By Mike Dunn

— Amid the latest school funding crisis, Philadelphia local advocates are pushing for a city ballot question on whether to return the school district to local control, effectively putting the School Reform Commission out of business.

The problem is, the decision rests in Harrisburg, not City Hall.

Before adjourning for the summer, a City Council committee heard from school advocates who want a ballot question in Philadelphia this November on whether the school district should return to local governance.

The vote would have no legal impact, as the governance question rests with the governor and state legislature.

But Hillary Linardopoulos, of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said the ballot question would be an important, symbolic, statement.

“Even though it’s non-binding, it still is an official proclamation,” she told the council members. “If it has the result of showing what the Philadelphia residents want, it will be a mandate for the new governor.”

But most council members on the Law and Government Committee were lukewarm to the idea.

Councilman Bill Greenlee objected to the idea of using charter-change resolutions to make political statements.

“We’re slowly turning the city charter into an opinion poll,” Greenlee said. “What if the churches got together and wanted a ballot question to ban gay marriage? Would you want that on the ballot? Do we keep going in that direction?”

And councilwoman Marian Tasco voiced the fear that a school governance ballot question could prompt Harrisburg lawmakers to actually give back control and then walk away from the obligation to increase funding.

“The majority of (legislators) are from all over the state, and they all hate Philadelphia,” Tasco said. “Not all of them — some of them. So (they might say), ‘OK, let’s just see what we can do to give them what they want!’ “

In the end, the committee moved the proposal out of committee without approval or rejection. The idea next goes to the full Council, which is now in recess until the fall.

Source: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/06/22/teachers-union-wants-philadelphians-to-vote-on-school-district-control/#.U6d37FX1WFU.twitter

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– Governor Corbett made his intentions clear this week, he is even willing to miss the budget deadline so that he will have more time to push his extreme tea party agenda.

Gov. Corbett and his friends like Representative Tobash and Senator Wagner aren’t looking for fair solutions. They are waging an ideological war against workers and want to get rid of pensions once and for all. We need to draw a line in the sand now. It’s time for all of us to speak out and say we’ve had enough.

To E-Mail Your Legislators Now, Go To: http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8707

The legislative proposals on the table would do nothing to reduce the debt that had been created through years of underfunding by the State, but they would all but eliminate any sort of retirement security for public workers. In spite of these facts, Corbett is pushing ahead and demanding action on this bankrupt agenda, because for the Governor and his allies in the House and Senate this is not about crafting good policy that works for Pennsylvania, this is about scoring an ideological victory in their war against workers.

We have beaten back these attacks several times before, but in order to win, we have to be successful EVERY time – Corbett and his anti-worker allies only need to manage one successful vote!

Don’t let Monday be the day that the anti-worker agenda succeeds in Pennsylvania!

To E-Mail Your Legislators Now and Demand that they stand with workers and OPPOSE Corbett’s extreme attacks on pensions, Go To: http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8707

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4210

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– Governor Corbett held a news conference on Tuesday, June 17 threatening to hold up passage of a state budget unless legislators approve a badly flawed pension Bill that even the Bill’s co-sponsors admit won’t provide short-term budget relief.

It may also result in Governor Corbett breaking two of his campaign promises. The one he made to the voters – passage of on-time state budgets. The other – the Grover Norquist pledge he signed to never raise taxes, which he has already broken when he signed legislation that eliminated the cap on wholesale fuels.

President Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Snyder issued an immediate response to the Governor’s threats, saying that the Governor’s billion dollar budget crisis is of his own making and now he is pushing a pension scheme that independent actuaries say will do nothing to save money in the current budget. It will however, cut retirement benefits of younger teachers, nurses, librarians, and thousands of public service workers by up to 40 percent.

“If we want to solve our budget crisis, we have to look at the real culprit – the billions in outsized taxpayer giveaways to corporations. Governor Corbett gives away $3.9 billion a year in corporate welfare – more than enough to fully fund our pension system. We cannot balance Pennsylvania’s budget on the backs of workers who have never missed a payment into the pensions system,” President Bloomingdale said.

During the press conference, the governor indicated that he would consider reducing the “pension collars’” which would once again lower employers’ required payments to the pension system, adding to the Commonwealth’s pension debt.

Reducing what the state and school districts are required to pay into the pension systems is how we got into this mess in the first place,” Secretary-Treasurer Snyder added. “It allows employers to put their payments on a credit card and run up the bill. This was a bad idea 15 years ago, and it’s an even worse idea now,” he said.

