid, vaccination, labor

“Southwest Airlines crews are walking out and so are FAA air traffic controllers,” Buzz Patterson tweeted on Sunday. “This is just the beginning.” 

Buzz’s running for a House seat in California’s Seventh District. But I saw the tweet as quoted on Facebook by Erin Leigh, who wrote “Exactly what needs to happen. Over 1800 Southwest flights have been canceled in the last 48 hrs . . . employees from other airlines are joining as well as Amtrak.” And she concluded with “Mandates have consequences!!”

But what really caught my attention was Facebook’s warning: “Independent fact-checkers say this information has no basis in fact.”

Really? None?

You see, much of what was tweeted and Facebooked was definitely true: Southwest Airline pilots and other workers have walked out. And though the airline and the union provide the silliest rationales for the mass cancellations as cover — including blaming non-existent bad weather — it seems pretty obvious this is tied to the vaccine mandates. Tucker Carlson is nearly alone in covering this angle of the story — bemoans The Guardian — while the rest of corporate media relays the “nothing to see here” official spin (or “media blackout”).

Meanwhile, Facebook promotes its guardian of truth, “Lead Stories” — but its “fact-check” was entirely about the Amtrak shutdowns!!

Candidate Patterson didn’t mention Amtrak. And Ms. Leigh noted Amtrak almost as an afterthought. 

And then, up on my screen, came Facebook’s altered image of the initial tweet, with “Regular Delay” super-imposed.

The Facebook post was mostly about airline business.

And while Amtrak officials and mouthpieces for the Transport Workers Union of America assure us that it’s all very regular . . . the jab mandate is in place, and labor . . . dislocations . . . are one consequence.

Our regularly scheduled re-scheduling will be re-explained by history.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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First, Fire All the Freelancers

freelance, law, Congress

Congress is about to make the lives of an awful lot of people an awful lot harder.

So what else is new?

But the legislation in play does seem new — in suddenness and scope. 

It would impose massive newfangled regimentation on how we make a living. And it would kill the livelihoods of millions of people.

I refer to people who do gigs and freelance assignments for a living. One might ask why Democrats have it in for this kind of worker. Is it to appease unions? Is it the result of the same ideological forces that drove Karl Marx to despise the professional classes, needing to turn everyone into a prole? 

After all, this anti-freelancer agenda is not new. Similar legislation, called AB5, was tried a few years ago in California, instituted at the behest of activists eager to reduce competition with union work and remove chances for non-9-to-5 ways of making a living.

The premier target was ride-share companies Uber and Lyft. But many were caught in the net. AB5 created havoc throughout the state. Even socialist freelancers hated its mass murder of options and opportunity.

AB5-style congressional legislation to outlaw gig or freelance work except under very restricted circumstances is now being discussed in the U.S. Senate after having passed the U.S. House. It would also give unions many ugly new weapons to use to impose themselves on employees and employers.

In California, AB5 was mostly repealed by a citizen initiative.

Will there be a national citizen initiative to also promptly repeal the Protecting the Right to Organize Act? Unlikely, since Americans currently lack the right to enact national citizen initiatives.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies

Labor’s Holiday

Haymarket Riot

Most of us celebrate Labor Day by not working. Labor and celebration being distinct, this is not really as funny as it may sound.

The celebration became federal law in the late 19th century, a time beset by “labor unrest” and “agitation.” At least two major violent incidents at that time can help us understand the origins of our Labor Day, and reduce the current collective blood pressure.

The date of the first was May 4, 1886, a labor demonstration at Haymarket Square in Chicago that went very bad. This Haymarket Affair is one of those handful of stories in our high school history books we tend to remember, involving bombs, deaths, anarchists, hasty prosecution, hangings, pardons, and much more. People still argue about who is to blame. What we don’t argue with is the aftermath: the Second International of communist and socialist parties chose, in 1889, the ancient celebratory day of May 1 to commemorate the Haymarket riot as “International Workers’ Day.”

It has come to be known as “Labor Day” in some countries.

