Reader’s Viewpoint: Legislation Needed to Protect
Small Businesses, Consumers

By Submitted Report
The Tube City Almanac
November 20, 2023
Posted in: Commentary-Editorial

Tube City Community Media is committed to printing viewpoints from residents of the McKeesport area and surrounding municipalities. Commentaries are accepted at the discretion of the editor and may be edited for content or length.

State Rep. Nick Pisciottano chairs the House Democratic Subcommittee on Labor, Energy & Development. He represents the 38th Legislative District in Allegheny County, which includes parts of the Mon Valley and the South Hills. Pisciottano writes:

This Saturday is Small Business Saturday, and it’s the perfect time to start your holiday shopping by supporting the small businesses who create jobs and invest in our local community. But, it’s also a time to recognize that our main street businesses need more than just our dollars.

In the United States, a fair marketplace is a healthy marketplace. Open competition is the engine of our nation's economy, and we need to ensure that state law protects against companies that seek to restrain Pennsylvania commerce.

For decades, large companies across the nation have purchased smaller ones, creating concentrated power in almost all sectors of our economy. Large, monopolistic firms then use their dominant market share to engage in price gouging, collusion and other predatory, anti-competitive tactics that harm consumers, small businesses and workers by raising prices, suppressing wages and more.

This monopolistic consolidation has also led to offshoring our nation's production capacity, while creating brittle supply chains for even basic goods.

Some people might say “that’s just capitalism” — but it’s not capitalism when the system is broken in favor of the big companies making it impossible for the mom-and-pop shops to sustain themselves.

After decades of corporate consolidation and lax enforcement of federal antitrust laws, we only have four major airlines, four major commercial banks, four major oil companies, one company that controls most internet searches, and one dominating online shopping.

It’s why you think you have choice at the store when you buy cereal, toothpaste or peanut butter, when it’s really the same company who owns several different brands. The truth is there’s very little competition, which is why you get more and more empty space in your grocery boxes and higher prices for less product.

Historically high gas prices across the country crippled worker people’s pocketbooks at the same time that monopolized companies like ExxonMobil made $4,000 a *second* in profits every single second last year. Your chicken sandwich gets more expensive at the same time chicken farmers get paid less because the nation’s chicken processing industry is controlled by only a few corporations who were recently accused of colluding to drive up prices.

If you look, you can see similar examples in almost every industry where a handful of companies control supply, demand or both.

Monopolization of the American economy has a been a concern as far back as the late 1800s during the gilded age of robber barons like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller. We need to revisit the problem again by changing Pennsylvania’s laws to give the “little guys” some muscle with enhanced antitrust protections.

My legislation — the Pennsylvania Open Markets Act — would protect consumers, local business owners and workers by prohibiting anti-competitive behavior and keeping markets open and fair.

The Open Markets Act would give the attorney general power to investigate companies suspected of anti-competitive behaviors at the expense of consumers and sharply increase penalties for anti-trust violations.

Right now, we’re one of the few states in the country without an anti-trust law, so our AG doesn’t have the tools to investigate and crack down on suspected antitrust violations. Our states’ competitiveness and future growth will continue to suffer if we don’t have a business environment that promotes competition, innovation and entrepreneurial vision.

Please, contact your local state representative and ask them to support a stronger local economy and support the businesses that support your community — please ask them to support the Open Markets Act. And keep shopping local!

Press Release:

Pisciottano announces Open Markets Act to protect small businesses, consumers and workers in PA

HARRISBURG, Nov. 20 – As the beginning of the holiday shopping season looms, state Rep. Nick Pisciottano today announced a new bill designed to help small businesses compete with large corporations and prevent monopolistic consolidation that harms workers and consumers.

The Pennsylvania Open Markets Act would prohibit companies from engaging in anti-competitive behaviors, such as artificial price fixing disguised as inflation. Additionally, it would empower the state attorney general to investigate companies attempting to monopolize, increase penalties for antitrust violations and require pre-merger notification for certain business consolidation transactions.

Without an antitrust statute, Pisciottano argues Pennsylvania has limited powers to uncover evidence of anti-competitive behavior and lacks the ability to recover damages for the commonwealth and consumers even in the most egregious instances of illegal, monopolistic behavior.

“Unlike most states, Pennsylvania does not have its own antitrust statute,” said Pisciottano, D-Allegheny. “I am a firm believer that open, fair competition is the engine of the American economy and corporate consolidation across many industries throughout the country over the past few decades has hurt small businesses' and workers' ability to compete. This legislation is necessary to restore Pennsylvania’s marketplace to one that is healthy, competitive and innovative.”

Pisciottano said the bill would also help strengthen the supply chain and bring jobs that have been offshored back to Pennsylvania.

“Local companies hire local workers. Large corporations hire the cheapest labor they can find, often overseas, which significantly weakens our supply chain. When a corporation uses its dominant market share and unfair tactics to drive out smaller competitors, the businesses that close are not the only ones who lose. Such actions also negatively impact workers who get paid less and consumers who end up paying higher prices, too. To level the playing field, Pennsylvania needs to implement protections like the ones the Open Markets Act would provide. By adopting the Open Markets Act to create a more fair marketplace in Pennsylvania, we can encourage entrepreneurship, corporate investment and economic growth throughout the commonwealth for all Pennsylvanians."

Pisciottano plans to introduce the Open Markets Act soon.

Tube City Community Media is committed to printing viewpoints from residents of the McKeesport area and surrounding municipalities. Commentaries are accepted at the discretion of the editor and may be edited for content or length.

To submit a commentary for consideration, please write to Tube City Online, 409 Walnut St., Suite 200, McKeesport, PA 15134, or email tubecitytiger at gmail dot com. Include contact information and your real name. A pen name may be substituted with approval of the editor in those cases when revealing the person’s true name would jeopardize their safety or welfare.

Originally published November 20, 2023.

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