By the PA. AFL-CIO

– On Thursday Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President submitted written testimony on behalf of several unions to avoid a circus like committee hearing conducted by State Representative Daryl Metcalfe on House Bill 1507 paycheck deception bill.

The testimony was submitted on behalf of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, AFSCME Council 13, AFT Pennsylvania, PSEA, SEIU State Council and UFCW 1776 to set the record straight with the facts and to counter the myths of the corporate front groups that are trying to silence the voice of working families.

An example of the most extreme and outrageous rhetoric was uttered on the floor of the Pennsylvania State Senate with freshman State Senator Scott Wagner comparing unions to Hitler and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Bloomingdale in his written remarks for the record dismantled the false premises used by the supporters of this bill, including challenging the argument that payroll deductions are costly to taxpayers and pointing out that only payroll deductions by labor unions are being attacked while similar deductions to insurance companies and banks that spend money on political action and lobbying are excluded.

“Make no mistake about the disingenuous arguments the right-wingers make in support of this bill are nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to mask their crusade to defund labor unions and silence the voices of nurses, teachers, store clerks, firefighters, case workers, mill workers, steel workers, construction trades and other public and private sector employees who put the brakes on unbridled corporate greed through collective bargaining and political action,” Bloomingdale said.

Secretary-Treasurer Frank Snyder said, “Instead of staging bogus hearings and holding inflammatory rallies, Representative Metcalfe’s time would be better spent working on a budget that doesn’t gut public education, pensions and other vital public services in favor of giving corporations $4 billion in tax breaks and giving gas drillers a pass on paying a fair extraction tax. Representative Metcalfe and his right-wing allies would rather spew hate, fear and division and pursue an ideological agenda that stands in the way of open discourse and democracy.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4162&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

By Andrew Harrer

– Organized labor has embarked on a project to develop legislation that would expand collective bargaining rights of private-sector workers, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said.

During and after a meeting with Wall Street Journal reporters and editors Wednesday, Mr. Trumka wouldn’t provide specifics about labor’s plan or timing. But he suggested employers should be required to bargain over wages with all private-sector workers — union members and nonunion workers alike.

“We believe nonunion workers should be able to come together and negotiate with their employer without fear of retaliation or firing to get a better wage, to get a fairer share of what they produce,” he said. “Without collective bargaining, how do we close that gap” of income inequality? Mr. Trumka asked.

“We’re going to try to get … enacted in the law that every worker should have the right to bargain collectively with their employer, whether they have a union or not,” he said.

Any legislative proposal to expand bargaining rights is likely to draw a backlash from business groups, and would have no chance of clearing Congress anytime soon.

One labor official familiar with the effort said the bill would be unveiled as part of a long-term education and messaging campaign intended to “start a conversation” about expanding workers’ bargaining rights. “As politics changes, maybe it will get through” Congress, the official said, adding that while a bill is not imminent, it is under “active discussion,” including with congressional aides.

The 1935 National Labor Relations Act already extends collective bargaining rights to private-sector workers, but it does so under a set of circumstances that are more limited than what organized labor wants.

Existing law doesn’t require workers to be represented by a union to collectively bargain — at least not in the traditional sense of what a union is. Employees have the right to collectively bargain if they can demonstrate that they’re part of a “labor organization” that represents a majority of the workers, labor lawyers say. The term “labor organization” is broader than a union, including any organization, agency, committee or plan, in which employees participate for the purpose of dealing with employers about labor disputes, wages, work schedules or other working conditions.

It isn’t clear if organized labor would seek to legally require employers to bargain without a labor organization in place. Under existing law, private-sector workers can take collective action on their own, such as approaching their employer to try to improve wages, benefits or other working conditions. Employers can’t retaliate but aren’t required to negotiate with the workers.

Some worker advocates contend that under current law, employers could be made to bargain with a labor organization that represents only a minority of workers. But the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces the 1935 labor law, doesn’t order employers to do so. It’s not clear if organized labor would raise that issue in the legislation it plans to propose.

Union membership has fallen sharply since the 1980s. Last year, 11.3% of wage and salary workers belonged to a union, down from 20.1% in 1983. The rate remained flat last year compared to 2012, when unions managed to add members in the private sector, driven by gains in industries such as construction, manufacturing , health-care and food services. Still, rates remain far below what unions want, sapping them of membership dues they use in part to build political power.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/05/unions-set-high-goal-collective-bargaining-for-all-workers/

By Kevin McCorry

– In a bipartisan 16-8 vote, the Pennsylvania House Education Committee has greenlighted a bill that would eliminate state-mandated seniority protections for teachers.

