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Labor Issues

Pennsylvania must have a level playing field that does not discriminate against workers based on affiliation or lack thereof with any group, must allow the marketplace to determine wages and benefits, must allow the same rules to apply to all groups regarding apprenticeship and training, and must not require compulsory membership in any labor-related group as a condition to employment. Additionally, workers compensation and unemployment compensation policies must be sound, solvent, and help people return to work.

One of the most consequential provisions in a new four-year labor contract negotiated between U.S. Steel and the United Steelworkers (USW) union is a commitment from the company to pump $1 billion in capital investment into its plants over those four years. The investment will spur job creation at the company’s plants (including three at ...
The celebrated economist Thomas Sowell, who happens to be African American, once tried to convince members of the Congressional Black Caucus of the economic and societal foolishness of supporting an increase in the minimum wage. But with political agendas being what they were, he swayed no one by arguing that an increase in the minimum ...
The Wolf Administration is pushing for a prohibitively costly change to overtime eligibility, similar to a move by the Obama Administration that a federal court rejected as blatantly disregarding both the letter and the spirit of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). And the business community is not alone in warning of economic and ...
Vice President Mike Pence visited one of Northeast Pennsylvania’s long-time manufacturers, Schott Advanced Optics in Duryea, urging congressional approval of a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, the USMCA. U.S. manufacturers have thrown their full weight behind the negotiated agreement; it will add billions to the economy and create thousands of high paying manufacturing jobs. ...
The steel and aluminum tariffs ordered by the President Trump last week elicited the same “Chicken Little” squawks as the end of net neutrality, the roll-back of years of Obama market meddling regulations, and across-the-board cuts in federal taxes. The calamitous fallout predicted from the President’s latest policy move includes tit-for-tat trade wars, skyrocketing consumer ...
Governor Wolf got some election-year publicity last week with his decree that overtime pay should apply to tens of thousands of additional workers. Highlighting the stories was a catchy, but misleading phrase, the governor used in his announcement: “It’s simple,” he said, “if you work overtime, then you should get paid fairly for it.” Actually, ...
What’s going on with the Tresco Paving Company, an open shop contractor in Westmoreland County, is sadly emblematic of a culture in Pennsylvania that has us languishing near the bottom in an annual economic competitiveness ranking, Rich States, Poor States, by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Westmoreland County froze Tresco out of two paving ...
The self-created image of public sector unions as the protector-of-the-little guy is being expertly debunked by a new reform group. A series of legal actions brought by the Harrisburg-based public interest law center, The Fairness Center, reveal an ugly pattern of union bullying and trampling over laws and individual rights. The cases show that unions ...
The corruption trial of former Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, is pulling back the curtain on some of the cozy relationships and lucrative transactions involving lawyers representing victims of asbestos exposure. The prosecution in the trial in Manhattan Federal Court is arguing that Silver was involved in a kick-back scheme, where ...
The Republican-controlled House plans to take up a pension reform bill in early to mid-May, caucus sources say. The vote will set the stage for working with a Senate Republican majority that is equally committed to reform, and a potential conflict with Governor Tom Wolf who has downplayed the gravity of the public pension crisis. ...