Yesterday, union boss John Kane expressed outrage about this photo we ran showing the signs on his lawn for the Republican-endorsed candidate in the Aug. 4 special election for the vacated 161st State House seat.
Kane is the business manager of Plumbers Union Local 690 and was the Democrat candidate for the 26th District State Senate seat last fall.
He was singing a markedly different tune about “privacy” and protecting children a year ago when a law was being debated that would do exactly that.
The bill, HB 1154 of 2013, would have prohibited union members from “harassment, stalking and threat to use weapons of mass destruction” activities now actually allowed by union members if it is part of a job action.
HB 1154 died after it was gutted in the State Senate due to union lobbying.
The man the Republican Party picked to fill the 161st seat is cut from the same cloth as Kane.
Fortunately, there is a choice in the race as Penn Delco School Director Lisa Esler is running a write-in campaign and has a very good chance of winning.
The Perfecseal plant at 9800 Bustleton Ave., Philadelphia, is being closed and its equipment being shipped to Wisconsin, according to Philly.com.
About 200 union jobs will be lost.
The plant was opened about 60 years ago and acquired by Wisconsin-based Bemis Healthcare Packaging in 1986.
The Philly equipment will be used for an upgraded factory in the new right-to-work state. About 160 jobs will be created in Wisconsin.
Bemis, a publicly traded company with rising profits, has shut factories in Brazil and Mexico along with ones in Minnesota and Ohio to bring the work to the Badger State.
Mondelez, the Illinois food giant that was spun off of Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 shut its bakery at Roosevelt Boulevard and Byberry Road last week reported today’s (July 1) Philadelphia Inquirer.
So 350 workers union workers are out of work along with the hundreds of drivers who shipped its products under the Nabisco, Standard Brands and Kraft corporate labels.
The suspicion is that the products will now be made at a government-subsidized, largely-automated, multimillion-dollar facility in Monterey, Mexico, where the pay is not $24 per hour and benefits.
Wonder when the union rank and file is going to wake up to the reality that the money automatically deducted from their paychecks is used to lobby for causes that are anything but in their interests.
Wonder when it is is going to dawn on them that the most successful political organizations are those whose officers are paid with dues collected voluntarily and not automatically.
Wonder when it’s going to dawn on them that the power to withhold a contribution is a pretty strong bargaining chip.
The Los Angeles City Council, May 19, on a 14-1 vote passed a plan to raise the minimum wage from $9 to $15 per hour by 2020.
The local unions are demanding to be exempt from the law.
How far labor has fallen. The message is now join us and we will fight to get you below minimum wage jobs.
Why they are doing this is obvious. Many businesses will no longer be profitable when forced to pay the newly mandated wages hence they will either:
Close
Move
Layoff workers to reach an employee level that they can afford. This means that the employees who remain will be expected to work harder for their paycheck
Automate.
It is feared that Hollywood is going to be especially affected.
Really stupid people are running government. Really stupid.
Money is a useful, beneficial communications tool. It is nothing more. It is not magic. It is not something to be worshiped. It does not automatically solve problems, despite what the progressive and “social justice” warrior types think.
Kevin D. Williamson of National Review, who once edited the Main Line Times, spells it out wonderfully in his article Bernie Sanders’s Dark Age Economics, which concerns the Vermont senator’s plan for a national minimum wage.
“The gentlemen in Washington seem to genuinely believe that if they measure their penises in picas they’ll all be Jonah Falcon — in reality, their interns won’t notice any difference,” Williamson wrote.
The point can’t be made any better — except maybe by the union leaders who say they will fight for their members to be paid less than minimum wage.
Commonwealth Foundation is praising the Pennsylvania Senate for passing two bills, May 6, that bring greater financial openness and transparency in government and that sunshine contract negotiations between public sector unions and elected officials. SB 644, sponsored by Sen. Mike Folmer, empowers the Independent Fiscal Office to provide the public with cost estimates on state public sector union contracts prior to ratification.
SB 645, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Stefano, requires public sector collective bargaining agreements to be posted on state, school district, or local government websites two weeks prior to signing.
State Sen. Scott Wagner (right) with Joe Gale who is a candidate for Montgomery County Commissioner
State Sen. Scott Wagner (R-28) compared Pennsylvania to the Titanic with disaster just ahead at tonight’s (April 6) meeting of the Delaware County Patriots.
About 100 persons attended the event which was held at the Knights of Columbus hall in Newtown Square.
“The ship is going down and we got to do something about it,” Wagner said.
He was referring to Pennsylvania’s fiscal crisis driven by out-of-control state pensions and spiraling property taxes.
