By John Kopp

The electricians union leader says newspaper acted with a ‘false urgency’

Labor leader John Dougherty says he acted in self-defense during a physical altercation with a nonunion contractor in January, claiming a story published Tuesday by The Philadelphia Inquirer sought to defame him by portraying the incident inaccurately.

Dougherty, business manager of IBEW Local 98 and the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, claimed the Jan. 21 incident began when Joshua Keesee, a nonunion contractor, sucker-punched a union worker and later took a swing at Dougherty near a construction site in South Philadelphia. His story runs counter to the account Keesee and his attorney, Robert Mozenter, told The Inquirer.

“Everything in that Inquirer story was wrong – and you can say that,” Dougherty said. “I think it was the most disingenuous, irresponsible piece of writing I’ve seen to date – and I’ve sued people for less than that. It was just irresponsible, disingenuous.”

Dougherty claimed the Inquirer sought to tarnish his reputation because the newspaper is upset at the outcome of litigation that went in his favor.

“I can’t think of any reason why they would have done something other than to try to damage my reputation,” Dougherty said.

He alleged that a video that accompanied the Inquirer’s report is at odds with its reporting of the story.

“The video absolutely tells the truth and contradicts the story that the Inquirer told,” Dougherty said. “We explained that to them.”

Dougherty provided a statement to The Inquirer through his spokesman Frank Keel, but he claimed the newspaper failed to provide him an appropriate amount of time to respond. He said the newspaper acted with a “false urgency” by reaching out to him late Monday night.

Inquirer spokeswoman Amy Buckman did not respond to a request for comment made early Tuesday evening.

STARTED WITH A STICKER

The incident occurred around 8:20 a.m. near a construction site at Third and Reed streets. Local 98 electricians have long protested outside the site, pointing to various alleged code violations. They were protesting on the day of the altercation.

Dougherty, 55, said Keesee previously had been asked to remove a Local 98 sticker from the rear window of his truck. As Dougherty was driving by the site on his way to work, he said he noticed Keesee, 36, by his truck. Dougherty parked his vehicle, approached Keesee and asked him to remove the sticker.

Keesee responded by launching into a curse-laden tirade criticizing Dougherty, Local 98 and others, Dougherty said. A number of people approached, Dougherty said, and Keesee eventually gave permission for someone from Local 98 to remove it.

But when Local 98 member Tommy Rodriguez began scraping off the sticker with a small razor, Dougherty said Keesee struck Rodriguez. Dougherty restrained Tommy Rodriguez while another Local 98 member, Niko Rodriguez (no relation to Tommy), held Dougherty. Keesee screamed at them, Dougherty said.

“Right now, none of us realize that Tommy was bleeding,” Dougherty said. “We walk away. A couple of people are taking (Keesee) down the street. I’m asking him, ‘What the heck is he doing?'”

THREATS TO FAMILY

As Dougherty walked back to his vehicle, he said Keesee began threatening his family. Dougherty said he responded that Keesee could simply deal with him.

“One of the guys with me sees one of the (nonunion) guys lean into his car,” Dougherty said. “We don’t know what he’s doing. We don’t know what he’s getting. Then I see (Keesee) come running toward me.

“We literally squared up. He threw a punch. I blocked it. I hit him twice. End of dispute after the second punch.”

Dougherty said a crowd gathered and Keesee began reaching into his pocket. Another construction worker reached into his car, pulling out a phone and “something black.”

Dougherty said “a little scrum” that included “more pushing and shoving” ensued before he and the Local 98 members returned to his vehicle.

A video captured by a neighboring business and published by The Inquirer does not show any of the physical altercation.

Dougherty is seen walking along the sidewalk toward Keesee as the contractor is pulled back by another man. Three Local 98 members – Chris Owens, Niko Rodriguez and Tommy Rodriguez – are with Dougherty. Tommy Rodriguez can be seen with a bloody forehead, which required stitches.

Dougherty said the video shows the period of time between Keesee punching Rodriguez, but before his Dougherty’s physical altercation with Keesee. Keesee told The Inquirer the video depicts the scene after the physical altercation.

