– After more than two years, multiple trials, and a confusing roll-out that ultimately disenfranchised tens of thousands of eligible voters and cost millions of dollars, Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law has been defeated.  In a statement yesterday, the Corbett administration indicated that they would not appeal the Commonwealth Court’s January ruling, which found the law to be unconstitutional on its face.

At the time of that ruling, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO urged the Commonwealth to accept the judge’s findings and to abandon further appeals.  “This process has already cost the Commonwealth millions of dollars, and risked the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of our citizens,” said PA AFL-CIO President Bloomingdale.  “We are pleased that the administration has finally decided to face the fact that their voter ID law was never constitutional.”

While defending the broader concept of voter ID requirements in their statement yesterday, the Corbett administration also made the surprising acknowledgement that ‘for a voter identification law to be found constitutional, changes must be made to address accessibility to photo identifications.’

“While the court ruling in January, combined with this week’s developments, are a victory for voting rights, there is still much work to do,” said PA AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Snyder. “We have avoided taking a step backwards, but Pennsylvania is still one of the more restrictive states when it comes to ballot access.”  Among the changes that voting rights advocates have called for in Pennsylvania are early voting, same-day registration, and no-excuse absentee ballots.

http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4086

– The funeral procession and eulogy will being Friday May 9th at 4pm at City Hall and travel to Governor Tom Corbett’s Philadelphia office. Demonstrators say deep budget cuts are literally killing public education.

– POWER’s inter-faith leaders, along with students, and parents, will stage a mock funeral this Friday May 9th at 4pm. The funeral procession will start at Philadelphia City Hall and then travel down Broad Street to Governor Tom Corbett’s Philadelphia office at the Bellevue Building located at 200 South Broad Street. Members of POWER’s clergy will eulogize public education, then lead an inter-faith prayer that lawmakers develop a solution to end the budget crisis. There will also be testimonials from parents and students from the Philadelphia Student Union, Youth United for Change, and Boat People S.O.S. The groups have chosen a funeral theme for the action because the projected cuts in education represent the death of political leaders’ commitment to public schools.The groups are pushing for a state level solution and a full funding formula for education.

The mock funeral is in response to Superintendent William Hite’s recent projection of a $400M budget deficit for the School District of Philadelphia. Dr. Hite says the budget shortfall will result in 1,000 additional staff lay-offs, and overcrowded classrooms of more than 40 students.

“This truly is a time of mourning for our school children,” says Bishop Dwayne Royster, POWER’s Executive Director. “Pennsylvania is only one of three states without a fair, predictable education funding formula. Poor children, and mostly children of color, bear the brunt of this lack of investment.”

To help make education funding a priority in 2014 elections, POWER and other organizations are contacting and mobilizing thousands of voters who care about public schools, urging them to vote in the gubernatorial primary election this month and in the general election in November.  “State-level political leaders will soon begin to hear from more voters that school funding inequities will no longer stand in Pennsylvania” said Bishop Dwayne Royster, Executive Director of POWER.

For more information about Friday’s Mock Funeral for Public Education, contact Power Philadelphia (http://powerphiladelphia.org) by calling (215) 232-7697. All media inquiries should be directed to Leslie Patterson-Tyler – email Leslie@TylerMadePR.com or call (609) 247-2632.

POWER is a faith-based community organization comprised of 41 congregations representing 25,000 diverse Philadelphians from Christian, Jewish and Muslim backgrounds. POWER is part of the PICO National Network.  POWER was founded in 2011.

Boat People SOS – Delaware Valley Chapter is part of a national advocacy organization that works to assist Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in their search for a life in liberty and dignity by empowering, equipping and organizing them toward self-sufficiency.

Philadelphia Student Union is a student-led organization, founded in 1997, that teaches leadership and community organizing skills and fights for student rights and improvements to our public schools.  PSU has chapters in 7 city high schools.

Youth United for Change is a youth-led, democratic organization made up of youth of color and working class communities, aimed at holding school officials and government accountable to meeting the educational needs of Philadelphia public school students.  YUC has 6 chapters throughout the city.

