BY COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN TASCO/Philly Public Record

– After taking more than four years to arrive at a decision to sell PGW, the Nutter administration is now pushing for a rush to judgment by City Council regarding one of the most-significant decisions this City will ever make.

People are coming out of the woodwork to support the Mayor’s position. But how many of them have read the 85-page Asset Purchase Agreement between the City and UIL Holdings? How many actually understand its complex details?

Anyone who reads this Agreement will quickly learn that it does not reveal all of the specifics of the deal. Some of the fine print is buried in other documents (such as the Seller Disclosure Letter) which have not yet been made public.

I have publicly stated I do not support the proposed sale. In part, that is because the Nutter administration never seriously considered or evaluated other alternatives to permit the City to capture the upside benefits of owning PGW.

It is true we are the largest major city that still owns a gas utility. But we are also the only major city that owns a gas utility with strategically desirable facilities to liquefy and store natural gas.

Therefore, we need to fully analyze and understand both the short-term and the long-term implications of divesting ourselves permanently of such a valuable asset.

Given the complexity and importance of the proposed transaction, City Council would be irresponsible if we did not do our own due diligence. Appropriately, Council has retained a respected, independent consultant (Concentric Energy Advisors) to assist in the analysis. Concentric began its work, which includes digging into the myriad details of the thousands of pages of documents that were used in the sale process, just a little over one month ago.

Council is proceeding toward an informed decision with all deliberate speed. But we should not cut corners in the process to satisfy a deadline which was unilaterally set by the administration. When the administration tried to do the same thing with property taxes and the Actual Value Initiative, Council took the time to do it correctly with better results.

As Chicago’s experiment with privatization of its parking meters showed, if the responsible elected officials don’t carefully examine all of the details of a transaction, the citizens can get burned. Let’s not act in haste, only to repent at leisure.

Councilwoman Tasco represents the 9th Dist., including West and East Oak Lanes, Mt. Airy, Olney, Logan, Lawncrest and Oxford Circle. She is chair of the Philadelphia Gas Commission.

Source: http://www.phillyrecord.com/2014/05/another-opinion-2/

– In 2013, WorkReady Philadelphia provided over 7,600 summer job opportunities to young people ages 14-21. It was a great success but there is still work to be done.

Predictions for summer 2014 forecast that approximately 4,500 WorkReady summer jobs will be available for youth. This is a 40% decrease. This will be the lowest number of summer jobs for young people since 2003.

As many jobs as possible need to be generated to ensure that future generations are prepared for education and career.

Why Summer Jobs?

As the needs of our future workforce continue to change, it is more important than ever that we are providing ways for young people to acquire 21st century skills and gain exposure to successful careers that will benefit our city’s economy

Companies and organizations in this city, both large and small, can invest in the future workforce through WorkReady Philadelphia. WorkReady jobs will provide workforce exposure, instill leadership skills and create connections for long term economic opportunities, thus preparing youth for success in the local, regional and global economy.

Summer jobs have the potential to keep youth safe. In our city, where youth violence is increasingly prevalent, this is more important now than ever. This is an avenue to provide meaningful, productive activities for our youth this summer.

Studies show that there is a direct correlation between employment during the junior or senior year of high school and increased annual earnings through age 26, especially for those not attending college.

While the national unemployment rate has decreased a few percentage points, from 8.5% last January to 6.7% as of the January 10, 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the unemployment rate for youth between the ages of 16 to still remains alarmingly high at 20.2%, which is more than three times the national average.

Philadelphia’s unemployment rate is the highest when compared to all other local areas in Pennsylvania. Currently, Philadelphia’s unemployment level is 9.8%. This makes providing early work experiences for young people – especially low-income, minority youth –even more urgent. [Source: Pennsylvania Department of Labor Fast Facts]

Youth employment is at its lowest level since World War II. At this rate, a generation will grow up with little early work experience, missing the chance to build knowledge and acquire the job-readiness skills that come from holding part-time starter jobs. [Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Policy Report 2012]

Overall, 6.5 million people ages 16-24 are both out of school and out of work.

