All Posts Tagged With: "right-to-work"
Unions Lose Respect
I have often argued that American labor unions enjoy much more respect than they deserve. In February the Pew Research Center released the results of its latest nationwide survey of public opinion regarding labor unions. It seems that, at last, labor unions are suffering significant losses of respect. Table 1 shows the percentage of Americans [...]
29Jun2010 | Charles W. Baird | 8 comments | ContinuedThe Right to Work
The people of Louisiana must sleep soundly knowing that their state protects them from . . . unlicensed florists. That’s right. In Louisiana, you can’t sell flower arrangements unless you have permission from the government. How do you get permission? You must pass a test graded by a board of florists who already have licenses. [...]
20May2010 | John Stossel | 16 comments | ContinuedThe Right to Earn a Living Under Attack
In Louisiana it is illegal to sell and arrange flowers without permission from the government. Aspiring florists must pass a subjective licensing exam that is graded by existing florists, who have a direct incentive to keep new competitors from entering the market. Thus the failure rate is higher than that of the Louisiana bar, which [...]
1Dec2008 | Bob Ewing | 6 comments | ContinuedStealing for Union Bosses
Charles Baird is a professor of economics emeritus at California State University at East Bay. H. L. Mencken opined that “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” The November 2006 congressional elections are an excellent example of Mencken’s proposition. The attempts by the 110th Congress to steal property and other [...]
1Mar2008 | Charles W. Baird | 1 comment | ContinuedPaycheck Protection: Much Less Than Meets the Eye
On June 14 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous verdict in Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA) in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of the “paycheck protection” section of a Washington state campaign-finance-regulation initiative adopted in 1992 by 72 percent of the voters. That section required labor unions to get the permission [...]
1Nov2007 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedFreedom for Workers
In my January/February column this year I explained why I believe that, given the existence of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which regulates American labor-management relations, a classical liberal should support a national right-to-work-act. Last year Freeman book review editor George Leef published Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work [...]
1Sep2006 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedUnions on the Run
In 2000 the rate of private-sector unionization in the United States was only 9 percent, a figure that has been falling precipitously since the early 1950s. John Sweeney became president of the AFL-CIO in 1995, when the private sector unionization rate was 14.9 percent, promising that he would reverse that decline. The rate has declined [...]
1Feb2002 | Charles W. Baird | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Freedom Not to Pay for Other People’s Politics
Samuel Gompers, the founder of the modern American labor union movement, once wrote, “there may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. . . . It is his legal right and no one can or dare question his exercise of that legal [...]
1May1998 | Lawrence W. Reed | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Myth of Compulsory Union Membership
Organized labor wants workers to think they can be forced to join a union as a condition of continued employment. The union-employer agreements that accomplish that are called “union security” clauses in collective bargaining pacts. For example, Weyerhaeuser Paper Co. and the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) have a union security clause that requires all [...]
1Mar1998 | Charles W. Baird | 2 comments | ContinuedI Was a Victim of Union Violence
Mr. Hinote, now retired, lives in Texas. They shot me as I opened the door of my pickup truck. They hit me five times. One bullet tore into my left knee. A bullet went into my right hand. A bullet went into my right side and exited next to my navel. Two bullets went into [...]
1Jun1996 | Bill Hinote | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Hot Fight Over The Right To Work
Mr. Maher, former editor in chief of Liberty, has also written for The Saturday Evening Post, The Reader’s Digest, The Freeman and other magazines. In May, 1953, fourteen resolute hombres in the State of Texas remembered the Alamo and resolved to go down fighting if need be rather than surrender to overwhelming odds. The battleground [...]
1Nov1955 | Edward Maher | 0 comments | Continued-
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