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Politics & Government

GOP Senators Seek to Trim Labor Unions' Financial Muscle

Democratic state senator doubts the bills have the support needed to pass.

Republicans in the Pennsylvania state Senate are preparing to introduce legislation aimed at giving all workers the option of not joining a union. 

Proponents of the measures say they will give employees the freedom to choose whether they want to pay union dues.

Others contend the GOP's main goal is to reduce the political clout of unions. 

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The package of bills would:

  • Eliminate the automatic deduction of union dues and political contributions from public employee paychecks.
  • Prevent the automatic deduction from public employee paychecks to unions’ political action committees, or PACs.
  • Make Pennsylvania a “right-to-work” state, which would prevent public- and private-sector workers from being forced to pay union dues if they choose not to join the union.

State Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair, who is sponsoring one of the bills in the package, said the automatic payroll deductions leave workers no choice when it comes to financially supporting the unions’ political goals. 

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“Not every worker who belongs to a union agrees all the time with the direction of their PAC money,” Eichelberger said. “This would give every worker in Pennsylvania to ability to decide for themselves if they want to support the political actions of their union.” 

There would be little in the form of immediate savings to the state by implementing the new policy. State and local governments still will handle payroll for all public sector union employees, but the goal is to make political payments separate. 

If the bills pass, Eichelberger said unions could still send out mailers to their members asking them to contribute to the PAC in order to support the political goals of the union. 

Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, said workers are already given that choice when they join the union. All new members sign a green card to join the union and agree to pay the dues, but a separate yellow card must be signed before the automatic PAC contributions can be taken from their paychecks. 

“This is an attempt to destroy the middle class, and I don’t know why they are so interested in making people poor,” Bloomingdale said. “This is doing the bidding of big corporations who want to the pull the teeth of unions.” 

State Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango, one of the prime sponsors, said she supports the right of workers to collectively bargain, adding that the bills are not anti-union. 

“But you also have a choice not to be in a union,” White said. “Right now, you’re taking money from people who don’t want to be union members.” 

State Sen. John Blake, D-Lackawanna, said he had concerns about an agenda that seeks to erode the gains of the labor community. 

“I think that labor is what has created and sustained the middle class in this country, and where good labor relations prevail, that is good for that state,” Blake said. 

He said he was dismayed to read about similar attempts to undermine the power of unions in states like Michigan and Ohio. 

At stake is one of the most powerful political muscles in the nation. 

During the 2010 election cycle, 93 percent of all contributions from labor union PACs went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent Washington, D.C., nonprofit that tracks political spending.

Forcing voluntary contributions instead of automatically deducted ones could cut off a portion of those dollars.

Republicans control a majority in both chambers of the General Assembly. 

Gov. Tom Corbett, also a Republican, has not taken a hard-line stance with the state’s public sector workers in the same fashion as fellow Republican governors in Wisconsin and New Jersey. The administration is in the process of renegotiating contracts with state workers, which expire at the end of June. 

Corbett’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

White said she has not discussed the bills with the governor. 

Pennsylvania has the fourth-highest number of unionized workers in the nation--trailing only California, New York and Illinois. 

But both White and Eichelberger said the times are changing. They said they believed lawmakers have been emboldened by similar legislation passed in Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana--states that rank fifth, 13th and 15th, respectively, in terms of unionized workers. 

State Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, said he doubted the bills had the support necessary to pass, despite the Republican control in Harrisburg. 

“There are a number of people on both sides of the aisle in both chambers who see the value of a strong union movement in Pennsylvania,” Leach said. 

White also said she expected support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

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