But other, less radical labor activists had already pushed a Labor Day for their cities and states before Haymarket, and they had chosen early September as the proper time for a celebration of “the working man.” A majority of states had enacted early September labor holidays by 1894.

In June of 1894, Congress passed legislation making the first Monday of September “Labor’s Holiday.”

President Grover Cleveland signed the bill into law mere days after the Pullman Strike ended — with a not quite universal judgment that he had mishandled it. Cleveland’s intervention in the strike led to a higher body count and more property damage than the Haymarket riot. That being said, it does not appear to have moved President Cleveland as much as you might think — he did not spearhead the Labor Holiday legislation, and his signature is not as important as it may seem, since congressional support was high enough to override any veto.

Associated then with activism to increase the economic and legal power of unions, to this day the official Labor Day in September serves as an alternative to the more radical celebrations in May. But both seem antiquated, now. Our alleged “radicals” today have shifted their focus from labor remuneration and working conditions to providing to workers and non-workers alike free stuff. 

And union participation in America, which waxed up until about the time I was born, has waned since. Only the government worker segment is heavily unionized today.

Nowadays, Labor Day has about the same symbolic and political significance as Arbor Day.

The most important lesson may be this: we talk about how divided the country is, politically and culturally. But the level of foment is not nearly as violent as it was when Labor Day became a national holiday.  

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob

Haymarket Riot

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies property rights Regulating Protest

Union Dues, Don’ts

labor unions, Membership Renewal, Supreme Court, force, coercion, signing, scab, membership

You may soon be able to shred your union card — if you are careful.

By “you” I mean You, the reluctant union member.

If you’re not one, though, perhaps you know somebody who is, someone who’d be happy to learn that the Supreme Court is on the verge of dealing a huge setback to coercive unionism.

John Hinderaker explains at Power Line. The Supreme Court is expected to soon decide a major case in a way that “bar[s] public employees from being forced into unions, or from being required to support unions via the fiction of ‘fair share contributions.’ ” (Much of that money goes straight to Democratic Party coffers.) With Neil Gorsuch now on the bench, a 4-4 holding pattern is expected to become a 5-4 decision in favor of plaintiffs suing for freedom from mandatory union membership.

Sounds good.

Problem is, though, that union officials are working to trick members into paying dues in perpetuity. For example, Education Minnesota is trying to con its 86,000 teachers into signing “Membership Renewal” forms assenting to automatic renewal of fees – unless the signatory makes a special effort to opt out.

The union hopes members will sign the cards and forget about them, continuing to fund the unions, and Democratic politics, indefinitely — even if the high court rescues everyone from mandatory membership.

So, if you happen to be trapped in a union at the moment — watch what you sign. And watch the news.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly national politics & policies responsibility

Greedy Union Bosses

union, labor, hypocrites, SEIU, Service Employees International Union, illustration

Since the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a union, you might assume it holds that workers should be unionized.

Or, at the very least, that workers should have a right to unionize, if they so choose.

But you would be mistaken.

Similarly, many unions, most notably the SEIU, have been quite vocal in urging — demanding — that cities and states and the federal government require businesses to pay their employees a minimum wage of $15 an hour. The “Fight for 15” is their fight, no?

No.

Well, yes and no. It may be a fight they’ve picked, but unions such as the SEIU are on both sides of it. They’re fighting mighty hard to make other employers pay at least $15 an hour to employees, sure, but they’ve apparently not got an ounce of fight left to muster up the $15 an hour in pay for their own employees.

Last month, the pro-labor In These Times covered the struggle between the SEIU and those working for the SEIU’s “Fight for $15” campaign to form their own union as well as to receive an hourly wage of $15.

“We don’t have the right to join a union that we’re fighting for other workers to have,” one worker explained. “When we’re fighting for everyone to have $15 an hour, we should have it ourselves.”

“It is true that over the labor movement’s long history,” confirmed David Moberg, senior editor at In These Times, “many unions have fought with their staff over whether staff could or should organize.”

“Practice what you preach,” Moberg admonished the unions.

And if that’s so difficult for the SEIU, maybe what it preaches is the problem.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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union, labor, hypocrites, SEIU, Service Employees International Union, illustration