By the PA. AFL-CIO

– Silly season has officially descended on Harrisburg, with the State Budget and the horse trading on various pieces of union-busting legislation playing out like a real life game of whack-a-job.

Just in the past day, the Governor’s rejected bid to outsource the Pennsylvania Lottery to a British company appeared to get new life, with rumors of a budget amendment that would expand the Governor’s ability to enter into such contracts on behalf of the Commonwealth.  This creates the very real prospect that the Governor could resubmit the contract ahead of a June 30th deadline.

While transportation funding continues to be debated in the State House, efforts continue by some to tie this critical funding to attacks on workers, such as prevailing wage.

It just so happens that one of the anti-prevailing wage bills in the House, HB 665, will be proceeding to a full house vote on the measure today.  This is the bill that would reclassify a huge number of road construction projects so that they would no longer be subject to prevailing wage laws.

Both the job-killing McIlhinney plan to privatize the State’s Wine & Spirits Stores, and the original house bill, HB 790 that was passed back in March, are both alive in the Senate and could see amendments or even votes later today.

And finally, there is legislation in both houses to destroy retirement security and bankrupt our pension systems by putting new employees into an expensive 401(k)-type plan.  These bills would cost taxpayers over $33.5 billion, and the House bills contain unconstitutional provisions to reduce the benefits of current employees.

We now have 59 hours to go until the end of the June 30th budget deadline, but that is still time for legislators to hear from their constituents.

If you have not yet e-mailed your legislators and asked them to OPPOSE the attacks on workers, and to SUPPORT a reasonable budget that invests in the future of the Commonwealth, then please do it now!

Go Here To E-Mail Your Legislators Now! – http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=6779

If you are one of the thousands who have already contacted their legislators this week, then please forward this page to your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and social networks.  During these final hours we need EVERYONE engaged, and telling our politicians in Harrisburg to do the right thing!

Go To: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=2201

From the PA. AFL-CIO:

Four Days Until Budget Deadline.  E-Mail Your Legislators Now at: http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=6779

– With only days remaining before the General Assembly breaks for their summer recess, some legislators in Harrisburg are trying to use these final hours to pass sweeping anti-worker legislation that will drive down wages, privatize industries, and destroy retirement security.  These attacks are aimed at public and private sector workers alike, and will do irreparable harm to hundreds of thousands of working families in the Commonwealth.

In recent weeks, you have been flooding your legislators with phone calls and e-mails, and thousands of union members have visited their senators and representatives at their district offices and in Harrisburg, filling the Capitol halls and committee meetings, and holding rallies for responsible education funding and for Medicaid expansion.

But we can’t afford to slow down now!  In just the next 36 hours:

– We expect to see movement in the House on HB 1352 and HB 1353, and in the Senate on SB 922.  These bills would eliminate pensions for newly hired teachers and State workers, and bankrupt the pension system that current employees and retirees rely on.  The State estimates these bills would cost taxpayers over $33 billion.  The House version of the bill also reduces future retirement benefits for current employees, a blatantly unconstitutional provision.

– We expect to see SB 100 advance to the floor in the State Senate, this is the McIlhinney plan for expanding liquor sales, which would result in the closing of the State Wine & Spirits stores, the layoff of 5,000 union workers, and which would put hundreds of locally owned beer distributors out of business, costing another 10,000 estimated jobs.

– We expect to see an attempt to pass two anti-prevailing wage laws in the State House; HB 796 would raise the threshold for projects that would be subject to prevailing wage laws by 300%; and HB 665 would redefine most road “construction” projects as road “maintenance”, so that they would be exempt from prevailing wage.

– The House Transportation Committee is still trying to get the votes needed to move an amended version of the Senate Transportation Bill, SB 1, from committee.  The amendment, as it was unveiled a few days ago, would gut funding for mass transit and severely reduce funding for road and bridge construction and repair.  There is also an effort to include provisions that would tie transportation funding to the privatization of mass transit and to the undermining of our State’s prevailing wage laws.

Those are just the moves we expect to see by the end of the day tomorrow.  There is still time for the General Assembly to send all of these bills to the Governor’s desk by Sunday, along with a budget that fails to make necessary investments in Pennsylvania.

We need you to keep telling your legislators that you OPPOSE these attacks on workers, and we need you to help spread the word to your co-workers, family, and friends.  Please encourage them to take action as well, whether they are union members or not.  These issues affect us ALL!

Again, E-Mail Your Legislators Now!  Tell Them To OPPOSE The Attacks On Workers, And Pass A Responsible Budget That Works For Pennsylvania at:  http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=6779

By Patriot-News Editorial Board The Patriot-News –

As legislative leaders try to round up votes in the state House for the badly-needed transportation funding bill, some recalcitrant Republicans have signaled that they might come aboard in return for passing a measure weakening the state’s “prevailing wage” law.

That law says publicly-funded projects have to pay workers the “prevailing wage” in that area. It prevents companies from winning the low bid on publicly-funded construction projects by importing cheap workers from other locations.

A horse-trade like that is an unseemly way to do legislative business. Each of the two issues deserves a straight-up look on its own merits.

Linking the two big issues also seems like bad strategy. Even if weakening prevailing wage did pick up some votes for transportation funding from Republicans, it would lose votes from Democrats.

