Tag: unions

The Life and Death of Anchor Brewery

 

Whenever I had plans to visit San Francisco (back when I would still dare set foot in the place), I always had one location at the top of my list: The Anchor Brewery. Anchor was known among beer fans as one of, if not the best, brewery tours in America. Reservations for the Anchor Brewery tour were routinely booked up long in advance: For a long time, the tour was free, and it came with free beer at the end.

Of course, since it was free, there were a lot of no-shows, so by 2018, Anchor had begun to charge – and it got easier to book a tour. I went with a Bay Area local who had not been, and we both really enjoyed it. To this day, the Anchor Brewery remains the best brewery I’ve ever visited:

What Were We Thinking Allowing Government Workers to Unionize?

 

It’s not exactly breaking news that America’s public schools are failing academically.

There have been encouraging stories of charter schools and other schools of choice successfully raising achievement levels for underprivileged students previously deemed uneducable.

But our schools are still producing a generation of students lacking basic computational or literacy skills, much less an understanding of government, culture, or science. That is, unless you count gender ideology and slanted anti-American interpretations of history.

Joe Selvaggi talks with Philip K. Howard about the legal theories in his newly released book Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions which questions whether the structure of public employees unions frustrates the will of the people, and cedes the responsibility of elected officials to an unelected and unaccountable privileged class.

Guest:

Teachers and the Abuse of Power

 

If you were born in the 1950s or earlier, your parents likely taught you that teachers were to be obeyed and respected. (You may have even learned that lesson if you were born later than the 1950s.) If you got into trouble with the teacher, you knew you were in deep trouble with mom and dad. (I was a good kid, so I didn’t have to bear the wrath of an angry parent.) The teachers were in the right, and you would lose your TV privileges or be grounded.

More than those rules, teachers were often viewed as caring and compassionate human beings; after all, they were entrusted with educating our children to prepare them for life. I have my own favorite teachers who more than fulfilled that promise, and many of you may have had your own special educators.

DeSantis Takes on the Teachers Unions and School Boards

 

Whenever I have discussed the teachers who have chosen to teach inappropriate subjects, such as Critical Race Theory or who coach their students on transgenderism, or teachers who have insisted that kids wear masks, a teacher often speaks up supporting my criticism of those teachers. At the same time, however, they point to the power of the teachers’ unions and the risks that teachers would be taking to defy them.

Fearless as he often is, Ron DeSantis is defying the unions, assisting the teachers, and supporting parents through his recommendations to the Legislature:

A Needed Check on Union Violence

 

Recently, American unions have pushed hard to increase their power in the employment market. Unions may strike and thereby shut down a reluctant firm to extract a favorable deal, and will often do so even though that strike action imposes economic losses on union members. But just how hard will unions press to get a strongly pro-union labor contract? Last week in Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the US Supreme Court heard oral argument on a case that will help answer that question.

In Glacier, the union and the employer were locked in protracted negotiations over a new contract. The company uses cement mixers to distribute its ready-mix product to its customers. Just as the contract was about to expire, union drivers, as part of a coordinated effort, took their loaded trucks on the road, only to return the trucks, still loaded, to the company headquarters moments after the contract expired. The drivers left the engines running to prevent the immediate hardening of their cargo. However, owing to the large number of nearly simultaneous truck returns, much of that cargo did harden, inflicting immediate property damage on the trucks. The two sides reached agreement on a new contract a week later, but the dispute over these losses lingered on. The parties disagree over whether the actions of these workers came within the protected strike practices under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Employers must bear losses caused by strike practices that the NLRA protects, but employers may sue unions in state court in tort for deliberate physical injuries.