Media Contact
Leslie Patterson-Tyler
(609) 247-2632
leslie@tylermadepr.com

Source: http://www.prlog.org/12320653-power-clergy-leaders-students-parents-to-stage-mock-funeral-for-philadelphia-public-schools.html

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– Please remember to place a grocery bag full of non-perishable food items by your mailbox this Saturday, May 10, 2014 so your letter carrier can collect it and have it delivered, along with all of the other bags, to your area food bank or food pantry in our communities.Saturday, May 10 is the 22nd annual letter carriers food drive across the United States which is the most successful single day food drive in the nation helping stock and restock the shelves of neighborhood food banks. If everybody helps we will be able to help feed hundreds of thousands of children of needy families across the U.S. as well as right here in Pennsylvania. Our national Food Drive partner “Feeding America” estimates that on a daily basis 49 million Americans may not know where their next meal is coming from. Sadly the figure includes 16 million children.

This has turned into a real community effort involving our AFL-CIO affiliates: the National Association of Letter Carriers the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, the U.S. Postal Service, Campbell’s Soup, AARP’s Drive to End Hunger, United Way, Publix grocery stores, Valissis, Valpak and Uncle Bob’s Self Storage.

Our Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Labor Liaisons have been very busy helping to promote and recruit volunteers to help staff deliver the food to area food banks and pantries in their local communities on Saturday. Our liaisons have also helped organize press conferences to help build community support and awareness reminding people to please help us feed hungry families, some of whom are family, friends and neighbors.

We also appreciate the help and support provided by our local elected officials and our State Legislators for pitching in and helping to promote and support the food drive. Both the Pennsylvania State Senate and Pennsylvania State House of Representatives have approved Resolutions sponsored by State Senator Lisa Boscola, D-18 and State Representative Julia Harhart, R-183 designating Saturday May 10 as National Association of Letter Carriers day in Pennsylvania. As you can see feeding the hungry is not a Democratic or Republican issue it is an issue that impacts for all of us.

We appreciate your food donations and your support in helping make this year’s food drive a success by breaking the record of previous drives.  Please remember to put your bag of non-perishable food items in a sturdy grocery bag for your letter carrier to collect this Saturday, May 10, 2014.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4064

By Pat Loeb

— The Pennsylvania Convention Center has reached an agreement with four of its six unions on work rule changes it says will make the center more attractive.

The agreement allows exhibitors to do more for themselves.

Center president John McNichol says laborers, stagehands, electricians, and iron workers have signed on to the new “Customer Satisfaction Agreement.”

Among other things, it doubles the size of booths in which exhibitors can use power tools and ladders, to 600 square feet.

McNichol says that for exhibitors, that’s huge.

“They’ll be able to make shows more profitable for themselves, and we’ll be able to deliver shows at a greater economic benefit to all of our customers,” he says.

And McNichol says that will mean more business for the convention center and thus more jobs for local workers in the convention and hospitality industries.

“It’s about serving as an economic engine for the region,” he said. “That’s the promise of the Convention Center.”

Not everyone is convinced. Unions representing carpenters and teamsters declined to sign on. They’re working on a contract extension that expires this Saturday.

Source – http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/05/06/some-unions-agree-to-relaxed-work-rules-at-pa-conventon-center/

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– In the past month, workers like you sent thousands of letters to state representatives, opposing Gov. Corbett’s latest attack on public workers’ pensions.

But Corbett’s ally, Rep. Mike Tobash, isn’t listening. He’s pushing hard to pass a bill that attacks the retirement security of our brothers and sisters, even though they have never missed making a single payment into their pension funds. His proposal disproportionately cuts pension benefits for women and younger employees.

What’s at stake? Rep. Tobash’s plan lets Gov. Corbett do what he’s wanted to do from the beginning – put the state’s payments to PSERS and SERS on a credit card. This would undermine the retirement of workers, create more pension debt, and increase pension costs for taxpayers.

His bill would force all new employees into an inferior pension plan, with benefits 40 percent lower than most current employees. Making matters worse, current school employees who return after a break in service for extended family leave or other circumstances could be forced into this new, inferior plan.

It’s about priorities. The Corbett / Tobash proposal will only repeat past mistakes. They want to put our retirement security on a credit card, and they don’t even want to make the minimum payments. The workers who will be hurt by this plan, just like you, have faithfully paid into their retirement plans every month, and they deserve better!

Gov. Corbett and his friends like Rep. Tobash aren’t looking for fair solutions. They want to balance the budget at the expense of workers’ pensions. 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 email your legislators NOW, Go To: http://act.aflcio.org/c/236/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8463

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4024