Pennsylvania’s New Attorney General Kathleen Kane Rejects Governor Corbett’s Lottery Privatization Contract

(UCS) Potentially adding to the country’s growing list of right-to-work states, the Pennsylvania legislature has a package of six bills proposed that would weaken the state’s unions. If the legislation passes, workers covered by a union contract could reap its benefits without paying dues to sustain the union.

The proposals would have drastic negative effects on workers’ wages and their right to have a voice at work in a state with a higher percentage of union membership than the national average.

Six Republican state representatives are each bringing their own bill to the State House floor as part of a collective effort called Open Workforce Initiative—although Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has acknowledged that the legislation is unlikely to pass.

During the Michigan right-to-work battle, he told MSNBC, ”There is not much of a movement to do it” in his state, but he did say that he would sign such legislation if it came to him.

Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, said that right-to-work has been introduced in every legislative session for the past 30 years.

“We’ve kept it bottled up and defeated for 30 years, and we’re going to keep trying to bottle it up as defeat it as long as we can,” he said. “You take away unions, you take away the middle class. The two are inextricably linked in this country. We didn’t have a middle class before the labor movement got strong.”