• The proposal was introduced by State Rep. Tobash and supported by Governor Corbett. If enacted into law, it will not provide any relief in the state budget, and any savings to Pennsylvania’s pensions system would be decades away – if there is any significant savings at all under the plan’s provisions. These are the facts which Rep. Tobash admitted in a June 4 news conference.
• An analysis of the Tobash/Corbett plan by the Keystone Research Center found the measure would force new, mostly young employees to pay for the past mistakes of their employers. What it doesn’t do is save the Commonwealth substantial money, now or in the future. (New Pension Plan a Step Backwards, available online at www.keystoneresearch.org).
• Cheiron, a Virginia-based actuarial firm hired by the State’s Public Employee Retirement Commission, also concluded in its May 26 analysis of the Corbett/Tobash plan that any savings from the Corbett-Tobash plan would not be realized in the FY 2014-15 state budget, and payments due to the pension would still have to be made.
• Cheiron concluded: “For new employees, the loss of retirement security is greater than the value of the cost savings for the Commonwealth.”
• The CLEAR Coalition, composed of labor unions representing middle-class workers, has proposed a series of revenue-generating options and cost-cutting solutions to help Pennsylvania’s state government meet its responsibilities and serve its citizens. Read more about it at www.clearforpa.org.

You are encouraged to share these points when meeting with your legislators.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4195&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

Join us for a rally at City Hall on Thursday, June 19, to make sure Council knows as they break for summer recess that Philadelphians want them to Keep PGW Public!

Join community groups, environmental groups and labor allies in calling for City Council to keep Philadelphia Gas Works, our public gas utility, in public hands. We have successfully kept Council from taking action on Mayor Nutter’s proposal to privatize PGW, but most members of Council have not publicly stated opposition to the deal.

Join us to call on city council to make a stand:

NO to rate hikes
NO to LNG in Philadelphia
NO to job cuts

Date: Thursday, June 19, 2014
Time: 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Where: NE Corner of City Hall (Outside)

Source: https://www.facebook.com/events/1492535127631537/

– The following letter in opposition to NB 1722 was sent to every PA Legislator in the Philadelphia Delegation:

On behalf of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, I write to you to once again express the Federation’s vehement opposition to House Bill 1722. When I heard that there has been some recent movement surrounding this bill in the House, I was left to wonder how such a bill could even be discussed when Philadelphia’s schools are under such a state of duress. Students go to school every day in under-resourced schools and classrooms across the city, and their teachers are committed to providing them with the very best. However, teachers are not capable of producing text books, computers, counselors, and so much more that’s missing. And yet, instead of focusing on the real issue at hand—Governor Corbett’s more than $1 Billion dollars in education funding cuts across the Commonwealth—members of the House think it prudent to discuss seniority.

Often times, we hear anecdotal accounts of a child losing his or her favorite teacher “because of seniority”. Let me be very clear: no one has ever lost a teacher because of seniority. Teachers are cut from schools due to budget shortfalls. And it just so happens that under Governor Corbett’s watch, we have had a massive, unprecedented shortfall—one that directly caused the layoffs of nearly 4,000 public school employees in Philadelphia last June. Again, let me reiterate: seniority is not the problem. Budget cuts are.

When laying off 4,000 staff members in a school district, I can understand that some politicians may look for ways to justify it, to make it seem less immoral. They’d like to say, “Well, we laid off the bad teachers!” When it comes down to it, however, there simply is no morality in laying off 4,000 people committed to serving Philadelphia’s youth. That is why my members and I have been advocating for funding day in and day out throughout this crisis.

With the new evaluation system being implemented (again- another unfunded mandate from the state), and the notion that this brand new system (being forced upon under-resourced schools) will be tied to layoffs is simply unconscionable. We have excellent teachers across the district, and all of them are saying the same thing—they simply cannot do the best for our children under the current budgetary constraints. Instead of addressing this, we will implement a new evaluation system to not only rate those teachers but then determine their layoff status?

The Federation is not looking to “protect bad teachers” via our position on seniority.

We look to support struggling educators, through various means—including our PFT/School District Collaboration, Peer Assistance and Review (PAR). Through the PAR program, we have been able to work to help struggling teachers improve their practice. If, at the end of a period of intensive interventions, that teacher has not made the appropriate gains, he or she will be terminated. This is the fair and moral way of ensuring that all students in Philadelphia have great teachers.

Using a budget crisis as an excuse for union busting and blaming seniority for the dire financial straits of Philadelphia’s school system is immoral. It is a dishonest characterization of my hardworking members, and it is an insulting affront on all Philadelphians to assume that they will believe that Governor Corbett’s massive budget shortfalls could be fixed by doing away with seniority.

I urge you, as a member of the Philadelphia delegation, to ensure that Philadelphia’s children are protected and that their schools are funded. Let’s not waste one more critical moment entertaining the idea that seniority is the root cause of our financial straits.

Seniority has never caused a layoff. Governor Corbett’s cuts, however, have caused thousands.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Kind Regards,

JERRY T. JORDAN
President

Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/philadelphia-federation-of-teachers/letter-from-pft-president-jerry-jordan-to-the-philadelphia-delegation-in-harrisb/837898999573512