A week in June is being promoted to advise workers of their right to opt out of union membership. Unknown to many employees throughout the country – especially in non-right-to-work states – they have a right to not belong to a union. This year, June 23rd – 29th is being dedicated to informing America’s wage...

I’ve received a number of calls from reporters over the last few weeks seeking my reaction to the fact that many tax hike bills have stalled in the Legislature. Despite the passage of Prop 30 giving California both the highest marginal income tax rate and the highest state sales tax rate in America, the sheer...

Excerpts from four documents (obtained from California’s Administrative Office of the Courts on June 5, 2013 through a public records request) reveal the successful behind-the-scenes plot within the California court system involving top staff of the Administrative Office of the Courts and the Judicial Council to give construction trade unions monopoly control of the $586 million new San Diego County Central Courthouse with a Project Labor Agreement. Although...

No one was surprised last week when the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill 375, which, allegedly, makes it easier to discipline and fire teachers accused of misconduct. The bill, which now is pending in the state Senate, is supported by the California Teachers Association, which was criticized for having defeated past efforts to streamline teacher...

Here are links to the top stories available online over the past week reporting on union activity including legislation, financial impact, reform activism, etc., from California and across the USA. Operation: Stop Bruce Karsh From Selling Tribune to the Koch Brothers By David Freelander, June 4, 2013, The Daily Beast The left’s biggest bogeymen could...

Last week the California Public Policy Center released a compilation of public employee compensation databases. Apart from the CPPC’s own studies that disclose and evaluate compensation for city workers in San Jose, Anaheim, Costa Mesa, and Irvine, as of May 2013, they found nine additional sources of information on California’s state and local government employee...

On May 28, 2013, the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure for the U.S. House of Representatives held a field hearing in Madera, California on oversight of the California High-Speed Rail project. Unlike San Francisco, where 78.4% of voters approved Proposition 1A in November 2008 to authorize borrowing...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sacramento, California, June 4, 2013 Contact:  press@calpolicycenter.org A new study published by the California Policy Center analyzes the impact of GASB and Moody’s new – and final – rules governing financial reporting for pensions. These rules take effect next year. If Orange County had been using the just adopted GASB rulings governing...

The ongoing battle between parents and the union-dominated education blob heats up in California. California state senator Gloria Romero’s Parent Trigger law has been around for over three years now, and its progress has been slow but steady. The law stipulates that if 50 percent +1 of the parents of children in a failing school...