Philadelphia City Council is considering a “firefighters bill of rights.”

Councilman Jim Kenney proposed the bill which among other things defines the discipline process for firefighters. Kenney says there is a double standard when it comes to how firefighters are treated compared to other unions.

“The problem with the disciplinary side of it is that someone loses their job, they go through a review panel and they are fired, they file for arbitration, an arbitration date is set and mysteriously a continuance gets asked for and another continuance gets asked for and a year later they still haven’t been to arbitration,” Kenney said. “The member has not been paid and it’s just kind of torturing people to death.”

Firefighters union head Joe Schulle says council has urged the city to adopt these reforms on its own. Now he says this bill would do it through legislation.

“Council urged the department to fill the promotional vacancies as required by the home rule charter, the city declined,” Schulle said. “Council urged the department not to implement the extremely dangerous and demoralizing mass rotation policy the department did it anyway.”

The bill will be the subject of an upcoming council hearing.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/component/flexicontent/item/65156-firefighters-bill-of-rights-introduced-in-city-council?linktype=hp_impact

On Thursday, March 20, Walter Higgins, Business Manager of Laborers Local 57, Pat Bianculli, Esq., Counsel IBEW Local 98, and Alan Symonette, Esq., Arbitrator will be celebrated as the 2014 Peggy Browning Fund Honorees at the Peggy Browning Fund’s Philadelphia Awards Reception.

The Peggy Browning Fund, http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=BX%2F5ZrKapGE6qSR%2BuG9Ki2qXcfixPsqm, has been a long-time leader in providing law students with labor-side internships. Their dedication and work plays a huge role in training the next generation of union-side labor lawyers, and also helps make sure that when employers violate laws like the FLSA, employees can turn to trained, dedicated and experienced lawyers to fight for their rights.

EVENT DETAILS:

Peggy Browning Fund Philadelphia Awards Reception

Thursday, March 20th

Reception begins 5:45; Awards ceremony begins 7:15

1301 South Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia 19147

For additional details and to register for the event, go to: http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BKmrte6lGo2LbtdutGxTQ2qXcfixPsqm

– In a victory for American jobs and fair pay, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld Department of Labor wage rules requiring non-agricultural foreign workers be paid prevailing wages.

Under Labor Department rules, employers requesting authorization to bring in temporary foreign workers must first advertise those jobs to American workers at the prevailing wage set for the occupation.

A coalition of employers sued the Department of Labor, arguing that the federal government cannot force employers to make an effort to hire U.S. workers first.

As Ross Eisenbrey at the Economic Policy Institute wrote:

The Louisiana Forestry Association, the Crawfish Processors Alliance, and the American Hotel and Lodging Association actually argued that the required wages should not be set high enough to attract U.S. workers and that the Labor Department is not allowed to protect U.S. workers’ rights to a decent wage. Fortunately, the three-judge panel unanimously rejected this cynical argument and found that setting wages below the local prevailing wage does ‘adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed United States workers’

Before employers can request foreign workers under the H-2B visa program, they must prove to the Department of Homeland Security that they can’t fill their jobs with U.S. workers.

But before the Labor Department instituted its prevailing wage ruling in 2011, there was a big problem: employers often set wages so low that no American worker would take them, exploiting temporary workers at the expense of U.S. citizens.

EPI research found that H-2B wage rates were approximately 25 percent lower than the prevailing wage, making it easy for companies to claim that they needed to bring in foreign workers.

By tying these jobs to the prevailing wage, the Obama administration cut down on H-2B abuse and  raised wage standards for American and foreign workers.

To Read More, Go To: http://www.epi.org/blog/court-appeals-hands-victory-workers/

Source: http://www.ibew.org/articles/14daily/1402/140221_Court.htm

Philly Labor is dedicated to providing news, information, and alerts to the Philadelphia area labor/union community for the purpose of providing a centralized resource that keeps our entire workforce informed and up to date on union affecting issues and situations.

This is our MISSION and it will NEVER be compromised!

In Solidarity,

Philly Labor