Unions Archives - The Pennsylvania Daily Star

Commentary: Reforming Private Sector Unions

December 7, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Unlike public sector unions, which are inherently corrupt and need to be outlawed, private sector unions have a vital role to play in American society. But these unions have become coopted by the same special interests they were originally formed to oppose. The political agenda of America’s unions is almost exclusively leftist, and being part of America’s institutional “Left” is not what it used to be.

The biggest misconception in American politics today is that the political Left is fighting corporate power. Leftists may still attack corporate profits and demand corporations pay their “fair share,” but on every major issue affecting the economic freedom and prosperity of working families in America, these presumed antagonists are actually in perfect alignment.

Commentary: Outlaw Public Sector Unions

November 30, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Money doesn’t guarantee victory in political campaigns. For proof, look no further than Meg Whitman, the California billionaire who in 2010 squandered $179 million in her futile campaign to beat Jerry Brown and become that state’s next governor.

When money is married to institutional power, however, it makes all the difference. This is why, 10 years after the Whitman debacle, Mark Zuckerberg was able to purchase the presidential election outcome in 2020 for $419 million. Whitman’s money paid consultants and bought ads on television. Zuckerberg’s money went to supplement the activities of election offices in swing states – election offices that employed workers represented by unions that overwhelmingly favor Democrats over Republicans.

House Dem Predicts Biden Will Intervene to Stop Strike Against Big Three Automakers

September 7, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

A House Democrat predicted Tuesday on an episode of Bloomberg’s podcast “Sound On” that President Joe Biden would intervene to avoid a major auto industry strike.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) is currently in negotiations with the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — over employment contracts for unionized workers that are set to expire on Sept. 14. Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer told “Sound On” host Joe Mathieu that he believes that Biden will prevent a strike between the Big Three and UAW by intervening in negotiations, citing past interventions in union negotiations.

Commentary: What Unions Don’t Want You to Know This Labor Day

September 4, 2023September 3, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

A male doing electrical work with a ball cap and safety glasses on

This Labor Day, the Biden administration and Big Labor will no doubt tout the alleged successes of President Joe Biden’s “whole of government” push to increase unionization in the workplace and unions’ modest successes in breaking into a few big corporations. But those stories will also leave a lot out. They’ll leave out the side of the story that unions don’t want workers to know.

That side of the story includes the fact that unionization reached an all-time low of 10.1 percent in 2022 (and only 6.0 percent among private sector workers) as worker satisfaction reached an all-time high of 62.3 percent (according to The Conference Board’s measure, which began in 1987). It also includes the fact that while non-union wages increased by 24 percent over the past five years, union wages rose by less than 17 percent.

Commentary: Unions Have Betrayed America

August 17, 2023August 16, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Anyone suggesting there is no role for unions in America today might first consider a fact of history: more than a century ago, when oligarchs and the companies they owned had treated workers as if they were livestock, reduced to living in squalid pens with rationed food and water, it was unions that organized these workers to resist. It was unions who gave these workers back their humanity, and negotiated collective bargaining agreements and laws that eliminated child labor, enforced workplace safety, established an 8-hour work day, paid overtime, health benefits, and retirement pensions.

Commentary: America Needs to Update Its Labor Union Laws

July 6, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

For years, labor unions have been exempt from the consequences of destroying private property. Would you like a higher wage or salary? Sounds good! So, how would you go about persuading your employer to give you a raise? Why not vandalize some of your employer’s property with your labor union, or at least threaten to do so unless the boss gives you the raise you want?

Let’s say you want to get hired for a certain job, but you are worried that another applicant might get the job you want. Should you slash the tires on the other person’s car and threaten to pound him with a baseball bat if he doesn’t disappear?

Commentary: To Unions, Organizing Time Is Fine When It’s on the Taxpayers’ Dime

June 28, 2023 RealClearWire

Randi Weingarten, the powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers, hasn’t been a working teacher in more than a quarter of a century.

Of the six years she spent teaching social studies, half of them appear to have been as a substitute. Yet despite the long absence from her short tenure in the classroom, the union leader described herself during a recent congressional hearing as being on leave from Brooklyn’s Clara Barton High School.

Pennsylvania House Committee Advances Legislation Favoring Certain Contractors; GOP Flags Alleged Notice Violation

June 23, 2023June 22, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania House of Representatives panel on Thursday passed bills to favor apprenticeship-trained labor and pay prevailing wages in state contracting in a process Republicans blasted as illegitimate.

The House Labor and Industry Committee reported both bills to the full chamber, with all 12 Democrats supportive and all nine Republicans opposed.

