By Marc Levy and Christina A. Cassidy Associated Press
OCT 15, 2020 – HARRISBURG — For anxiety over voting and ballot counting in this year’s presidential election, it’s hard to top Pennsylvania.
Election officials in Philadelphia, home to one-fifth of the state’s Democratic voters, have been sued by President Donald Trump’s campaign, blasted by the president as overseeing a place “where bad things happen” and forced to explain security measures after a theft from a warehouse full of election equipment.
Add to that an investigation into military ballots that were mistakenly discarded in one swing county, partisan sniping in the state Capitol over the processing of what is expected to be an avalanche of mailed-in ballots and an 11th hour attempt by Republican lawmakers to create an election integrity commission.
One of the most hotly contested presidential battleground states is trying to conduct a pandemic election in a hyper-partisan environment where every move related to the voting process faces unrelenting scrutiny from both sides. State and local election officials say they are doing all they can to make sure Pennsylvania doesn’t end up like Florida two decades ago, when the last drawn-out presidential tally ended before the U.S. Supreme Court.
‘A really destructive scenario’: Pennsylvania could hold up outcome of presidential election
“For years, we have trusted our election officials to be reliable and nonpartisan. Why should we suddenly not trust them?” said Eileen Olmsted with the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, a nonpartisan organization that advocates to expand access to voting. “A lot of this is based on the perception of voter fraud, which there is absolutely no evidence of.”
Under Trump, we’ve lost 5 million of the 11.6 million net jobs created under Obama. That’s the worst jobs record of any modern president. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Trump is bragging about his jobs record in the Midwest. So why didn’t he lift a finger when 14,000 GM workers were laid off?
By Chuckie Denison Common Dreams
Sept 24, 2020 – As the election draws near, Donald Trump and Mike Pence are campaigning across Ohio, Michigan, and the rest of the Midwest, making big claims about “bringing back” jobs.
I have one question for them: Why does the Trump administration continue to turn its back on America’s workers?
In 2016, Trump won big in the Mahoning Valley, the traditionally blue stronghold in northeast Ohio where I live, helping Trump carry the state after it twice voted for Obama. Blue-collar voters believed Trump when he said he would be the “greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
We deserve the chance to work hard and earn enough to feed our families, afford our own home, go to the doctor when we’re sick, and walk down the street without being afraid of the police.
Four years later, it’s obvious we were duped. Under Trump, we’ve lost 5 million of the 11.6 million net jobs created under Obama. That’s the worst jobs record of any modern president.
My fiancé Cheryl and I met at the General Motors plant in Lordstown. In 2014, we bought our house up the street from the plant because we believed our future with GM was bright.
Today, everything we thought was possible has been replaced by uncertainty.
When GM closed the Lordstown plant in 2019, I took a medical retirement. Cheryl moved hundreds of miles away to Tennessee to work at GM’s Spring Hill plant, leaving her daughter behind to finish high school.
This summer, GM announced they would be permanently eliminating the third shift at the Spring Hill plant, laying off 680 workers. Cheryl doesn’t know how much longer she’ll have a job.
We decided to sell the house that was our American dream. Now, we don’t know where we’re going to live. Ohio, where our community has been devastated by the plant closure and job opportunities are scarce? Or Tennessee, far from our families, where the cost of living is higher and Cheryl’s job could disappear?
GM is a billion-dollar company that was built on the backs of workers like me and Cheryl. If we had a government that stood up to companies like GM and demanded they put their workers first, our lives wouldn’t be decided by the whims of corporate greed.
Instead, we have a president who has broken promise after promise.
Trump visited the Mahoning Valley in 2017 and told workers not to sell their homes. “We’re going to fill up those factories,” he vowed.
But he didn’t lift a finger when GM laid off 14,000 workers across Michigan, Maryland, and Ohio, including me. Instead, the Trump administration let GM continue collecting $700 million in federal contracts and massive tax breaks.
All told, 1,800 factories have disappeared since Trump took office. Even before the pandemic, job growth had already plummeted in Ohio and had fallen to its lowest level in a decade next door in Michigan, the Institute for Policy Studies found recently.
America’s working people are tired of lies and broken promises. We won’t be fooled again. That’s why Our Revolution groups across the Midwest are organizing working people to spread the word about Trump’s broken promises.
