By Martha Woodall

– Teachers at Agora Cyber Charter School – the second largest cyber in the state – have voted overwhelmingly to become unionized, a new local affiliate of the Pennsylvania State Education Association announced late Tuesday afternoon.

The National Labor Relations Board in Philadelphia, which tallied the mail ballots, said that teachers at the cyber based in King of Prussia had voted 312-46 in favor of being represented by the Agora Cyber Education Association.

Union organizers said that the vote came after a 10-month campaign that focused on changes to working conditions without notice and lack of teacher involvement in decisions about curriculum, classroom objectives or learning conditions for students.

“The teachers have demonstrated through this election that it’s time for change at Agora,” said Jill Phillips, chair of the middle school social studies department and member of the organizing committee.
“It’s time to work alongside administration and achieve a contract that ensures everyone is on the same page and we are doing what is best for our students,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Agora did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Union organizers said they will hold a transition meeting, elect officers and begin work on collective bargaining.

In early February, the Agora board had laid off scores of teachers, citing financial problems it blamed on the lack of a state budget.

The board initially refused to say how many staffers were let go, but in a Feb. 29 letter to parents and staff said that 136 jobs had been eliminated for a savings of $4.5 million.

Agora enrolls 8,500 students across the state who receive online instruction in their homes.

Teachers at Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Midland, Pa., are also unionized.

Source – http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160511_Agora_teachers_vote_to_unionize.html

By Jane Von Bergan

– Two Philadelphia companies that did not pay temporary workers the minimum wage agreed to pay $763,000 in back wages and damages to be distributed among 797 workers.

Temporary workers who packaged jewelry at Stanley Creations Inc. in Melrose Park, were paid $6 an hour in cash and were not paid overtime when they worked more than 40 hours, the U.S. Labor Department said Monday.

Minimum wage in Pennsylvania is $7.25 an hour.

Asendia USA in Folcroft, part of a multinational Swiss and French direct mail and distribution company, paid overtime, but based the overtime on a base pay rate of $6.69 per hour, below minimum wage. Workers, hired by Northeast Staffing LLC, were paid in cash, the Labor Department said.
“The entire time we were paying our temp agency well above the minimum wage, and overtime,” said Michael J. Hastings, chief executive of the Asendia’s U.S. operations.

“The fact is that the temp agency did not use the funds in the correct way,” he said. “At no time did we benefit from this. We were trying to do the right thing.”

The settlements, announced Monday, are part of the U.S. Labor Department’s push to protect temporary workers hired by companies through temporary help agencies.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the temp agencies and the companies that use them are considered joint employees and both are responsible to pay proper wages.

“However, the staffing agencies often have limited resources, so the focus is on the companies that used the labor,” a spokeswoman from the U.S. Labor Department said.

At Stanley Creations, the workers were primarily Indonesian, Vietnamese and Chinese, she said.

The company, which distributes jewelry to retailers such as Kohl’s, Macy’s, JCPenney, and Boscov’s, hired temporary workers through International Labor Inc. from March 2012 to March 2015.

The company will pay $180,786 in back wages to 163 workers and the same amount in damages and has agreed not to intimidate any of the workers into repaying their portions of the settlement.

The agreement was signed in January by Stanley Creation’s chief executive, Randy Needles.

In its agreement, signed in February by Hastings, Asendia agreed to pay workers electronically and also to hire a human resources manager to monitor its arrangements with staffing agencies.

The company will pay $200,795 in back wages to 634 workers and an equal amount in damages, covering the period between the week ending Feb. 10, 2013 through the week ending Feb. 7, 2015. Asendia’s workers were were Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, and Asian, the spokeswoman said.

The Labor Department said both companies did not keep proper payroll records.

Source: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160510_U_S__Labor_Department_fines_two_Philly_area_firms_for_failing_to_pay_minimum_wage.html

– On this Mother’s Day, 2016, PhillyLabor would like to acknowledge and thank all of the Mothers in the labor movement (present and past) for your eternal guidance, strength and love throughout the struggles of today and yesterday both on the front lines and behind the scenes! Your courage, example and inspiration keeps the fight going!

With Gratitude, Solidarity and Love,

Happy Mother’s Day To you All!

Everyone at PhillyLabor

By The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers

PHILADELPHIA–“In light of the unmitigated fiasco that is Source4Teachers, the District’s plan to repeat the same failed experiment with Kelly Services is absolutely mind-boggling.

“When the District first announced plans to outsource substitute services to Source4Teachers, I publicly made it very clear that this experiment would be a failure. All school year, the PFT has held press conferences, issued statements and testified before City Council about the extent of Source4Teachers’ failure to provide substitutes.

“The collaboration between the District and Source4Teachers was an even bigger disaster than we anticipated. While the District was failing to fill a stunning number of teacher vacancies, Source4Teachers left hundreds of Philly classrooms uncovered for months at schools like Muñoz Marín (0% fill rate from September through December).

“The District has been hearing from angry parents, educators and elected leaders, rightfully so, about the Source4Teachers debacle for nearly a year. The logical course of action would be to return to the previous–and far more effective–system of substitute services. And, since Kelly plans to pay substitutes at the originally contracted rates (and pass management costs to the District), millions of dollars would be saved by reverting to the old system.

Instead, the District is doubling down on its original mistake by hiring–and paying more for–Kelly Services, which, like Source4Teachers, has no experience in providing substitutes for a large urban school district like Philadelphia.

“The District’s actions are made more outrageous by the fact that we have already seen how this will end. It’s the proverbial definition of insanity: spending millions to repeat the same failed experiment to provide our schoolchildren with adequate substitutes, but hoping for a different result.

“Educators in Philly and across the nation routinely express frustration at having a lack of voice in the decisions that affect our schools. It’s ironic that, at the very end of Teacher Appreciation Week, Superintendent Hite is once again demonstrating the District’s steadfast refusal to consult, or even share their plans, with Philly’s educators.

“Along with the parents of our city’s schoolchildren, we are determined to fight back against the District’s privatization agenda, since it seems they are incapable of learning from their own mistakes.”

# # #

By Joseph N. DiStefano

– Citing a loss of U.S. call-center jobs that companies have moved to foreign countries amid a Presidential campaign that has candidates for both parties decrying job losses tied to trade treaties, a labor union representing call-center workers at former Bell phone companies has asked Congress to back U.S. Senator Bob Casey, D-Pa.’s, latest version of the “United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act.” House version here. Earlier iterations of the bill have failed to pass the last few sessions in Congress.

Casey’s bill would force call centers to tell Americans where they are located, give Americans the option of having their calls transferred to a U.S.-based call center, and “make U.S. companies who off-shore their call center jobs from the U.S. ineligible for certain federal grants and taxpayer-funded loans,” according to a summary posted by the Communications Workers of America labor union..

Nearly 40,000 CWA members are on strike against Verizon Corp., and the union wants Verizon to stop threatened “offshoring” as part of a settlement. Verizon says the workers have a competitive contract offer.

An affiliate of the CWA union represents writers and editors, among other workers, at the Inquirer and philly.com.

Source: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Pa-Senators-bill-would-.html