HB 1722, sponsored by state Rep. Tim Krieger, R-Westmoreland, would require districts to base layoffs on a teacher’s performance as measured by the state’s new teacher evaluation system.

Now, 499 of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts are required to base teacher layoff and recall decisions on the inverse order of seniority, sometimes referred to as “last in, first out.”

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission, flexing its “special powers,” suspended the state code that protects teachers based on longevity. The school district has called on the state Supreme Court to provide a ruling that would affirm that the SRC has this right.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has petitioned the court to reject the district’s position – arguing that work-rule changes should be negotiated at the bargaining table. The union’s contract expired at the end of August; since then, negotiations have screeched along without any signs of progress.

HB 1722 also would allow districts to eliminate staff based on budgetary shortfalls. Aside from Philadelphia, state school districts now can order layoffs only when student enrollment declines or by eliminating specific programs.

Critics of the status quo say this leads many Pennsylvania districts to make wholesale cuts to programs such as art, music and kindergarten when revenues decline.

All Republicans on the education committee voted to advance the bill. Two Democrats, James Clay, D- Philadelphia, and Jake Wheatley, D-Allegheny, joined them.

Krieger, the bill’s sponsor, said the measure will “protect good teachers and make schools better.”

“If you’re a young teacher, and you’re doing a great job, you shouldn’t be furloughed because you haven’t been there that long,” he said.

Krieger lamented that the Pittsburgh School District had to cut 16 young teachers last year who carried a “distinguished” evaluation.

This is not an issue that has particularly affected schools within Krieger’s legislative district.

“We hear more of the complaints and more of the requests for this, frankly, from places like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia,” he said.

Why didn’t a legislator representing one of those districts propose the measure?

“I don’t know. I guess none of them were willing to do it,” Krieger said. “And I thought it was a good idea.”

Krieger’s original bill proposed increasing the time it takes teachers to earn tenure from three to five years. That provision died before leaving committee.

Minority chair James Roebuck, D-Philadelphia, argued that teacher seniority has “traditionally worked” and that the proposed bill has “a lot of problems.”

“I don’t get the idea that somehow there’s such great teachers coming in that are largely unseasoned that are somehow trumping well-established teachers in the classroom,” he said. “I’ve seen very little evidence of that.”

Roebuck contends that the debate over seniority has been manufactured by what he sees as the state’s underfunding of public education.

“If you fund schools properly, you don’t have to [lay teachers off],” he said. “I think this is looking at a self-created problem of saying, ‘because we created this problem, now we’ve got to do something else.'”

The state’s new teacher evaluation system will grade educators based on principal observation, evidence provided by teachers themselves, and students’ standardized test scores as averaged over a three-year period.

Roebuck worries that the new system isn’t ready.

“The problem is taking this new system that hasn’t even been fully tested or implemented and using that to make rather major decisions,” he said.

Jonathan Cetel, executive director of the school-reform advocacy group PennCAN, exalted the committee’s action.

“The house leadership said something that I’ve often heard — that voters would be shocked to learn that this already isn’t law, that we’re not already making important personnel decisions based on how well a teacher is doing with students,” said Cetel.

Gov. Tom Corbett has long supported changing teacher tenure.

Gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf has gone on the record in favor of the state’s existing teacher seniority rules.

“Are there teachers who may not be teaching up to par? Yeah. There are in any organization,” he said at an education panel discussion in Philadelphia in April. “The system we have now has a way to identify those teachers and relieve them of their duties.”

The bill will now go before the full House of Representatives, where leaders have been receptive to its aims.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/68852-bill-that-aims-to-curtail-teacher-seniority-clears-hurdle-in-the-pa-house?linktype=hp_impact

By Jobs With Justice

– The Supreme Court could issue a decision as early as Monday that could repeal collective bargaining rights for home-care workers. Learn the potential impact the ruling could have on care workers, care consumers and working people.

You can make your voice heard by adding your name to our petition and stand with these caregivers now!

What is the Supreme Court case Harris v. Quinn about?

On October 1, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a hearing in the case Harris v. Quinn. The case was brought by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW), an extremist group with ties to the ultra-conservative Koch Brothers and ALEC. This case is the latest in a decades-long right-wing attack on the rights of working people to join together to improve their jobs and the quality of services they provide.