America’s working men and women deserve a president that will make our government work for them. We deserve the chance to work hard and earn enough to feed our families, afford our own home, go to the doctor when we’re sick, and walk down the street without being afraid of the police.
We deserve to reclaim the American dream.
Chuckie Denison is a founding member of Our Revolution Mahoning Valley and a former GM Lordstown worker. This op-ed was adapted from a letter to the Warren Tribune-Chronicle and distributed by OtherWords.org.
The “Build Back Better Tour” by Joe Biden originated in Cleveland and made a campaign stop in Alliance, Ohio. Riding into Pennsylvania, Biden made stops in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, New Alexandria, Latrobe, and concluded here in Johnstown.
By Anthony Mangos People’s World
Oct 7, 2020 – A freight train passes by as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden talks to the crowd at the Amtrak Johnstown Train Station, Sept. 30, 2020, in Johnstown, Pa. | Andrew Harnik / AP
JOHNSTOWN, Penn.— It was an unusually warm autumn evening in Johnstown as Joe Biden’s Amtrak pulled into the city’s historic passenger station, opened in 1916. The station is a unique structure, as trains arrive above the depot on an elevated level. The adjacent wall was adorned with a massive Biden-Harris sign, rising above a very enthusiastic crowd.
This was a drive-in style outside event in Johnstown, with social distancing. It would be highly unlikely for Donald Trump to campaign by rail, as he has continually ignored and sought to defund Amtrak. On the contrary, Biden says he knows how essential passenger train service is, connecting communities like Johnstown, and supports Amtrak faithfully.
It’s common knowledge that “Amtrak Joe” loves trains. He hit the campaign trail on rails Sept. 30 after taking on Trump in the first debate—and before the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis.
The whistle stop campaigning brought to mind the nostalgic tradition of candidates riding the rails through America. On the heels of the debate, for many voters, the arrival of the Biden train seemed the equivalent of comfort food, a signal of Biden’s claim he’d restore decency and accountability in the White House.
The “Build Back Better Tour” originated in Cleveland and made a campaign stop in Alliance, Ohio. Riding into Pennsylvania, Biden made stops in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, New Alexandria, Latrobe, and concluded here in Johnstown. In-person campaigning has been limited during this year of the pandemic. At the whistle stops, attendees were properly spaced out with social distancing and masks.
The involvement by labor unions in the Biden campaign has been strong; AFSCME, USW, and SEIU were just a few unions represented at the Johnstown rally. Local resident Brian Smith, former Navy Seabee and current SEIU member, shared how a good union job enabled his family to remain in Johnstown, before introducing the Democratic candidate.
Biden arrived on stage, to much applause, shouting, “Hello Johnstown!” As he began addressing the crowd, a loud freight train roared past. Turning around and pointing to the train, Biden said, “By the way, that’s a good thing!” Reflecting, he reminded the crowd of his long connection to the nation’s rail system. “I started by taking the train when I got elected as a 29-year-old kid in the United States Senate. I started going back and forth every single day so I could be home in Wilmington every night with my two young boys, and later, with my daughter.”
He talked about riding the train home at night after a debate in the Senate “about fair tax policy, or about health care, or about unions that I was fighting for…and I’d look out…I really mean this…I’d look out like I did coming from Cleveland today. I’d look out at all those homes I’d pass, those middle-class neighborhoods like I was raised in.”
Biden said the view made him wonder whether the families inside were “having the same conversations my mom and dad had when we were growing up…we need four new tires on the car, but we can’t afford it…or maybe we are going to have to worry about whether or not they’re going to turn the electricity off because we’re behind on the bill because the job changed or I lost my health insurance.”
In the midst of the ongoing pandemic and economic collapse, Biden said people today are having the same kind of conversations.
Johnstown was once a thriving steel manufacturing town located in Cambria County, Penn. While a few mills remain, some retaining a unionized workforce, a majority have closed. The city continues to struggle, as it is statistically one of the poorest places in Pennsylvania.
Once a Democratic stronghold, the county’s party affiliation numbers recently revealed that registered Republicans now slightly outnumber Democrats for the first time for as long as local residents can remember. This has been the trend throughout Western Pennsylvania.
In 2016, Trump held a rally in Johnstown and many voters here supported him then. Biden is intent on gaining those supporters back, and the labor movement here is determined to pull people away from Trump.
