Calif. Grower Interfered With Union Election By Elizabeth Warmerdam, April 19, 2016, Courthouse News Service  California’s farm labor board upheld a ruling that the state’s largest tree fruit grower interfered with its employees’ election on whether to decertify the United Farm Workers as their union representative. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board voted unanimously Friday to uphold...

If someone told you that they were going to invest their money, but if that money didn’t earn enough interest, they were going to take your money to make up the difference, would you think that was fair? When it comes to pensions for local government workers, that’s what’s happening all over California. San Jose’s...

The union and media reactions to the appeals court decision in the Vergara case had me going through a whole can of room deodorizer. In 2014, the plaintiffs in the Vergara trial claimed that several California education statutes – all of which are on the books at the behest of the teachers unions – cause...

Construction trade unions in California remain distressed about how solar power is harming the environment. Their latest worry is the 150-megawatt Willow Springs Solar Project proposed for Kern County, in Antelope Valley at the Los Angeles County border. An energy company called First Solar has been planning this project since 2010. In February 2015 Kern County released a...

The real costs of minimum wage hikes By Norm Groot, April 12, 2016, The Salinas Californian Just this past week, our governor and Democratic legislators reached a compromise on the state’s minimum wage, mostly to avoid a costly ballot initiative fight precipitated by the unions that was due to occur this fall. While we all...

In a move of breathtaking hypocrisy, California’s legislators have unveiled a financially sustainable retirement security program for private workers, while keeping financially unsustainable pensions for public workers. What private sector employers and private sector workers need to ask, more than anything, is if this new retirement security scheme is so great, why aren’t public employees going...

The public employee pension problem isn’t new, but a teacher union leader’s defense of it has sunk to new depths. According to the Federal Reserve, public employee pensions in aggregate nationally are in serious trouble. Currently totaling $5.8 trillion, they are underfunded by $1.7 trillion. While all these pensions are draining public resources, Don Boyd, director...