– 10/1 Today In PhillyLabor Radio Podcast w/Howard Gensler, President, Bill Ross, Exec Director of Newspaper Guild 10, Patty Eakin, President, PASNAP and Eleanor Dezzi, The Dezzi Group

Listen To This Week’s Featured Topics – What’s going on with the writers and workers at The Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer, Getting Out the Vote on Nov and an update on the nurses strike at Chester Crozier Hospital

(TO LISTEN) to the podcast, go to: http://wwdbam.com/2014/10/01/jk100114_mono/

By the PA. AFL-CIO

– The October 6 deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania is just one week away, which means there is not much time to be sure your voice is heard on Election Day. If you are already registered, why not get some family and friends registered before we hit the deadline?

There are multiple ways to register to vote. You can register to vote in person by visiting a County Voter Registration Office.

You can register to vote by mail through one of two ways. One way is to request a Voter Registration Mail Application from the state or federal government. The Secretary of the Commonwealth and all county registration commissions supply Voter Registration Mail Applications to people who request them. Also, you can email ST-VOTERREG@pa.gov with the subject line: “Request Voter Registration Mail Application.” Be sure to include your full name, home address and number of requested registration forms in the email.

You can download a Voter Registration Form and either mail or deliver in person to a County Voter Registration Office. Locations of County Voter Registration Offices are conveniently printed on the form.

You can register to vote at a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) photo license center when you obtain or update your driver’s license. You can also register to vote at multiple other government agencies such as state offices that provide public assistance and services to persons with disabilities, Armed Forces Recruitment Centers, County Clerk of Orphans’ Court offices (including each Marriage License Bureau), Area Agencies on Aging, Centers for Independent Living, County Mental Health and Mental Retardation offices, student disability services offices of the State System of Higher Education, Offices of Special Education and DA Complementary Paratransit offices.

Don’t let the October 6 deadline pass you by. There are multiple ways to register so there is no excuse to go unregistered. Make sure to get yourself, your friends and your family registered and vote for Tom Wolf on November 4.

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4575

By Dave Jamieson

– Poll after poll indicates that the vast majority of Americans believe the minimum wage isn’t high enough. Apparently, a lot of U.S. employers agree.

A national survey of 2,000 human resource and hiring managers done for the job search site CareerBuilder found that most of those managers think the minimum wage in their state should be at least $10 per hour. No state currently has a minimum wage of $10, although many have a higher wage floor than the federal level of $7.25.

According to results released by CareerBuilder Thursday, more than 60 percent of the employers surveyed, including 58 percent of senior-level managers, said their state minimum wage should be increased to some degree. The survey was performed by the market research firm Harris Poll.

“Among employers who want an increase in their state, improving the standard of living of workers led all business-related reasons for their support,” CareerBuilder said in a breakdown of the survey. “A majority say a higher minimum wage helps the economy and helps them retain employees.”

A proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour has languished in Congress, where House Republicans have so far refused to give the bill a vote. Nonetheless, cities and states around the country have moved ahead with their own minimum wage hikes, and several such proposals will be on state-level ballots come November.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage often argue that businesses couldn’t withstand the higher costs. The survey done by Harris Poll suggests that many hiring managers don’t necessarily agree, even in low-wage industries like restaurants and retail.

Although only 7 percent said a minimum wage of $15 was reasonable, about half of those surveyed said they thought a fair minimum wage would be somewhere between $10 and $14:

– $7.25 per hour: 8 percent
– $8.00 to 9.00 per hour: 29 percent
– $10.00 per hour: 29 percent
– $11.00 to 14.00 per hour: 19 percent
– $15.00 or more per hour: 7 percent
– No minimum wage: 9 percent

Of those who opposed raising the minimum wage in their states, about two-thirds said it would force businesses to hire fewer people, and half said it would lead to layoffs. More than 60 percent of those respondents also said a wage hike would result in higher prices for consumers.

In a surprising finding, the employers who said they plan to hire minimum-wage workers this year voiced more support for raising the wage floor than employers with no such plans, by a margin of 11 points. In the hospitality and retail industries, which employ a disproportionate amount of low-wage workers, 60 percent and 68 percent of managers, respectively, said they think the minimum wage in their states should be raised.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/25/minimum-wage-survey-employers_n_5878252.html

By Nick Field

– Tom Wolf is holding on to his solid lead over Governor Tom Corbett.

The new Franklin & Marshall poll released this week shows Democratic nominee Tom Wolf with a 54% to 34% advantage among likely voters. The margin is 49% to 31% among registered voters.