He blamed the cause on corruption giving special scorn to those on his side of the aisle. Wagner, who started three successful businesses in York County that now employ 600 persons, described how GOP leaders would hit him up for money at campaign time and that he would write ever bigger checks. Yet, he noted, the simple things that should have made life easier for himself and his employees never seemed to happen.
“They weren’t taking care of you,” he says. “They were taking care of themselves.”
This inspired him to seek office and in a special election on March 18, 2014, he ran a write-in campaign to fill the remainder of the term left vacant by late State Senator Mike Waugh. It was the first time a write-in candidate won a state senate seat. Wagner got 10,595 votes (47.7 percent), while the endorsed Republican nominee received 5,920 votes and Democratic nominee got 5,704.
He won an election to a full-term in November.
Wagner notes that in the private sector pensions rarely reach 40 percent of the working pay. He said in the public sector in this state it is approaching 80 percent. He notes that average pay for a teacher in his school district is $88,000 for 180 days of work and they can look forward to getting $75,000 per year for the rest of their life upon retirement. This would be at age 60 after 30 years, or earlier after 35 years.
He said that it angers him to see soldiers coming home from overseas in wheelchairs missing limbs knowing they could look forward to $800 per month in benefits when retired teachers would be getting over $6,000.
He said if things don’t change benefits and wages would soon be dollar for dollar.
“If Pennsylvania could file for bankruptcy, I’d be the first to prepare a bill,” he said.
Wagner proposed specific solutions. He said abolishing the prevailing wage mandate that requires wages for public works projects be set by the union-dominated Department of Labor and Industry rather than the market would save school districts between $200 million and $300 million annually.
He said he will not vote for a state budget unless the state gets rid of prevailing wage.
Wagner is also pushing to turn the state pension programs into 401K defined contribution types rather than the existing defined benefit packages.
He said he is also working on ways in which force give-backs in the existing benefits package.
A related issue that he is also trying to address is the cause of the corruption that led to this crisis.
He noted that he has been targeted by Pennsylvania AFL-CIO leader Rick Bloomingdale for his push for paycheck protection for union members. He said that about $750 annually is automatically deduction from each union member’s paycheck with the members having little say for which causes the money should be used.
The state’s AFL-CIO has about 800,000 members, so that’s about $600 million that winds up supporting not-so-pro labor causes like opening borders and stopping pipelines.
Wagner pointed out that Bloomingdale’s salary is over $300,000.
Wagner mentioned that he had a recent lunch with presidential hopeful Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker who was notably successful in stopping union corruption in his state. Wagner said the big difference between Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is that unlike in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin Republicans did not get any union money.
“Eighty percent of Republicans take money from unions,” Wagner said.
Wagner said he is far from making an endorsement but that he likes Walker
Wagner said that he is pushing for the sale of the state’s liquor stores.
“State liquor stores aren’t making the kind of money people think they are,” he said.
In a bit of irony, Wagner is now running the Senate Republican Campaign Committee which so bitterly fought him a year ago. He said that he has his eye on several Democrat seats in the western part of the state and expect to flip four or five to the GOP in 2016. The Republicans now hold a 30-20 lead in the body but Wagner notes that four or five from the Philadelphia suburbs often end up supporting the Democrats.
It was rather daring that Wagner would make his speech on his adversaries’ turf.
Wagner did have some nice things to say about Dominic Pileggi (R-9) who he was instrumental in removing as Senate Majority Leader earlier this year.
“I think he’s a brilliant guy,” he said.
He said Pileggi’s weak spot was that his training as a lawyer kept him from seeing the steps needed to save the state.
Pileggi is running for election as a Common Pleas Court judge this fall and would leave his senate seat if he should win as expected. Wagner said he expects a more conservative senator to replace Pileggi.
Wagner got some grief in the question period regarding his support for SB 76, a bill that was tabled last fall and would have replaced the property tax with either an income or sales tax to fund schools. Many members in the audience said they feared it would mean the end of local control of schools. Wagner said the bill was not perfect, is not likely to pass as is, and needs further work.
He said property tax relief is desperately needed, however, and SB 76 gets things moving.
Wagner said he does not expect a state budget to be passed until October. He said any claims that the government is going to shut down are “bullshit” a word he repeated several times. He noted that the state is still going to be collecting taxes whether the budget is passed or not.
Also at the meeting was Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Paul Panepinto who was seeking support for his independent run as a state Supreme Court judge. Judge Panepinto needs 17,000 signatures by July to get on the ballot. He recently made headlines for fining lawyer Nancy Raynor $1 million for her behavior during a medical malpractice case.
