All of us at IBEW Local 98 send our deepest condolences to the families who lost their loved ones in yesterday’s tragic building collapse in Philadelphia. We also ask that you keep in your thoughts and prayers the dozens of others who were seriously injured, so that they may recover quickly and completely.

Yesterday’s horrific building collapse, though tragic, was preventable. Although the finger of blame should point directly at the slumlord owner, the scab demolition contractor with a criminal record, and the middle-man “expediter” who never set foot on the job site yet somehow was able to pull the permit, much of the blame also should be directed at the Nutter administration for their lax oversight and dereliction of duty as it pertains to the construction industry in the city. FOR THE RECORD THE CONTRACTOR, THE EXPEDITER, AND THE CITY AGENCY OFFICIAL WHO SHIRKED HIS OR HER RESPONSIBILITY SHOULD ALL BE CHARGED AS CO-CONSPIRATORS IN THE DEATHS OF SIX PEOPLE.

The shame of all this is that I have personally handed Mayor Nutter countless documents and reams of evidence that show how these carpetbagger developers and contractors routinely cheat the system, ignore licensing requirements, rob the city of taxes and other revenue, and make our city unsafe. And Nutter’s response? NOTHING. He and his people simply don’t care. Licenses and Inspections hands out permits like people hand-out candy to trick-or-treaters on Halloween. There’s no oversight and no follow-through. And now, six more innocent people are dead.

The only ones who deserve credit for their actions yesterday are the on-site volunteers and our great firefighters, paramedics and first responders for their incredible work yesterday. I find it bitterly ironic that Nutter went out of his way to praise the firefighters and paramedics for their heroic efforts, yet continues to deny them the arbitration award they won nearly five years ago. After watching Nutter’s shameless press conference today, I’m more convinced than ever that he’s a fraud.

It’s also interesting to note that a huge deal has been made out of the proposed take-over of Traffic Court. Instead of worrying about a state take-over of Traffic Court, maybe we should be talking about a state take-over of Licenses and Inspections. I don’t recall the last time someone died because of a decision made at Traffic Court.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY AT 22ND AND MARKET WAS A SAD METAPHOR FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE CITY’S OVERSIGHT OF THE ENTIRE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY IN PHILADELPHIA. This kind of reckless, scab construction work and development is happening all over the city. It’s become the Wild West and the bad guys are doing whatever the hell they want with no fear of consequences. Oh, by the way, has anyone seen the 15 to 20 workers on that job site who scurried like rats when the building came down? I’ll bet you anything they’re laying low, hiding from Immigration and Naturalization Services.

THE BOTTOM LINE: UNLESS AND UNTIL THIS ADMINISTRATION WAKES UP AND DOES SOMETHING TO STOP THESE THIEVES, MORE TRAGEDIES LIKE YESTERDAY’S WILL CONTINUE TO OCCUR.

-John J. Dougherty

6 Killed, At Least 13 Others Injured

The construction company contracted to do the demolition on the building that collapsed last Wednesday at 22nd and Market St. in center city Philadelphia, killing 3 and injuring 13 others, was non-union construction company Griffin Campbell Construction, located at 1605 Butler St. That North Philadelphia address is also the residence of Griffin T. Campbell, 49. Laborers on the demolition crew were also non-union workers.

Witnesses who saw the building prior to it’s collapse were reported to have been concerned enough about the building’s condition to express a desire to warn the people inside the Salvation Army Thrift Store, located adjacent to the collapsed building, but the building collapsed prior to being able to warn them.

Griffin Campbell Construction has city permits to demolish six other properties, including three other Market Street properties owned by STB Investments Corp., the owner of the collapsed building. The principal of STB is Richard Basciano.

It is unknown yet why the building’s owners chose to use a non-union company, whose owner has a criminal record, to do the demolition on the building but it is suspected that saving money was a possible motive. Just one question, what kind of savings is worth the lives of the 6 innocent people who were killed and the many more who were injured as a result of the collapse?

PhillyLabor.com

By Treston Davis-Faulkner

– On May 22, 2013, the unelected Chicago Public School Board (CPS), appointed by Mayor Emmanuel, decided to close nearly 50 public schools in Chicago, the largest public school mass closing in the history of the US.

