By The PA. AFL-CIO

– The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO’s history, and that of the entire labor movement, has been about fighting for workers’ rights. This includes rights relating to dignity and fairness in the workplace. A union contract, and the benefits it provides, does not discriminate. It ensures equal protection and equal treatment regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. The labor movement also maintains that these rights, such as equal pay and non-discrimination, are fundamental, and should be enshrined in the law for all workers.

Today’s landmark decision by the US Supreme Court reaffirmed that the US Constitution grants equal dignity in the eyes of the law to all people. It was just over a year ago that Pennsylvania became the 19th State to recognize marriage equality when a federal judge struck down the Commonwealth’s ban. Since that time, the march towards nationwide marriage equality has only gained momentum; prior to this morning’s ruling, thirty-seven states plus the District of Columbia already recognized marriage equality.

This has been one of the defining civil rights issues of our time, with clear implications on the rights of workers and on the economic freedom of millions of Americans. Prior to the full recognition of marriage, employers could choose not to extend benefits to the families of certain workers, including health insurance, family leave, death benefits, and more. The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO recognizes that such divisions solely benefit employers and politicians who seek to weaken us in the struggle for workers’ rights.

Union membership has always been the best protection against such discrimination in the workplace, and it is STILL the only protection against sexual-orientation based employment discrimination in many parts of Pennsylvania. That means that without an employment contract that says otherwise, a couple that gets married on Saturday, can be fired from their jobs on Monday morning if their boss learns that they are in a same sex relationship. This runs counter to the entire notion of equal protection and equal dignity under the law. It is why the National AFL-CIO has come out strongly in support of federal legislation in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and it is why the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO strongly supports the passage of laws in the Commonwealth which prevent discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO has a long and proud history of uniting workers across the lines that divide us. Let us all resolve that today’s victory for equality and dignity shall add urgency to the fight for full employment equality in Pennsylvania.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6085

By Dale Mezzacappa

– As it had vowed to do, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers filed charges of unfair labor practice Wednesday against the School District for its decision to outsource substitute teaching.

The PFT, which is seeking an expedited hearing before the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, claims that, in two years of stalled contract negotiations, the District never brought up the issue.

“The decision to outsource these services without negotiating with the PFT is a blatant violation of our contract,” said PFT president Jerry Jordan.

On June 18, the School Reform Commission approved a $34 million, two-year contract, effective July 1, with Cherry Hill-based Source4Teachers to provide substitute service starting in September.

The company has promised to fill 90 percent of classrooms by January; the current fill rate is between 55 and 65 percent.

In explaining the reason for the outsourcing, District officials said that on any given day more than 400 classrooms — an average of nearly two per school — don’t have teachers. That means other teachers must give up preparation periods to cover them or administrators must forgo other duties.

More than 1,300 substitutes, including many retired teachers, are PFT members. A separate section of the contract governs their terms of employment and sets daily pay rates as well as rates for extended positions.

Substitutes work both by the day and as “long-term” subs filling in for teachers who are on medical leave or temporarily away from the classroom for other reasons.

In the complaint, the PFT says that it has been “deprived of an opportunity to negotiate with the District over the alleged savings that the District purports will be gained through the privatization of per diem and substitute teaching services.”

UPDATE: Late in the day the District issued the following statement:

“The School District of Philadelphia will continue to put the needs of students first which is exactly what the contract for substitute services accomplishes. It will allow the placement of teachers in over 400 classrooms that currently are left unattended daily due to the lack of substitute teachers. We will continue to vigorously defend the rights of our students to a thorough and effective education.”

Source – http://thenotebook.org/blog/158734/pft-files-unfair-labor-practice-against-substitute-outsourcing

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– Defending our State Wine and Spirits Stores from the privateers has been an ongoing fight for such a long time that it almost risks fading into the background noise of a dysfunctional State Legislature, but what’s happening now is different.

In 2013, the State House passed a liquor privatization bill that would have sold off this valuable public asset for next to nothing – blowing a huge hole in the State budget and destroying 5,000 good family-sustaining jobs. To their credit, the State Senate refused to take action on this bad idea, in spite of heavy pressure from then-Governor Corbett.

But now, with newcomers like York County’s Scott Wagner and the ouster of Senator Pileggi from leadership, the State Senate seems determined to shed its reputation as the pragmatic and responsible chamber, and is set for the first time to introduce their own bill to dismantle the Wine and Spirits Stores.

