Pennsylvania lawmakers are on the brink of closing a legal loophole that exempts parties to an organized labor dispute from charges of stalking, harassment, and threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction.
The stalking loophole has existed since the state officially defined the offense in its criminal code in 2002. As of 2012, Pennsylvania was one of just four states with the carve-out.
That will change if House Bill 874, which eliminates the loophole, becomes law. The Keystone Chapter of the Associated Building Contractors is eager to see it happen after unions subjected some members to “creepy, creepy stuff” during labor disputes, said Brent Sailhamer, director of government affairs for ABC.
“It’s just a no-brainer from a policy standpoint,” he said.
Unions don’t see the issue the same way. The exemption, some labor officials say, protects workers conducting legal organizing activities and ensures their free speech rights. They say laws already on the books come into play when people act inappropriately.
Rick Bloomingdale, president of the AFL-CIO of Pennsylvania, said the bill is a solution in search of a problem.
“It’s hard to gauge if folks will use it or not” if it becomes law, he said. “We’re afraid that you’re going to see a lot of employers trying to use it to harass people on the picket line or folks that are organizing or doing any kind of activity.”
The House probably will vote on the bill this week, said Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Republicans. Some lawmakers believe that it was jump-started earlier this year after a federal jury convicted a once prominent Philadelphia union official of arson, racketeering conspiracy, and extortion.
Bloomingdale noted the same example, though, when saying “things have worked pretty well for a lot of years.”
ABC has lobbied for the bill in two separate legislative sessions; its members are fed up with behavior they believe has crossed the line.
In that time, one member testified before lawmakers about union workers peppering his neighborhood with critical fliers over and over again.
In another instance, Post Brothers Apartments was renovating an old factory in Philadelphia into apartments, but the project turned tumultuous after union contractors walked off the job when they discovered that open-shop contractors were involved.
While Post Brothers anticipated using 60 percent union labor, union contractors wanted them to commit to 100 percent. When Post Brothers wouldn’t meet that demand and hired mostly non-union contractors, the work zone turned into a “war zone,” as union protestors accosted contractors and threatened others, a company official told lawmakers at a public hearing in 2013.
Sarina Rose, vice president of development for Post Brothers Apartments, said union-affiliated contractors also photographed her children at the bus stop and taped the pictures up at their sporting events. The legal loophole gave them a pass, she said.
“If there was a pedophile photographing my children or if I had an ex-husband who threatened to shoot me with a gun, I could certainly implore law enforcement to do something about it,” Rose told the House Judiciary Committee. “But because there are certain trades in this self-proclaimed active labor dispute with my company, the DA’s Office self-admittedly treats these cases differently.”
State Rep. Ron Marsico, the Dauphin County Republican who introduced the bill, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment about the legislation. It recently passed in the state Senate, and Sailhamer expects that it will cruise in the House, which has been receptive to it before.
Jeffrey Sheridan, Gov. Tom Wolf’s press secretary, said “the governor will review the bill once it reaches his desk.”
Wolf has previously vetoed public pension reform and legislation privatizing state-owned wine and liquor stores—two bills that organized labor has vehemently opposed. Sailhamer thinks the governor will have a more difficult time striking down legislation closing the stalking loophole.
“All it does is allow for a clarification in state law that says you just can’t follow people around and videotape their kids at soccer games just because they don’t use union labor,” he said.
Originally published in Watchdog.org.
