Campers were the first to be impacted by a partial government shutdown in Pennsylvania. Jesse Russell takes a look at the situation.

Early Monday morning campers at state parks were roused by park rangers and told to get packing because the parks were to be closed. While essential services remained running, a budget impasse led to the closure of state museums, historic sites, driver’s licensing centers, and more. 24,000 employees were told to stay home as Governor Ed Rendell continued to battle it out with the state legislature over a state budget stalemate. Without an approved state budget the state has no authority to run nonessential services.

Workers for iconic U.S. candy maker Hershey can kiss nearly 1,500 jobs goodbye. Jesse Russell reports.

Employees of the company born in Hershey, Pennsylvania are beginning to see the repercussions of planned job cuts announced a day after Valentines Day. The company is closing its last Canadian factory, laying off 580 workers, and is set to shutter additional plants in Oakdale California, Naugatuck, Connecticut, and Reading, Pennsylvania. Many jobs will be shifted to Mexico where a new plant is being built. The company also has plans to shift product production to China and India.

By Jesse Russell

A handful of Pennsylvania Turnpike employees are suing their union for taking out union dues on behalf of an anti-union think tank. National Right to Work Foundation, a group that actively works to misrepresent organized labor, enlisted 26 workers to file suit. The suit claims that two Teamsters locals have not properly disclosed how dues money is spent.

By Jesse Russell

A handful of Pennsylvania Turnpike employees are suing their union for taking out union dues on behalf of an anti-union think tank. National Right to Work Foundation, a group that actively works to misrepresent organized labor, enlisted 26 workers to file suit. The suit claims that two Teamsters locals have not properly disclosed how dues money is spent.

By Jesse Russell

In response to a drop in fourth quarter earnings of 10 percent, Hershey’s plans to cut back production and slash 1500 jobs over three years. Part of the plan is to ship some production to Mexico, but nearly 80 percent of the candy maker’s products will continue to be made in the United States and Canada. The not so sweet Hershey pink slips came the day after Valentine’s Day.

By Doug Cunningham

Harley-Davidson workers in York, Pennsylvania are on the picket lines today after being locked out by management. International Association of Machinists District 98 says more than 96 percent of the workers rejected health care, wage and pension concessions. But instead of continuing to bargain the company has locked the workers out.

[Boger]: "It's another situation of corporate greed. The company made a billion dollars last year. The people at Harley-Davidson York Pennsylvania are one of their biggest assets for this company and they make them a lot of money. And there are big stock options afforded to the executives of the company. And it just seems like a shame to me that we can't sit down and work out our problems."

California isn’t the only state with an eye on healthcare reform, Pennsylvania has also announced an ambitious plan. Jesse Russell has more:

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell released his plan on Wednesday, intended to help the 900,000 people in his state who currently lack healthcare. To help fund the plan Rendell is calling for higher taxes on tobacco products while prohibiting smoking in bars and other workplaces. The program calls for offering affordable coverage for small businesses with less than 50 workers who earn under the state’s average wage of $39,000 a year. Both the employer and employee would pay into the fund. Helping pay for that part of the plan would be a “fair share assessment” that would penalize employers who don’t offer healthcare. In an attempt to dissuade expensive emergency room visits, Rendell would like to reward health care providers who expand their hours and stay open nights and weekends.

By Doug Cunningham

Newspaper workers at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News are prepared to strike if necessary Thursday as they fight to defend their pensions, their seniority system under threats of layoffs and their sick leave benefits. Henry Holcomb , president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, says defending defined benefit pension benefits is the key issue.

[Henry Holcomb]: “They would like to shift the risk from the employee – from the people who are fortunate enough to own a company. And that is a huge risk for working people to take on. If you happen to retire at the beginning of a bear market, instead of living off the interest of your retirement savings you have to go into the savings itself then you’ve diminished your well-being for the whole rest of your retirement.”

By Doug Cunningham

Rebecca Cooper, a steelworker who coordinated labor electoral efforts in Pennsylvania, says it was ordinary fed-up working people feeling the pain of Republican policies who really transformed Congress.