Reconnecting youth to education and employment requires a multifaceted approach. No one system or sector can do it alone.

Ways to help:

Hire a WorkReady youth to work for six weeks in July and August

Sponsor youth work experiences at other businesses or organizations.

If your work environment isn’t conducive to bringing a young person aboard, consider subsidizing the cost of a work experience elsewhere.

Spread the word throughout your networks

Get Recognized as a WorkReady Seal of Approval employer

Your existing program can be recognized as part of WorkReady by meeting the requirements found at: www.phillysummerjobs.org/seal

Reasons to join the Challenge:

Builds a Stronger Community

Values diversity Offer a “First Break”

Invest in our city’s future Stimulate the economy

Last summer, youth earned more than $6 million – money that was infused into the local economy.

Improve Outcomes for Youth

Economic opportunity Professional connections

Career awareness Academic achievement

Studies show that youth who miss out on an early work experience are more likely to endure later unemployment and are less likely to achieve higher levels of career attainment. Everyone needs opportunities in their teen years and young adulthood to experience work and attain the job-readiness skills needed for long-term success.

What’s the Investment?

The cost of supporting WorkReady summer work experiences is based on a blend of youth wages, programmatic and operating costs.

$1,700 = one summer job

Breakdown of the costs:

Recruiting youth from across the city and ensuring youth complete necessary employment paperwork.

Pre-screening and matching youth to available positions.

Paying youth wages and processing payroll.

Incorporating a Contextual Learning Component, connecting youth’s hands-on work experience with a work-based learning project or portfolio.

Identifying dedicated staff members that are assigned to support youth and worksites throughout the program.

Assistance in designing the entire WorkReady experience and/or development of specific projects.

Opportunities that will allow for investor exposure and networking

2014 Summer Jobs Challenge Partners:

Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce

Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO

Urban Affairs Coalition

City of Philadelphia

Blue Cross

United Way

School District of Philadelphia

For Additional Info, go to: www.phillysummerjobs.org

By Laura Clawson

– Today, it will have been five months since emergency aid for people unemployed for six months or longer expired. On Monday, it was seven weeks since the Senate passed a bill to extend the program. Then, help for millions of people struggling in an economy without enough jobs ran into the orange-brick wall of John Boehner, who has rebuffed appeals from members of his own caucus and the labor secretary alike. That means the prospects are poor:

[Democratic Rep. Sander] Levin says he and his colleagues in the House aren’t ready to concede and will continue to press Boehner to take up the measure, but so far all of their requests to negotiate a new deal on unemployment have been ignored by the speaker. “I think if they put an answer in the mail they forgot to put a stamp on it,” Levin says. But with a June 1 deadline around the corner, responsibility for reviving benefits will fall back to the Senate. After they went out on a limb in April, it’ll be tricky to find the same level of bipartisan accord.

Many Republicans who oppose extending unemployment insurance say that without the aid to fall back on, people will be pushed back to work. But reality doesn’t bear that out:

The economy has indeed improved, but not for the long-term unemployed, whose odds of finding a job are barely higher today than when the recession ended nearly five years ago. And the end of extended benefits hasn’t spurred the unemployed back to work; if anything, it has pushed them out of the labor force altogether.

Of the roughly 1.3 million Americans whose benefits disappeared with the end of the program, only about a quarter had found jobs as of March, about the same success rate as when the program was still in effect; roughly another quarter had given up searching.

Increased misery is the major result of the benefits cut-off, in other words. But there’s plenty of reason to believe that’s a good result as far as congressional Republicans are concerned.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/27/1302282/-Long-term-unemployed-living-in-limbo-thanks-to-Republican-obstructionism

By Kari Andren

– The number of state liquor stores finishing the year in the red is on pace to fall nearly 80 percent compared to five years ago.

Liquor Control Board officials tweaked store hours, adjusted inventories and even turned down the thermostats to cut costs at unprofitable stores, said Dale Horst, director of retail operations.

In July 2009, 51 wine and spirits stores lost about $680,000, a number the LCB cut 78 percent to 11 stores that were losing about $124,000 collectively as of March 31, the most recent month data was available.

