In her opening statement and in some of her responses, Chavez-DeRemer reinforced that she was committed to putting workers first. Frankly, there was too much talk about the American "worker" and not enough discussion about the American entrepreneur, solopreneur, and business owner who are pivotal to the workforce of America and who supply opportunities for other Americans to work. "Workforce development" should incorporate that freedom to create one's own work, not just how to aid and facilitate the employer-employee relationship. That is the essence of the technological revolution that has changed the nature of work, but too little discussion is given to the fact that at least half of America's workforce chooses to work for themselves and wants it to stay that way: they do not want an employer. They do not need an employer. This hearing also bypassed the fact that at least 62 percent of Americans, if given the opportunity, would prefer to work for themselves.

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
If ANY judge ANYWHERE can stop EVERY Presidential action EVERYWHERE, we do NOT live in a democracy.
10:57 PM · Feb 13, 2025. //

TK421
4 hours ago
To that moron from the union: It doesn't matter whether there's precedent, just whether it's legal. And, your use of the term 'dismantling' is meaningless in a legal sense. What would be unconstitutional would be the Executive branch eliminating a Congressionally created agency. That hasn't happened. It was moved under the auspices of the State Department, so it still exists. One of the things the Executive can do, is determine the staffing level, and you have no right to argue otherwise. If the Executive branch determines that only 10 people are needed to administer the agency's programs (especially because those programs have been scaled back), tough luck. //

anon-tk7z NavyVet
37 minutes ago
do you know how many companies just gave up because of unions? This is exactly their position. Businesses were not negotiating with their people , they were negotiating with a distant entity that showed up for a day or two, threatened the company, left, destroyed the company, and left the workers with no jobs unless they moved. Bread companies, gum companies, toy companies, glass companies, local metalists, on and on and on, small businesses of 50-60 people. So, the companies just closed. Poverty and lack of self worth flourished. The good things unions did are now hard-wired into any business here in this country.

Tim Carney
@TPCarney
·
Follow
1) The ACLU believes there are four branches of the government.
2) It's favorite "branch" is the imaginary one that has zero democratic accountability.
Casey Mattox
@CaseyMattox_
ACLU: "Not only would such mass layoffs violate federal law, but this action would undermine the important and historic check that the career civil service has had on curbing abuses by the executive branch.". //

Judge O'Boyle ruled that [shocked face] none of the plaintiffs had standing to file suit to stop the buyout because they'd suffered no harm. Indeed, virtually every one of the court actions filed to stymie the Trump administration could be settled in five minutes if judges simply took the idea of "standing" seriously. The unions had claimed harm because they were being forced to spend time and money trying to stop the buyout, which could be devoted to other, unnamed, and probably criminal, union activities. Judge O'Boyle said the plaintiffs can't "spend their way into standing, neither can the plaintiffs in this case establish standing by choosing to divert resources towards “respond[ing] to tremendous uncertainty created by OPM’s actions” and away from other union priorities."

The bigger picture was the nature of the complaint itself.

Second, this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to consider the plaintiffs’ pleaded claims. While not binding on this Court, the decision in Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO v. Trump (“AFGE”) is instructive. 929 F.3d 748 (D.C. Cir. 2019). In that case, the court held that the plaintiff-unions’ claims fell within the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute’s (“FSL-MRS”) scheme and therefore the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Id. at 754.

This means the unions must exhaust appeals through the agency and then through the Federal Labor Relations Authority before heading to federal court.

Since the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, which ruled it unconstitutional to force public sector employees to pay union dues or be coerced into union membership, labor statistics show that unions have stalled and continue to lose ground. The new age of employment and self-employment has opened up different avenues and forms for working Americans, ones that encourage freedom and flexibility. A January 25 news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered the sobering facts on how little draw union membership has for the American worker.

The union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions—was 9.9 percent in 2024, little changed from the prior year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.3 million, also showed little movement over the year. In 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union members.

President Trump has fired the acting chairman and the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. This action reduces the five-member board to two members and prevents rulemaking and enforcement action until replacements are found.

