By the PA. AFL-CIO
– On Thursday Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President submitted written testimony on behalf of several unions to avoid a circus like committee hearing conducted by State Representative Daryl Metcalfe on House Bill 1507 paycheck deception bill.
The testimony was submitted on behalf of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, AFSCME Council 13, AFT Pennsylvania, PSEA, SEIU State Council and UFCW 1776 to set the record straight with the facts and to counter the myths of the corporate front groups that are trying to silence the voice of working families.
An example of the most extreme and outrageous rhetoric was uttered on the floor of the Pennsylvania State Senate with freshman State Senator Scott Wagner comparing unions to Hitler and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Bloomingdale in his written remarks for the record dismantled the false premises used by the supporters of this bill, including challenging the argument that payroll deductions are costly to taxpayers and pointing out that only payroll deductions by labor unions are being attacked while similar deductions to insurance companies and banks that spend money on political action and lobbying are excluded.
“Make no mistake about the disingenuous arguments the right-wingers make in support of this bill are nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to mask their crusade to defund labor unions and silence the voices of nurses, teachers, store clerks, firefighters, case workers, mill workers, steel workers, construction trades and other public and private sector employees who put the brakes on unbridled corporate greed through collective bargaining and political action,” Bloomingdale said.
Secretary-Treasurer Frank Snyder said, “Instead of staging bogus hearings and holding inflammatory rallies, Representative Metcalfe’s time would be better spent working on a budget that doesn’t gut public education, pensions and other vital public services in favor of giving corporations $4 billion in tax breaks and giving gas drillers a pass on paying a fair extraction tax. Representative Metcalfe and his right-wing allies would rather spew hate, fear and division and pursue an ideological agenda that stands in the way of open discourse and democracy.
Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4162&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook
