By Kari Andren

– The number of state liquor stores finishing the year in the red is on pace to fall nearly 80 percent compared to five years ago.

Liquor Control Board officials tweaked store hours, adjusted inventories and even turned down the thermostats to cut costs at unprofitable stores, said Dale Horst, director of retail operations.

In July 2009, 51 wine and spirits stores lost about $680,000, a number the LCB cut 78 percent to 11 stores that were losing about $124,000 collectively as of March 31, the most recent month data was available.

Larger, successful stores subsidize the losses, allowing the LCB to post nearly $2.2 billion in sales last year, a 4.5 percent increase from the previous year.

“We looked at every facet of the stores’ operation,” Horst said, including working closely with store managers to lower expenses and negotiating with landlords to lower rent.

Lawmakers who want to privatize part or all of the system watch the LCB’s operations closely. The agency controls the wholesale and retail sale of wine and spirits at more than 600 stores across Pennsylvania.

“They are operating it more like a business, but they’re only doing it because they’re afraid of privatization. It’s all about self-preservation,” said Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, a champion of privatization.

Gov. Tom Corbett’s staff and lawmakers are trying to negotiate a plan that garners the support needed from the House, which passed a bill to turn alcohol sales over to private businesses in March 2013, and the Senate, where support is mixed. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans.

Horst said better budgeting was vital to turning stores around. Before 2009, individual store budgets did not exist.

“We literally build individual store budgets from the bottom up (now),” Horst said. “The agency always had a budget, but it was a large umbrella budget. It did not get down to the line items of each store.”

Store managers are involved in building the budget and sticking to it throughout the year.

“There’s been a change in the attitudes and cultures in those stores, and (they are) running it like their own business,” Horst said.

Jackie Ault, 55, managed the state store in Saxton, Bedford County, for three years before she transferred to another store last month. She helped the store open a fourth day each week and receive an extra shipment truck each month.

“The store’s part of me,” Ault said. “And the customers — I just love them down there.”

Ault knows that her shoppers, many of whom are camping and boating around Raystown Lake, want Arbor Mist frozen wine pouches, pre-mixed margaritas and bottles of Bacardi rum.

“You just gotta get rid of the stuff that doesn’t sell,” she said. She said she would transfer a few bottles from a nearby store instead of ordering a case of products that aren’t best-sellers so that store capital wasn’t tied up in extra inventory.

The Saxton store is very seasonal, so although it was about $4,200 in the red as of March 31, it’s expected to be close to breaking even, officials said.

“We are, by law, obligated to serve all citizens of Pennsylvania,” Horst said, so officials do everything they can to avoid closing stores.

Horst has trimmed hours off slow days or closed stores a few days each week.

Since 2009, five stores closed entirely following an analysis of lease and operating costs, demographic trends for those over 21 and the location of the nearest state store, said LCB spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman.

Many unprofitable stores are in rural areas with no outlets nearby, so they are left open as a customer service.

“We also looked at — what can we do to sell an extra bottle a day?” Horst said. “In some of these little stores, selling one extra bottle a day will turn it profitable.”

Gary Zychowski, 57, the manager and sole employee of the state store in Knox, Clarion County, said that making one customer angry could lose the store hundreds of dollars, he said.

“It’s a fine line between profitable and not profitable,” Zychowski said. “Every bottle’s important.”

Zychowski said his store was “slightly unprofitable” when he became manager in August 2010, but small changes helped turn the store around.

Turning down the thermostat to about 52 degrees overnight and when the store is closed saves money during winter months, he said. He tries to keep the store as clean as possible and does his best to accommodate customers’ requests.

“Being a small store, our shelf space is very limited,” Zychowski said. “Basically everything on our shelves is because people have asked us to get it.”

For products that his store doesn’t carry, he said he arranges transfers from nearby stores.

“It’s a reflection of me,” he said. “I’m the only one here.”

Source: http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/6041329-74/store-stores-county#ixzz32uRiS5OO

– On this Memorial Day 2014, as we gather to enjoy a fun filled barbeque and celebrate the unofficial start of summer with family and friends, let us first remember the true meaning of why we are celebrating and pay homage to those members of our U.S. Armed Forces who’ve paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may experience the freedoms that we do everyday as Americans. Let us also remember those military families who have watched their loved ones go off to war only to have them never return and let them know that their loss is also our loss and they too will never be forgotten!

It Is Our Duty To Remember!

In Solidarity!

PhillyLabor

By The AFL-CIO

– Memorial Day is the unofficial kickoff to the summer holiday season. Here’s some union-made food and drink to get your barbecue off to a great start.

Our list comes courtesy of Union Plus, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor’s LA Labor 411’s website. You can find these and other union-made products on your smart phone with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Buy Union app for iPhones, Androids and other phones.

Hot Dogs, Sausages, Other Grill Meats

Ball Park, Boar’s Head, Calumet, Dearborn Sausage Co., Fischer Meats, Hebrew National, Hofmann, Johnsonville, Oscar Mayer.

Condiments

French’s Mustard, Guldens Mustard, Heinz Catsup, Heinz Ketchup, Hidden Valley Ranch, Lucky Whip, Vlasic.

Buns and Bread

Ottenbergs, Sara Lee, Vie de France Bakery.

Sodas and Bottled Water

Bart’s, Coke, Diet Sprite, Pepsi, Sprite, American Springs, Pocono Northern Fall’s, Poland Spring.

Beer

Budweiser, Bud Light, Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve, Mad River, Michelob, Miller, Rolling Rock.

Snacks and Dessert

Breyers Ice Cream, Flips Pretzels, Frito-Lay Chips, Good Humor Ice Cream.

Source: http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Other-News/Make-It-a-Union-Made-Memorial-Day-Barbecue

By Bianca Cunningham, with Zelig Stern

– Wireless is where Verizon makes most of its profits. But for decades, Verizon has kept a wall between union workers in its landline division and non-union workers in its wireless division. That’s how the corporation has maintained lower compensation and worse working conditions for wireless workers.

My co-workers and I have just taken the first step to tear down that wall.

After withstanding six weeks of intense union-busting, on May 14, retail sales reps and customer service reps at Verizon Wireless’s six Brooklyn retail stores voted 39 to 19 to join the our 40,000 landline brothers and sisters—and 80 wireless techs who joined in 1989—in the Communications Workers (CWA).

The telecom industry is a backbone of the modern economy, and its landline side has been heavily unionized for decades. But the wireless side has remained largely unorganized, outside of AT&T. I hope the stand we’ve taken here in Brooklyn sends a ripple effect through Verizon Wireless nationwide, and possibly even through the other major carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile.
Our Jobs Keep Growing

Growing up in a middle-class, two-parent household, I had dreams of one day working in corporate America. But when I graduated from college with an international business management degree in the middle of the Great Recession, finding a job seemed like finding that golden ticket in the chocolate bar. A couple months into my search, Verizon called me and I answered.

I wasn’t prepared to have my corporate ladder delusions shattered by the reality of today’s work environment—but hey, you live and you learn.

One thing I learned: Verizon Wireless has been gradually expanding our job duties, giving us new responsibilities without increasing our pay or informing us of the changes. This pattern began in 2010 when they ended their contract with Flextronics, whose employees were serving as technicians in the stores. That work was transferred to the sales reps and customer service people, who were already responsible for their own quota and operations.

So we are demanding clear job titles with descriptions. If they insist on increasing our job responsibilities, then we demand fair compensation.

Verizon Wireless workers in Brooklyn are also compensated at the same rate as workers in, say, Arkansas, even though Brooklyn is the third-most expensive place to live in the country. We’re fed up with working a full-time job on a retail schedule and barely being able to afford rent.

Organizing wireless workers will not only improve our working conditions, but also return bargaining power and help end concessionary contracts on the landline side. Management tells landline workers that the wireless side is more profitable, so “old technology” workers should take concessions. In reality, the wall between the divisions is a corporate fiction. Wireless services don’t work without landline infrastructure—each part needs the other.

CWA’s contract with Verizon Landline expires in about a year. If Verizon Wireless does not sign a quality contract with the newly organized Brooklyn retail workers before then, it’s possible the landline workers could leverage their negotiations to help their wireless counterparts. They’ve done this in the past for the metro area wireless technicians, the ones who joined in 1989.
Pioneering Drive

Before reaching out to CWA, I did my own research. I read up on the union, on previous authorization elections in different parts of the country, and on the correlation between declining union membership and declining wages.

Although unionizing Verizon Wireless had not been done before, I believed it was possible here in Brooklyn. I reached out to people I trusted in the company, people I knew had the respect of their peers.

When we felt the majority understood their value to the company, their potential power, and what was at stake, we called CWA to come in and help us organize further.

After going public, we showed unity by wearing red wristbands, and we adopted a “brother’s keeper” strategy: when Human Resources or management would approach a co-worker to discuss the union, we would insert ourselves into the conversation or stand around them so they didn’t feel alone. We checked up on people in different stores to make sure they were okay.

We also used technology to communicate and keep those who were weaker confident. I started a chat with GroupMe, a group text messaging service, and added everyone who had signed cards to be public. We also had CWA organizers, Verizon landline workers, and our attorney on the chat. GroupMe helped us to keep open dialogue about the anti-union rhetoric from management in each store. We also alerted each other about corporate visitors and any intel we’d collected to decipher their strategy.

It was intimidating to get constant visits from the company’s legal team, executive leadership, and HR in every store. We were visited constantly by high-level management such as Chief Operating Officer David Smalls, who encouraged us to vote against the union.