The dismissal of General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo was expected. When Joe Biden was inaugurated, he demolished decades of tradition by immediately firing Trump-appointed General Counsel Peter Robb. So, #NewRules.

Abruzzo, who served as the NLRB's chief prosecutor, pushed an agenda that encouraged hyper-unionization. Her favorite theory was the "joint employer" rule, which would have, for example, made every McDonald's employee an employee of the parent corporation, not the franchisee, for labor law purposes. Fortunately, that rule was struck down by a federal court. //

Don't be shocked if, at some point, Trump relents and reappoints her. I think this action's purpose was to freeze the NLRB and prevent any of Biden's plans from going forward while giving him time to install his own chairman and majority. //

Once Independent
4 minutes ago
I would like to point out that the Supreme Court has time and time again stated that no LEGISLATIVE boundaries can prevent the President from carrying out EXECUTIVE actions.

He said that when one of his vice presidents spoke with Harris, Harris arrogantly told her, "You better get on board! You better get on board! Better get on board soon." O'Brien told the story, chuckling in disbelief at that arrogance.

Then, she finally agrees to come to the roundtable after all the pressure from O'Brien. Rank and file members asked questions -- 16 questions. Trump did it. But Harris didn't want to answer them. On the fourth question, O'Brien describes how one of her handlers slips him a note saying, "This will be the last question," ending the session twenty minutes earlier than when it was supposed to. Yikes, she couldn't even make it through 16 questions? But that was typical; she didn't want to be put on the spot, even in what might be friendly environments.

O'Brien then said that her incredible declaration on the way out was, "I'm going to win with you or without you."

Steven Dennis @StevenTDennis
·
In one of their final acts in office, Sinema and Manchin nuke a Biden pick for the National Labor Relations Board in a big loss for organized labor.
1:57 PM · Dec 11, 2024. //

Well, payback is rarely kind, and Sinema and Manchin just delivered a well-deserved helping of it. Voters rejected the Democratic Party labor agenda in November. Giving McFerran another five-year term would have been a slap in the face to the American people who do not want unions being given special carveouts at a cost to everyone else.

Consider this another example of Democrats overplaying their hand. They don't know how to do anything in moderation, and in their lust for power, they gave up two formerly solid votes (when it comes to confirmations) to appease the far-left. Those chickens have come home to roost. I don't know where Sinema and Manchin go from here now that they are leaving office, but their preservation of the filibuster and rejection of the Democrat status-quo has done the country a great service.

In the fading hours of arguably the worst administration since Herbert Hoover, Joe Biden's Social Security Commissioner, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed a five-year contract with the American Federation of Government Employees guaranteeing continued work-from-home, or telework, for up to four days per week for the agency's workers. //

This points to two major problems in the federal workforce. First, the idea that a union should represent federal employees is ridiculous. The whole thing is a gift. That's a subject for a different day. The second problem is that telework and its abuse are the norm, and there is no doubt it cheats taxpayers out of money and services. //

While the reporter for GovExec claims SSA has a "1.3%" telework rate, in terms of numbers, that would mean only 780 people of SSA's 60,000 employees work from home. If that was the case, then it hardly seems like something that AFGE would make a big deal about. The truth is probably much worse. Ernst's investigation found a space utilization rate of just 7% at the SSA headquarters campus; see page 3. The union claimed that work-from-home was all that was holding back a cascade of resignations and retirements. //

There are several areas of waste, fraud, and abuse at work here. The one most overlooked is the cost of leasing and operating massive buildings that only have, on average, a 12% utilization rate. And then there is the flagrant abuse of a privilege.

Chavez-DeRemer has proven that she is not on the side of independent professionals or workers; she is on the side of union bosses and herself. Chavez-DeRemer is simply another union activist trussed up and planted to take control of the levers of power in order to destroy the independent contractor model and economic freedom for all Americans. //

Laocoön of Troy
an hour ago edited
We've had union-friendly Secretaries of Labor before. Even Republican ones. Elaine Chao and Elizabeth Dole were not particularly worker-friendly during their tenures. Former Consgresswoman Chavez-DeRemer is not unique nor is she politically powerful enuf to push a union agenda all by herself. I've never heard of her before this. She's a DEFEATED former Congresswoman from an insane clown possee radical lefty state. Trump is pretty unimpressed with losers...unless they bring something to the table. I'm not at all sure what Chavez-DeRemer brings to the table.