The implications for the largely African American and Latino working class families in Chicago who are most directly impacted are deeply troubling to consider. Reportedly, more than 40,000 students (and their families) will lose at least three to six months of learning because of the Board’s actions. Many of these displaced students (and families) will now have to travel into new neighborhoods to continue their schooling. Some will be victims of bullying, physical assault and other forms of violence.

As CPS makes history with this decision, the future as well as the present of our nation’s public school system must be considered, as do the motivations and impact of this decision.

The Chicago school closings appear to be a key element of a corporate agenda to transform US cities and further solidify economic inequality. A key aspect of this strategy is moving the poor out of the center of the city and into the periphery, where they will no longer have access to the public infrastructure they and their ancestors helped to fund and build, let alone be able to physically or politically threaten the global elites who will be working and playing in the redeveloped urban center. This neo-liberal process is already well under way in cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, among many others. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, we witnessed this transformation occur at a break-neck pace with the entire city’s public school system being taken over by a charter school cartel as the corporate elite leveraged their clout with city officials to make it happen. The result is now many more low-income working class people live in suburbs than in cities. For the poor people who still remain in cities, the corporate elite’s strategy includes “stop and frisk” style policing, and the transformation of public schools into places of hyper-discipline where compliance and obedience are the preferred behaviors. These strategies are taken to the greatest extreme by some of the nation’s most celebrated charter schools.

Parents, students, community organizations, faith-based groups, teachers and workers’ rights groups are struggling against this corporate reform agenda. People demonstrated all over the US in opposition to this monumental decision in Chicago and to protect and expand quality public education. Jobs with Justice is actively strategizing and organizing to defend and expand quality public education as part of a robust common good we believe civilization requires. Below are some quick reports from different cities where JwJ helped organize or supported activity:

In Chicago: For a week, Chicago Jobs with Justice joined the Chicago Teachers Union and hundreds of our community allies in the Grassroots Education Movement and beyond and rallied, marched for three days, staged sit-ins at city hall and the state capital and organized speak outs to stop the largest number of school closings in US history. Had this coalition of progressive forces not fought, the number of closings may have been significantly higher as the Mayor indicated a desire to close nearly 100 schools. Check out this WBEZ story, the voice you hear yelling at the CPS meeting: “Children will die because CPS lies!” is Chicago JwJ Director Susan Hurley. Here is an inspiring video regarding Chicago’s struggle with youth helping to lead the way. Chicago JwJ has also organized to connect Walmart and other corporate elite’s involvement in promoting charter schools in cities across the US.

In San Francisco, on May 20, the Close the Gap coalition held a rally and street theater action at the City College of San Francisco Mission District Campus. The action was organized in response to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close up to 54 schools. Management of City College of San Francisco is pushing similar austerity measures that will dramatically reduce educational programs and services and gut labor standards at one of the largest community colleges in the country that also primarily serves working class students of color. The rally concluded with a call-in action through which the fifty plus activists in attendance placed calls to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees President John Rizzo demanding an end to these attacks on educational opportunity. For more info, video and press coverage, go here.

In Cleveland on May 20, Cleveland Jobs with Justice joined partner organization Common Good Ohio for a protest rally in front of a charter school whose leadership was indicted on embezzlement and money laundering (stole almost $2 million and received public money). Parents and clergy spoke about charter school accountability, and the need for a people and community centered national education reform platform, all the while making connections between the struggles in Cleveland, Chicago, and many cities across the country.

In Philadelphia on May 17, allies organized a “Day of Action to Fund Public Education in Philadelphia.” Two months after the School Reform Commission voted to close 24 public schools in Philadelphia, a day of action to fund schools was organized by parents, students, teachers and community activists. On the day of a city council budget hearing, students at large, supported by the Philadelphia Student Union and Youth United for Change, called for a citywide student walk out at 12pm to fund public schools. Earlier that morning, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (joined by Action United parent activists) organized a citywide informational picket to raise awareness of the school’s district proposed cuts of guidance counselors, school nurses, librarians, and even drinking fountains. The Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools (PCAPS) mobilized parents & community activists to testify at the city council hearing. Philadelphia Jobs with Justice is a proud member of PCAPS. Thousands participated and students wore “Our City, Our Schools, Our Voice” t-shirts at the walk out. PCAPS activists talked about other cities like Chicago facing similar problems. For more coverage on the student walk out go here, and for pictures, go here.

