International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Labor Watch
Republicans and Big Labor: Wagner and Taft-Hartley
After the war, unions flexed their NLRA-supercharged muscles with the largest strike wave in American history, which worsened inflation caused by military demobilization. That economic disruption swept the Republicans into…
by Michael Watson on April 23, 2025

Labor Watch
Republicans and Big Labor: The Two Minds of Tricky Dick
Richard Nixon had voted for Taft-Hartley in Congress, but opposed efforts to establish a national right-to-work law. After his decisive but narrow victory, President Nixon pursued a middle path on…
by Michael Watson on April 23, 2025

Labor Watch
Republicans and Big Labor: Reagan-Bush and Beyond
Running away from Big Labor, most prominently by Ronald Reagan’s Transportation Department sacking illegally striking PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981, did not harm the GOP.
by Michael Watson on April 23, 2025

Commentary, Labor Watch
The Teamsters’ Trojan Horse
Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley presents himself as a conservative champion of working-class voters, attacking wokeness in corporations and the workplace. But that doesn’t fit the recent coziness between Hawley and…
by Michael Watson on April 9, 2025

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: The Old Left and the Reds
American labor radicalism has come a long way from Soviet agents in the Congress of Industrial Organizations through the UAW-funded Students for a Democratic Society to today’s SEIU purple-shirted demonstrators…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: Labor and the New Left
The collapse of American Communism was not the end of American leftist radicalism, and the labor union movement would negotiate a complex dance with the “New Left” from its beginning…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: The Rise of the SEIU
Among the many problems afflicting Big Labor as the Long Decline began was organizing; namely turning workers into dues-paying union members, especially in the growing service industries and the historically…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: Labor’s New Coalition
American labor radicalism has come a long way from Soviet agents in the Congress of Industrial Organizations through the UAW-funded Students for a Democratic Society to today’s SEIU purple-shirted demonstrators…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
Who Is Big Labor, Anyway?
There are three persistent, widespread myths about union members. First, many believe that organized labor speaks for wage- and salary-earners as a class based on overwhelming membership. Second, many believe…
by Michael Watson on February 3, 2025

Labor Watch
Why Is Josh Hawley Bringing Obamanomics Back from the Grave?
Most of the time, Sen. Hawley is a strong voice for conservative policy, but in issuing his “pro-worker framework,” he has dug up the rotting corpse of one of President…
by Michael Watson on January 21, 2025