Rather ironically, last month the Corbett campaign criticized Terry Madonna for sampling registered rather than likely voters, yet their candidate performs worse under a likely voter model.

The F&M survey also asked unsure registered and self-described likely voters if they lean towards any one candidate. Among registered voters and leaners, Wolf retains a 54% to 33% lead. Concerning likely voters plus leaners, the margin grows to 57% to 37% in the Democrat’s favor.

When broken down by demographics (among registered voters), Wolf leads in all regions and among all age, education, income, religious, racial and gender groups.

The silver lining for Gov. Corbett is that Republicans are finally returning to the fold. Last month, just 48% of them said they’d vote for Corbett, a total that has now increased to 62%.

Only 28% of registered voters, though, feel that Tom Corbett is doing a “good” or “excellent” as Governor. Additionally, just 30% believe he deserves to be re-elected. Once again, these ratings are improvements from last month but mostly because Republicans are rating him higher.

60% of respondents feel the state is on the wrong track and a record 30% of people believe education is the state’s most important problem.

This poll surveyed 520 registered Pennsylvania voters from September 15th to 22nd. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.3%.

Update: Continuing their feud with Terry Madonna and the F&M poll, the Corbett campaign released the following statement:

“Even G. Terry Madonna’s flawed polling methods that give Democrats a 12 point registration edge, which has never happened in a statewide Pennsylvania election, show Governor Tom Corbett closing the gap,” Corbett-Cawley Communications Director Chris Pack said. “Much like in Monday’s debate, we are confident that as we continue exposing Wolf’s big spending agenda that includes a middle class income tax increase that Wolf refuses to explain and an ongoing denial of our state’s pension crisis, that voters will re-elect Governor Tom Corbett in November.”

Source: http://www.politicspa.com/pa-gov-fm-poll-wolf-54-corbett-34/60643/

Philly Labor Editorial – Although recent polls show Tom Wolf with a substantial lead over Gov Corbett, there is no time to lay back and take anything for granted as we head down the home stretch of the upcoming Nov. 4 General Election. In fact, the one scenario that still gives Gov Tom Corbett a chance to win is if there is low voter turnout at the polls as predicted.

As an organized labor community, we can not let that happen. We must stay engaged throughout the final month of the campaign and show up at the polls on election day and vote like our union livelihoods depend on it because, with all of the anti-worker actions of the current Corbett administration in Harrisburg, THEY DO!

By The PA. AFL-CIO

– This year, Staples and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) cut a deal called the “Approved Shipper” program, which is essentially a cloaked attempt at privatization of postal retail operations. The program sets up “mini post offices” inside of 82 Staples office supply stores, staffs them with low-wage Staples employees and eliminates the need for highly-trained USPS workers who get paid a living wage.

Staples and the USPS intend to expand the program to 1,500 locations throughout the country. This further threatens the jobs of well-trained, well-paid, uniformed post office workers who take an oath to safeguard Americans’ mail. There have already been cutbacks in service hours at dozens of post offices around San Francisco, which is one of the test areas for the program.

Due to Staples and USPS’s continued efforts to move this program forward, the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Randi Weingarten recently wrote a letter to Staples’ CEO Ronald Sargent to notify him that the 1.6 million member AFT will no longer shop at Staples for school supplies until further notice.

“As you know, teachers are critical to your profits. Last year, educators spent over $1.6 billion of their own money on school supplies and a lion’s share of that money was spent at Staples stores all across the country. Some of our local affiliates have even entered into partnerships with Staples to offer discounts to teachers and other school-related staff with a goal of reducing costs to benefit the communities and families we serve,” Weingarten wrote.

On July 21, 2014, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO has also sent a letter to the CEO of Staples regarding this outsourcing attempt and our endorsement of the boycott. We urge our affiliates and their members to write similar letters and let it be known that we will not stand for this attack on good union jobs. If you do write a letter, please copy us when you do so.

It has recently been revealed that the USPS has extended the “Approved Shipper” program to 44 additional Staples locations mainly in Connecticut, as well as New York and Massachusetts. This shows that they are charging ahead with the destructive program, which means labor and all the people who care about the integrity of the USPS must fight back harder.

The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) have been devout to pushing the Staples boycott. The boycott has already won the endorsement of the AFT, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The letter from Weingarten is another stand against this outsourcing attempt, letting Staples and USPS management know that “we’re not buying it.“

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=4628