Robots take root on smaller dairy farms, upping production

Robots have taken up residence at some small- and medium-sized dairy farms across the country, providing reliable and more efficient labor and helping the businesses remain viable. Plus, farmers say, the milking technology makes for happier, more productive cows.
Dairy operations here and abroad have used robotic milkers for more than a decade. But with more manufacturers and dealerships emerging the U.S., the number of smaller farms in Iowa with the technology has doubled over the last two years, from roughly 20 to more than 40, and family farms in the Northeast also are plugging in.


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The NLRB’s Power Grab: A Very Dangerous, Troublemaking Government Department

Why should a union representing workers who are not employees of McDonald’s be empowered to squeeze concessions out of McDonald’s? Why did Willie Sutton rob banks?
In a party-line decision, the Democrat-dominated National Labor Relations Board has decided that employees of contractors can be treated as employees of other companies when . . . well, when it is convenient for Democratic constituencies that they be so treated. The underlying case involved an operator of recycling centers, Browning-Ferris Industries of California, which uses subcontractors to staff some of its facilities.


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Black Labor Force Participation Rate Under Obama Hits Rock Bottom--Lowest Level Ever Recorded

Five years in to Barack Obama’s presidency, the number of African-Americans participating in the labor force has hit rock bottom. The news media has ignored this stunning revelation from Friday’s monthly jobs report by the Labor Department.   The exception has been PBS, which interviewed economist Dean Baker who had written about it in a report published Friday.  “The drop in labor force participation was sharpest for African Americans, who saw a decline of 0.3 percentage points to 60.2 percent, the lowest rate since December of 1977.

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For Every Person Added to Labor Force, 10 Added to Those Not in Labor Force

A new chart from the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee details the fact that, since January 2009, for every person added to the labor force, 10 have been added to those not in the labor force. Here's a chart showing the dwindling labor force:



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Examiner: Now Obama's NLRB tells a church school it's not religious enough

It's not enough for President Obama's National Labor Relations Board to target the Boeing plant in South Carolina. Now the NLRB thinks it can tell a church school when it's not religious enough. ✧ Most people have heard by now of NLRB's unprecedented decree that Boeing Co. cannot build a new airline production facility in South Carolina. ✧ But Obama's NLRB is also claiming the authority to dictate labor policies and order union elections at Catholic universities if they are not religious enough. Read more at The Washington Examiner... Read More......

Understanding Mandatory Arbirtation

Patriot Post, 5/4/2009 - GOVERNMENT: "The labor unions' drive for the full card check bill seems to have foundered. [Arlen] Specter enters a Democratic caucus where a half-dozen or more senators have made it clear, publicly or privately, that they will not vote for card check. ... But the unions may have a fallback position: Forget about the secret ballot, and try to pass a bill with mandatory federal arbitration. This might be easier to defend. Every American knows what the secret ballot is; few Americans know what mandatory arbitration means. Mandatory arbitration would be a major, massive change in American labor law. Currently, unions are free to strike, but employers are free to resist their demands as long as they want. The card check bill would require, after only 120 days of bargaining, a federal arbitrator to step in and impose a settlement. A centralized bureaucrat, not responsible to shareholders (or to union leaders), would determine wages, fringe benefits and working conditions. There would evidently be no appeal. No one knows exactly what this would mean in practice. But the negative consequences are easy to imagine. Arbitrators might very well impose terms and conditions similar to those in existing union-negotiated contracts. Those might include not only wages that would reduce a business' profits, but also generous fringe benefits and thousands of pages of detailed work rules. Private employers might be forced into funding union pension plans with their massive long-term liabilities. Detailed work rules would mean adversarial negotiations between company foremen and union shop stewards over even the most minor changes in work procedures. How would this affect the economy? We have a test case before us, highlighted by recent headlines, which gives us some answers: the auto industry." --columnist Michael Barone

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