The group then moves out of camera range for about 25 seconds before Dougherty and his Local 98 members reappear, walking toward their vehicle. Dougherty shakes the hand of a local bystander. Ten seconds later, Keesee reappears and Dougherty approaches him.

The group again moves off camera with two Local 98 members running across the street toward Dougherty. After several seconds pass, Tommy Rodriguez, who Dougherty said was tending to his injuries, runs over.

A few seconds later, the Local 98 members can be seen walking back across the street toward their vehicle.

‘THIS IS NOT A JOKE’

“When I left my house that morning, I had no intention of being anywhere close to an altercation,” said Dougherty, noting he was dressed in business attire for a series of meetings with prominent developers. “I’ve seen that sticker before on the truck, but I’ve never seen the guy getting out of the truck.”

Keesee told The Inquirer that he agreed to remove the Local 98 sticker from his truck, but also told Dougherty that he was not intimidated by the union leader. Dougherty began talking with clenched teeth, Keesee said, and “just moved forward and threw a left-and-right combo.”

Keesee, who suffered a broken nose, told the newspaper that he did not swing back at Dougherty because he did not want to shatter his sunglasses and concluded he was elderly:

“I definitely didn’t want to hit him,” Keesee told The Inquirer. “The first shot I just took. He hits me twice and they kind of converge on me.”

Mozenter, Keesee’s lawyer, did not respond to a message seeking comment on Dougherty’s claims. When PhillyVoice briefly reached him before talking with Dougherty, Mozenter said police recommended charges after conducting an investigation.

Keesee plans to pursue the matter in a federal civil lawsuit, if necessary, Mozenter said.

“We’re going to go through with this,” the attorney said. “This is not a joke.”

District Attorney Seth Williams referred the case to the state Attorney General’s Office, citing a “longstanding professional relationship” with Dougherty. Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who, like Williams, has accepted political contributions from Local 98, said another state attorney will decide whether to pursue charges against Dougherty.

“I’m not one bit concerned who has it, because there’s nothing here that merits a charge,” Dougherty said.

Dougherty said he did not contact police after the incident, noting they did not bring charges when he filed a complaint following an incident at the same construction site on May 10, 2014.

During that incident, Dougherty said a contractor threw a brick that hit him in the head. A witness picked the perpetrator out of a lineup, Dougherty said, but police never filed charges.

A police report from the incident says neither side sought to pursue criminal charges, but Dougherty claims the report was filed by a Philadelphia police officer he later learned was moonlighting as an electrician at the site. The officer, Frank Lafontano, was forced to give up the electrical work after Local 98 filed a complaint, Dougherty said.

Philadelphia police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Dougherty’s allegation.

Source – http://www.phillyvoice.com/johnny-doc-he-acted-self-defense-claims-inquirer-reporting-irresponsible/

By Katie Colaneri

Philadelphia Council President Darrell Clarke wants to make sure projects getting tax breaks and other subsidies are making enough of an effort to hire city residents.Since 2012, businesses getting more than $250,000 in taxpayer support are expected to prioritize Philadelphia applicants when hiring for entry-level jobs by making a “first source agreement” with the city’s Commerce Department, although they’re not required to actually meet a certain quota. The law sets the target for local hiring at 50 percent.Clarke wants to change that law by making city council’s Economic Opportunity Review Committee responsible for enforcing it, a job now belonging to the city’s Commerce Department.

He’d also like to clarify the law to include penalties for businesses that don’t make a good faith effort to hire local residents, and to include them in the city’s definition of “diverse workforce” along with minority groups.

“At this point, we have not established the penalties associated with noncompliance,” he said. “We just simply want people to give the citizens of the city of Philadelphia a first opportunity for any job that’s created as result of receiving taxpayer-supported incentives.”

A spokeswoman for the Kenney administration said the mayor’s office is still looking over Clarke’s proposed ordinance.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/91134-clarke-seeks-legal-nudge-to-make-city-supported-businesses-give-philly-job-applicants-priority-?linktype=hp_impact

By  Ryan Schuessler

–  Private drones were deployed this week to monitor an electrical workers’ strike to protect members from false legal claims, reigniting the ‘very tricky issue’ of how to regulate drones used for activism.

