– Members of TWU Local 234 turned out in large numbers for a union meeting in Philadelphia on Sunday.

Members voted unanimously to authorize union leadership to call a strike at SEPTA if necessary.

Members of TWU Local 234, include 4,700 bus drivers, subway and trolley operators, and maintenance workers at SEPTA. They have been working under an expired contract at the transit agency since March of 2014.

Source: http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/27018685/strike

By Taunya English

– Starting Jan. 1, nonunion workers will pay an extra $15 if they fill a prescription at a pharmacy that also sells cigarettes. That new fee will be tacked on to the usual co-payment for prescription drugs.

The change will affect several hundred retirees and about 5,400 city workers — just a portion of Philadelphia’s 22,000 employees.

The change was the idea of James Startare, the city’s deputy director of human resources, who is leading a push to keep health costs down and city health benefit strong.

“The fact of creating a narrow exclusive network is not a novel idea, the idea of wrapping a public health good around it is innovative and a first of its kind,” Startare said.

“It promotes shopping at businesses that do not sell tobacco products, primarily independent pharmacies. And it allows the city to manage health care costs and forgo larger more widespread benefit changes,” he said.

In addition to all the chain CVS stores, which ceased selling tobacco products last month, 77 percent of the city’s independent pharmacies don’t sell cigarettes. Startare said there are plenty of options and the tobacco-free pharmacy network won’t keep employees from getting the medicine they need.

CVS Caremark gave Philadelphia a price-break on premiums in exchange steering business to drug stores that don’t sell cigarettes.

“That’s been going on since there’s been managed care,” said Andrew Sfekas a professor in the Department of Risk, Insurance and Healthcare Management at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

“Managed care really started in the ’70s. And it really hit its stride in the ’90s when limited networks were sort of a key to controlling health care cost. And people did, in fact, rebel against them,” he said. “People don’t like to have their choices curtailed.”

A word to drugstore chains that do sell tobacco: Philadelphia says those stores can get back on the city’s preferred list as soon as they give up the tobacco-selling habit.

The city also plans to charge an additional $500 each year to provide health benefits for any nonunion worker who smokes or uses tobacco products.

“Are our health care costs going to drop in one month, two months, three months because of this initiative?” said Startare. “No.”

But he’s taking the long view. Philadelphia’s new policies may improve health and help people kick the tobacco habit, he said. For now, the city will use the honor system to police that policy.

Sfekas said the extra fee for smokers has become common, and might push people to quit. He’s less convinced that the pharmacy-benefit change will be a good deterrent.

“That could really only be effective if you think that people are picking up cigarettes when they go for their medication. I’m not sure that part of it is going to be closely linked to a drop in smoking,” he said.

Source: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/74362-philly-sets-surcharge-to-keep-some-workers-away-from-tobacco-selling-pharmacies-?linktype=hp_impact

By Jared Shelly

– SEPTA’s largest union puts its labor situation succinctly: “The day of reckoning is fast approaching.”

That was the opening line of a letter to the workers that control the city’s buses and subways. It’s alerting them of a strike authorization vote on Sunday. If a strike passes, the union could walk off the job at any time, halting a majority of the public transportation in the city. (Regional rail trains would continue to run, since its union recently signed a new contract.)

The TWU Local 234 union has been negotiating with SEPTA on and off for months. It’s been without a contract since the spring. At the moment, the main sticking point is pensions, said President Willie Brown in an interview earlier this month. He says that union workers realize significantly less monthly income from pensions than SEPTA management workers.

“With us, it’s not a question of if we strike it’s a question of when we strike,” Brown told me in early October.

As time passes, that threat seems to look more and more like it could become a reality. The letter to union members said the following:

“SEPTA’s latest proposal would freeze our pension benefits at current levels for five years, require all TWU members to contribute 10 percent of the premium for health insurance, which is approximately $2636/year for family coverage, and force us to eat substantially higher co-payments for office visits, hospital services and prescription benefits,” the letter states.

It goes on to say: “We have to fight to secure wage increases that will enable us to maintain a decent standard of living… We have to squash the naysayers, put aside petty differences, join together on the picket lines and in the streets and be determined to fight for what is rightfully ours.”

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/morning_roundup/2014/10/septa-union-to-hold-strike-authorization-vote.html

(PODCAST) 10/22 – Today In PhillyLabor Radio Podcast Featuring Frank Snyder, Secretary – Treasurer of the PA. AFL-CIO, Jim Farally, Pres. Phila. AFL-CIO Retirees Council and Bret Elam, Thrive Financial

FEATURED TOPICS – PA. AFL-CIO Get Out The Vote Campaign and Retirees Benefits and Resources Discussion

To Listen to the Podcast, Go To: http://wwdbam.com/2014/10/22/jk102214_mono/

By Holly Otterbein

– The website factcheck.org has issued a blistering report on two campaign ads by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett.

The TV advertisements say Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tom Wolf wants to raise income taxes on the middle class.

In fact, Wolf is proposing to cut income taxes for the middle class and poor, while making wealthy Pennsylvanians pay more. He has said he considers a middle-class salary to fall somewhere between $70,000 and $90,000 annually.

“The people who would benefit from Wolf’s plan are people who are in the middle-income area,” said Eugene Kiely, director of factcheck.org. “So for Corbett to say that Wolf is promising to raise middle-class taxes is inaccurate because those are the very people who would benefit from Wolf’s plan.”

Chris Pack, a spokesman for Corbett’s campaign, said the article by factcheck.org is “biased” and “wildly inaccurate,” and that Wolf has failed to release important details about his tax plan. Recent polls show Corbett is trailing Wolf by double digits.

Source: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/politics/item/74078-corbett-ads-targeting-wolf-dont-pass-factcheckorg-