By The PA. AFL-CIO

– In April of 2013, we published a story on our website which focused on a fundraising letter sent out by the Commonwealth Foundation. The letter announced, and sought donations to support, a new campaign which they called “Project Goliath,” which promises to “finally take down” and “slay” labor unions in Pennsylvania.

In a surprisingly detailed and lengthy letter, the Commonwealth Foundation went on to explain their legislative strategy, modeled after recent campaigns in states like Michigan and Wisconsin. On Page 7 of their letter is where they show all of their cards on the so-called “Paycheck Protection” bills that they are currently pushing in the Pennsylvania House and Senate.

They state in this letter that the “overriding key” to their whole plan will be their ability to “starve the giant.” They go on to say “Of all the reforms Gov. Walker pursued in Wisconsin, this very tactic was the most important. So very early on, he sought a ban on the automatic dues deduction for public employees.” They claim this strategy succeeded beyond their “wildest imagination” in Wisconsin, and they believe that a similar approach in Pennsylvania will leave public sector unions unable to advocate on behalf of their members. “Obviously, we must do the same thing here!” They conclude.

This is their means to an end, and they spell out in clear terms how this victory would lead to the success of future legislation to eliminate pensions and prevailing wage laws, to decimate public schools through unregulated school choice, and ultimately to take away workers rights to collective bargaining altogether.

It’s time to send a message to our Governor and our Legislature in Pennsylvania. It’s time to remind them that while the Commonwealth Foundation’s donors are secret, their motives are not. It’s time to remind them that the workers who will be hurt by this legislation are our first responders and our teachers. They are our nurses, utility workers, bus drivers and countless others who dedicate their lives to public service; and they are hundreds of thousands of workers in the private sector whose labor drives Pennsylvania’s economy.
E-mail Your Legislators AND Governor Corbett NOW at: http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7788

Tell them to reject the lobbying of out-of-state billionaires, and stand up for our Pennsylvania workers by OPPOSING HB 1507 and SB 1034.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=3390

In the midst of yet another snow covered day this winter and trying to think of things to do? Why not take a few minutes of your time to help maintain our standards of living, our jobs as we know them and our rights to collective bargaining by taking just a few minutes of your time to read below and TAKE ACTION. THEN, after you have made a difference in your future and the futures of the working families throughout Philadelphia and all of Pennsylvania, go have fun in the snow or stay inside and enjoy some hot chocolate knowing that you said “NO” To Right To Work in PA!

From the PA. AFL-CIO

In 2013, union members in Pennsylvania stood together to defeat some of the most direct attacks we have ever faced. Repeated efforts to privatize public services, destroy retirement security, and gut prevailing wage laws were held back.

Now, in an election year with everything at stake, huge money interests from outside of Pennsylvania are putting everything they have into making our Commonwealth the next “Right to Work” state. Their aim is clear, to bankrupt unions so that there will no longer be any organized opposition to the blatant attacks on working families that they plan.

Go To: http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7734 and E-Mail Your State Legislators Now! Tell Them NO WAY On HB 1507!

House Bill 1507 is what ALEC and the Koch brothers call a “Paycheck Protection” bill. They have already been targeting direct mail into the state to spread lies in support of this bill, claiming that taxpayers are paying for union dues collection for public employees, and that teachers and state workers are forced to contribute to political and legislative activism.

The facts are clear, even though you won’t hear them in the commercials that the Koch brothers are financing. Automatic payroll deduction of dues is not mandated by any law, rather it is bargained for during contract negotiations. This deduction does not cost taxpayers money. Unions already agreed to reimburse the state for costs associated with deductions of PAC funds, but according to the State of Pennsylvania, there is no measurable cost to be reimbursed.

While the reasons that the other side gives for pushing this legislation are dishonest, their true goal is obvious. It’s simple. This legislation would force unions to spend resources to collect union dues, and make it nearly impossible to collect the fair share fees that non-members must pay to cover their union representation. At the end of the day that means unions will be weakened, and have less ability to advocate for employees in the workplace and in the legislature. This would open the flood gates for a wide range of anti-worker legislation that would be sure to follow.

There is no doubt that the passage of HB 1507 would mean that Pennsylvania would become the next right to work state. Don’t be silent on this issue. We expect this bill to move very quickly, with significant resources flooding into Pennsylvania to back this latest attack on the middle class.

AGAIN, Go To: http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7734 and E-Mail Your State Legislators Now! Tell Them NO WAY On HB 1507!

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=3357

By Randy LoBasso

– Almost two years ago, the Pennsylvania state Legislature passed a party-lined bill which created a Voter ID requirement during Pennsylvania elections. This morning, a judge ruled that law is illegal.

The ruling is neither the first nor the last, and sets the stage for perhaps a final fight in the seemingly never-ending saga.

“Voting laws are designed to assure a free and fair election; the Voter ID Law does not further this goal,” Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley wrote in his 103-page decision.

McGinley’s ruling comes both before the state has had the chance to see the strict law in action (it had been on hold through the 2012 and 2013 elections) and after the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling, which struck down the part of the 1965 law which was keeping several southern states from enforcing their Voter ID laws.

The ruling is “as wonderful a present as I could have imagined,” Vic Walczak of the ACLU of Pennsylvania said on a conference call with reporters Friday morning. Today is his birthday.