[Rebecca Cooper]: "You cannot take the emotion out of that. You cannot take
the fact that when people can't get their kids teeth fixed they go insane trying to sleep at night. You can't take that away from this election and try to make it about something we targeted. At this point, the mill's been shut down. You're kid can't go to work there. You're retirement's on the line. He wants to make sure you're able to retire, so he enlists. Then you don't hear from him for six or eight months. So you've got mothers who have never attended a protest, like with their little sweaty palms going and becoming activists. I mean, they've created a situation in which people have no choice but to take action."

By Doug Cunningham

Leaders of the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers are barnstorming through the politically important states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Minnesota with a combined message of clean energy, green manufacturing, jobs creation and industrial heartland economic revitalization. USW President Leo Gerard is joining Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope on their “Road To Energy Independence Tour. Gerard says clean energy initiatives can create thousands of new jobs throughout the U.S. industrial heartland.

By Jesse Russell

More than 1,000 workers in one Pennsylvania County have been told to prepare for a strike. Workers in Westmoreland County are represented by the Service Employees International Union. The union and the county have been in negotiations since late last year with the contract expiring at the beginning of this year. Last month in an overwhelming vote the workers rejected the recent contract offer and empowered union leadership to call a strike if a new agreement could not be reached. That walk out could come as early as September 26. Negotiations have stymied on issues concerning insurance and compensation. The union represents emergency dispatchers, road and courthouse workers and others. The county says it has made its final offer and is prepared for the possibility of a strike.

By Jesse Russell

Eight unions are stepping out to assist a National Park Service short on cash. Eight building trade unions have volunteered to demolish the old Liberty Bell pavilion in Philadelphia to make way for a landscaped park. The trade unions have asked for no compensation and see the project as a way to assist the community.

Healthcare workers in Pennsylvania are demanding a statewide ban that would stop hospitals from using forced and mandatory overtime for nurses. On Tuesday a news conference held at Mount Nittany Medical Center outside of Philadelphia contrasted the heavy workload of nurses to that of airline pilots who are prohibited from working too many hours. The bill endorsed by the Service Employees International Union 1199P and the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses would only allow mandatory overtime in emergency situations. A survey by 1199P has found that 95 percent of registered nurses support the ban.

Republicans in Pennsylvania's legislature are pushing bills introduced March 30th that in effect would transform Pennsylvania into an anti-union so called "right to work state". Called the Open Workforce Initiative, the bills would end closed shops where new employees coming into a union shop are required to join the union. Unions say workers under these proposed laws would have less bargaining power and the result would be lower wages.

The President of Teamsters Local 830 in the Hatboro Pennsylvania area is facing a March 17th court date after being arrested and having his camera seized at a Borough council meeting. Joe Brock Junior says he was at the meeting on behalf of a Teamsters member being fired by Hatboro. Brock allegedly refused to sit down while seeking answers on the status of the worker and he was arrestedŠ

[Joe Brock,Jr. 1]: "They claimed I would not sit down. They physically removed me. They arrested me, they cuffed me. They wrestled my camera out of my hand. I'm also a member of the press. They took my camera out of my hand and they¹ve yet to return my camera. They printed me, took my mug shot, the whole nine yards."

After six months on the picket line 155 SEIU nursing home workers in Pittsburgh will be returning to work today without a contract. Presbyterian Senior Care nursing home is reserving the right to declare replacement workers permanent. Talks are set to continue over a wage increase, affordable health insurance and staffing issues.

Reversing a lower court decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the city of Philadelphia acted within it's powers by extending benefits to same-sex life partners of employees. The benefits were awarded in 1998, but in 2002 the Commonwealth Court ruled the city had overstepped it's authority. The state Supreme Court ruling says that while their are "facial similarities between marriage and life partnership, we simply do not agree that they are sufficient to establish that the city has legislated in the area of marriage. William Devlin, a conservative activist says he plans to appeal the court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Of the decision, Devlin says, "I guess what they're saying is that 'the family' is anybody who has appeared on Jerry Springer." Gay marriage is prohibited in Pennsylvania.

Holiday drivers passing through Pennsylvania on Wednesday may have thought that the state was giving them a Thanksgiving day gift by not charging for tolls. In actuality, toll workers across the state began a strike on Wednesday, angered by management's refusal to meet their contract demands. Represented by the Teamsters, union members have been working under a contract that expired in September of last year. The strike continues today, with the Turnpike Commission bringing in temporary workers to collect a flat fee at the tolls.