Pennsylvania GOP candidate says automating manufacturing jobs is ‘where you want to go’

Following a campaign event on June 5, Pennsylvania congressional candidate and state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Lehigh) said that manufacturing jobs being lost to automation is “where you want to go.”

“You go to some facilities, and they’ve replaced all the workers, who used to be working the line, with now automated facilities, everything’s just zipping around,” Mackenzie said in an audio recording provided to Heartland Signal. “But they still have people working there. Now, those people need to be skilled and working to replace conveyor belts and work on the machines and all that stuff.”

Mackenzie then argued that these new “skilled” manufacturing jobs were much better for both workers and companies.

“They’re making much higher wages, they are in safer working conditions, productivity is much higher,” Mackenzie said. “That’s kind of where you want to go.”

At the Pennsylvania Election Integrity Network event in Allentown, Mackenzie also expressed opposition to a bipartisan bill to expand prevailing wage requirements in Pennsylvania.

The state representative has opposed other pieces of legislation aimed to financially assist the middle class, like bills to expand retirement savings account access, increase the minimum wage and ensure employment benefits to striking workers. He also cast a nay vote to allow a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the right for workers to collectively bargain into the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Mackenzie currently serves in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he assumed office in 2012. After two failed attempts for the U.S. House in 2018 and 2022 respectively, Mackenzie won the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania’s 7^th Congressional seat in the April 23 primary earlier this year.

Last month, Mackenzie drew criticism after reports revealed he lied about his age on a Tinder profile four years ago, which said he was 29 years old when he was actually 37.