Fetterman stands with Wabtec workers, backs bill to ensure strikers have access to food

This week, 1,400 striking Wabtec employees with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) hit the 30-day mark on the picket line. These 1,400 workers are fighting for better wages, affordable health care, the right to strike, and a commitment from the company to construct more environmentally-friendly locomotives at their Erie facility.

Opinion:Union workers at Wabtec show us the way to a better future for all

These 1,400 Wabtec employees do critical work — and they help make Wabtec lots of money, too. Now they're fighting to share in the profit they create. It's a fight not just for better wages and benefits, but also for the dignity of their work — dignity that they deserve.

Stalled:No proposals in latest bargaining session between Wabtec, union in Erie

Workers don't want to strike. They want to go to work, do a good job, get paid, and go home to their families. But too many workers are pushed to strike by executives who treat them poorly and pay them low wages. That's why this week, I was proud to introduce a new bill, the Food Secure Strikers Act, that would make striking workers eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Workers shouldn't need to choose between fighting for fair working conditions and putting food on the table. Period.

This push for better pay and better benefits isn't just happening in Erie. Across the country, working people are standing up and demanding to be treated fairly. Journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh have been on strike for affordable health care and better working conditions since October. More than 11,000 screenwriters with the Writers Guild of America have been on strike since early May to demand their fair share of the massive profits that film and television executives rake in. And this month, more than 160,000 actors, performers, and crewmembers with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined screenwriters on the picket line demanding better pay.

Just this week, the Teamsters negotiated a historic tentative agreement with UPS that guarantees strong wages and better working conditions.

Workers are fighting — and workers are winning.

And let's be clear: what's good for workers is good for America.

So when workers stand up and strike, I believe it's our duty to have their backs. I am proud to lead the Food Secure Strikers Act, alongside Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Bob Casey, 12 other senators, and countless U.S. House members, to make clear that we do.

The right to strike is fundamental to the right to organize and unionize — but being forced to choose between feeding your family and protecting your labor rights isn't a choice at all. We need to make sure that hunger and starvation can't be used as a weapon to break workers.

Striking workers are currently excluded from SNAP just because they're on strike. That's wrong.

I know that the union way of life is sacred — and I'm proud to be working to preserve it. To this day I live across the street from a Union Hall in Braddock. And when I was born to two young parents in Reading, my dad worked as a union grocery worker with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union stocking shelves at a Shop-Rite. That union job helped my dad work his way through college and set my whole family up for success.

I understand the value of a union. I understand that it's thanks to unions that countless Pennsylvania families can put food on the table every night.

That's why I always have and always will go the mat to fight for unions and the workers they represent.

I've walked countless picket lines. And I've visited union halls across the commonwealth. In fact, I visited the UE Local 506 Labor Hall in Lawrence Park with Senator Casey and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio back in October. I've also spoken out repeatedly about the need for Washington to fight for working families and for the union way of life.

I've even raised funds for striking workers using my campaign's email list. But here's the thing: workers shouldn't need to rely on political candidates or GoFundMes just to put food on the table when they strike. I'm proud to be leading the Food Secure Strikers Act to make sure that workers striking for basic rights and protections don't go hungry.

And that's not the only piece of pro-union and pro-worker legislation I'm fighting for.   

I'm fighting to protect and expand the union way of life through the Richard L. Trumka PRO Act.

And I'm working to raise the minimum wage to at least $17 per hour, with the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 that was introduced this week.

Working Pennsylvanians keep our commonwealth and our country running. And our unions help make sure they can put food on the table. So when workers strike, it's on us here in Washington to stand behind them. 

John Fetterman, of Braddock, is a United States senator representing Pennsylvania.