Posts tagged Pennsylvania State Education Association
Unions pursue law changes to boost membership
September 8, 2024 // “The overarching theme is that the unions have really responded to the membership losses since JANUS to drive up union membership,” Osborne said. In the JANUS decision, courts held that unions could no longer collect “fair share” dues from non-members who benefit from collective bargaining agreements. Follow-up litigation has challenged the cumbersome process many former members had to overcome to leave the union and recoup dues improperly withheld. In the report, states known as union “strongholds” scored lower than others that have enacted collective bargaining reforms.
DA drops all charges against two union reps arrested for trespassing at HACC Lancaster
January 17, 2024 // The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office has dropped trespassing charges against two teachers union employees who were arrested after they set up an information table at the Lancaster campus of HACC last summer. Pennsylvania State Education Association staff members Lauri Lebo Rakoff and Adam Weber were arrested Aug. 30 after they refused to leave campus while promoting the union. They were arrested by East Lampeter Township police and released soon after. The district attorney’s office filed defiant trespass charges against the two Aug. 31; the office dropped the charges Jan. 2. A spokesman for the district attorney said the two parties came to an agreement and the complainant requested the charges be dropped.
PENNSYLVANIA: Shapiro Appoints Teachers’ Union Fox to Oversee PA’s Pension Henhouse
November 30, 2023 // espite that huge infusion of money, however, the plan reported a $40 billion deficit, and retirees had not seen a benefit increase in nine years. Meanwhile, according to The Inquirer, PSERS “is still paying lawyers to deal with the fallout of a scandal touched off by an exaggerated profit report and scrutinized land deals. More than $6 million has been paid already, and ongoing litigation suggests an internal probe that coincided with investigations by federal authorities left some unanswered questions. The PSERS fund is also offloading $1.4 billion in “directly owned real estate,” some of it priced at a loss, but officials wouldn't say how much of the proceeds would go to the agency or how it might be reinvested.”
‘Right to Organize’ Amendment Violates Constitution
May 19, 2023 //
Opinion: These powerful unions helped flip the Pennsylvania House
May 4, 2023 // Union executives’ political spending continues to break records. For the first time in Pennsylvania history, government unions’ combined political action committee spending surpassed $20 million in one election cycle, more than triple what they spent a decade ago. By comparison, the record-breaking spending in the seven-way Pennsylvania Supreme Court race in 2015 reached a total of $15.8 million across all candidates from all parties. For the governor’s race alone, public sector union executives gave nearly $5.5 million in direct political contributions to Josh Shapiro’s campaign. Three unions in particular — the commonwealth’s largest teacher union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, and two national unions representing state workers, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — reported more than $1 million each. It’s no coincidence that Shapiro must soon sit down and bargain with SEIU and AFSCME executives and that the PSEA expects huge returns in terms of state funding.
Pennsylvania Government Union Political Spending Skyrockets Even as Membership Declines
March 23, 2023 // “At a time when government unions are losing membership due to partisan political spending, government union executives have really decided to double down on the partisan political spending,” CF policy analyst Andrew Holman told The Pennsylvania Daily Star. “The recent data shows this. They’re using millions of dollars collected with taxpayer resources to fund these political-advocacy activities and I think that, really, members of government unions need to be aware of where their money is going and what their unions are advocating for.” Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro is a prime example of a Pennsylvania pol enjoying overwhelming advantage in this political-spending category. Government unions bestowed over $5.5 million on his 2022 campaign while state Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) garnered a mere $1,000 from these associations while running against him. Public-sector labor money was only slightly less lopsided between the candidates for lieutenant governor: Democrat Austin Davis raised $77,000 from these groups while his GOP state House colleague Carrie Lewis Delrosso got only $1,550 from them.
As Membership Rate Falls, Unions Double Down on Politics
March 10, 2023 // Labor unions portray themselves as champions of the little guy – standing up for workers against powerful special interests. But declining union membership rates suggest that many workers are no longer convinced that unions speak for them. The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2022, the overall union membership rate fell to its lowest levels since the government began tracking it in 1983. Just 10.1% of wage and salary workers belonged to a union, down from 10.3% in 2021 – only about half the 20.1% rate of 1983. In other words, nearly 9 out of 10 American workers are not in a union, despite union efforts to organize them.
David Osborne: Pennsylvania’s teachers unions care about lining their pockets — not about teachers or students
January 19, 2023 // According to AFFT’s analysis, the PSEA spent just “$1 out of every $5 of member dues representing teachers, support staff, and other members. The rest of the membership dues money goes towards running the union, politics, and lobbying.”
Jamie Walker: Emails reveal state teachers’ union colluded with districts to keep schools closed unnecessarily
October 11, 2022 // "In 2020, I was told that the Commonwealth’s teachers’ union had no influence over the decision whether to reopen schools in Bucks County. Two years later, I learned that was a lie."