Category: Labor and Workforce
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Freedom From Union Dues Hangs on Warner
By Vincent Vernuccio First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. A bill under active consideration in Congress would allow unions to get Virginia workers fired for not paying union fees. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, among many other things would end right-to-work laws in Virginia and in 26 other states.…
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To the Left of Karl Marx
An article in the today’s Wall Street Journal, “Innovationville, USA,” writes approvingly of universal incomes, citing no-strings-attached pilot programs in Stockton, Calif., Peterson, N.J., and… (drum roll)… Richmond, Va. The Richmond Resilience Initiative provides $500 per month to 18 working families who don’t qualify for other aid but who, in Mayor Levar Stoney’s estimation, don’t…
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Businesses Taxed For Somebody Else’s Layoffs?
by Steve Haner So many Virginia employers faltered or failed during 2020, the remaining companies may be charged a special tax of $95 on each of their own employees in 2022. It will cover the unemployment benefits paid to workers somebody else laid off, the highest so called “pool tax” ever imposed, more than double…
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VA Employers Stuck in COVID Time Warp
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Despite the stunning and rapid success of the vaccines in arresting the spread of COVID-19, if you enter a Virginia workplace you go back in time to the pre-vaccine era of doubt and fear. Virginia acted in haste in adopting…
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COVID-19 Killed the American Work Ethic
by Kerry Dougherty Sometimes nothing will lift a kid’s mood like a McDonald’s Happy Meal. On Tuesday I was running a raft of errands with a 5-year-old strapped into the back seat. As it crept past lunchtime and she was clearly starving, I saw the blessed Golden Arches. While we idled in a long ribbon…
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State Tax Harvest Under Northam Expands Again
by Steve Haner With the release today of the April 2021 Virginia state revenue report, a correction in an earlier post becomes necessary. Overall general fund state tax collections are not up 26% so far compared to four years ago, they are up almost 30 percent. Corporate income tax collections are not up 68%, but…
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Our Deranged Economic Policy
by James A. Bacon Back during the Great Depression, critics of President Roosevelt’s economic policies equated them with paying unemployed workers to dig holes and fill them back up. As loony as that sounds, it’s better than what government does today. At least the idea of paying people to dig holes honored the age-old connection…
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Some College Graduates Will Get Paid to Live in Southwest or Southside Virginia
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Tobacco Commission (Virginia Tobacco Region and Revitalization Commission) has come up with a program that does not involve pork-barrel grants. Two of the problems afflicting the area served by the Commission, Southside and Southwest, are a shortage of people to fill certain jobs and a shortage of young adults putting down…
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The Day-Late-and-a-Dollar-Short Administration
by James A. Bacon So much dysfunction…. at so many levels. The federal government has been throwing trillions of dollars into COVID-19 relief. Many billions have flowed into Virginia. Despite this unprecedented peace-time spending, thousands of Virginians are being evicted from their homes, and thousands more are lining up at food pantries and soup kitchens.…
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Kings Dominion Stays a Step Ahead of the Minimum Wage
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s $9.50-per-hour minimum wage will go into effect May 1, but it won’t have much impact on King’s Dominion, which expects to hire more than 2,000 seasonal workers, mostly young people, this season. The Hanover County amusement park plans to boost its minimum wage to $13 per hour, reports Virginia Business.…
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COPN Monopolies Depress Income for Virginia Healthcare Professionals Without Lowering Costs
by James C. Sherlock Virginia is among the richest states in the country. We are ranked ninth among states with the highest median household income in the 2019 (latest) Census Bureau American Community Survey. Virginia median household income was $74,222 and the U.S. as a whole was $62,843. But Virginia has a Certificate of…
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Selling Virginia Pot? Expect A Union Label
by Steve Haner When Virginians begin to buy marijuana from state-licensed providers, if Governor Ralph Northam has his way, along with his smiling visage on every baggie of grass you may also find a union label. I’m kidding about getting high with the governor’s image on the package but using the legalization bill to promote…
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Democrats Expand Worker Protections
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Many commenters on this blog seem to view Virginia Democrats as elitists (the “Plantation Elite”) who either ignore or look down on the needs of most Virginians or elitists who are absorbed in advancing critical race theory and other woke ideas. While battles against these perceived threats have been raging on Bacon’s…
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May Day Brings Virginia’s Labor Revolution
by Steve Haner Four major changes in Virginia’s labor laws delayed at the beginning of the COVID-19 recession will all take effect May 1. All were approved by the 2020 General Assembly once Democrats controlled both legislative chambers and then delayed at the 2020 Veto Session. May Day 2021 is almost here. Minimum Wage. The…