By Jared Shelly

– Striking workers from NBC10 have made a deal with the TV station. The cameramen, photographers and technicians from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 had been on strike since Sept, 24, two days before Pope Francis’ arrival in Philadelphia.

It’s a four-year contract that includes wage increases and a one-time ratification bonus, according to an NBC10 statement.

So ends a bitter three week strike. At one point union president Brian Burrows sent a letter to United States Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, alleging a “serious breach of security” caused by NBC10 sending replacement cameramen to cover the pope’s visit. After all, the replacements were hired one day before the event and the deadline for credentials had long since passed. (NBC10 denied the claim.)

The union even sent protestors to the Today Show in New York, where signs behind Al Roker and the gang read “Fair Contract for NBC 10” and “Nothing But Corporate Greed.” That was just days after the ratmobile showed up at the Comcast Center. But the kicker was when union head John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty said two picketers were struck by cars being driven by NBC10 employees at the picket line outside the studio on City Avenue in Bala Cynwyd.

A main sticking point in the negotiations was NBC10’s use of automated technology in the control room to do some jobs typically done by union members. The new deal provides “flexibility for Automated Production Control (APC) operators around cut-ins and breaking news,” an NBC10 statement said.

The union also wanted to make sure picketing members disrupting live TV shots were given amnesty, but the deal does not provide a blanket policy for amnesty.

There were approximately 50 employees affected by the strike.

Here’s a statement from Dougherty:

“IBEW Local 98 can now confirm the ratification of a new ‎four-year contract with NBC 10. The term sounds cliched, but this was truly a win-win for both parties. NBC 10 once again has its best trained and most skilled union photographers and technicians back in the fold and just in time for the all-important November sweeps ratings period. For our Local 98 members, they’re back doing what they love and know they have job security. Both we and NBC 10 acknowledge the uncertain future of television broadcasting, but we each understand the value of entering the future together, as partners. With streaming, multiple viewing platforms, 3-D technology and seemingly endless other technological developments changing the industry by the day, none of us knows what the future holds in store for the television industry and those who make it work. However, we are grateful to be continuing our relationship with NBC 10 and thank its management for working through this sometimes difficult process to reach an equitable new agreement. IBEW Local 98’s members look forward to returning to the station and the jobs they do so well.”

Here’s a statement from Ric Harris, President and General Manager, NBC10 and Telemundo62:

“We’re glad the strike is over and we’re all looking forward to working together as one team again. Under the terms of our new contract, which includes enhanced flexibility to operate in today’s fast-changing broadcast television environment, we look forward to continuing to deliver our viewers the very best local news, information and weather that keeps them in the know throughout the day.”

Source – http://www.phillymag.com/business/2015/10/16/nbc10-ibew-strike-ends/#XE5XqpEIJ2itMpIL.99

By Tom MacDonald

– Unionized cleaning workers in Philadelphia are celebrating a new four-year contract.

“This contract was very important to me because I am a diabetic, said Beverly Sims-Miller Friday.

Sims-Miller, who cleans at a Center City office building as a cleaner, was just one of the workers happy to retain health and pension benefits as part of the tentative agreement.

“We’re proud to have a strong contract,” she said. “We’re glad to be part of 32BJ [Service Employees International Union], we are the last of the blue-collar workers.”

The union represents about 2,800 janitors who clean offices in nearly 170 building throughout the city.

Janitor William Hall also said he is pleased with the deal.

“We got what we wanted,” he said. “It was a fight, but we got what we needed for ourselves and our families.”

Details of the contract were not made public, but sources said it keeps benefits and adds modest wage increases.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/87295-deal-with-philly-building-owners-averts-janitors-strike

By Associated Press

– Legislation that would weaken the ability of public-sector labor unions to collect full dues and political action committee contributions from members’ paychecks is on the move in the Pennsylvania Legislature.

The GOP-controlled Senate approved the legislation Wednesday, 26-23, and sent it to the House of Representatives. All 19 Democrats and four southeastern Pennsylvania Republicans opposed it.

It’s opposed by Gov. Tom Wolf. Similar legislation failed last year in the Senate, 20-28. An amendment to exempt police and firefighters’ unions failed.

The bill would bar the state, school districts and local government employers from deducting any portion of union dues that underwrite political activity and union political action committee contributions from the paychecks of unionized workers.

Only deductions that pay for contract negotiation costs and other non-political activity would be allowed.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/87214-pa-senate-oks-limits-on-union-dues-pac-collection?linktype=featured_articlepage

By Kevin McCorry

– More than 100 Philadelphia School District high school students cut classes Thursday morning to protest a lack of resources in their classrooms.

Students first took to the streets outside of their respective schools – mainly the city’s elite magnet options – in an attempt to convince classmates to join them.

From there, a mass of students chanting and carrying signs gathered at City Hall and then marched north on Broad Street toward district headquarters.

