Unions

I hope I'm right when I contend that most people in Oregon aren't as dumb as the writer of a photo caption in an article found at Oregon Live, the web site of the Oregonian, apparently is (or, one hopes, is only pretending to be). The caption's writer, commenting on a 2.5 percent gross receipts tax — not an income tax, but a tax off the top on sales — claims that "One question Oregonians have…

If a person wants to go into business as a taxicab owner, what requirements should be imposed to protect the public? The prospective taxicab owner should show that he is honest and can operate a vehicle safely. His vehicle should pass a safety inspection, and he should have a liability insurance policy. Some cities require the purchase of an existing license, sometimes called a medallion. A…

Detroit school students, represented by the Los Angeles-based public interest firm Public Counsel, filed suit last month against the state of Michigan, claiming a legal right to literacy based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Ninety-three percent of Detroit's predominantly black public school eighth-graders are not proficient in reading, and 96 percent are not proficient in mathematics…

In its season two opener, NBC’s big box store comedy, Superstore, continued its sharp left turn left. At the end of the show’s first season, a majority of Cloud 9’s employees went on strike after the store manager was fired for “suspending” an employee, with pay, who had just given birth in the store because the corporate office had refused to offer maternity leave to its associates.

"Firsts" — first man on the moon, first black president, first state to legalize something which was previously a crime, etc. — are supposed to be a big deal, right? Tuesday evening, the Houston Chronicle reported a first in the entire history of organized labor in the U.S., and the national press is ignoring it. That's likely because it's really bad news for Big Labor. The jury verdict in a…

In Thursday’s installment of head-scratching lines uttered by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the Hardball host proclaimed that it’s “[c]hilling how good” Joe Biden has been as Vice President and informed guest and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka that his very appearances on television causes him to be “in a good mood when you come on this show.”

All you travelers stuck in mile-long TSA security lines are pawns. Convenient political pawns. Big Labor bosses want more power and more money. Stranded travelers are just the latest victims in this age-old game of D.C. extortion.  

The establishment press has given an open mic to proponents of raising the minimum wage nationally, and has cheered $15-per-hour legislation passed in California and New York earlier this year as "historic." The silence from those same quarters, e.g., the Associated Press, the New York Times and others, is deafening now that one of the predictions of those who have criticized such sharp…

In an utterly amazing and totally unexpected coincidence, Verizon is reporting that there has been a spike in vandalism and sabotage against its facilities since workers went on strike on April 13. (That's sarcasm, folks.) Paul J. Gough at the Pittsburgh Business Times has reported the company's claim that "there have been more than two dozen cases of what it called sabotage to cables and its…

On Friday, the New York Daily News broke the news that "The head investigator for the state Board of Elections probed the 2014 fundraising efforts by (New York City) Mayor de Blasio and his team on behalf of the (New York State) Senate Democrats and found enough 'willful and flagrant' violations to warrant a criminal referral to the Manhattan DA’s office." The story has attracted virtually no…

On Tuesday, shortly after Governor Jerry Brown signed California's $15-an-hour minimum wage legislation, the Associated Press's Michael R. Blood and Don Thompson called the move "a victory for those struggling on the margins of the economy and the politically powerful unions that pushed it." As seen in a NewsBusters post on March 31, it's definitely a win for union members whose wages are set…

Perhaps this is why the press has been reluctant to cite economists who are predicting that sharp increases in state minimum wages like the $15-per-hour minimums just passed in California and New York will reduce employment: They're with many of their lefty brethren who don't care whether jobs are lost. So they must believe that no one else should care either. At the Washington Post's WonkBlog…

A Los Angeles Times story by Liam Dillon and Patrick McGreevy hailed the "historic" increase in the state-mandated minimum wage to $15 an hour. Apparently giddy with excitement, the pair also unwisely told readers that many public-sector employees who earn far more will be receiving big raises as a result of the legislation with having to bother negotiating with the government entities involved…

These days, one of the biggest meta-debates in politics concerns apportioning blame for the staying power of the Donald Trump circus. How much of Trump’s popularity is attributable to, say, the mainstream media? To conservative talk radio? In a Sunday post, The Washington Monthly’s Martin Longman pointed the finger at Republicans and absolved President Obama. Apropos of Trump’s economically…