Larger, successful stores subsidize the losses, allowing the LCB to post nearly $2.2 billion in sales last year, a 4.5 percent increase from the previous year.

“We looked at every facet of the stores’ operation,” Horst said, including working closely with store managers to lower expenses and negotiating with landlords to lower rent.

Lawmakers who want to privatize part or all of the system watch the LCB’s operations closely. The agency controls the wholesale and retail sale of wine and spirits at more than 600 stores across Pennsylvania.

“They are operating it more like a business, but they’re only doing it because they’re afraid of privatization. It’s all about self-preservation,” said Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, a champion of privatization.

Gov. Tom Corbett’s staff and lawmakers are trying to negotiate a plan that garners the support needed from the House, which passed a bill to turn alcohol sales over to private businesses in March 2013, and the Senate, where support is mixed. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans.

Horst said better budgeting was vital to turning stores around. Before 2009, individual store budgets did not exist.

“We literally build individual store budgets from the bottom up (now),” Horst said. “The agency always had a budget, but it was a large umbrella budget. It did not get down to the line items of each store.”

Store managers are involved in building the budget and sticking to it throughout the year.

“There’s been a change in the attitudes and cultures in those stores, and (they are) running it like their own business,” Horst said.

Jackie Ault, 55, managed the state store in Saxton, Bedford County, for three years before she transferred to another store last month. She helped the store open a fourth day each week and receive an extra shipment truck each month.

“The store’s part of me,” Ault said. “And the customers — I just love them down there.”

Ault knows that her shoppers, many of whom are camping and boating around Raystown Lake, want Arbor Mist frozen wine pouches, pre-mixed margaritas and bottles of Bacardi rum.

“You just gotta get rid of the stuff that doesn’t sell,” she said. She said she would transfer a few bottles from a nearby store instead of ordering a case of products that aren’t best-sellers so that store capital wasn’t tied up in extra inventory.

The Saxton store is very seasonal, so although it was about $4,200 in the red as of March 31, it’s expected to be close to breaking even, officials said.

“We are, by law, obligated to serve all citizens of Pennsylvania,” Horst said, so officials do everything they can to avoid closing stores.

Horst has trimmed hours off slow days or closed stores a few days each week.

Since 2009, five stores closed entirely following an analysis of lease and operating costs, demographic trends for those over 21 and the location of the nearest state store, said LCB spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman.

Many unprofitable stores are in rural areas with no outlets nearby, so they are left open as a customer service.

“We also looked at — what can we do to sell an extra bottle a day?” Horst said. “In some of these little stores, selling one extra bottle a day will turn it profitable.”

Gary Zychowski, 57, the manager and sole employee of the state store in Knox, Clarion County, said that making one customer angry could lose the store hundreds of dollars, he said.

“It’s a fine line between profitable and not profitable,” Zychowski said. “Every bottle’s important.”

Zychowski said his store was “slightly unprofitable” when he became manager in August 2010, but small changes helped turn the store around.

Turning down the thermostat to about 52 degrees overnight and when the store is closed saves money during winter months, he said. He tries to keep the store as clean as possible and does his best to accommodate customers’ requests.

“Being a small store, our shelf space is very limited,” Zychowski said. “Basically everything on our shelves is because people have asked us to get it.”

For products that his store doesn’t carry, he said he arranges transfers from nearby stores.

“It’s a reflection of me,” he said. “I’m the only one here.”

Source: http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/6041329-74/store-stores-county#ixzz32uRiS5OO

– On this Memorial Day 2014, as we gather to enjoy a fun filled barbeque and celebrate the unofficial start of summer with family and friends, let us first remember the true meaning of why we are celebrating and pay homage to those members of our U.S. Armed Forces who’ve paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may experience the freedoms that we do everyday as Americans. Let us also remember those military families who have watched their loved ones go off to war only to have them never return and let them know that their loss is also our loss and they too will never be forgotten!

It Is Our Duty To Remember!

In Solidarity!

PhillyLabor