Wagner gave him a ringing endorsement calling him the “real deal”.
That’s probably not going to increase its standing among my readers.
The ticket is all incumbent: Colleen Morrone of Concord, John McBlain of Aldan, and Mike Culp of Springfield, who is serving out the remainder of new state Sen. Tom McGarrigle’s term.
Union endorsement aside, I’m going to have no problem hitting the button for them this November. Complain all you can about the state and federal Republicans but Delco is one of the better run Pennsylvania counties.
Pete points out that Delaware County has an unemployment rate lower than the national average and is experiencing job growth. The county Republicans deserve undeniable credit for this as it was the policies of the other party that almost sent it into the tank.
The ticket is unopposed in the May 19 primary and may very well be unopposed in the General Election on Nov. 3. For the record, the Dems should be allowed on the ballot.
Sen. Don White, who is brilliantly illustrating the absurdity of automatic payroll deductions for political causes.
Pennsylvania State Sen. Don White (R-41) is circulating a memo among his Harrisburg peers proposing that money be automatically be deducted from the paychecks of senate staffers and placed directly in the coffers of the campaign committees respective parties.
Some are expressing outrage, OUTRAGE, we say.
Which is kind of White’s point. He does not want this — seriously or not. His goal is to illustrate that the remarkably unfair, authoritarian, banana republic policy he is suggesting is no different than what is in place regarding automatic payroll deductions for members of Pennsylvania public employee unions, whose leaders then use the money to support political candidates who more often than not proponents of policies in direct conflict with the true interest of those in private labor force
Really, is shutting down refineries and mines, and importing cheap Mexican labor in the interest of Pennsylvania workers? Well, that’s what the candidates that get the public union money support.
So how about it Sen. Tom McGarrigle? Are you getting behind Don White’s plan? Doesn’t not having such a law deprive choice from workers who want a (political party) with an effective political voice.
My first job as a teenager back in 1976 was working as a blue-suited Andy Frain usher at sporting events at places like Wrigley Field in Chicago. When I took the job, I was required to join the local union and pay dues. My co-workers and I used to endlessly complain that the union was snatching money from our paychecks even though we were only paid the minimum wage. “What has this union ever done for us?” we all raged.
I think about that unpleasant experience a lot in the context of the debate raging in a handful of states over whether to adopt right-to-work legislation. Wisconsin become the 25th state with a right-to-work law on March 9 when Gov. Scott Walker signs a bill passed by the State Assembly three days earlier. It joins Michigan and Indiana as recent Midwestern, blue-collar states that have adopted this employee rights law.
Unions and the think tanks they fund are in an understandable panic. History shows that when workers aren’t forced to pay union dues and fees, they usually choose not to.
A right-to-work law does not prohibit unions. There are active, powerful unions in right-to-work states. This law simply gives individual workers the freedom to choose whether to financially support a union as a job condition.
Earlier this week, Jared Bernstein of the big labor-backed Center on Budget and Policy Priorities made the bizarre argument in The Washington Post that “there’s no such thing” as “forced unionism” today in America.
He further accused me of lying, writing: “Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation claims that workers in non-RTW states ‘can be compelled to join a union and pay dues at a union shop whether they wish to or not’ or that they ‘can even be forced to pay union dues for partisan political activities with which they don’t agree.’”
Wow, who is twisting facts here? Bernstein’s claim has a small grain of truth: Workers can no longer be forced to formally join a union in America after the Supreme Court decided in 1963 that was just too much power to bestow on a private organization. But in a non-right-to-work state, if employees do not pay union dues or fees, they can lose their jobs. So to work at a unionized facility in non-right-to-work states, you must, in effect, join the union by paying up to 100 percent of the dues and living under the collective bargaining agreement.
No payment to the union means no job.
If that isn’t coercion, what is? When a robber sticks a knife in your face and says your money or your life, do you really think you have a choice?
Here is the language of a typical labor United Food and Commercial Workers International Union contract: “All employees shall, as a condition of employment, pay to the union the initiation fees and/or reinstatement fees and periodic dues lawfully required by the union … This obligation shall commence on the 31st day following commencement of employment by the employer.”
Does this sound voluntary?
Bernstein argues that without compelling workers to pay dues, they can “reap the significant benefits of union bargaining without paying for them.” But who gets to decide whether a worker is benefited by a union bargaining agreement? Many workers have made a personal decision that the union fees aren’t worth it. In many union shops, very talented and skilled workers may believe that they can advance faster in the company and earn more by not being covered under a one-size-fits-all union contract. Some may not want to pay for the high salaries and perks of union bosses or help pay for Bernstein’s salary.