In Boston on May 17-18, allies held a 2,000-person “Educate to Liberate: Creating the Schools We Deserve Conference” that included students, parents, educators and community activists to explore a collective vision for public education, develop skills and to plan creative alternatives to corporate education reform tactics like school closings. Recently, youth justice leaders across the city decided they wanted to start organizing to shed more light on the corporate education reform agenda in Massachusetts and to target the Boston Consulting Group that helped shape the school closings effort in Chicago. Students and education activists learned more about the similarities between Chicago, Boston, and other cities as they created visual arts projects to demonstrate the impacts of kicking students out of the classroom.

Go To: http://www.jwj.org/blog/jobs-justice-mobilizes-fight-public-school-closings-major-cities

The Legal Intelligencer – Allison Eberle-Lindemuth –

The intersection between Social Security disability and workers’ compensation and the American work ethic may not be apparent until one practices in the field.Working with clients on a weekly, if not daily, basis has led me to two conclusions. One, to some degree a good work ethic is helpful to a social security disability case (SSD). Two, to some degree it is detrimental to a social security disability case.
This is the paradox. Though I do not practice workers’compensation, the attitude of a client would be the same in either area of law and the observations made in this article can be extrapolated for workers’compensation as well.

The positive aspect of a good work ethic is, firstly, the typical client with a good work ethic often has a long, strong work record. This indicates a willingness to work and is desirable to judges because it proves that this claimant has always attempted to workup until his or her disability or injury. This is especially true when the client has worked for an extended amount of time in a physically demanding job, such as a union construction worker. I have noticed that these healthy work records are an indication of credibility and believability. The second part of this work ethic that is beneficial is the attitude of the claimant. Often, the people who have these strong work records are perceived to be desirous of working, but are simply physically or mentally unable to do any job. Specifically, judges see this desire not only as a sign of credibility, but basic truthfulness. “If not for my disability, I would be working.” Indeed, most of the union workers would be making significantly more money if they were working for their unions than if they were receiving social security disability payments. Compare two-thousand dollars per week to five-thousand dollars per week. This basic mathematical difference is logical and suggests that many people have no motivation to seek benefits beyond financial survival.

The detriment to a case when a client has a strong work ethic is illustrated best by what I term “the tough guy.” Many clients, both men and women who have strong work ethics, are reticent when it comes to their impairments and inability to work because, ostensibly, it makes them seem weak or lazy. This fear or embarrassment, a holdover from the viewpoint of the American work ethic in early American life, can work against a client when they cannot or will not articulate their problems for a judge or even their doctors. Appearing lazy to some Americans is simply unacceptable. It seems that these clients are fighting a new, emerging image of Americans: the lazy American. This was a topic of discussion in the New York Times in the fall of 2011. In a discussion posted online, the debate charges: “Hard work is part of the national self-image. How has our definition of it changed? How can we describe the American work ethic today?” (What Happened to the American Work Ethic, The New York Times, The Opinion Pages, October 9, 2011). Imagine that you have had a twenty to thirty year career in which you supported yourself and your family – then you are injured in some way before retirement age or before you have acquired your pension, union or otherwise. You have no other choice but to apply for disability, which by many is seen as a form of public assistance. These people have to fight their own images of welfare recipients and the prejudices by others. These internal struggles can radically change the way a client responds to questions by a judge. I often have to tell my clients that they must express their pain and restrictions, as embarrassing as it seems. I have often adopted a philosophy of one of the partners at Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano. Sam Pond has stressed that access to social security disability is a right that each individual gets when they pay into that Federal insurance system year after year. They earn those credits to insure that if, God forbid, they are injured or disabled, they have a fall back plan. When I explain the social security system to clients in this way, I often get better results.