That having been said, Trump would be wise to at least consider the charges people are making against her. Trump might consider avoiding internal political fights within his Cabinet and with the Congress by pulling her nomination. //

ThatGuy81
4 hours ago
I don't want unions. They're unnecessary dinosaurs of the industrial revolution that serve no purpose other than to grift off workers, enforce nepotism, and hide bad workers from reprisal. I refuse to hand over another portion of my paycheck to line some idiot's pocket and if unions gain a foothold in this administration, it'll be the worst thing Trump can do against American workers. They're just the mafia by another name. //

SomeIdeas 2 hours ago

Randi Weingarten's approval confirms C-D is the wrong choice.

Intuitively, court employees in California, an in-home caregiver in Washington State, and public employees in Oregon have little in common.

But each is among a list of public servants whose credible allegations of government union misconduct will be reviewed by the United States Supreme Court during its opening conference on Monday, September 30.

In 2018, the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME held that the First Amendment prohibits government employers from requiring public employees to pay mandatory union fees. Before a public servant becomes a union member, the Court ruled, an employee must clearly and affirmatively consent to dues payments.

But in the years since Janus, Big Labor has resorted to narrow dues revocation windows, forged membership cards, and other coercive habits to counteract a downturn in union membership.

Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt
·
NEWS: The UAW today filed federal labor charges against Trump and Elon Musk due to something Trump said during last night's 𝕏 Spaces.

UAW: "At one point, Trump and Musk were talking about workers who go on strike for better wages. Trump said if workers "go on strike, and you…

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
The last two UAW presidents went to prison for bribery & corruption and, based on recent news, it looks like this guy will join them!
11:11 AM · Aug 13, 2024

There is, we may very well remember, an old saying about people who live in glass houses.

Kevin Kiley @KevinKileyCA
·
It's official. Gavin Newsom's war on workers has just been taken national by Biden and Julie Su. They've announced an "Independent Contractor" rule based on California's notorious AB 5 law. It will put millions of Americans out of work.

Here are some of the reviews AB 5 received… Show more
1:28 PM · Jan 9, 2024

That's a conservative estimate. Since 2022, there are 57.3 million Americans who consider themselves freelancers, independent contractors, self-employed, or entrepreneurs. The legacy media's tendency to lump all of these categories under the "gig" economy simply frames it in people's minds as technology or rideshare; but these are your dental hygienist, your child's soccer coach, fabricators, farriers, and home health care providers, to name just a few. Over 600 professions have been identified that would be upended or outright eliminated when this DOL IC Rule takes effect. //

The Independent Contractor Rule was recorded in the federal register on January 10, 2024, and is scheduled to take effect on March 10, 2024. It is 339 pages of essentially the Department of Labor justifying why independent contractors should not be allowed to exist. The rule acts from the premise that independent contractors have no right to determine whether they are independent or an employee. It is the DOL's job to do that for you. //

The term "economic reality" appears 345 times within the Rule as one of the means to deny an independent contractor their right to earn money as they choose. It's positively chilling, and if Americans refused to pay attention when California independent professionals raised the alarm on AB5, then they very well need to pay attention now. //

Kevin Kiley @KevinKileyCA
·
We are using every possible tool to stop the Biden-Su "Independent Contractor" rule from destroying the livelihoods of millions of Americans:

First, I'm introducing legislation under the Congressional Review Act to nullify it. This is a fast-track procedure for overriding an… Show more
11:16 AM · Jan 12, 2024

Illingworth believes people who want a free country must be willing to suffer to keep it free. That’s why the Air Force veteran is on the board despite the pressure that puts him under. There’s no benefit to having a Constitution if the people of our country don’t act to enforce its ideals, he said.

“Every time you point to something great and enduring, it’s because some person followed through on the courage of their convictions,” he said.