By noon, the sidewalk in front of 440 N. Broad St. was packed with high-schoolers who say that city residents need to be more up in arms about cuts made to classrooms in recent years.

“They’re just being complacent about it. Just because nothing has changed, doesn’t mean that things are getting better,” said Creative and Performing Arts senior Cy Wolfe, one of the event’s organizers,

Wolfe says Harrisburg isn’t the only entity to blame for the city’s school funding woes.

“A lot of the situation is happening in Harrisburg, but the fight is still occurring here in Philadelphia,” he said. “The SRC and Superintendent [William] Hite are still trying to close schools and meanwhile spending money to open new ones and charter schools as well. So there is something that could be done here in Philadelphia.”

Wolfe referred to Hite’s recent proposal to close, open and convert schools that he says will ultimately lead to better outcomes for 5,000 of the city’s neediest children. The plan, though, will cost up to $15 million that could be directed into the district’s existing options.

Science Leadership Academy junior Arianna Haven took the district to task for outsourcing substitute teaching services – a move that’s, so far, been a major disappointment.

“We have classes without our teachers because they are absent, and so other teachers lose their prep periods because they have to cover our classes, which is not fair to the teachers, and not fair to the students because then our teachers are not as prepared as they should be,” said Haven.

Source 4 Teachers, the private substitute provider, promised a 90 percent fill rate for teacher absences. In the first week of school, the rate sat at 11 percent. Now, it’s ticked up to 22 percent.

The students ended the protest shortly after noon to get back to school by 1 p.m. and be counted as present for a half day.

A district spokesman said leaders agree with the students’ central premise: that additional funding and better schools are needed.

Thursday’s protest marked the anniversary of a student protest last year to decry the School Reform Commission’s vote to unilaterally cancel the district’s contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/87022-protesting-classroom-cuts-100-students-march-to-philly-district-headquarters?linktype=hp_impact

By Katie Colaneri

– File this one under: Huh? That didn’t already happen?

Gov. Tom Wolf formally endorsed Democratic nominee Jim Kenney for mayor of Philadelphia Thursday afternoon, just as the state budget impasse hit the 100-day mark.

The event took place at Spring Garden Academy. The Christian pre-K and elementary school is just around the corner from the headquarters of Local 98 (the city’s powerful electricians union that helped fund one of two super PACs backing Kenney’s primary campaign), which was the second stop on the governor’s visit.

But first, Wolf and Kenney visited a classroom, where kids wearing yellow scrubs and blue rubber gloves played doctor and performed emergency surgery on dolls. Per photographer Bastiaan Slabbers, Kenney asked one child with a stethoscope, “Can you check if I have a heart?”

In another classroom, Wolf said he looks forward to working with Kenney “to make sure we do for Philadelphia and the rest of the state all that we need to do to make sure that all children in every ZIP code and every community … get a good education.”

“So congratulations to you in advance,” he said, shaking Kenney’s hand and wishing him “good luck.”

They were joined by City Council President Darrell Clarke who didn’t want to act as if Kenney would need any luck.

“I’d say you’re the mayor,” Clarke said, to which Kenney replied, “Just call me Jim.”

Clarke has been visiting Wolf in Harrisburg often these last several months as the constipated budget debate drags on.

“I can tell you that the team, Gov. Wolf, Mayor Kenney, and the City Council of Philadelphia, we’re going to move the agenda,” he said.

Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives Wednesday soundly defeated Wolf’s latest tax proposal. House Republicans have refused to raise sales or income taxes as the governor’s proposing. Instead, they want to find new revenue streams through expanding gambling or privatizing liquor sales.

Meanwhile, without a state budget, leaders of the already cash-strapped Philadelphia School District are getting even more antsy about cash flow.

As he headed down the street toward Local 98 HQ, I pulled Kenney aside to ask, if he were mayor now, would he be putting more pressure on Wolf?

“I’m not going to be telling any other elected official what he or she should be doing,” he said. “I would tell the governor, ‘Thanks for making an effort because you’re the only one who’s been making an effort on providing school funding from that office since Ed Rendell.'”

Kenney later added that he would never “browbeat or try to shame a public official into doing anything,” and would keep those conversations private.

Well, at least he didn’t give us the “there’s no superman from Harrisburg” line again from the primary.

If Republican candidate Melissa Murray Bailey was disappointed not to get the Democratic governor’s endorsement, she didn’t say as much in a press release.

But at 3:45 p.m. on the dot (the time the endorsement event was set to begin), Philadelphia’s Republican City Committee shot out a release condemning Wolf and Kenney’s support for various tax increases — or, as executive director Joseph DeFelice put it, “their love for taking our hard-earned dollars and spending on what they think we need.”

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/87039-wolf-endorses-kenney-for-mayor?linktype=hp_impact