Union-busting millionaire Senator Scott Wagner circulated a co-sponsorship memo earlier this year, and we expect his legislation to be introduced in the Senate next week. For the first time, this scheme to destroy jobs will be originating in the Senate.

To E-Mail Your Senator and Representative now, go to – https://actionnetwork.org/letters/take-action-oppose-wagners-liquor-privatization-scheme – Tell them to focus on investment to create good jobs, and reject these ideology-driven attacks that would destroy thousands of good middle class jobs.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6029

– From PFT President Jerry Jordan:

“Once again, the School Reform Commission is using the budget crisis as an excuse to privatize public education, one position at a time.

“Voting to give the management of substitutes to Source4Teachers is not only disrespectful to Philly’s educators, but unnecessary. Our District has access to a wealth of retirees who are certified, familiar with our schools, and willing to work as substitutes. Instead of using this resource, Dr. Hite and his administration have instead allowed vacancies to go unfilled in order to save money. They, then, used the shortage of substitutes as an excuse to abdicate their responsibilities to provide services to students.

“The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is deeply disturbed by Dr. Hite’s willingness to pay private companies to deliver critical services to our schoolchildren. We are committed to fighting the privatization of substitutes and nurses, and are considering several legal actions, including the filing of an Unfair Labor Practice against the School District.”

# # #

By James Peterson

– This is not a think piece. It’s a feel piece.

Today in #BlackLivesMatter news, we are presented with an untenable conundrum: to continue discussing the real consequences of the socially constructed nature of race — the bizarre case of Rachel Dolezal, a woman whose sanity some folks continue to question — or to feel the anguish and terror of the black folks praying in a church in the last seconds before a white supremacist monster massacred almost everyone present.

This is a false choice if there ever was one — but the false choice has become the persistent reality for some of us.

The #AMEMassacre or the #CharlestonShooting, as it’s become known on social media, was a bloodletting that took place in the hallowed halls of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina — one of the most sacred spaces in the historic struggle for black liberation in this decrepitly racist nation.

Are we supposed to just continue on in our daily BLACK lives, as if this heinous mass shooting isn’t indicative of our nation’ s disgraceful systems of discrimination? I can’t.

Does any white person need me to explain our outrage? I won’t.

The steady stream of police brutality and our criminal justice system’s disregard for black life translates into endorsements for the sick vestiges of white supremacy, racial hatred, and racialized violence that was reflected in last night’s carnage. The reality of black existence is to be intermittently but persistently susceptible to the complete shattering of your life, your identity and your community into a thousand fragments.

A thousand fragments. I can’t. Even. Write. This. Piece. I can’t talk to my family. I can’t breathe. I am paralyzed by the racist realities of the world. Anti-black hatred is fracturing my reality.

I can’t take the lies anymore, the veiled racism masquerading as conservatism, religion, or “battle flag” pride. I can’t stomach the constant moves by politicos and pundits to circumvent issue of racism in America; the petty in-fighting amongst progressive “leaders,” the self-hate of people of color who are more outraged at the president’s comments on the slaughter of black human beings in Charleston than the actual massacre itself. I can’t take the fact that we have come this far but we have so much further to go.

BLACK PEOPLE ARE HUMAN BEINGS.

Each time a human life is taken from this world as a result of unchecked evil, that person’s life — her family, her community, her everything — shatters into a thousand fragments. For so long, black folks have been working hard to pick up the pieces of our collective humanity — the existence of which continues to be vulnerable given black humanity’s tentative status in this nation.

The political leaders of this nation — especially South Carolina’s leadership in the aftermath of this tragedy — must come to terms with the semiotics of racism and white supremacy.

The Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred representing the treasonous terrorists of our nation’s not-too-distant past who were willing to fight and die for their “right” to own human beings, rape black women, and conscript children born of those rapes to lives of enslavement. To separate and deliberately destroy black families. That is the history that the Confederate flag represents.

I call on all the leaders of the Confederate/Battle Flag movement to defend the fact that South Carolina did not lower said flag, which flies on the grounds of the state capitol in Columbia.

I call on all leaders of the Tea Party to denounce this murderer and explain to our nation how the Tea Party rhetoric about “taking back this country” can be disentangled from what fueled Dylann Roof Storm into doing what he is accused of doing to the Emanuel AME prayer group.

We live in a world that hates black people. I get it. But today might be the first day where my belief in the capacity of our community’s extraordinary patience, endurance, and love to overcome that hate has been shaken.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/speak-easy/speak-easy-feature/item/83255-nine-black-lives-taken-nine-families-broken-our-endurance-shaken&Itemid=219&linktype=hp_speakeasy