Lancaster Chamber gets update on national union situation

August 24, 2012
Central Penn Business
Heather Stauffer

There's a lot to be concerned about on the union front, Glenn Spencer said at the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry issues breakfast this morning.

Spencer is vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative.

Spencer told attendees that unions are facing pension problems and, not seeing growth in the public sector, are increasingly viewing the private sector as a source of revenue.

“Businesses like yours, those are their target,” he said.

Aiding that effort have been increasingly pro-union regulation and attempts by the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Department of Labor, Spencer said. He urged business leaders to become educated on the issues and make their wishes known.

Jim Adams of Wenger Feeds, LCCI’s chairman-elect, said afterward that, although unions are not currently a large presence in Lancaster County, the topic is definitely a concern for Pennsylvania as a whole.

According to Spencer, Pennsylvania falls in the second tier of unionized states, which have 15 to 19 percent of the workforce unionized. The only first-tier state is New York.

 

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