Another problem that stems from this work ethic is a sense of pride. Though not unwarranted, I have had clients respond to vocational experts in an adversarial manner. Vocational experts are unbiased third parties that are used to “offer relevant evidence within his or her expertise or knowledge concerning the physical and mental demands of a claimant’s past relevant work, either as the claimant actually
performed it or as generally performed in the national economy.” 20 C.F.R. § 404.1560(b)(2). This sense of pride, connected to the work ethic, can have a negative effect on the client’s testimony at least in context of answering questions about their past work. Clients are often under the impression that the vocational expert should be listening to everything they say about their past work; if the vocational expert strays away from that core testimony clients get agitated unduly. To counteract this, I usually ask the client about their past work ahead of time and discuss with them the occupational title that I think will likely apply to their past work. (See Dictionary of Occupational Titles available online.) This also provides me with a sense of what the vocational expert will testify to at the hearing.

These vocational experts often describe possible jobs that are below the past work of the client in both wage and status. Many clients are offended by these suggestions. One way that I have chosen to counteract this possibility is by giving examples of jobs that clients are often insulted by, such as a laundry worker, parts assembler, or food service worker. These jobs require hard, honest work. However, many clients will not view them in that light. When that happens, I simply explain that these examples are not something that they are actually supposed to perform, but just examples of something they are physically able to do. I also stress that the judge does not have to agree with the vocational expert’s opinion. Additionally, I explain that social security’s definition of disability has to do with the physical requirements of a job, not necessarily wage, prestige, or actual employability. This is often difficult for clients to understand; however, it is easier to explain before the hearing than after the hearing. Clients are often happier with the outcome if I have explained all of this ahead of time. When I have the time, my preparation with a client is usually one full hour the day before the hearing. Though this is relevant to how many clients I have per week, I find that the more I explain ahead of time, the happier the client, regardless of the outcome of the hearing.

In the end, I treat each client on an individual basis. I gauge what I will explain and say based on
their personal information gathered in their file, as well as their responses to me when I speak with them.
Regardless of their position, I often explain most of this anyway as a way to prepare them for their
hearing. Overall, this work ethic can easily go one of two ways; it is up to the attorney to plan accordingly for each individual client

Go To, http://www.pondlehocky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/How-the-American-Work-Ethic-Affects-Disability-Workers-Comp-Cases1.pdf

– Pennsylvania AFL-CIO –

The state legislature will convene on Monday, June 3rd to begin crafting a final 2013-2014 budget. We need to make sure that the state budget supports all working families in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is facing a $500 million deficit. We rank 49th in the nation in job creation, which is reflected by our high unemployment rate. Governor Corbett has cut state funding by $1 billion to our school districts since he took office in 2011, while giving a $1 billion tax break to businesses. In February, Governor Corbett proposed yet another budget that is not in Pennsylvania’s best interest, making even more cuts in education and other areas necessary to keep our great state running. Corbett’s budget continues the phase out of the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax (CSFT), costing taxpayers approximately $365 million a year, and fails to expand Medicaid, which would insure half a million hard-working, low income Pennsylvanians at very little cost to the State.

On Wednesday, May 29, House Republican leaders introduced a 2013-2014 budget that is $100 million less than Governor Corbett’s budget that he proposed in February. The proposed house budget has even more cuts, ranging from childcare services for low-income working families to services for persons with disabilities. Balancing the budget on the backs of hard working Pennsylvanians is not the way to solve the problems that face our state.

We support legislation that improves and modernizes the Liquor Control Board to improve convenience for Pennsylvanians. The LCB already generates more than $500 million in profit and taxes for the state, and could add $75 million to $100 million annually if new legislation allowed for more Sunday stores and hours as well as greater flexibility in pricing and staffing.

Increased funding for transportation is also necessary to keep our roads and bridges safe. Recently, an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette explained that the state of our bridge infrastructure is dead last compared to the rest of the nation, with more than 4,500 state maintained bridges deemed as structurally deficient.

Pennsylvania, under the Affordable Care Act, has the opportunity to expand Medicaid and insure at least 500,000 more residents. The federal government would cover the complete cost of expansion until 2017, when it would drop to cover 95% and eventually 90%. We should take this opportunity to insure Pennsylvanians instead of leaving the money on the table.

Finally, we oppose any more business tax cuts like the phase out of CSFT while cuts are being made to education and health care.

Go to: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=1968