By The PA. AFL-CIO

– Thank you Governor Wolf for bringing Pennsylvania’s voter registration into the the 21st century. Online voter registration became a reality for Pennsylvania voters this week. The online registration application, hosted by the Department of State, is now available for use by eligible citizens at register.votesPA.com.

We fully support this initiative as one of the many improvements to make it easier and efficient for people to register and to vote in every election. This will help improve citizen participation which will strengthen our democracy. We encourage everyone to vote no matter whether you are blue red or purple.” President Bloomingdale said.

“What a contrast to just a few years ago when we were fighting to protect the right to vote from an “ALEC sponsored” Voter ID law that disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters. Now we have a Governor who believes as we do that our democracy is stronger when people vote and hold their elected officials accountable,” Secretary-Treasurer Snyder said.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6356

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

– Atlantic City’s main casino workers union said Tuesday it has given billionaire Carl Icahn “one last chance” to avoid a strike at the Taj Mahal casino by reinstating employee health and pension benefits.

Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union held a public strike preparation event Tuesday, gathering materials it would need for a strike. It also trained workers to be “picket captains” in the event it makes good on its threat to strike.

Icahn is in the process of acquiring the casino from bankruptcy court, but the transfer has not yet become official. The union wants the restoration of health insurance and pension benefits that Trump Entertainment Resorts canceled last October.

Icahn has called the benefits unaffordable, adding he will close the casino if an appeals court reinstates them.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/85537-casino-union-last-chance-for-icahn-to-avoid-strike-at-taj-mahal

By The ASSOCIATED PRESS

– Gov. Tom Wolf is blasting Republican lawmakers over a plan to force piece-by-piece override votes of his budget bill veto, saying GOP leaders can’t negotiate in good faith while staging what he calls an unconstitutional and unproductive move.

Wolf’s comments in a letter to Pennsylvania lawmakers Monday afternoon came a day before the planned veto override votes and the resumption of talks on an 8-week-old budget stalemate that’s shut off funding to a range of safety-net services.

Pennsylvania is nearly two months into its new fiscal year without a legal spending plan in place. On June 30, Wolf vetoed the GOP’s entire $30.2 billion budget bill within hours of its passage with only Republican support.

Republicans accuse of Wolf of holding the safety-net service providers hostage to get what he wants.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/85497-wolf-strikes-back-at-gop-lawmakers-on-budget-plan

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO reiterates its call to the Republican leadership in the Legislature to stop playing politics and get back to work now in passing a responsible budget that solves Pennsylvania problems. Every day that they continue to stall adds to the costs of providing much needed human services. Social service agencies all over the state are on the brink of either closing their doors or borrowing to provide services to their communities. Costs for child care for working parents, early child learning programs, help for our seniors, people with disabilities and addictions. And our schools especially in our urban and rural areas of Pennsylvania that really more on state funding to teach our kids.

The GOP leadership’s latest offer, amounts to repackaged proposal to cut pension benefits of public employees in exchange for agreement on how much to spend on public education but not how to pay for it. Cutting pensions won’t provide additional funds. And along with the massive cuts to pensions House Majority Leader Dave Reed publicly suggested privatizing wine and spirits stores as a possible way to pay for restoring their cuts in our public schools.

They say that if this is not accepted by Governor Wolf and Democrats, it’s back to square one in negotiations. They’ve never gotten off of square one! Same attacks, just a different day. They still are not addressing the budget deficit in a responsible way or providing the funding to restore the cuts in public education and social services. It’s time to get off of their square and begin negotiating in good faith instead of more of the same political theatre and budget gimmicks. Get to work and start addressing the real issues for Pennsylvania as outlined and addressed by Governor Wolf’s budget.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6347

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO joins with the United Steelworkers in reiterating their full support for greater protections for scholarship athletes despite the decision of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to decline jurisdiction, for the time being, over college football player efforts to form a union to have a voice and to end the exploitation of college athletes.

USW President Leo Gerard said in a statement that, “while we are disappointed by the NLRB decision, the USW remains committed as ever to the idea that scholarship athletes deserve the same rights and protections afforded to other Americans. We will not stop fighting until athletes secure the basic protections they so desperately need.”

Eventually, Gerard said, the players will win the right to collectively bargain, Maybe it won’t happen in 2015, but before today’s athletes send their children to college, every college scholarship football player and every college scholarship basketball player will be a proud union member and no longer exploited on their jobs.

The USW provided legal assistance to the Northwestern University players in their attempt to join the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA), the first union seeking to represent college athletes in collective bargaining. The protections the athletes sought include guaranteed scholarships that cover the full cost of attending school, a greater emphasis on concussion treatment, and better health care for student athletes during and after their playing days.

Kain Colter, the former Northwestern quarterback who led the unionization effort stated, “College athletes everywhere should take note. A few dozen 18- to 20-year-old Northwestern football players joined together to challenge an unjust system, while we hoped for a different ruling from the NLRB, we’ve succeeded in starting a conversation that is already changing the culture of college athletes as we know it.”

CAPA President Ramogi Huma, a former football player at UCLA, said the decision is disappointing because it’s likely to delay action. It may cause a loss of time and leverage in securing what players need for their safety,” Huma said, “And any delay can have serious ramifications for players.”
Both President Bloomingdale and Secretary-Treasurer Snyder on behalf of the members and leadership of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO expressed their full support and commitment to both CAPA and the USW in their efforts form their union now, to have their voices heard.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6295