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Hundreds of Pennsylvania union members from the public and private sector and their supporters rallied on the Capitol steps Saturday afternoon in solidarity with the embattled public unions in Wisconsin.

Workers displayed signs showing their support for Wisconsin public unions, some of which stand to lose most of their collective bargaining rights. One sign read simply “Wiscon-sylvania.” Others read, “It’s about real people vs. really rich people,” “Enjoy your weekend, thank a union,” and “Commonwealth or Corporate Wealth.”

The official part of the program, organized locally by Keystone Progress, started right around noon. State Rep. Eugene DePasquale (D-York) pulled no punches against Republicans while addressing the crowd. He called the actions of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the GOP majority in the state house an attempt to undermine the Democratic Party.

He also went after those who “believe that it is best to concentrate the wealth among the nation’s top two percent.”

“It’s an assault on the middle class,” he added.

Wisconsin’s Budget Repair Bill would strip most of the public service union’s right to collectively
bargain, force members to reauthorize the unions every year and end automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks. The bill passed the state House early Friday morning, but state Senate Democrats have fled to Illinois to deny the chamber a quorum needed to pass the bill.

Unions and liberal groups accuse Walker and his allies in the state legislature of using the state’s budget
deficit to break the public unions through those provisions. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein adds that a series of tax breaks and not the unions are largely to blame for that state’s budget situation.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported last week that Pennsylvania’s public sector unions are not expecting a repeat of the Wisconsin fight here. Instead, they are gearing up for a string of smaller battles including privatizing liquor stores and public transit systems as well as renewed talk of school tuition vouchers. The paper also noted that the contracts for 17 of the state’s 19 unions expire this year.

DePasquale said that, in the past, unions have not necessarily been unified on many issues.

“Hopefully this is a wake-up call for all of us,” he said. The crowd replied with chants of “We are one.”

Keystone Progress board chair Eileen Connolly, indirectly addressing a counter protest of maybe four
dozen people across Third Street, said that the unions’ victories are victories for all workers.

“If they can take away from a union member, they can take more from a non-union member,” she said.

The crowd was particularly receptive to 92 year old Marge Holitick who was a union member in
Wisconsin. The unions, she said, allowed workers to fight back against management and win decent pay
and safe working conditions.

“We knew the union had our best interests at heart,” she said.

Michelle Heh, a school teacher in the Cumberland Valley School District, recalled her days working in

Nevada, “a right to work for less state.” She said teachers often had upwards of 40 students in a class and the teachers had to buy pencils for the students. She does not want to go back to “collective begging.”

Nathan Sooy, representing Clean Water Action tied the attacks on labor to the attacks on the environment, pointing out that it is often the same people fighting against unions and against regulations to protect the environment. He said that Gov. Tom Corbett took nearly $1 million from the companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale during his campaign.

“This is the same Tom Corbett who said he will sign right to work legislation if it gets to his desk,” Sooy
said.

The counter-protesters across the street largely dispersed as the rally on the steps wound down, but two men stayed for a while and talked about their opposition to the rally. Earlier one of the speakers on the union side chided the counter-protesters for standing next to a historical marker honoring public sector unionism in the state.

Jim Delinger of Ephrata held an American Flag and a Gadsden Flag as he chatted with another man who
declined to give his name for an interview. Delinger said that unions “have a history of bankrupting
companies” with demands for every higher wages and benefits. The result, he noted, is large volumes of
imported goods. The two men agreed that higher tariffs could be part of the answer.

The man who wished to remain anonymous most directly opposes public sector unions, but was not
particularly opposed to private sector unionization. He noted that wages for local government employees and teachers largely come from property taxes. If Pennsylvanians don’t pay property taxes, they lose their homes, he pointed out. He also discussed school boards who ultimately make personnel decisions – and typically assess the most in property taxes – saying that school boards can increase taxes to pay employees more any time.

“We’ll pay a fair wage,” he said. “But it’s got to end somewhere.”

- Chris McGann

February 27, 2011 at 4:29 pm

--pa2010.com Staff

Tags: Chris McGann, Collective Bargaining, Eileen Connolly, keystone progress, State Rep. Eugene DePasquale (D-York)

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