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

– Volkswagen’s top labor representative threatened today to try to block further investments by the German carmaker in the U.S. South if its workers there are not unionized, Reuters reported today.

“I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the South again,” said Bernd Osterloh, a member of VW’s powerful supervisory board and head of VW’s works council.

“If co-determination isn’t guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor” of potentially building another plant in the U.S. South, said Osterloh, who was quoted in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Workers at VW’s factory in Chattanooga last Friday voted against representation by the United Auto Workers, rejecting efforts by VW representatives to set up a works council labor board at the plant.

Osterloh complained that “the conservatives stirred up massive antiunion sentiments.”

Source: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2014/feb/19/volkswagen-official-threatens-block-expansion-if-w/?breakingnews