In Harrisburg, lawmakers are building momentum for a series of reforms that will empower public sector workers and defend taxpayers. The House Labor and Industry Committee approved four bills last month that public school teacher Cheri Gensel says will provide “greater accountability” for government union executives, ensuring they “focus on what their members need.”

Gensel, a teacher in the North Pocono School District, was dumbfounded when her government union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, sent her letters advising her to register as a Democrat to help Tom Wolf win the 2014 gubernatorial primary.

“I chose to be a teacher,” she testified this past November, “not a political puppet” of a union agenda that overrides members’ needs and rights. Another public school teacher filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board at the time over the same union politicking.

But government union executives still engage in politics their members disagree with — and they do it using money they collect from union members via taxpayer-funded payroll systems.

It is illegal for any other organization or individual to use taxpayer resources for campaign politics, but government unions have an exemption from rules designed to prevent corruption. Thanks in large part to this special privilege, these unions are one of the largest, most powerful special interest groups in Pennsylvania.

For example, between 2007 and 2021, Pennsylvania government union political action committees (PACs) spent $69 million, according to state campaign finance reports. That’s almost eight times more than the natural gas industry’s PAC spending during that same period. In 2021, an off-year election cycle, government union PACs spent $3.5 million in Pennsylvania. These numbers do not include the significant portion of members’ dues spent on political activities and lobbying.

Government union executives often don’t even consult with their members on which political candidates or causes the union will support. While union membership is bipartisan, their political spending is decidedly not. In the 2019-20 election cycle, nearly 91% of government union PAC spending on active races went to Democratic candidates across local, state and federal office. Democrats also received 90% of the $4.9 million public sector union PACs sent to state legislators.

In their aggressive political activism, government unions also take stances on polarizing issues that are more likely to alienate members (and cost taxpayers) than improve workplace conditions. Public sector unions have funneled money to extremist environmental groups and Democratic politicians who support the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a set of regulations on power plants that would drastically increase energy bills and eliminate thousands of jobs.

Government unions have also used their assist from taxpayers to fight fiscal reforms, like the Taxpayer Protection Act, that would rein in excessive government spending and keep more money in working Pennsylvanians’ pockets.

Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh, sponsored House Bill 2048 to end this corruption of public resources. His bill, now advanced to the House floor, would prevent the use of public payroll systems to collect PAC donations of any kind.

House lawmakers are also looking out for public workers by ensuring they are notified of their legal rights. In the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed public sector workers’ right to join or not join a union free from penalties or fees. But no one is telling workers about this right. Gensel testified that her colleagues were shocked to learn that they didn’t have to join the union.

Perhaps that’s because Pennsylvania still has a law on the books that allows public sector unions to force nonmembers to pay the union fees that the Janus decision banned. Workers represented by the Fairness Center, a nonprofit law firm, have repeatedly sued unions that have violated the Supreme Court ruling.

House Bill 2042, sponsored by Rep. Kate Klunk, R-York, and advanced in January, requires public employers to notify public employees that they have a right to not join a union or pay union fees. The committee also approved two bills from Rep. David Rowe, R-Snyder: House Bill 845, which requires the terms and costs of government union contracts to be publicized prior to enactment, and House Bill 844, which protects the privacy of public-sector workers’ personal information.

Lawmakers should take this opportunity to reduce corruption and restore workers’ rights by passing these bills in the months ahead.

Stephen Bloom is vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation, a free-market think tank in Harrisburg. Twitter: @Liberty4pa.

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