There is evidence they may succeed with some. When Trump passed through four years ago, he took people’s votes, but then gave nothing back. While fueling division across the nation, he plainly forgot about places like Johnstown. There is a sense here that local citizens are now realizing this.
Due to strict social distancing, Biden’s rally could only accommodate a limited number of attendees. Nonetheless, across the Little Conemaugh River from the train station, many local supporters arrived to glimpse the stage and express their solidarity.
A local pub, adhering to strict health guidelines, provided an outdoor television screen to broadcast the speech. In an encouraging sign, supporters also arrived from surrounding rural areas. An important factor concerning the election outcome in Pennsylvania will be the urban-rural divide, which the Biden campaign seems well aware of.
Johnstown was once home to a thriving steel industry. Here, a woman walks past the Gautier steel buildings in town. Trump’s promise to revive the industry came up flat, and voters have not forgotten. | Carolyn Kaster / AP
Speaking before the candidate, Jill Biden hit on the point. “We’re seeing that our differences are precious and that our similarities are infinite. Democrat and Republican. Urban and rural. Our communities are showing that the heart of this nation still beats with kindness and courage.” Pushing the crowd to look beyond the harshness and division of Trump’s presidency, she argued, “We don’t agree on everything. And we know we don’t have to. We can still love and respect each other. We care more about people than politics.”
Concluding his address, Biden again called out to labor, proclaiming “the middle class built America and unions built the middle class.” He vowed a presidency that would fight for working people and their jobs and families, “not for corporations.” To the residents of this town that’s been feeling hard economic times for years, he pledged to “build back better” after Trump. “It’s all about injecting life and capital back into places like Johnstown.”
Many registered voters in small Western Pennsylvania towns have a deep-rooted history of leaning conservative regarding social issues. This has been a factor in the realigning of the region politically, creating a challenge for uniting voters.
Biden knows this well, and his whistle stop campaigning through what the media calls the “Rust Belt” shows his campaign is reaching out in an effort to bring everyone back on board to defeat Trump.
PA Steel Valley Chapter, Progressive Democrats of America
Just up the road from me in W PA, workers at a local steel fabrication plant employing almost 500 have gone on strike. The main issue is their healthcare coverage.
But this also happened there. Imagine this. Your husband dies in a horrible motorcycle accident. You go to his workplace a week later, to fill out the paperwork for his life insurance and other paperwork requirements. The HR person informs you that the company canceled your family’s health insurance the very day he died with no notification to you, the bereaved spouse. You and your family have been without healthcare coverage this whole time.
The company did this even though Jackie Vezilli’s husband’s paycheck had been deducted for his share of the healthcare coverage. In Jackie Verzilli’s own words, “This video is happening because of the lack of respect and disregard for my husband, myself, and my family by this company is indeed all true. This video is happening because my husband worked for this company for 13 years, all the way back when it was called Gibraltar. He worked countless hours of overtime. He was in a really bad work accident for this company and survived.”
Jackie is struggling with the company about this.
This steel mill, now owned by NLMK, has been in Farrell, PA for a long time. It is a generational workplace for many families in the area. People who work there have social ties from high school and even elementary school. It is an anchor for the community. People in this part of W PA have built good lives around good union jobs there.
Farrell is home to perhaps the last New Deal Club in the country.
In the days before the steel mills were booming, the first-generation immigrants and their children weathered the Great Depression. Because of that, when they were opening a social club for Democrats, to transcend all the ethnic clubs already in existence, they named it for FDR. In the words of Ed Nicastro, as recorded in an oral history taken by J. Kasich, “he saved the nation from starving. Ever since that time in 1933 this club has still honored his birthday and went by the rules he made a lot of them. What he did for the workingman and everything and that’s why there is still a Democratic club left in the country”.
Throughout the prosperous years of busy steel mills hiring workers, and the years of flourishing local economies that resulted, Farrell honored FDR. At one time, this was a place where one income could support a family. Things have been getting increasingly harder though.
Healthcare is an ever-increasing need for the people around me, a need ever more neglected by the forces controlling the economic system we live in. As people lose their jobs due to a worldwide pandemic, they also lose their healthcare coverage, making a bad situation worse.