This distinction makes a substantial difference. State courts hear and decide cases far faster than the National Labor Relations Board does. More important, state courts can award substantial monetary damages against unions while the NLRB cannot. Given these institutional differences, the key cat-and-mouse game is whether the case goes first to the state court or to the NLRB. The traditional practice on sequencing the two proceedings was set out in the important 1959 labor case, San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, which held that the plaintiff may bring a tort action right away, to which the defendant might plead that the case was “arguably” subject to the provisions of the NLRB as a defense. Upon the defendant pleading such a defense, the tort suit had to be discontinued. The Supreme Court in Garmon ruled that the NLRA required a state court to dismiss a tort suit alleging that a union wrongfully attempted to win a contract by picketing an employer’s place of business. Indeed, that lawsuit was blocked even though the NLRB declined jurisdiction over the case, and even though the state court wanted only to award damages rather than impose an injunction against the union. The coercive effect of damages could induce abandoning the very behavior that the injunction would have directly prohibited. The question in Glacier was whether this employer was caught by Garmon pre-emption.

Join Jim and Greg as they shake their heads at Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s inability to say whether gas prices are too high. They also groan as failed former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to run for Congress. And they react to news that many schools are not even spending funds from the COVID relief bill – which is one of the factors behind our inflation crisis.

 

Laboring Under a Delusion

 

In its most recent issue, the New Yorker gloated that in “one of the biggest labor victories since the nineteen-thirties,” the Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted—2,654 for and 2,131 against—to form a union. The union victory was organized by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), a grass-roots, home-grown operation that operated outside the traditional channels of organized labor, but with substantial material support and strategic advice from old-line unions. The vigorous union campaign highlighted worker grievances that included a demand for improved safety conditions in light of the COVID virus, higher wages, longer work breaks, better grievance procedures, and a shuttle bus connection to the Staten Island ferry. In the run-up to the election, two key union organizers were fired and one warned. All were black. Amazon claimed it was for violating social distancing rules. The workers claimed that it was an illegal effort to fire them for their organizing efforts. Because of the ALU’s success, further union-organizing campaigns at Amazon are now in the offing.

Union optimism about the ALU election should be tempered by the long litigation struggle that lies ahead. It is an open secret that many businesses that are generally liberal on social issues—think Howard Schultz, who has just returned as the head of Starbucks—are widely and correctly regarded as anti-union. This posture is taken for the simple reason that unions are bad for business—period. To the progressive mind, that anti-union posture is a high political sin. President Joe Biden has already cheered on the Amazon workers, saying, “Amazon, here we come.” But there are at least two major reasons to question the merit of his position.

At a theoretical level, the purpose of any sound system of labor law is to improve the overall productivity of the employment relationship, which includes the welfare of firm workers as one part of that calculation. But union elections are, at best, an imperfect way to achieve that objective. About 45 percent of the Amazon employees voted against the union, which means that the net overall gain for current workers is small indeed: the dissenting workers certainly have legitimate concerns. Why pay union dues, typically at 3 percent, that will eat into any future wage increases? Why encourage management-labor confrontations that will sever direct worker-employer relationships, which could price the Staten Island facility out of the market or could lead Amazon to divert some of its business to nonunion warehouses where costs are lower and profits are higher?

Biden’s Pro-Union Gambit

 

President Biden has claimed that he has been “America’s most pro-union president ever,” and he took a major step toward making good on that dubious distinction in his executive order of February 4. In it, he announced strong steps to make sure that only firms that agree to hire union labor on jobs worth more than $35 million can land those contracts. The order, if and when implemented, is anticipated to cover $262 billion in federal contracts annually. As one might expect, the provision generated divided opinion, with Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh announcing his full-throated endorsement while construction firms have expressed their strong doubt about the proposal, which is bad as a matter of both law and economics.

There are two fatal flaws to his order. The first is that the executive order is in flat contradiction to the rules governing the formation of labor unions under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The second is that the labor law defects are not cured by the general language of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, which at an abstract level is intended “to promote economy and efficiency.” Indeed, the entire mishmash is so far off base that employers and dissenting employees should be entitled to get a preliminary injunction so that the executive order never goes into effect at all.

Start with the key command of the executive order: each government agency “shall require every contractor or subcontractor engaged in construction on the project to agree, for that project, to negotiate or become a party to a project labor agreement with one or more appropriate labor organizations,” under a pre-hire agreement, that is, one that has to be negotiated prior to bidding. These contracts are supposed to contain safeguards against “strikes, lockouts, and similar job disruptions” and to “set forth effective, prompt, and mutually binding procedures” to resolve disputes.