“Management hasn’t been honest or upfront about being anti-union,” said Tatiana Hill, one of my co-workers. “They have falsely appeared to be concerned for us as reps, rather than protecting their own interests.”

But despite this pressure we didn’t falter, because more than them, we meant business.

Source: http://labornotes.org/blogs/2014/05/verizon-retail-workers-win-union-vote-first-do-so

By Kathleen Carey

– The 600-member nurses’ union at the Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike Wednesday with union officials continuing to cite staffing and safety as the key issues impeding a new contract. Crozer-Keystone Health System officials said they don’t understand why a strike is being authorized at this point.

“From the nurses’ perspective, we have proposals to get Crozer to take a closer look to improve staffing levels,” Bill Cruice, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, said.

The member nurses voted 350-2 to give their bargaining committee the authorization to call a strike, Cruice said, adding that any action would be preceded by a 10-day notice. “Our hope is, of course, to avoid the possibility of a strike,” he said.

A statement released by Grant Gegwich, Crozer-Keystone’s vice president of public relations and marketing, outlined the management’s position.

“We do not understand why the union is threatening to strike when they have not yet given us a complete set of proposals and have failed to respond to many of ours,” it read in part. “Out of the few proposals the union has given us, one proposes a staffing model that is not as good as the one we already maintain.”

Cruice said the union and the hospital have been negotiating for about five weeks, and more sessions are planned for May 28 and 29 with a federal mediator in attendance. The Crozer-Keystone statement said they have offered many dates for bargaining but the union only accepted four prior to the June 8 contract expiration.

Wage increases are not on the table for either party, Cruice said.

“It’s just not our focus right now,” he said, adding that staffing and security were the nurses’ main concerns.

The hospital statement said most of the proposals include wage increases and additional benefits. It did not specify, however, which side introduced these proposals.

Cruice said the nurses want the hospital to consider the magnitude of patients’ maladies when determining staffing rather than strict patient-to-nurse ratios.

“We want them to look at the severity of the illness,” he said. “There are a lot of patients who are very, very ill when they come to Crozer.”

In addition, Cruice said safety is a priority, especially following an incident last July when a patient who was lying in her hospital bed was struck in the abdomen by a stray bullet shortly before midnight after a shot was fired outside the hospital.

Citing safety as a priority, Crozer-Keystone officials stated changes such as additional security officers and back-ups, additional security cameras, non-lethal devices for security officers and controlled access for nursing units on evening shifts have been implemented.

In addition, they pointed to the creation of a Caregiver Support Team that assists employees in stressful situations and created partnerships with local police to enhance response time and support.

Cruice said the hospital wants to change some of the medical benefits.

“The hospital is always trying to cut benefits that nurses have,” Cruice said, “but, we’re focused on trying to improve conditions for nurses.”

Last year, Crozer-Kesytone joined with Abington Health, Aria Health and the Einstein Healthcare Network. Cruice said one of the hospital’s proposals is that employees who use hospitals outside of this alliance have to pay 25 percent of their medical bills after their deductible.

“Given where people live, it doesn’t really help much,” he said. “Nurses who work day-in, day-out, sometimes dodging bullets, we think it’s simply not right that they have to have such a huge burden when their own family is ill.”

The Crozer statement said the alliance would provide employees additional, more cost-effective choices.

The hospital system has faced a difficult year.

In February, Crozer-Keystone officials announced they were eliminating 250 employees, including physicians and managers, after losing almost $16 million in seven months. Funding issues arose due to the decline in hospital admissions, the continuing decrease in state funding and reimbursements, the smaller number of patients who have private insurance and the lower-than-anticipated volume of patients signing up on the Federal Insurance Exchange.

In addition, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the system’s debt and Crozer Keystone’s bond rating went from Baaa3 to Ba2.

“We are disappointed in the ratings change,” system officials said in their statement. “Unfortunately, changes in health care continue to have a negative effect on Crozer-Keystone and many other health care providers in our region and throughout the country.”

It said the management has cut costs and increased efficiencies in the system in what they believe will have a positive impact on their financial future.

Cruice said while Crozer’s current situation is challenging, the system’s previous financial stature has been a contrast.

“Over the last 14 years, Crozer’s finances have been remarkably consistent of being in the black and making a modest profit,” he said. “They might have an off year this year but their finances have been remarkably consistent over the years.”

The Crozer-Keystone statement indicated officials hope for more bargaining.

“We are happy to discuss staffing, safety and all other issues affecting our nurses,” it read. “But we cannot make progress until the union gives us proposals or counterproposals to discuss and agrees to bargaining dates upon which we can discuss them.

“We hope that if the union is truly concerned with patient care and safety, it will cease talking about walking out on patients,” it continued. “We deeply appreciate the understanding of our community as we work to resolve this matter.”
Source – http://www.delcotimes.com/business/20140522/crozer-chester-medical-centers-nurses-union-authorizes-strike