I live in a part of the country that already has severe disparities. Pittsburgh is known as a healthcare hub. This is confusing. UPMC, the dominant hospital system in Pittsburgh, has been a pioneer in organ transplants. At the same time, a battle between the UPMC insurance plan and the competing Highmark insurance plan has forced patients to switch doctors and plans. This battle compromised the healthcare of my community. It makes everyone more insecure about their healthcare coverage.
Pittsburgh also has high racial disparity, reflected by the Black infant mortality rate, which is six times higher than white infant mortality.
And that all takes place in Pittsburgh, which is more prosperous than my community and most of the communities around me.
Farrell is in neighboring Mercer County in the de-industrialized Rust Belt outside of Pittsburgh. In Farrell, the owners of this steel fabrication plant are paying $150 million for tariffs they claim were unskillfully placed in an off-hand manner. Some 25% tariffs on foreign steel were abruptly instituted by the Trump administration in 2018.
With no national industrial plan to replace the produced steel this plant needs to service its customers, the survival of this small town in Western PA is being threatened by the current Republican administration.
That is the context of the striking workers’ lives in a small town about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, at the NLMK steel plant in Farrell.
A unionized worker from that plant recently attended our local Progressive Democrats meeting to tell us about it. In their previous contract, they had a choice of a PPO, that allows patients to freely see doctors within the plan, or a high deductible plan. The company wanted to eliminate the PPO.The unionized workers prefer having a choice. I think our experience with high deductible plans leaves us all fearing that the deductibles are always going to become entirely unaffordable. The existing high deductible plans are already unsustainable. The choice left to us is using healthcare or putting food on the table. These high healthcare costs force workers to rely on high levels of overtime, further deteriorating working people’s family life and time for involvement in their communities.
We need to be secure enough to care for each other. We need to care for our families. We need to participate in community life. Access to healthcare is a piece of that puzzle. While workers are forced to submit to employers out of fear of losing healthcare, we see all kinds of ripple effects through our community.
It hurts us in many ways. Wages are lower because unionized workers are forced to fight for their healthcare coverage instead of wages. Low wages mean less buying power in our communities, higher student debt because families can’t afford to help, less opportunities for younger children because their parents are always working, just to name a few.
A healthcare system that covered everyone regardless of employment would be a big step forward in solving these problems. The only way we can afford this will be to eliminate the insurance companies that siphon off profit while adding no value to our healthcare. HR 1384, the Improved and Expanded Medicare for All Bill, would do this. As support for this idea grows throughout the country, as more and more people lose their healthcare coverage during a pandemic, it’s time to enact this Bill.
We’re going to have to make our elected leaders do this with the coming Democratic administration. An increasing number of elected progressives in Congress will help. If a shift of control happens in the Senate, this could be the historic period to achieve Medicare for All. We should see this as a real possibility. This is the reason we’re in the political struggle: to win what we need. This is a reason to vote Democrat in 2020.
When Pennsylvania elected Donald Trump, our commonwealth took a gamble that an unconventional politician could deliver great results in unconventional ways. Communities like Beaver County trusted him to keep his promises, bring jobs back to our region, and get our economy booming again. But here we are four years later and the truth is, we are worse off than before. And today, Mike Pence is coming to town to try and tell Beaver County workers that he and Trump are on our side. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Let’s get right to the point: Our economy is in terrible shape. When Donald Trump was elected, unemployment in Beaver County was 5.5%. Today, on his watch, it sits at nearly 16%. That’s not just because of COVID-19; even before the pandemic, Trump had weakened our economy by forcing us into a losing trade war and enacting anti-worker policies that favor the wealthy and well-connected instead of good union jobs.
First, the trade war. Trump talked a big game about his ability to stand up to China, but he’s losing to them — badly. His tariffs have caused everyday families to lose money while raising the price of goods. They’ve led to huge job losses all across the country, including in Beaver County. In June, hundreds of area workers lost their jobs when ATI Midland shuttered its doors because of Trump’s tariffs.
That’s hundreds of families that lost their means to put food on the table. These are the working families that Trump promised to protect. Instead, he let them down with his failed leadership.
The pandemic has only made things worse. It never had to be this bad, but Trump’s failure to manage this crisis has caused great damage to our economy and our region. Area businesses have closed down, including two local factories that sent 550 of our community’s workers home without a job. This is happening all over the country. Since Trump took office, our nation’s economy has lost 4.7 million jobs. Trump is the worst jobs president in modern history.