From a small drone causing panic when it landed on the White House lawn to Amazon’s plan to make deliveries by air, privately owned drones have been raising security fears around the country. But drone technology has capabilities beyond just serving the interests of corporations – and this week a union in Philadelphia reminded us of that.

The Philadelphia chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers recently purchased three drones that officials say will be used to monitor construction sites and to make sure union members aren’t breaking any laws during protests.

Releasing its first video of a January protest, chapter president John Dougherty told a local television station that the fleet is “out and about”, in part to protect the union from false claims made against it.

The chapter’s younger, tech-savvy members devised the program, a spokesperson for the group said.

This is not the first time privately owned drones have been used for activism, or in the name of accountability. Peta used them to investigate farms, and protesters used drone footage to back up their claims of unjust arrest. In 2012, images inadvertently captured by a drone enthusiast prompted an investigation into a Dallas-area meat packing plant that appeared to be dumping pig blood into a nearby river.

Gary Mortimer, who originally covered the Dallas pig blood story, said having drone technology in the hands of the public is a good thing, but that its impact can be limited.

“A system that can operate for 20 minutes [a drone] isn’t as effective as a bloke who can sit in a tree all day and all night with a telephoto lens. You have to put it in perspective,” Mortimer said.

The fact that the union’s drones were used in the name of corporate accountability nevertheless raises the same concerns that drones have been causing since they first became available to the public.

Across the US, state and municipal governments have passed regulations that control or ban the use of drones in different ways, largely out of popular demands to protect privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been supportive of such legislation, especially when it comes police or governmental use of drones. However, when it comes to the private sector usage of drones, they have not called for any action.

“It’s a much more complicated issue, and often the reason is that photography, using drones, implicates first amendment rights for photography,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s a very tricky issue.”

“With respect to [private drones], there are of course still privacy issues in that realm,” said Jeramie Scott of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“There are some laws that are helpful, either trespassing laws, peeping tom or voyeurism laws, that can be used to protect one’s privacy. But there still needs to be baseline protections implemented, preferably through a new law by Congress to provide some additional protections.

“I think the transparency part of it is a big key to allow the public to participate in the use of drones as they are being integrated into the national airspace,” he added.

However, some analysts point out that most drone usage in the US has not been for surveillance – either by government, police or individuals – but rather by hobbyists, for data collection, conservation efforts or infrastructure inspection.

“I think when drones came out, in a consumer sense, a couple years ago, there was a big fear that they would be looking over private property and doing surveillance,” said Sally French, a journalist for MarketWatch and founder of Drone Girl, a website that follows the latest developments in drone technology and usage. “But that’s not really what we’re seeing them being used for.”

Since the FAA launched its registration program, nearly 200,000 drones have been registered in the US – an indicator that drone technology is much more accessible than it used to be.

“The reason the technology has changed in the last five years, rather than 10, is that electric power, both in the form of the motors and batteries, has become affordable,” Mortimer said.

“Citizens with sensors is a good thing,” he added. “It’s just up to the citizens to work together to work out how to use this data for good.”

Source – http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/philadelphia-union-strike-international-brotherhood-of-electrical-workers-private-drones-activism

By Leo W. Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers

– A century ago, Carl Sandburg dubbed Chicago the City of Big Shoulders: “hog butcher for the world, tool maker, stacker of wheat, player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler; stormy, husky brawling.”

All of this was true of America itself as well: Nation of big shoulders. The United States was a brawny country that would intervene to help win World War I and later quickly retool factories to serve as munitions mills to win World War II. Now, though, as America’s tool makers and freight car builders are furloughed, their factories shuttered and offshored, America is wasting. Ill-conceived free trade deals are reducing it to a nation of stooped shoulders.

