Gov. Shapiro’s Pennsylvania Budget Proposal Rewards Union Donors

Unions donated copiously to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) during last year’s gubernatorial campaign and they’ll reap a handsome reward if the legislature approves a particular item in Shapiro’s proposed budget. 

The Fiscal Year 2023-24 spending plan includes a $1,274,000 initiative to increase by one-third the number of labor law compliance investigators at the commonwealth’s Department of Labor and Industry. The text of Shapiro’s proposal expresses concern that more labor cases need to be probed and that businesses need more education on workers’ right to organize. 

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Biden in Ohio: ‘Bury’ the ‘Rust Belt’

Speaking on Friday at the groundbreaking of Intel’s new semiconductor factory in Licking County, Ohio, President Joe Biden said that “it’s time to bury the label ‘rust belt…’” when describing the region in which he stood.

The ‘rust belt’ is a term often used to denote an area extending from western New York through the midwest that saw heavy industrial activity from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, particularly concerning steel production and automobile manufacturing. The region suffered significant economic decline by the late 20th century and many communities therein have struggled since.

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Industry and Unions Warn Pennsylvania Senate RGGI Will Kill Jobs, Hurt Consumers

Blue Collar Worker

In a rare moment of concord between industry and unions, representatives of both interests exhorted Pennsylvania state Senators on Tuesday to resist Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Eleven states in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions have joined the pact to impose prices on carbon emissions for power plants. Unlike most member states, however, Pennsylvania entered into the agreement without legislative approval though an executive order by Gov. Tom Wolf (D) in 2019. The emissions pricing has not yet gone into effect; the governor wants to implement it in the next fiscal year.

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Embezzlement, Theft Charges Against Pennsylvania Labor Kingpin May Cripple Dems’ 2020 Machine

by Tim Pearce   Pennsylvania Democrats are worried about the short-term future of their political machine after authorities charged a Philadelphia labor leader with numerous counts of embezzlement, bribery and theft, Politico reports. John Dougherty, the business manager of Philadelphia’s branch of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and six other labor officials were indicted on 116 charges related to lavish misuse if union funds and buying influence with corrupt politicians, Philadelphia’s The Inquirer and CBS Philly report. The 159-page indictment was released by the federal court in Pennsylvania Friday. It details more than two years of FBI and IRS operations and raids launched against IBEW Local 98 offices, union officials and their homes. Dougherty used union funds as his “personal bank account and as a means to obtain employment for himself, his family, and his friends,” the indictment says, according to The Inquirer. “I got a different world than most people ever exist in,” Dougherty says according to the transcript of a 2015 FBI wiretap put in the indictment. Dougherty has wielded significant influence across the battleground state, throwing the union’s power and purse behind politicians, largely democrats, running for local, state and national offices. “I would argue they’re the single-most effective political organization in the…

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