He claims that the tax bill is one of his greatest achievements, but it was designed to line the pockets of his wealthy donors and CEOs — not the workers of Beaver County. The majority of Pennsylvania’s share of the benefits from his tax bill went to the top 5% of earners in our commonwealth. It even contained a portion that makes it easier for corporations to ship American jobs overseas. That’s a direct attack on our region’s union workers.
So here’s the choice we face in November: It’s either Trump, who has been bad for Beaver County workers, or Joe Biden, who has a specific plan to build our economy back better and create good union jobs.
Here’s what Joe Biden wants to do. He wants to rebuild American manufacturing with a historic Buy American plan. He’s going to invest $400 billion in American products, update the trade rules for Buy American, and make sure our tax dollars are invested in American products instead of foreign companies.
Joe’s not just focused on the big manufacturers either — he has a plan for small and medium-sized manufacturers in Pennsylvania too. He’s going to provide capital so they can invest and compete, pass a tax credit to help them renovate their recently closed facilities and help them compete for Buy American contracts. Meanwhile, Trump and Pence still don’t have any sort of plan for America’s workers or economy.
So instead of coming to town for self-congratulatory photo ops, let’s tell Mike Pence to go back to Washington and actually start working for Beaver County families. Joe Biden already has — and that’s why we’re going to send him to the White House in November.
Terri Mitko is chair of the Beaver County Democratic Party.
Montgomery Locks and Dam set to be repaired and upgraded
By Chrissy Suttles Beaver County Times
July 29, 2020 – PennFuture on Tuesday released a report outlining policies climate activists said would amount to $2.8 billion in statewide investments and as many as 389,000 new or preserved jobs.
Leading climate activists want Pennsylvania policymakers to consider a more sustainable approach to the Keystone State’s economic recovery.
Following months of record-high unemployment, PennFuture on Tuesday released a 50-page “green stimulus” report outlining policies the group said would amount to $2.8 billion in statewide investment and as many as 389,000 jobs — including more than 37,000 “shovel-ready” positions.
The road map, in turn, would leverage Pennsylvania’s clean energy and low-carbon industries to reduce pollution, promote a cleaner environment and avoid state budget cuts.
PennFuture’s platform builds on the former Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal public works program that employed millions during the Great Depression. A modern version of the program is popular among environmentalists and some economists.
The group said a Pennsylvania Conservation and Economic Recovery Corps would employ tens of thousands and improve parks, trails and other natural resources.
“Pennsylvania is in a unique spot to do this on it’s own,” said PennFuture executive vice president Matthew Stepp. “We don’t have to wait for federal policymakers.”
Workers would plug abandoned drilling wells, maintain parks, habitats and green stormwater infrastructure, and beautify Main Streets. The state would hire at least 15,000 unemployed Pennsylvanians in the first year for six-month terms, which could be extended based on need.
Gov. Tom Wolf could convene a statewide Green Recovery Summit of local and county officials to develop a sustainable economic recovery framework, creating a priority list of clean infrastructure projects.
Policies identified in the report tackle both short-term recovery and long-term economic strength, Stepp said.
FEBRUARY 20, 2020 – This week, the Pittsburgh-based Allegheny County Democratic Committee voted to officially oppose in her quest for re-election, Summer Lee, the first black woman from Western PA ever elected to the State House.
The decision of the county party to oppose Lee came a week after the Pittsburgh-based Allegheny-Fayette Labor Council voted to oppose Lee. However, UE and SEIU have both backed Lee.
Lee, a former organizer with the Fight For $15, has drawn fierce opposition from the region’s building trades for her opposition to fracking in her district and her support of the Green New Deal. Already, the region’s more conservative unions have pumped more than $67,000 into her opponent, pro-fracking North Braddock councilman Chris Roland.
On Sunday, the Allegheny County Democratic Committee met and voted overwhelmingly to endorse Lee’s opponent, Roland. Much like the Labor Council’s endorsement, Lee was the only incumbent not to endorsed by the labor-dominated Committee.
In addition to opposing Lee, the Committee voted to oppose progressive challenger Jessica Benham vying for a South Side based state representative’s seat. Instead, they choose to endorse Heather Kass, who openly bragged on social media that she supported President Trump.
