Jun 2, 2017 2 min read

State Senate Bills 168 and 592 are not about transparency. These bills serve as attacks on the collective bargaining process and the workers’ right to union representation. They are pieces of extremist legislation meant to intimidate working people on behalf of an anti-union, anti-worker agenda funded by out of state interests.

State Sen. Pat Stefano, R-Bullskin Township, is wrong when he equates publishing contract negotiations online with transparency. Simply publishing contract proposals to the public does not guarantee productive discussion or informed feedback on complicated issues.

During the course of bargaining, proposals and positions change. What is proposed by one party may be done not as the proposing party’s actual position, but may be done to get movement on issues. Bargaining labor contracts is a complex process. I know because I have been doing it for the last 28 years. To expose the process away from the assigned bargainers would doom it to defeat.

Every year, the state’s budget is negotiated behind a curtain of secrecy, where Pennsylvania’s most important issues are decided with little to no real input from the taxpayers. If Sen. Stefano is serious about transparency for the good of the commonwealth, then where is his bill to open budget negotiations to the public?

Sen. Stefano would have readers believe that the state’s debt problem rests at the feet of those who serve the public daily, and not in the hands of legislators like him who pursue ideological pet-projects over true accountability.

Edward D. Yankovich

United Mine Workers of America International District 2 Vice President