HARRISBURG — Many Pennsylvania state workers are outraged after learning that a man from a Philadelphia suburb has requested information about the political action committee donations the government collects for unions from their paychecks.

Office of Open Records director Terry Mutchler said that about 1,000 state employees have called and e-mailed since Thursday, with most of them objecting to the effort by Simon Campbell to obtain their names and the amount and recipient of their donations. Campbell, who has campaigned for years against teacher strikes, is appealing a denial of his request by Gov. Tom Corbett’s Office of Administration. The Corbett administration said disclosing the information would violate privacy and improperly reveal personal financial information.

“Although the substance of the request is ... around union dues and fair share, really what we’re getting down to is the issue of payroll deductions in general,” Office of Administration spokesman Dan Egan said. The state last week e-mailed some 80,000 workers to inform them of the appeal and advise them to contact Mutchler’s office if they want to be a party to the appeal. Campbell asked in March for 2012 donation information, as well as details of any payments by the unions to defray the cost to the state.

He believes Corbett should be fighting to get the PAC deduction language out of union contracts, which have contained them for many years, Egan said.

“The governor is basically picking and choosing which political entities are allowed access to governmental resources,” Campbell said. “If a public employee, ‘Fred Smith,’ wants to contribute to the NRA’s PAC through political donations, can they do it? No. But they can do it through AFSCME’s PAC, however.”

Egan said some states have a similar system, while others have prohibited it.