November 15, 2021, Harrisburg, Pa. — Today, Democratic members of the House Labor and Industry Committee walked out of a public hearing covering a collection of government labor reform bills. Major government unions—also asked to testify at the hearing—refused the opportunity. Instead, both Democrats and government union officials held a press conference touting the benefits of labor unions while the hearing was ongoing.
Nathan Benefield, the senior vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation, released the following statement in response to the Democrats fleeing the committee hearing:
Instead of listening to the concerns of public-school teachers and other government employees at the hearing, Democrats chose to abandon their legislative responsibility and attend a media event on behalf of their campaign donors. One of the bills up for debate today would have ended government collection of union campaign contributions—money that the union officials at the press conference then pass on to Democrats’ campaign coffers.
Click here for an analysis of government union political donations during the 2020 election cycle—much of which the state and local governments collected for union leaders from public employee paychecks using public resources.
Video of the committee hearing is available here.
Commonwealth Foundation experts are available for comment. Please contact John Bouder at 570-490-1042 or jrb@commonwealthfoundation.org to schedule an interview.
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