By The Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO

• Stop the Harrisburg right wing’s plan to pass “paycheck protection” bill in State House

The Republican leadership in Harrisburg is again trying to foist the so-called “paycheck protection” bill on Pennsylvania’s workers. This bill would make it illegal for public sector employers in Pennsylvania to deduct union members’ dues from their paychecks. According to these right-wingers, union members don’t need their paychecks “protected” from deductions for health insurance, or life insurance, or 401Ks, or United Way contributions, or transit passes. Just from the organizations they belong to, whose leaders they elect. Unions. Contact your State House member and urge him or her to vote NO on SB 501 — the dishonest, deceptive, anti-union “paycheck protection” bill.

Are the cracks starting to show in the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

Ford Motor Company announced this week that they would “close operations” in Japan and Indonesia. Their reason: the failure of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal to address currency manipulation that hampers their ability to do business in our “partners'” markets. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told the press, “The ink isn’t even dry and we are already seeing proof that this massive agreement will sell out American workers and roll back the remarkable recovery of our auto industry.” Contact your Senators and tell them you oppose trade deals like the TPP that hurt American workers.

Workers standing up and organizing despite anti-union attacks

It’s easy to get dejected reading news stories about the Friedrichs case, or anti-union bills in state legislatures across the country. But it’s important to recognize that workers are fighting back and winning, and building our labor movement as well. Mother Jones magazine recently profiled 5 industries where workers are organizing unions and building power. They call them “unlikely industries” because they don’t fit people’s traditional impression of the kinds of jobs where workers organize unions. But the truth is, any industry where working people want dignity, respect, democracy, and some power over their own situation, is an industry where workers will want to organize a union, sooner or later. Philadelphia is the site of a recent victory in one of the industries they describe, higher education, as the adjunct professors at Temple University voted a few months ago to join the Temple Association of University Professionals (and the Philadelphia University adjuncts are in the process of building their union campaign right now, too!).

US Department of Labor takes steps to empower temporary workers

“Temp work” has become more and more a fact of life for American workers. Many large employers contract with “temporary staffing agencies” to provide workers — often these workers aren’t short-term temps, but a permanent part of the contracting company’s workforce. But if something goes wrong, the contracting company can say, “Hey, they’re not our employees, we’re not responsible.” The US Department of Labor has begun to issue new rules that will crack down on companies who don’t want to be held accountable for how they treat their temp or contract workers. As this Washington Post report explains, the DOL is advancing a “joint employer” approach that will allow workers to hold both the staffing agency and the contracting company accountable for obeying laws that protect workers. Sometimes that means winning overtime pay for workers who work at a single company for 2, separate “temp staffing agencies”. Sometimes it means blowing the whistle on OSHA violations. In either case, it means more power and protection for workers.

Source – http://www.pa.aflcio.org/philaflcio/index.cfm?action=article&articleID=3CEAD2B8-8530-4889-B1E8-145B77BE9752