Today’s News & Commentary — August 3, 2017

According to the Washington Examiner, workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi will vote today on whether or not they should join the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. Nearly 4,000 workers will be voting, and the election will be concluded by Friday. While unions have struggled in the South due to right-to-work laws, a victory here for UAW would help make crucial inroads. However, even if the UAW is unsuccessful, some have argued that all is not lost, as the UAW could be playing the long game with the hope of winning future union elections.

According to the Texas Monitor, teachers unions are fighting to prevent the Texas Legislature from passing a bill to prohibit teachers and several other state and local employees from deducting union dues directly from their paychecks. Teachers unions in Texas have collected over $100 million in dues over the past decade through payroll deductions. Proponents of  banning payroll deductions for union dues argue that the government should have no role in collecting union dues.

According to CNBC, Amazon is looking to hire up to 50,000 people at its shipping centers in preparation for holiday shopping. At a recent job fair, nearly 20,000 people applied for these jobs most of which are in packing, sorting, and shipping, and Amazon hired many of them on-the-spot. Importantly, however, as Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, notes more people in retail will lose their jobs than are hired in distribution centers.