(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania received low marks in a new assessment of state public-sector worker rights, while two bills the report identifies as potential reforms have remained in committee for more than a year.
The state was one of 15 receiving a D in the latest edition of The Battle for Worker Freedom: Grading State Public Sector Labor Laws recently released by the Commonwealth Foundation.
The report examines the sway of government unions across the 50 state legislatures and grades them based on how well it protects public workers’ rights over union executives’ interests.
Among its key findings, the report says union executives are prioritizing recruitment, with the fastest-growing category of public-sector labor legislation focused on expanding collective bargaining into new workplaces.
Nationwide, it says, the four largest government unions – the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and AFSCME – are slowly recouping membership losses incurred since 2018. Although those unions recorded a net loss of 87,919 members, or 1.3%, from 2018 to 2025, they have a collective gain of 232,502 members, or 3.5%, since 2024.
In total, roughly 350,000 workers in Pennsylvania are represented by a public sector union, or about 11.5% of all those employed in the commonwealth.
Thirteen states earned an A or A+, up from 12 in the previous edition, while the number of states earning an F increased from five to six. Overall, 25 states received grades below a C.
Under the foundation’s grading rubric, states earning a D authorize public-sector collective bargaining but lack what they consider effective legal protections for workers. The report also points to provisions that allow strikes, require disclosure of employee contact information, or permit robust release time for union executives.
In explaining Pennsylvania’s grade, the foundation pointed to the state’s collective bargaining framework, maintenance of membership provisions, legal teacher strikes and binding arbitration in some bargaining disputes.
The commonwealth is one of 13 states where teacher strikes are legal, according to the report. Citing Pennsylvania Department of Education data, it says 131 teacher strikes occurred between 1999 and March 2018, an annual average of seven. Additionally, 88% of strikes between 1968 to 2012 occurred in Pennsylvania
“Given their court losses in recent years, unions across the country are organizing new ‘workplaces' – including graduate students, home-care workers, foster parents, and even prisoners – sometimes with the help of a change in state law,” said Commonwealth Foundation’s Senior Director of Labor Policy David Osborne.
Osborne said that Pennsylvania has seen a “slew of unionization attempts at workplaces long considered inappropriate for unionization,” including state universities, where college professors and graduate assistants have been union executives’ favorite targets.
“Union organizers and their political allies have also unionized homecare workers against the elderly and disabled Pennsylvanians for whom they care,” said Osborne.
At the same time, he said Pennsylvania law remains a relic of labor past, often favoring government union executives at the expense of workers’ rights.
For example, he called Pennsylvania’s “maintenance of membership” law “Orwellian” because it prevents employees from resigning their union membership – sometimes for years at a time – until the last fifteen days of a collective bargaining agreement, and it makes members’ payment of union dues a condition of employment.
“It’s almost as if Pennsylvania’s union executives didn’t trust membership to make decisions for themselves,” said Osborne.
Osborne said he applauds legislators like Rep. Barb Gleim, R-Carlisle, who introduced a two-bill Public Employees’ Bill of Rights package in January 2025.
In her co-sponsorship memo, Gleim said House Bill 262 is modeled closely on the union member bill of rights contained in the federal Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, and would guarantee rights on par with those of private-sector employees.
It would establish equal rights, freedom of speech and assembly, voting on dues increases, a private right of action against union officials, due process in union disciplinary matters, and access to a copy of a collective bargaining agreement governing their terms of employment.
House Bill 263 would include bargaining unit employees’ participation in contract ratification, the right to associate or disassociate with a union at any time, and an annual accounting of union activities and dues or fees charged to members.
Both bills were referred to the House Labor and Industry Committee on Jan. 22, 2025, where they have remained without further action.
The report also lists 13 other pending proposals covering a broad range of public-sector labor issues.
“It is astonishing that our public employees in Pennsylvania lack basic protections that have long been provided to private-sector employees under federal law,” said Gleim.
“Pennsylvania still has a long way to go to become a free state for workers,” Osborne said. “If Pennsylvania lawmakers truly want to promote a free, level playing field for workers outside of union coercion, they should pass laws ending collection of dues from workers’ paychecks, require unions to be regularly recertified by represented workers, and enact the Workers’ Bill of Rights.”
