October 17, 2013

Finally — after more than two weeks of government shutdown, with hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work and billions of dollars in avoidable losses — Republican leaders have stood down. While it is good news that we have avoided a crisis, we all know that it should never have happened. No party or faction inside a party should hold our economy hostage to extract political gains. We commend President Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and the leadership of the Democratic party for standing firm and resisting extortion.

Now that we have survived this self-inflicted catastrophe, perhaps we can move on to address urgent national priorities. We must pass comprehensive immigration reform, so that 11 million aspiring Americans are no longer second-class citizens and the rights of all workers are protected. We need to grow our way out of a slow economy by investing in infrastructure, creating good jobs with good benefits and rebuilding our struggling middle class. In order to create good jobs we cannot continue to give tax breaks to companies that outsource jobs. Building economic security also means making retirement for millions of Americans more secure — and not cutting benefits for critical programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

We desperately need to create an economy that works for all. The across the board sequester cuts hamper that effort and must be repealed. We need to focus on big ideas and the future – rather than getting bogged down in petty political battles. Working families deserve better.

Contact: Amaya Smith (202) 637-5018

Source: http://www.aflcio.org/Press-Room/Press-Releases/Statement-by-AFL-CIO-President-Richard-Trumka-on-GOP-Shutdown-and-Debt-Ceiling

by Randy LoBasso

– Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law is stuck in limbo, and most experts on the issue don’t see the courts sorting it out, completely, within the next year or two. While we’re waiting, though, it would help everyone to know that the judge who wrote the majority opinion upholding the nation’s first voter ID law, 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner, recently admitted in a new book that he was wrong and did not fully understand the ramifications of U.S. voter identification laws. He spoke with the Huffington Post about it:

In an interview with Huffington Post Live’s Mike Sacks on Friday, however, Judge Posner said he made a mistake in the voter ID case, pointing to the fact that there was too little evidence of the harms voter ID would inflict at the time he handed down his decision. “[T]he problem,” Posner explained, “is that there hadn’t been that much activity with voter identification.” He blames his erroneous decision on the fact that the evidence presented to him at the time didn’t provide “strong indications that requiring additional voter identification would actually disfranchise people entitled to vote.”

Of course, now we know better. Studies have shown that Voter ID laws may disenfranchise registered voters from casting a ballot even though the odds of fraud occurring on Election Day—and by a voter, no less—are virtually non-existent. One study, performed by the AFL-CIO, found more than 30,000 Pennsylvanians may have stayed home during the November 2012 election due to confusion over the state law, which was actually not in place during the election.

That first law was passed in Indiana in 2005 and upheld in 2007 by the 7th circuit. Since then, 29 additional states, including Pennsylvania, have put ID laws into place. Though the legality of PA’s law remains murky.

A commonwealth judge is expected to rule on the Voter ID law, again, by the end of the year, and it’s already been barred from the November 2013 judicial and municipal elections, in spite of the Dept. of State attempting to run “Show It” ads throughout the commonwealth. No matter what the ruling, both sides have promised another challenge.

Source: http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2013/10/15/as-pa-waits-for-decision-judge-who-originally-upheld-voter-id-recants/

By Joy Resmovits

Ten high-profile civil rights leaders are pressuring Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) to intervene in the sorry state of school funding in Philadelphia.

The national and local leaders — including the NAACP’s Ben Jealous and the Leadership Conference’s Wade Henderson — are asking Corbett to “take immediate action to address the budget crisis in the School District of Philadelphia,” according to a letter the group sent to Corbett this week and provided to The Huffington Post. “The crisis has become an embarrassment to the entire nation,” they wrote, accusing the state of “knowingly jeopardizing” students’ futures.

The civil rights leaders warn that Philadelphia’s school system has become “a cautionary tale for the rest of the country, illustrating the harm that occurs when political posturing and irresponsible budget decisions trump the educational needs of students, families, and communities.”

The group is also asking the governor for a meeting.

Henderson, the Leadership Conference president, said in an interview that the letter is just the beginning of a campaign to pressure Corbett and like-minded governors into fully funding education.

“When students, mostly students of color, in the wealthiest nation in the world are being starved of qualified teachers and nurses and guidance counselors, even desks, it depends on and hardens a psychology of abandonment and consigns students to a netherworld of inequality,” Henderson said. “Pennsylvania has become a national model of dysfunction in education. If civil rights groups don’t act now, the brinksmanship of Governor Corbett is likely to become commonplace.”

Public schools in Philadelphia opened their doors last month with much diminished staffs and a $304 million deficit. The district had previously shuttered 24 schools and laid off 3,783 employees, and then recalled fewer than half of those employees. Corbett is withholding $45 million in federal grant money, pending the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers signing a new contract in which the union would make $104 million in concessions, including taking a massive pay cut.