Biden Sets Leftist Tone for 2024 Re-Election Effort at Philadelphia Event

June 18, 2023June 17, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

President Joe Biden held his first presidential re-election campaign event on Saturday at the Philadelphia Convention Center, making strong appeals to his left-wing base.

Biden appeared alongside organized-labor activists and mentioned in the first few seconds of his oration that when he thinks of working Americans, he especially values the ones who associate with causes he finds politically congenial.

Pennsylvania GOP Senate to Tackle Budget That Overspends Shapiro Proposal by $1.1 Billion

June 7, 2023June 6, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

At first, Keystone State Republicans viewed Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget proposal with mere skepticism. This week, state House Democrats larded it with an extra $1.1 billion and passed it, making a fray between their chamber and the Republican-run Senate even more probable.

The nearly $47 billion spending plan, approved by representatives along party lines, hikes spending by $5.7 billion over the current fiscal year, a more than a 13-percent increase. Members of the Republican minority excoriated their Democratic colleagues for rushing the plan to passage within six hours of its completion, a move they said reflected poor transparency. Representative Doyle Heffley (R-Weissport) spoke for many in his party when he called the House-passed plan a “poison pill” for Pennsylvania’s economy.

Pennsylvania House Approves Forced-Unionism Amendment

May 5, 2023May 4, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week passed a measure to enshrine forced unionism in the state Constitution.

The proposed law is identical to an Illinois Constitutional Amendment enacted last year. It would prevent lawmakers from adopting a “right-to-work” policy protecting nonunion workers from being forced to pay union dues. It would also counteract any state statute that checks labor organizations’ power, thereby vastly increasing public-sector unions’ bargaining clout.

Pennsylvania House Committee Passes Forced-Unionism Amendment

May 2, 2023May 1, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

A bill to enshrine union coercion in the Pennsylvania Constitution passed the state House Labor and Industry Committee 12-9 on Monday.

The measure, identical to an Illinois constitutional amendment that Prairie State voters narrowly ratified last autumn, would prevent adoption of a “right-to-work” law saying nonunion workers can’t be forced to pay union dues. More broadly, the amendment would counteract statutes that check the power of labor organizations and, opponents fear, give public-sector union contracts primacy over state law.

Pennsylvania Committee Considers Socialist’s Forced Unionism Amendment

April 26, 2023April 25, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s new state House Democratic majority began considering a measure to enshrine forced unionism in the state Constitution.

The House of Representatives Labor and Industry Committee took testimony on legislation identical to an Illinois constitutional amendment that Prairie State voters narrowly approved last November. Proposed by Representative Elizabeth Fiedler (D-Philadelphia), the Pennsylvania amendment would forbid lawmakers to enact a right-to-work law banning contracts that demand union-dues payments even from nonmembers.

Republican State Senator Proposes $15 Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Bill

April 24, 2023April 23, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s state Senate Republican Policy chair on Friday said he’s sponsoring legislation gradually raising the commonwealth’s minimum hourly wage to $15 and thence indexing it to inflation.

Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie), one of his chamber’s most moderate Republicans representing one of its most electorally competitive districts, said in a statement that he carefully mulled the issue before announcing his measure. The Keystone State’s pay floor rose to $7.25 per hour in 2008, matching the federal minimum wage, and the senator insisted now is the time for an increase, observing that 30 states now set their floors higher.

Pennsylvania Government Union Political Spending Skyrockets Even as Membership Declines

March 23, 2023March 22, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

Even as Pennsylvania’s public-sector unions suffer net losses of members and dues, these groups continue to ramp up political donations, according to a new analysis by the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation (CF).

According to the free-market nonprofit, spending from Keystone State government unions like the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13 totaled $6.34 million in the 2011-12 campaign cycle. That amount steadily rose over all gubernatorial and presidential cycles and reached a record $20.2 million in 2021-22.

Gov. Shapiro’s Pennsylvania Budget Proposal Rewards Union Donors

March 14, 2023March 13, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

Unions donated copiously to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) during last year’s gubernatorial campaign and they’ll reap a handsome reward if the legislature approves a particular item in Shapiro’s proposed budget.

The Fiscal Year 2023-24 spending plan includes a $1,274,000 initiative to increase by one-third the number of labor law compliance investigators at the commonwealth’s Department of Labor and Industry. The text of Shapiro’s proposal expresses concern that more labor cases need to be probed and that businesses need more education on workers’ right to organize.

Commentary: Forgery Cases Give Supreme Court Opportunity to Hold Unions Accountable for Shady Tactics

January 12, 2023January 11, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

In its landmark Janus v. AFSCME ruling four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a decades-old precedent that 22 left-leaning states used to justify forcing millions of public employees to join or fund a labor union against their wishes. Despite this decision, several unions have used legal action—and illegal actions—to try to prevent employees and their dues from leaving.

