Union Tries, Fails Disrupting AFP Townhall
The crowd at the March 19 AFP Townhall in Newtown Square, Pa. See if you can pick out the union guests
By Bill Lawrence
An upbeat townhall concerning paycheck protection and related issues in Pennsylvania ended, tonight, March 19, in Newtown Square without a hitch despite a contingent of 10 union activists who attended with the intent to make a few.
An initial attempt at disruption was quickly squelched by moderators and security when the leader tried to begin a mocking Pledge of Allegiance.
The group sat beaten and sullen throughout the night before leaving in a noisy production shortly before the question and answer session. Their questions would have been welcomed it should be noted.
The event was sponsored by the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity and featured WPHT talk host Dom Giordano; AFP-Pa Director Jennifer Stefano, a frequent guest on Hannity; Penn Delco School Director Lisa Esler; and children’s rights advocate Simon Campbell who heads Pennsylvanians for Union Reform.
Paycheck protection is an effort to end the use of taxpayer resources to collect government unions’ political money. It was pointedly noted that it does not make Pennsylvania “right to work” or change how unions can collectively bargain or eliminate union dues or mandatory fee payments. Mrs. Stefano expressed puzzlement as to why private sector unions were the ones who usually turned out to protest as the proposal would only affect government unions.
Right to work means workers may not be forced to pay union dues.
For the record, none of the speakers were opposed to right to work. In fact, Mrs. Stefano called paycheck protection “a good first step.”
The other major issue addressed by the speakers was HB 1154, the bill overwhelmingly passed, March 11, by the State House that would amend the criminal code to prohibit harassment, stalking and the “threat to use weapons of mass destruction by union members, something that is strangely enough allowed. It now awaits an uncertain fate in the union-friendly, yet Republican-controlled, State Senate.
The bill, despite being introduced almost a year ago, only came to be passed after 10 member of Ironworks Local 401 were indicted for burning down a Quaker meeting house being built with nonunion labor and for the vicious harassment of Sarina Rose, an executive at developers Post Brothers, who was subject to vile public abuse and whose children were threatened.
“What kind of low life scum would harass a soccer mom?” said Giordano to the silent discomfort of the union contingent.
Mrs. Stefano treated the guests with equal contempt.
“If you are a big, tough guy and go after women like me and our children, you are weak,” she said as the union contingent squirmed in their seats. She noted she often receives threatening letters from union activists. She said she framed them and showed them to her children.
“They are a bunch of dinosaurs that fail to see Pennsylvania moving forward,” Giordano said. “. . .The sickness in Philadelphia is that people grow up with this. They think that’s how the world works.”
Giordano also fired some shots at Attorney General Kathleen Kane who at the beginning of her term pointedly refused to follow state law regarding gay marriage and was revealed on Sunday to have killed an investigation of corrupt acts by Philadelphia Democrat legislators.
He said it is likely Pennsylvania Republican legislators will soon take action of some sort against her.
Mrs. Stefano said her group will make a major effort regarding paycheck protection to sway Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, the Republican who represents much of southern Delaware County and whom Mrs. Stefano described as the capo di tutti capi of Harrisburg.
“The Republicans and Democrats have been between the rock and a pillow. Now they’ve met the hard place,” she said regarding how those in the state capital deal with labor legislation.
Mrs. Esler noted that she is the wife of a union member and a daughter of a union member. She said that what she has learned as a school board member is that much of what dictates school budgets stem from union-supported mandates and laws from Harrisburg. She said this is largely made possible by automatic collection of union dues from the districts employees.
“They fund special interests against the taxpayers with the taxpayers’ money,” she said.
She cited the prevailing wage law — the law which requires public entities to pay wages set by a state, and union-controlled board — for major projects.
She said Penn Delco spent $46 million on recent projects which would have been $8 million less without prevailing wage.
Simon Campbell, the last speaker, who was born and raised in the United Kingdom, described the union abuse he witnessed growing up in the 1970s.
He said he had “hate-hate relationship with the teachers union (here)” stemming from the similar abuse he saw involving them and his fight to stop it.
Union Tries, Fails Disrupting AFP Townhall
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