The year has been even tougher on the city’s students. The school district is the eighth largest in America with 137,000 students, 82 percent of whom are low-income and 85 percent of whom are of color. They’re dealing with crowded classrooms, missing guidance counselors, fewer school nurses and a dearth of arts classes.

Sometimes the budget cuts are a matter of life and death. Last month, Laporshia Massey, a sixth-grader, died after an asthma attack. Her father told the Philadelphia City Paper that she had felt sick earlier that day at Bryant Elementary School, but there was no nurse to help her. “If she had problems throughout the day, why … didn’t [the school] call me sooner?” Daniel Burch, the girl’s father, asked the paper.

The national groups are getting involved because they are concerned that the cuts to Philadelphia’s school funding could set a precedent for governors around the country. “The nation looks to you for your leadership to address immediately this moral, economic, and legal imperative,” they wrote.

In a statement to The Huffington Post, Corbett spokesman Timothy Eller took issue with the groups’ characterization of the funding situation. He said that rather than cutting education funds, Corbett “has increased state support of public schools by $1.17 billion.” Pennsylvania taxpayers, Eller asserted, will contribute “more than $1.3 billion” to Philadelphia schools for the current school year.

Rhonda Brownstein of the Education Law Center — Pennsylvania, who also signed the group letter, called Eller’s analysis “smoke and mirrors,” noting that the increases were legally mandated pension obligations.

The civil rights leaders are urging Corbett to release the $45 million in grant money without conditions. But Eller said that would be impossible. “Contrary to what is stated in the letter, state law requires the district to implement fiscal, education and operational reforms before the $45 million in state funding is released,” he said.

The national groups also want Corbett to negotiate with the legislature an appropriations bill that would allow Philadelphia to restore its laid-off librarians, teachers, counselors and more. In the longer term, they are calling for broad reform to the state’s school-funding formula.

“What is happening in Philadelphia is a tragedy for our children. We risk losing yet another generation of children to the consequences of an inadequate education,” the letter concludes. “By taking the steps outlined above, with your leadership, we can begin the process of restoring excellence to the Philadelphia public schools.”

But Eller said the governor sees the solution in a new union contract. The groups’ request for a meeting, he added, “is under review.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/11/tom-corbett-philadelphia-schools_n_4080350.html?utm_hp_ref=%40education123

by Clyde Weiss

– It’s a piece of reporting making big waves. In the current issue of Rolling Stone, writer Matt Taibbi lays bare the sordid system by which politicians looted public pensions to finance other priorities, then blamed the retirees for the underfunded pensions.

“Here’s what this game comes down to,” writes Taibbi in “Looting the Pension Funds.” “Politicians run for office, promising to deliver law and order, safe and clean streets, and good schools. Then they get elected, and instead of paying for the cops, garbagemen, teachers and firefighters they only just 10 minutes ago promised voters, they intercept taxpayer money allocated for those workers and blow it on other stuff.”

Taibbi says a loophole in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), made this possible. The law, passed in 1974, “was designed to protect the retirement money of workers with pension plans,” he writes. But lawmakers left out public pension funds from the regulations. That left state and local government officials free to raid or underfund them at their pleasure.

Massachusetts was among the worst offenders, making only 27 percent of its required payments. New Jersey followed with 33 percent.

Another tactic “involved illegally borrowing cash from public retirement funds to finance other budget needs,” Taibbi writes.

These abuses were generally ignored as long as pension funds were in relatively good financial shape. Then the financial meltdown of 2008, caused by Wall Street excesses, created a fiscal crisis that left state budgets in shambles.

“Someone had to take the hit. But who?” Taibbi answers his own question: Public service workers and retirees.

The very Wall Street-backed politicians who raided and underfunded the pension systems in the first place are now “using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America’s states and cities,” he writes.

Read more about the sham pension crisis here: http://www.afscme.org/news/publications/newsletters/works/winter-2012/the-sham-pension-crisis

Source: http://www.afscme.org/blog/lawmakers-loot-public-pension-funds-then-blame-retirees-for-underfunding

“Crown Holdings, which is headquartered here in Philadelphia, is one of the world’s largest metal-container companies. Despite doubling its profits in 2012, Crown forced the 120 members of USW Local 9176 in Toronto and Ontario out on strike a month ago, demanding a two-tier wage schedule, removal of the cost-of-living allowance, minimal wage increases after years of pay freezes, and no increase in the pension after nine years.

Strikers and their supporters are traveling from Canada to Philadelphia for a rally at Crown HQ in Northeast Philly. Please join our brothers and sisters on the picket line and show your support.”

WHAT – Rally For Fair Wages

Who – Members of USW Local 9176 and Welcome Supporters

Where – 1 Crown Way, Philadelphia Pa. (Woodhaven Road Exit off of Roosevelt Blvd. PA/63)

When – Wednesday, October 16 at Noon

Please Stop by and show support for hard working union members and protest against corporate greed!

For more information, contact Patrick Young at: pyoung@usw.org or 412-298-6361