What McGinley consistently found is if the law were put into effect, there would be hundreds of thousands of voters without compliant ID due to the difficulty of obtaining one.

Additionally, the Commonwealth was unable to find a single instance of the sort of voter fraud that Republican legislators claimed was happening without Voter ID in place. “When you look at it that way, the only crime that is being perpetrated on the people of Pennsylvania is by the people who support this Voter ID law,” added Walczak.

Pennsylvania Democrats from near and far have hailed the decision as a victory.

“The Corbett Administration has been defending a flawed and punitive law that restricts access to the polls. It is designed to suppress votes. We have already wasted millions of tax dollars on this law, including $1 million for a misleading ad campaign. These are funds that could have been used to educate our children and create jobs,” said State Sen. Vincent Hughes (D-Phila).

Democratic chairman Jim Burns said the decision is “a big step forward for making sure our elections are fair and a testament to the thousands of Pennsylvanians who worked hard to make sure everyone’s vote would be counted.”

But is that all she wrote? She will continue to write. Both sides of the trial McGinley oversaw last year, which lasted 12 days, vowed an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and that will happen—even though those on the ACLU’s press call earlier today essentially deemed a waste of taxpayer funds.

“The Commonwealth has already spent millions of dollars on what the court today called a misinformation campaign, and legal expenses for this case,” said Ben Geffen, of the Public Interest Law Center. “If the Commonwealth has a surplus of funds available, perhaps they can devote it to voter registration efforts or to better funding of public schools instead of continuing to litigate against voters’ rights to participate in elections.”

Source: http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2014/01/17/pa-voter-id-law-struck-down-now-what/

By Annie-Rose Strasser

– Rather than simply celebrating the accomplishments of his life on Martin Luther King, Jr. day, this year ThinkProgress wants to take a look back at the unfinished parts of King’s legacy. While the civil rights leader changed the conversation around race and justice in the U.S., many of his goals never came to fruition.

Here’s a look at four of the things King demanded but never saw completed:

1. A living wage. One of the demands protesters listed for the March on Washington was a minimum wage. “Anything less than $2.00 an hour,” King and his compatriots argued, fails to “give all Americans a decent standard of living.” In 2014 dollars, a $2 an hour wage would work out to about $15.27. But minimum wage is actually much, much lower — less than half of that — today. Forty-two percent of those earning minimum wage are people of color.

2. Desegregation. King hoped to see the end not just of legal segregation in the South, but also of the de facto segregation that existed in Northern businesses, housing, and schools. He even toured Chicago advocating for the end of this kind of segregation, saying civil rights leaders needed to “eradicate a vicious system which seeks to further colonize thousands of Negroes within a slum environment.’’ But today, public schools are more segregated than they were 40 years ago. The unemployment rate for black Americans has remained above 10 percent for most of the last half a century, and black workers earn on average $22,000 less a year than their white counterparts. Black homebuyers are shown significantly fewer homes than their white counterparts when shopping for a house. Ethnic identity is still the key factor in where people reside.

3. Fair voting. King campaigned extensively for legislation like the Voting Rights Act. And he lived to see it passed. But legislators, largely Republicans, have been working to roll back the rights protected under the VRA since its inception. Those efforts have become even more acute recently. More than half the states introduced restrictive voting legislation in 2013 alone, according to a review by the Brennan Center, at a total of 92 separate bills in 33 states. The Supreme Court also struck down a major portion of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, allowing states previously subject to the VRA to put voting laws on the books without federal oversight. Now a group of members of congress — including Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who incidentally established the first official Martin Luther King Day — is working to undo the damage of that decision.

4. Unfettered unionization. King spoke out specifically about anti-union “Right to Work” laws. “[W]e must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work,’” he said in 1961. “Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us.” Over 50 years later, right to work laws are still on the books. In fact, Michigan passed its own right to work law in 2012. But King’s assessment was right: No matter their unionized status, workers in “right to work” states today earn $1,500 less a year than their counterparts, and are less likely to receive other benefits like health care and pensions.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/home/2014/01/20/3175341/mlk-goals-unmet/

By CBC Chair Marcia L. Fudge

– In 1968, Dr. King spent his last birthday working on the Poor People’s Campaign to bring attention to the need for economic justice in America. If he were alive today, I wonder how he would feel about the state of our country and of our world.

“I believe Dr. King would applaud the progress we have made toward racial and social equity, but he would strongly caution us about the shrinking equality of opportunity currently plaguing our world. He would question our nation’s persistently high unemployment rate, particularly for African Americans. He would ask why Congress couldn’t agree on extending unemployment insurance to the long-term unemployed – the people who need it the most. Dr. King would ask why millions of Americans continue to live in poverty and seek work while corporations post billions in record profits. He would call for individuals to be paid wages that would prevent them from falling below the poverty line.

“Today, our nation honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an individual whose work was guided by his dream for an unprejudiced and equitable society. If he were alive today, Dr. King would certainly be proud of who we are, but he would say that we must commit to move forward together as one nation, we must not rest on our progress, there is still much work to be done.”

Source: http://cbc.fudge.house.gov/press-releases/cbc-chair-marcia-l-fudges-statement-in-honor-of-martin-luther-king-jr-day/