Does that really make these Americans “freeloaders,” as Bernstein insultingly calls them?
Finally, there is the issue of union political activities. Bernstein says that workers can’t be compelled to pay for this major union expenditure. Except that in practice the union officials make it nearly impossible for workers to retrieve these payments once they are withheld from the paycheck. The National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, Inc., found, based on audits of union financial statements in litigation, that in many cases over half of the dues paid are not for bargaining of contracts but partisan political activities, such as election ads or other extravagant expenses incurred by the labor bosses.
We know that if they had a real choice, most workers would not freely choose to have these dollars intercepted from their paychecks. When Wisconsin passed Act 10 in 2011 and stopped collecting union dues and fees from paychecks of government workers, some unions saw a decline of 80 percent of worker payments. This is precisely why union officials are so ferociously opposed to these laws.
Union officials try to change the subject away from the compulsion issue and claim that right-to-work is really “right to work for less.” Really? Over the decade ending in 2013, right-to-work states have experienced a higher rate of job growth (8.6 percent) than non-right-to-work states (3.7 percent), according to a study by Arthur Laffer and me for the American Legislative Exchange Council. The worker who works “for less” is the one in the required-union state whose job has left and no longer collects a paycheck at all.
Forced-unionism advocates like Bernstein can argue till the cows come home about how beneficial unions are for workers. But the problem isn’t that they can’t convince me. It’s that they can’t persuade the very blue-collar workers who they claim benefit from the union. As a 17-year-old, I saw firsthand how the union was ripping me off, and I wanted no part of it. So if unions are such a winner for workers, why must they impose laws to force people to join and pay dues? There is no good answer to that one, which is why Wisconsin and a handful of other states are likely to switch to right-to-work and give American workers what liberals used to say they were in favor of: the right to choose.
Mr. Moore is the Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth, at The Heritage Foundation. This article was originally published in The Washington Times and can be found on The Daily Signal.
Yesterday (March 11) morning I had a handful of protestors at my Senate district office in York criticizing me over the principled stances that I have been taking in Harrisburg on your behalf, including my efforts to enact Paycheck Protection legislation to prevent taxpayers from paying to collect political money for government unions.
During the demonstration, York County’s Democratic Party Chairman Bob Kefeaver made the claim to me that unions cannot use their member dues for political purposes under current law.
To hear his exact words, click here and you will be taken to York Daily Record reporter Ed Mahon’s website where you can listen for yourself (it is the second video down).
Chairman Kefauver either knows that his comment is untrue or is completely naive as to how dues money is used.
Union dues that have been deducted from teacher paychecks that are sent to the PSEA (Pennsylvania State Education Association) are repeatedly used for political activities – even drawing national attention to this issue by Yahoo News.
The Yahoo News article notes that Mary Trometter, an assistant professor of culinary arts at the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board alleging the state’s largest teachers’ union violated a law that says union funds cannot be used to support political candidates.
The PSEA sent a personalized letter to her husband asking him to “join Mary” in voting for Tom Wolf, even though she did not support Tom Wolf and never specified who she was voting for to her union.
In addition, the PSEA acknowledged that similar letters were sent to other PSEA members’ spouses.
Also noted in the Yahoo News article, the November edition of the PSEA magazine featured numerous pro-Wolf ads, potentially violating the Public Employees Relations Act.
And this is just one incident – under the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the dues portion of member dues is eligible for use in SuperPACs.
It is time to correct the lie that union dues are not used for political purposes and put an end to using taxpayer resources to collect money used for political purposes.
In addition, Mr. Kefauver wanted to challenge me over the minimum wage issue and the fact that some people are just unemployable because they cannot pass a drug test and they do not show up for work.
I asked Mr. Kefauver, “How many people do you employ?”
“I don’t employ anybody,” Mr. Kefauver replied.
As an employer, I live with these issues every day.
I have a tough time listening to criticism from someone who does not have first hand experience with it.
That being said, I am not going to let a handful of union protestors intimidate me into backing off of fighting for you and I have every intention of seeing Paycheck Protection make it across the finish line.
Party Boss Gets Schooled In York County
Ed note: I misread Sen. Wagner’s column. The headline has been corrected and my comment below edited.
Yesterday, union boss John Kane expressed outrage about this photo we ran showing the signs on his lawn for the Republican-endorsed candidate in the Aug. 4 special election for the vacated 161st State House seat.