The newest proposed deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), signed in New Zealand last week by representatives of its 12 member states, would further enfeeble American manufacturing. The first of the ilk, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), devastated U.S. manufacturing. Allowing China into the World Trade Organization and the bad trade deals that followed NAFTA all pummeled American manufacturing when it was already down.

From cookies to car parts, factories fled America for places like China and Mexico. There, corporations pay workers a pittance and pollute virtually penalty-free. CEOs and shareholders roll in the resulting royal-sized profits. Meanwhile, formerly middle-class American workers and their families suffer. Communities bereft of sustaining mills collapse. And the United States atrophies, losing more and more of those once-bulky industrial shoulders.

NAFTA crushed 300 decent middle class workers in Grand Rapids, Mich., last week. They make automated conveyor systems for a company called Dematic. Represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, they earn between $11.55 and $24.26 an hour. That means the best paid among them receive the median wage for a U.S. worker.

Soon, however, they’ll have no wages. That’s because they can’t compete with the $1.50 to $1.70 per hour paid to workers in Monterrey, Mexico. Several weeks ago, Dematic told the workers it would move the factory to Mexico unless the UAW came up with a better offer.

The workers voted unanimously not to submit a counter proposal. It’s illegal in the United States for workers to labor for $1.50 an hour. So the company, founded in Grand Rapids in 1939, will sever its American roots, shed its American workers and squat in Mexico.

It will follow a well-beaten path. Grand “American” brands Hershey’s and Whirlpool and Nabisco and La-Z-Boy and many others all closed American factories, laid off American workers and opened plants in Mexico. GM, Ford and Chrysler all built plants in Mexico. Car factories in Mexico produced about one in five vehicles made in North America in 2014, double the rate from a decade earlier.

In the first 10 years of this century, America lost 56,190 factories. That’s an average of 5,619 a year. Or 15 a day.

Not all of them moved to Mexico or offshore. But many did. And when they did and shipped their cars or Hershey bars back to the United States, that contributed to the nation’s ever-ballooning and increasingly dangerous trade deficit. The trade deficit in manufacturing hit $831.4 billion last year, up 13.2 percent from 2014.

This is the opposite of what NAFTA-pushing politicians promised. And it’s the opposite of what TPP-pushing politicians are promising now.

TPP peddlers have no credibility. The TPP, like NAFTA, provides no protection for American manufacturing or American workers like those at Dematic – other than retraining money for some thrown out of their jobs.

U.S. workers are guaranteed a minimum wage of at least $7.25 an hour, but steps away, just across the border, Mexican workers are not. Dematic can pay them $1.50. A report on the labor provisions of the TPP issued last week by the minority staff of the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives explains why.

The Mexican government facilitates “company unions,” which are run by corporations in their interests. Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, the leader of Los Mineros, one of the very few true worker-run unions in Mexico, is forced to live in exile in Canada because the Mexican government first falsely charged him with crimes then said it couldn’t guarantee his safety if he returned.

Although Mexico claims that it has established a panel to review that nation’s deeply flawed labor justice system, Gomez pointed out to the Ways and Means Committee that the government neglected to include on the panel even one worker representative. It’s not likely, then, that any meaningful labor reform will result, he told the committee.

The TPP contains weak plans to help countries like Vietnam and Malaysia improve conditions so that Americans workers aren’t placed in competition with forced and child labor there. But the proposed trade deal contains no strategy at all under which Mexico would meet its supposed commitments to improve labor conditions.

So it’s likely manufacturers in Mexico will continue to pay workers there about 20 cents for every dollar a U.S. worker earns. The House Committee report warns, “The lower costs resulting from the lack of worker rights and protections [in Mexico] create a powerful incentive for corporate decision-makers to relocate manufacturing plants and factories across that border.”

NAFTA and the TPP are giant greenbacks for multinational corporations. CEOs close U.S. factories, destroy the lives of American workers and collect bigger profits as a result of the less-than-subsistence wages they pay foreign labor.

Meanwhile, NAFTA, the TPP and the rest of the free trade schemes are sapping U.S. industrial strength, shipping it overseas. They’re emasculating America.

Source – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/tpp-would-further-emascul_b_9183026.html