By Jeff Frantz

– A pair of state Senators have introduced a bill which would raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $12 an hour.

The proposal — by senators Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery) and Mike Stack (D-Philadelphia) — would also make it illegal for businesses to pay workers who receive tips less than minimum wage. Currently, tip earners can be paid a minimum of $2.83 an hour.

“The tipped minimum wage hasn’t changed in 23 years and allows business owners to take advantage of low-wage, disproportionately female workers even demanding they do un-tipped work like dish washing and cleaning bathrooms for $2.83 an hour,” Leah said in a statement.

The bill would also index the minimum wage to inflation, which occurs in 11 other states. The senators said the changes would create 1 million new jobs in Pennsylvania.

For what it’s worth, Leach is running for Congress and Stack is a candidate for Lieutenant Governor.

Their proposal comes a week after a report found that an American worker would need, on average, to earn $18.91 to afford a two-bedroom apartment. In the Harrisburg-Carlisle metro area, the study found workers need to earn $16.25 an hour — more than double the minimum wage — to afford a two-bedroom apartment while spending no more than the recommended 30 percent of their income on rent.

Democrats in both houses have been calling to raise the minimum wage for some time. These suggestions have only increased dropping suggestions since President Barack Obama announced in his State of the Union that the federal government would be paying employees at least $10.10. So far, these hints haven’t built any momentum.

With a potentially contentious budget fight looming, its hard to see this proposal moving quickly.

The PA Chamber of Business and Industry has already come out against the proposal.

“The Congressional Budget Office has already estimated that a mandated wage increase to $10.10 could jeopardize more than 500,000 jobs,” said Chamber CEO Gene Barr. “Moving to $12 would only compound these job loss projections, and it would have an incredibly adverse affect on the state’s small businesses.”

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/04/senate_democrats_propose_raisi.html

– Phillylabor.com is excited to announce that it has signed a deal to host a brand new ground breaking talk radio show debuting on April 16, 2014 called “Today in Philly Labor,” a weekly 2-hour drive time talk radio program that will air every Wednesday from 6pm – 8pm on Philadelphia’s legendary talk radio station WWDB 860-AM.

The show, which will be hosted by Joe Doc, Jr., of PhillyLabor.com and Philly Radio Personality Joe “Krausey” Krause, will provide a positive insiders’ look at today’s labor movement throughout Philadelphia and beyond and will debut on April 16 with featured guest Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO President Patrick Eiding, followed by an allstar lineup of special guests throughout April including Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council Business Manager Patrick Gillespie on 4/23 and Plumbers Local 690 Business Manager and State Senatorial Candidate John Kane on 4/30. Our Month of May schedule will kick off with SEIU Local 1201 32BJ Union Leadership George Ricchezza and Dennis Biondo with the rest of the month’s schedule coming soon.

Special Guests and Hot Topics Weekly

While featuring the region’s premier labor, political, business and professional leaders weekly, the show will also tackle a plethora of hot topics ranging from labor news and information to issues, special interest stories, current events, politics, legislation, charitable interests, jobs and more that will be sure to culminate into a dynamic look at everything Labor throughout the Philadelphia region.

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by jkruger

– Jenny Drumgool is Philly’s own version of Don Quixote, maybe with a dash of Andy Warhol. But instead of tilting at windmills, the local artist throws spontaneous parties for the city’s trash collectors—balloons and all—both as a form of protest and a celebration of local blue collar might.

The East Kensington artist has been throwing the spontaneous street parties since last year. Her YouTube videos are pretty much the definition of Internet awesomeness (and disturbance), but her real motivation is to make a very serious point in a very silly way.

In a press release distributed in City Council chambers yesterday, Drumgool explains, “Philadelphia’s sanitation workers have been working without a contract or a raise since 2009. Meanwhile, Philadelphia has faced the second snowiest winter on record as sanitation crews have been performing double duty – both trash collection and snow removal.”

So, to continue to raise awareness of Local 427’s apparent supreme patience with the Nutter administration, Drumgool and her co-artists at Little Berlin, “an artist-run collective and gallery space located in North Philadelphia,” located at 2430 Coral street, host Philly’s trash collectors tomorrow, Saturday March 29, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM, for a party, which will up the surrealist ante tomorrow with a tomato cannon and a bicycle-powered popcorn maker. (Both exactly what they sound like.)

You don’t need to be a sanitation worker to attend. You don’t even need to be an artist. You just need to like art, enjoy the company of other human beings, and want to have a good time in Kensington.

“This union has saved the city so much with the hard work that we do that it’s about time we get compensated for it,” says sanitation workers’ union Local 427 President Charles Carrington, who actually attended a Happy Trash Day last year. “We haven’t received a raise in five years. We just want our fair share.”

The celebration is also the closing night celebration of Little Berlin’s current exhibit, “The Place of Dead Roads,” described on its website as “an exhibition in which individual artists explore their vision by creating an environment of homespun pizzazz, performance, and serendipity.” Along with Drumgool, works of artists Tim Eads and Beth Heinly are part of the presentation.

“Sanitation workers are invited to ‘take over’ the show’s interactive pieces,” the artists say in a press release.

Of course, Drumgool plans to show her video, “How-To Happy Trash Day,” to partygoers. There will also be an “in-progress life-sized paper machete sanitation worker. Tim Eads will show a massive bike-powered popcorn (and fresh butter!) maker.”

Basically, it sounds like one hell of a good time celebrating art and workers. Even if you have plans tomorrow, how can you really pass up something like this?

Source: http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2014/03/28/artists-trash-day-party-little-berlin/

By Holly Otterbein

– A group of public interest attorneys in Pennsylvania say they have reached a settlement with Sunoco after it violated a little-known law that limits the criminal records that employers can consider while hiring.

Pennsylvania bars employers from taking into account an applicant’s past crimes if they are not related to the job in question. They also can’t consider arrests that did not lead to convictions.

In 2012, Sunoco denied employment to a woman because of an arrest five years prior, according to the Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity and other legal aid attorneys. Stephanie Settles, a longtime worker in the customer service industry, was applying for a job at a gas station in Philadelphia.

“I felt really bad because I knew that I was able to do the job and all I needed was an opportunity to prove myself,” she said.

Settles declined to say why she was arrested, and has since had her criminal record expunged.

Michael Hardiman, an attorney with Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity, says the group’s members are putting other companies on notice. Their goal is for the law to ultimately be enforced, which they say would benefit not only the individual applicants but also Pennsylvania residents at large.

“Numerous studies show that if you continue to be unemployed, you are much more likely to commit crime in the future than if you get a job,” said Hardiman. “It’s just good for society.”

He argues that it is also a civil rights matter, since minority men account for 61 percent of Pennsylvania’s inmates but only 16 percent of the state’s population.

The legal aid attorneys say Sunoco independently changed its hiring practices after the incident. They also say the company vowed to comply with the law in the future.

Jeffrey Shields, a spokesman for Sunoco, declined to provide details, saying that the public interest attorneys’ news release about the settlement speaks for itself.

Neither party is disclosing the full details of the settlement.

Source: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/66353-sunoco-promises-to-stop-violating-law-about-job-applicants-and-criminal-records?linktype=hp_impact

WEST CHESTER, Pa. – March 28, 2014 (WPVI) — Teachers and other educational professionals in West Chester have finally reached a contract deal with the school district after more than a year and a half of negotiations.

Union members approved the tentative agreement at an after-school meeting Friday.

It will need to be ratified by the school board on Monday.

The deal is retroactive to the 2012 school year, when the previous contract expired and would last until summer of 2017.

Source: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=9484111