Join Jim and Greg as they enjoy watching the left openly fight over whether schools should have in-person instruction right now. They also cringe as Russia send troops into Kazakhstan to help crush protesters. And they discuss the January 6th anniversary and why one critical figure has never been found.

Happy New Year! Join Jim and Greg as they are pleasantly stunned to see the European Union embracing natural gas and nuclear power as their wind and solar energy efforts fall far short of producing the amount of energy needed. They also slam Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s latest effort to skirt the filibuster to pass Dem legislation on elections. And they hammer teachers unions for once again leading the charge to return to distance learning or just “pause” schools for two weeks to weather the Omicron cases of COVID.

Union Paybacks Affect Us All

 

Most of the attention of our nation’s businesses entities is focused on attempts to win government favors. That’s typical of political economies sliding into corruption mode.

America’s unions have been a big winner of the competition. They poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Democratic campaigns. Their bet paid off when Democrats swept the presidency and both houses of Congress. Not only that, ol’ Scranton Joe is a longtime friend.

So White House favors have flowed in a torrent. For example, a new law mandates union labor on virtually all federal projects, automatically adding 20 to 30% to the cost. There is also a provision making union dues tax-deductible, another huge union subsidy.

Chad Benson is in for Jim today. Join Greg and Chad as they discuss corporate America’s spineless response to yet another political controversy. They also take a deeper dive into Joe Biden’s effort to boost labor unions by crushing freelance work. They fume as Dr. Fauci and others suddenly decide kids now have to be vaccinated before life returns to normal, and they remember the fascinating and controversial life of the one and only G. Gordon Liddy.

Rob Long is in for Jim today. Rob and Greg react to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo doing exactly what Rob said he would do to distract from his many scandals. Then they’re glad to see President Biden’s poll numbers sinking on immigration policy. They also explain how Biden’s “infrastructure” bill appears to include a bunch of Green New Deal provisions, guts freedom to work. And they call out the left’s refusal to acknowledge basic biological reality when it comes to determining a person’s sex.

Rob Long is on for Jim again today. Join Rob and Greg as they cheer states expanding their school choice programs as unions continue to keep public schools closed. They also discuss New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordering faster, preferential COVID tests for family and friends while the rest of New York waited much longer for results. They also shake their heads as San Francisco lefties state that whites and men will not be receiving welfare benefits. And they wrap up with their memories of the assassination attempt again President Reagan 40 years ago today.

[Member Post]

 

Raising the minimum wage is not about raising income for individuals and families, it’s about raising campaign funds for Democrat politicians. With the raise, almost all unions, public and private, will receive equivalent raises — some by contractual agreement. With that, unions can kick-back more campaign donations to politicians, almost exclusively in the Democrat party. […]

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Join Jim and Greg as they applaud Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for speaking the truth that schools should be open and there’s only one reason why they aren’t. They also shake their heads as a brutal cold snap causes power system failures and rotating blackouts through Texas – and the lessons that should be learned. And they take a bite out of Bill Gates for wanting all “wealthy nations” to switch to synthetic beef.

 

The news might be all bad today but we’re still having fun! Join Jim and Greg as they discuss the Virginia Education Association strongly opposing Gov. Ralph Northam’s demand for in-person schooling by mid-March and none of the Democrats running for governor this year having the guts to stand up for the kids or the science against the union. They also cringe in recounting the opening arguments made by the Trump legal team on Tuesday, but will the quality of the lawyers have any impact on the outcome? And they unload on Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who won’t criticize China but is cancelling the national anthem at home games this season.

Join Jim and Greg as they welcome some of the most radical leftist mayors finally running out of patience with teachers’ unions who refuse to agree to in-person education. They also discuss Liz Cheney surviving as chair of the GOP House Conference and what the right way is to navigate the Marjorie Taylor Greene soap opera. And they hammer the Biden administration for considering a plan to mail masks to every American.