Institute for the American Worker

08/14/2026

Reason Magazine Specifically, the International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC), which has a near monopoly on elevator installation and repair work in America.

Labor costs are the single biggest part of installing a new elevator, and the IUEC likes it that way. Elevator construction is the highest-paid speciality construction job in the U.S., with hourly wages in excess of $51 in 2024. The union keeps those costs high by strictly controlling how many members it has: In 2021, more than 1,500 people applied to join New York City's local union of the IUEC. Only 115 were allowed to join.

America’s elevator shortage is making housing more expensive, buildings less accessible, and cities less dynamic—all because of bad regulations and union protectionism.

08/14/2026

The top marginal income tax rate in Seattle would be 57.937 percent if voters let a state millionaire tax take effect.

08/14/2026

Op-ed Jace White Advancing American Freedom The Teamsters are left-wing to their core — 93% of Teamsters’ contributions to federal candidates went to Democrats — but all they’ve had to do is throw out a few crumbs of verbal and financial support to Republicans, and populists are ready to declare that a paradigm shift is underway in the labor movement. Wrong.

Pro-union populists want conservatives to ignore unions’ faults and get excited about unions as they may one day become, yet today they’re supporting alliances with Democrats to advance legislation that would empower unions as they exist today. Passing Hawley’s Faster Labor Contracts Act would instantly give far-left labor unions a faster road to workplace control, allowing them to collect union dues that fund their extremist political machine that supports abortion and radical gender ideology nationwide. It’s a bill congressional conservatives should strongly oppose.

Unions are some of the largest donors to Democrats and leftist causes. They don't deserve conservative support.

08/14/2026

The firms tied to former Ald. Isaac “Ike” Carothers and former Blagojevich administration official Bamani Obadele have gotten campaign business from Gov. JB Pritzker and in the hotly contested race for Chicago School Board president.

Firms Linked To 2 Men Convicted Of Public Corruption Have Gotten Campaign Business From Gov, CTU

The firms tied to former Ald. Isaac “Ike” Carothers and former Blagojevich administration official Bamani Obadele have gotten campaign business from Gov. JB Pritzker and in the hotly contested race for Chicago School Board president.

08/13/2026

Op-Ed:
In 2025, USW held two significant strikes. One that put nearly 2,000 represented employees out of work for eight months, and another that forced 650 people out of work for five months. The strike likely cost these workers tens of millions collectively in lost wages.

It also reported 615 employees earning more than $75,000, with an average total compensation of $107,476. The union paid its own staff more than 10 times what it paid in strike benefits.

The terms were strong, as Nippon’s offer included $2.7 billion in capital investment earmarked specifically for USW facilities.

USW leadership opposed the Nippon Steel deal and prioritized staff pay over workers. But the $2.5 billion investment proved them wrong.

08/13/2026

The Fairness Center: "Denver Fire Fighters Local 858, the union representing more than 1,000 Denver firefighters and EMS personnel, has filed a lawsuit alleging the statewide firefighters’ union refuses to recognize its disaffiliation from the state union and is demanding roughly $400,000 for dues the local union says it doesn’t owe.

Local 858 had been affiliated with the state union, Colorado Professional Fire Fighters (CPFF), since the local’s founding in 1946. But in recent years, some Denver firefighters began questioning whether the state union was providing enough value to justify sending it almost $250,000 a year in dues."

Denver Fire Fighters Local 858 Sues State Union to Affirm Disaffiliation, Stop $400K Dues Demand Colorado's statewide firefighters' union refuses to respect Denver union’s decision to leave, lawsuit alleges. August 11, 2026, Denver Co.—Denver Fire Fighters Local 858, the union representing more ...

08/13/2026

The president ran with support from a now-defunct union reform group founded in part by socialists, the Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), which contributed to his successful election. However the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), has pushed back on Fain, emphasizing the divide between him and its preferred UAW presidential candidate, socialist Will Lehman, in the 2026 UAW election.

The leftist president of the United Auto Workers seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place as a more extreme faction takes aim at him and his socialist supporters. President Shawn Fain took the reins of United Auto Workers (UAW) in 2023 after narrowly winning its first direct presidential e...

08/13/2026

A law passed in April 2020 required school districts to pay employees covered by union contracts “as if the school facilities remained open” during the pandemic.

Under their union contract, East Orange custodians were entitled to their regular pay plus an additional one-and-a-half times that amount on days schools were closed for an emergency.

The school district's custodians earn about $40,000 a year and have no way of paying back their emergency wages, their attorney said.

08/12/2026

Op-ed: Nonetheless, the district agreed to boost pay for principals and assistant principals by 12% over two years, increase average teacher pay by 14% over two years, and raise compensation for non-instructional employees such as custodians, campus aides and cafeteria workers by 24% over three years, in addition to sweetening health benefits. To pay for this, the district sought to raid its retiree health benefits fund. That’s like tapping your 401(k) at age 64 for a holiday you can’t afford.

A Covid hiring binge and lavish union contracts leave the district on the verge of going broke.

08/12/2026

“We believe California has not been doing that,” he said. “In a recent labor complaint, one caregiver claimed that a union representative locked the doors at her orientation and told attendees “no one is leaving” until they’d all signed a union membership card.”

The Department of Justice is investigating allegations of coercion, a senior law enforcement source told The Post.

Other complaints include instances of forged signatures, dues taken before an agreement ever existed, and once case where a caregiver was charged dues for over a year, despite writing “do not wish to participate” on her opt-in form.

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz slammed California leadership for ignoring rampant Medicaid fraud that has plagued the state, claiming powerful unions are the ones benefitting the most and keeping …