For Lee, who defeated a 20-year incumbent by a margin of 68%-32% to become state representative in 2018, the snub was yet another sign of the false promises of the white-dominated political machines of Western Pennsylvania.
“The Democratic Party claims it wants more “diversity.” Claims it respects the Black ppl who form its base. Claims it supports women leadership. Claims it trusts the Black women who propel it to victory every time,” wrote Lee on Twitter. “The lie detector test determined…..that was a lie.”
Since the announcement that the local Democratic Party would oppose her re-election, Lee says she has received more than 200 individual donations and an outpouring of support. She says that dozens of people have signed up to volunteer, and the campaign’s grassroots capability is growing as a result of the backlash against the white-dominated Western PA political establishment.
“We know they never wanted us at their little table. We’re still eating, though!” wrote Lee on Facebook.
(Full Disclosure: My father, Gene Elk, is the elected Director of Organization of the United Electrical Workers (UE), which has endorsed Summer Lee’s campaign. Representative Lee and I both attended Woodland Hills High School together, while it was still under federal desegregation orders in the early 2000s).
Dec 17, 2019 – In 2018, a natural-gas well exploded near Powhatan Point in Ohio, a small town that sits along the Ohio River, just 60 miles from Pittsburgh as the crow flies. The fracking well was owned and operated by a subsidiary of oil giant Exxon.
According to a study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this single explosion emitted a gargantuan amount of methane into the atmosphere. Over the 20 days it took for Exxon to plug the well, more than 57,000 metric tons of methane was released, at a rate of about 120 metric tons of methane per hour.
This figure, from one well in less than three weeks, eclipsed the annual amount of methane that is emitted by the oil and gas industries of France, Norway, and the Netherlands combined. The Ohio blast is now the largest known methane leak on record in the U.S. and was twice as large as the previous largest leak that occurred at an oil and gas storage facility in California in 2015.
@NaomiAKlein: Terrifying story about a blowout in Ohio that released “as much methane as the entire oil and gas industries of some nations release in a year.” EDF – which has aggressively pushed NatGas as a “bridge fuel” – explains that this could be happening every day https://nyti.ms/34tdR7f
The findings mark a step forward in using space technology to detect leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas sites worldwide.
Methane is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. Studies vary, but methane is generally considered to be between 25-84 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Oct. 3, 2019 – The state Department of Environmental Protection has hired outside legal counsel to deal with the state attorney general’s criminal investigations of “environmental crimes” involving the shale gas industry in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The DEP confirmed Wednesday that it has retained the law firm of Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti to represent it in the probe.
The department also said that three law firms have been hired to represent DEP employees.
The criminal investigation was initiated by State Attorney General Josh Shapiro at some point prior to August 2018. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in January this year that the attorney general’s office had accepted referrals from the Washington County District Attorney Eugene Vittone, assumed jurisdiction over “several criminal investigations” and that a state grand jury has been hearing testimony. Continue reading DEP Lawyers Up As Grand Jury Investigation Into Shale Gas Moves Forward→
Aug 26, 2019 – Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders nabbed a presidential endorsement from the Pittsburgh-based United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America on Monday, following a speech at the union’s convention.
PITTSBURGH — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders nabbed a presidential endorsement from the Pittsburgh-based United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America on Monday, following a speech at the union’s convention.
Sanders is the second 2020 Democratic candidate publicly supported by a national labor union; the International Association of Fire Fighters endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden earlier this year.
During his speech at downtown Pittsburgh’s Wyndham Grand Hotel, Sanders told hundreds of local workers his plans to protect middle-class families and tackle corporate greed.
“We can have a nation where all of our people live with security and dignity,” he said. “We can have a nation which does not have a huge gap between the very rich and everybody else, where income and wealth inequality is growing …”
Union leadership said Sanders has been a longtime supporter of workplace actions, including a nine-day strike in Erie earlier this year involving 1,700 locomotive plant workers.
“Bernie understands the need for workers to have a democratic, independent union movement that is unafraid to challenge corporate America’s stranglehold on our economy,” said UE General President Peter Knowlton a statement. The union also supports Sanders’ plans to expand organized labor, end right-to-work laws and implement “Medicare for All.”
By Ryan Deto
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 