The NRTW lawsuit started as a specific challenge against Illinois home-care workers’ collective bargaining rights, but the case has now expanded to attempt to repeal the right of all public sector home-care workers from banding together and collectively bargain with states over core terms of their employment. In the suit, NRTW is also asking the Supreme Court to bar other independent care providers, like family child-care providers, from forming a union by arguing that independent providers are independent contractors – and not public service employees – who cannot bargain collectively. The lower courts have already rejected this argument.

When is a decision expected from the Supreme Court on Harris v. Quinn?

The decision could come at any point between next Monday and the end of the month.

Why do home-care workers need collective bargaining rights?

As more states are allowing Medicaid to fund in-home care, millions of paid caregivers deliver home-based care for children, the elderly and people with disabilities. From administering medicine to preparing meals, home-care workers allow the millions of people they care for to live independently at home with dignity and respect. Despite an increasing demand for home-based care providers, this workforce – made up of mostly women, immigrants and people of color – faces low pay, few benefits and little job security. The median hourly wage for home-health and personal-care aides is $9.70 an hour.

Given these poor job standards, many providers have sought to form unions. Hundreds of thousands of these caregivers have now earned collective bargaining rights, and nearly two million home-care workers finally secured the right to earn a minimum wage and overtime just last year. A Supreme Court ruling limiting their collective bargaining rights opens the door for home-care workers to lose hard fought gains in hours, benefits, training opportunities and wages.

Why don’t all care workers have collective bargaining rights?

The 1935 National Labor Relations Act gives most private sector employees the right to form unions and collectively bargain with their employers. The federal law does not, however, extend to public employees, although most states have laws that grant union rights to public sector employees as well. But for those workers in the gray area of providing home-based care and receiving reimbursements through state and federal programs, there was no established structure in which to form unions. While the consumers of this care or their family members typically do the hiring and often supervising of these workers, a significant percentage of the workers receive their income through state or federal reimbursements (largely Medicaid). So these care workers couldn’t be categorized as independent business owners since they have no control over the reimbursement rates, but they weren’t employed by the private sector either. Still, state governments were ignoring their obligation to serve as the “employer of record” for providers.

How did care workers gain a voice on the job?

Despite the structural impediments, care providers began joining unions anyway to secure a voice on the job. And since the 1990s, care workers and their unions began mobilizing consumers and other allies to pressure elected officials to raise reimbursement rates and create public authorities that controlled state and federal funding streams and could recognize and bargain with providers’ unions. Now, as of 2013, nine states have granted rights to home-care providers.

How could this case affect the people that home-care workers care for?

The dismantling of union rights for providers would also be a blow to the consumers of care who benefit from a stable workforce – studies have shown that increased wages and benefits lead to reduced turnover among home-care providers. With the demand for home care predicted to soar in the coming years as baby boomers age, a decision limiting these rights will compromise care standards at the moment our aging nation needs it most.

What are the implications of the case on income inequality and economic justice?

A decision limiting these rights could also directly drive down the wages and the basic rights of care workers. Public workers could have fewer resources to stand up for good jobs and quality care. If our friends and neighbors can’t join together in strong unions, it will become harder for all workers to gain better wages and benefits, increased job security and safer workplaces. We all need the freedom to have a voice at work and to speak up for decent jobs and quality services.

The Supreme Court will issue a decision in the coming weeks – and possibly as early as this Monday. Click here to sign our petition to stand with care workers! We will deliver your petition to the workers who could be hit hardest by this ruling.

Source: http://www.jwj.org/supreme-court-may-gut-care-workers-collective-bargaining-rights

– Today, June 5, 2014, marks the first anniversary of the building collapse that killed six in Center City Philadelphia nears, efforts continue to construct a memorial park at the site where the Salvation Army thrift store stood.

The process of taking the former thrift store property and transforming it into a place for recreation and reflection is well under way, said John White of the 22nd and Market Memorial Committee.

“We’ve raised about 40 percent of the money we think will be necessary,” he said. “They city has taken possession of the land from the Salvation Army and made it available for this purpose, so it is under our control.

And the group has talked with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to select the artist who will do the memorial, White said.

A ceremony is planned for the site on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the day a building undergoing demolition collapsed on the thrift store, killing six people and injuring 14.

“The mayor will make some remarks about the role the city has played in it, some of the families of the victims will be there and they will also speak,” he said. “We’ll have some songs of a religious nature … we’ll just recognize what happened and dedicate ourselves to being sure that something’s established on the site.”

Source: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/68604-almost-a-year-later-memorial-to-victims-of-philly-building-collapse-moving-forward?linktype=hp_impact