But the real problem is what weakening prevailing wage would do to hard-working Pennsylvanians.

But the real problem is what weakening prevailing wage would do to hard-working Pennsylvanians.

It would set off a race to the bottom, where lowest-bid contractors win their business by paying their workers less and less, limited only by how desperate workers are for a job.

That’s why some responsible contractors actually support the prevailing wage law. (And no, not all of them are union contractors.)

As James Gaffney, president of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Eastern Pennsylvania. said during last year’s debate on the issue, “The [prevailing wage] law levels the playing field so local contractors who hire local workers aren’t underbid by fly-by-nighters.”

Prevailing wage law is geographically flexible, allowing pay rates to vary in different places across the state. Smaller communities are allowed to pay workers less than they’d make in Philadelphia and other large counties.

When local governments complain that the law drives up a project’s cost, they might just as well say, “We want to save our taxpayers a few bucks by using our spending power to wring lower wages out of the people who do the work for us.”

On most public construction projects, labor is only about a quarter of the total cost. Even if wages were cut in half, the savings on a project would be no more than 12.5 percent. Local governments could save a lot more than that on their projects if the state would let them use prison labor, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

With one minor exception, there’s nothing wrong with the prevailing wage law that needs to be changed.

Complying with the law does involve extra paperwork, and that burden falls most heavily on small projects, like Harrisburg Young Professionals’ pending renovation of the decrepit ballfields at Italian Lake.

Projects less than $25,000 are exempt from prevailing wage, but that exemption hasn’t been raised since 1963. Resetting the exemption at $100,000, as a bill from Rep. David Millard (R-Columbia County) would do, is a reasonable accommodation.

Not so the more drastic changes that some House Republicans have been eager to make.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, would exempt repaving jobs. Those are big projects – often grinding away the top layer of a road and putting down large amounts of new pavement.

That’s not the kind of small-scale “maintenance” work that is understandably exempt. Marsico’s bill would let a favored segment of contractors start paying their workers lower wages. It starts to chip away at the whole concept of prevailing wage.

Rep. Stephen Bloom, R-Cumberland, would go even further. He wants to exempt local governments from prevailing wage, unless they decide to opt-in. That would be a great boon for politically connected local contractors — but not so great for those hoping to work on local projects. Contractors would be free to pay as little as they could get away with.

With unemployment still so high, it’s hard enough for people to find and hold a job that pays enough to support a family.

Pennsylvania definitely needs to ramp up the pace of work on the state’s aging bridges, roads, and mass transit, to make sure unsafe conditions and congestion don’t stifle the state’s economic growth. Pennsylvania doesn’t need to do so by making it harder for workers to earn a decent living.

Go To: http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/06/lack_of_common_sense_prevails_in_prevailing_wage_debate_editorial.html

by Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor –

Twinkies are coming back! The jobs of most of the workers who used to make Twinkies and other Hostess cakes, and their union, are not coming back. Which the Associated Press presents as just another way for a company to compete for profits. (Shoot, the race to the bottom on wages and benefits is pretty much the way companies compete for profits these days.) Media Matters highlights how the AP presents the story of the Hostess bankruptcy largely from the viewpoint of the company’s executives. You know, workers say this, management says that, the workers lost their jobs and/or their union, but hey, look over here at the creamy filling and the dark cocoa being added to the cupcakes.

So since, with the brand’s reappearance on convenience store shelves, we’re going to be hearing a lot of these management-view thumbnail sketches of how Hostess went under, let’s recap some of what you won’t hear as much:

– Unionized Hostess workers made major concessions, taking pay and benefits cuts. That money was supposed to be reinvested into the company. It wasn’t.

– As the company was struggling, its CEO pay skyrocketed, and as it was going into bankruptcy, Hostess pushed to give $1.75 million in bonuses to top executives.

– Hostess claimed it had to close plants because workers went on strike, but in fact, the company was already planning to close nine bakeries and wasn’t telling which ones.

– Hostess stole its workers’ pension money to fund itself and still went bankrupt.

– And, as Media Matters points out, “while the AP story claims that “workers” are blaming the company’s woes on mismanagement and a failure to adapt to evolving consumer tastes, this has actually been the opinion of informed and objective third parties.”

This is the real story of Hostess: high pay and mismanagement at the top, concessions at the bottom, blame to the workers despite those concessions. Don’t forget that as you’re sinking your teeth into a creamy retro treat.

Go To: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/24/1218422/-Hostess-but-not-its-workers-makes-a-comeback

– Yesterday a report was published (See below) by Pat Loeb of CBS News regarding the final day of school where instrumental music teachers played a farewell concert because the entire classroom instrument education program has been eliminated due to district budget cuts. Here is our editorial based on that sad report.

Phillylabor.com Editorial: How sad is it that the dreams, the self esteem and the futures of many of our children have been altered forever due to the elimination of vital public school programs like music, art, sports and more because we, as a generation of adult Philadelphians /Pennsylvanians have have failed them and instead of fixing the problem, we chose to cut out their programs.  If we do not step up and save these valuable programs, whose life lessons often far exceed their actual artistic and athletic value, we will go down in history as one of the most selfish and failed generations in the history of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania and we’re gonna need to build more prisons because we are gonna need some place to put the kids whose self esteem we destroyed!