Ken Girardin

Virginia Democrats are poised to legalize collective bargaining for government employees. In November Democrats brought Richmond under their total control for the first time in more than a quarter-century. The new legislative majorities seem intent on ignoring the painful lessons of New York state’s half-century experiment with government unions. Read More

You’ve got to hand it to New York State United Teachers: the union maintains a remarkably straight face while arguing that the nation’s highest-spending schools and best-paid teachers are starved for funding. Read More

Amid Albany’s Medicaid over-spending crisis, the state Health Department is reconfiguring a little-known portion of the deficit-ridden program in what looks like a scheme to squeeze union dues from roughly 110,000 Medicaid-subsidized in-home caregivers. Read More

A “prevailing wage” expansion in Governor Cuomo’s budget is riddled with carve-outs—and new discretionary power for the governor. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to further tilt New York’s public-sector collective bargaining landscape in favor of public employee unions—this time to pressure new employees to join. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders have reached a deal allowing striking workers to collect unemployment insurance benefits after three weeks, a big gift to private-sector labor unions that would further discourage companies from hiring and investing here. Read More

A dispute over the construction contract for a stretch of proposed state-funded public walking and biking trail in Central New York shows how far Governor Andrew Cuomo will go to steer state contracts to construction unions—and how much that’s costing taxpayers. Read More

A bill allowing New York City agencies to construct projects using the “design-build” procurement method would come with a big string attached. Read More