Since the Janus decision, several hundred thousand government workers have parted company with their unions—and kept hundreds of millions of dues dollars in their own pockets—after deciding the association no longer made sense for themselves and their families.

Commentary: The Monopoly Hiding in Plain Sight

October 14, 2022October 14, 2022 RealClearWire

With persistent inflation and growing concerns over a recession, pundits, policymakers, and the president have expressed concern about an alleged lack of competition lurking in the dark corners of the U.S. economy. As President Biden himself said, “capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism, it’s exploitation.” From Big Tech to baby food, both sides of the aisle are on the lookout for monopoly power. But sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.

Major Government Unions Lose over 200K Members

October 2, 2022October 1, 2022 The Center Square

The top four public labor unions in the U.S. lost hundreds of thousands of members since a 2018 Supreme Court case that ruled government employees could not be forced to pay a union to keep their job, a new report shows that.

The Commonwealth Foundation released the report, which found that the top four public labor unions – AFT, AFSCME, NEA, and SEIU – lost nearly 219,000 members altogether since the Janus v. AFSCME ruling.

Commentary: Workers Increasingly Favor Right-to-Work States

September 9, 2022September 8, 2022 RealClearWire

Union bosses and their apologists often grossly understate, or forget about altogether, regional cost-of-living differences when they are debating living standards in Right to Work states versus in forced-unionism states.

California’s New Pro-Union Law Could Grind the Supply Chain to a Halt

July 18, 2022July 17, 2022 Admin

California truckers are protesting across the state to express their disapproval of Assembly Bill (AB) 5, a new law backed by unions that reclassifies them as employees rather than independent contractors and could send shockwaves through an already-stressed supply chain.

The regulation was partly enacted to protect gig workers at companies like Uber and Lyft that hire independent contractors in large numbers without affording them the benefits given to employees, but will complicate or render illegal the current employment status of many of California’s approximately 70,000 independent truck owner-operators, The Wall Street Journal reported. The law will likely force some truckers out of the industry, thus lowering shipping capacity and raising prices for transporting cargo in the Golden State at a time when California ports have already experienced major supply-chain bottlenecks during the COVID-19 pandemic, CalMatters reported.

Survey Suggests Pennsylvanians Back Free-Market Reforms, Believe State Economy Needs Improvement

June 3, 2022June 3, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

A new survey released Thursday by the Commonwealth Foundation (CF), a Harrisburg-based think tank, suggests Pennsylvanians broadly support free-market reforms the institute urges policymakers to embrace.

CF publicized its Better Pennsylvania 2023 Plan, a list of 23 such recommendations, in conjunction with the poll. Executive vice president Jennifer Stefano said the foundation plans to distribute the agenda to state lawmakers and candidates for public office. She believes the ideas’ implementation will “restore hope to our citizens across the commonwealth and set us on a better path that allows all Pennsylvanians to flourish.”

Industry and Unions Warn Pennsylvania Senate RGGI Will Kill Jobs, Hurt Consumers

March 30, 2022March 29, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

In a rare moment of concord between industry and unions, representatives of both interests exhorted Pennsylvania state Senators on Tuesday to resist Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Eleven states in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions have joined the pact to impose prices on carbon emissions for power plants. Unlike most member states, however, Pennsylvania entered into the agreement without legislative approval though an executive order by Gov. Tom Wolf (D) in 2019. The emissions pricing has not yet gone into effect; the governor wants to implement it in the next fiscal year.

Commentary: Unions Aligning with America First

December 3, 2021December 2, 2021 RealClearWire

After intense negotiations, the United Auto Workers secured a new agreement with Ford, General Motors, and their suppliers that effectively prohibits a vaccine mandate for employees by requiring only “voluntary” disclosure of vaccination status for union members. This hard-won validation for workers points to a larger opportunity for the America First movement and organized labor to acknowledge that they are natural allies.

On critical issues ranging from medical privacy to border security and foreign trade, the emerging populist and nationalist consensus of the New Right creates an obvious home for unionized Americans. The America First cause can, in turn, help revitalize private-sector unions and guarantee a more prosperous society for our country, with a stronger middle class through a better diffusion of economic and political power.

Pennsylvania Republican Lawmaker: Election Integrity Belongs in the Workplace Too

November 3, 2021December 8, 2021 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Rep. Torren Ecker (R-Abbottstown) believes the guarantee of free and fair elections with secret balloting belongs not only in contests for public office but in votes over labor representation.

This week, he announced plans to introduce an amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution intended to cement that guarantee in the Keystone State in anticipation of federal legislation aiming to strengthen labor unions.