Licensed lawlessness

They menacingly photographed Sarina Rose's children as they waited for the school bus. They cursed her out and cornered her at a luncheonette. One formed his hand into the shape of a gun and pretended to shoot her as he mouthed the words "Bang, bang, bang."

Rose's company used a partly nonunion workforce to convert a long-derelict Loft District building into apartments, and members of Ironworkers Local 401 registered their objections using such shameful and in most circumstances criminal tactics. But after the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office filed charges against Rose's tormentors in 2013, a municipal judge let them off. He relied on a little-known state law that protected parties to a labor dispute from prosecution for stalking, harassment, or terroristic threats.

Pennsylvania's misguided exemption didn't supersede federal law, though. The Justice Department this year secured convictions of a dozen ironworkers on racketeering, arson, assault, and other charges for systematically harassing nonunion contractors, including Rose's company. That did more than get justice for the aggrieved. It also helped propel a repeal of Pennsylvania's ridiculous license to harass through Harrisburg's partisan mine field. Passed by the legislature's Republican majority, the bill was signed by the Democratic governor last week.

The thugs who engaged in such tactics, along with those who encouraged or tolerated them, disgraced the labor movement, which is supposed to protect people from abuse. The exemption written into the law, dating to the 1930s, may have been intended to protect organized labor's right to seek better working conditions, but it was a gross overreach.

The crimes documented in the federal case included a beating of nonunion workers at a Toys R Us construction site in King of Prussia and an arson at a Quaker Meeting House in Chestnut Hill. The men involved called their dirty deeds "night work" and jokingly referred to themselves as The Helpful Union Guys - T.H.U.G.S. But their violent acts were no joke to their victims.

Besides undoing a law that encouraged such lawlessness, the bill signed by Gov. Wolf offered a rare moment of bipartisanship as Harrisburg entered its fifth month of a budget standoff. Perhaps it's easier to agree that thugs shouldn't be allowed to run amok than it is to decide who should pay to shore up the state's faltering education system. That's a tough call for lawmakers and the governor, but it's also their job. Fortunately, they say they're finally close to a deal even though many of the details remain unclear.

So cheers to the Democratic governor and Republican legislative majority for finding a problem they could solve together. Now they should build on it.

Source: Philly.com