By The PA. AFL-CIO

– Primary Election Day is just a day away. Pennsylvanians will turn out in what could be record numbers to vote for their favorite presidential candidates along with other candidates for State and Federal office. Union members in Pennsylvania have been largely successful in defending the rights of workers and electing pro-labor candidates because we turn out for every election; but it’s important to remember that when the overall turnout is high, labor has to turn out that much more to avoid having our voice diminished and our issues ignored.

Polling places are open from 7:00AM until 8:00PM – If you are unsure where you go to vote, then you can FIND YOUR POLLING PLACE HERE AT – https://www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us/Pages/PollingPlaceInfo.aspx

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO endorsed candidates in a number of contested primaries earlier this month. To check out all of our endorsements, Go to – http://www.paaflcio.org/?page_id=316

Source: http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6854

By Jane M. Von Bergen

– The nation’s oldest workers are dying on the job — losing their lives at more than triple the rate of all workers.

The U.S. Labor Department reported last week that 1,691 workers over the age of 55 died in 2014 – the highest number ever recorded for this group of workers and more than one in three of the 4,821 people killed on the job that year.

Workers over age 65 were particularly affected, with 10.7 per 100,000 workers killed on the job, compared to the all-worker injury rate of 3.4 per 100,000.

The statistic doesn’t surprise Barbara Rahke, director of PhilaPOSH, an advocacy group that works to promote safe conditions on the job.

On Friday, mirroring similar events around the country, PhilaPOSH will hold its annual workers’ memorial day event to honor those killed on the job in the region.

“Our oldest is 86 – a farmer,” she said. “There are lots of people in their 60s on our list. It’s always shocking to me how many people are working beyond retirement age. People aren’t doing those jobs unless they have to.”

In 2014, 4,821 people were killed on the job, up five percent from the 4,585 reported in 2013 and the highest number since 2008, when 5,214 were killed.

Driving the numbers in part were deaths in private construction, which grew by 9 percent to 899 – the largest number of construction deaths since 2008, when construction employment started its recessionary plunge. Since its low point in January 2011, construction employment had risen 16 percent by December 2014 and is up 23 percent as of March.

The largest group, 41 percent, are killed in transportation incidents – truck drivers in accidents, workers struck by trains or cars, pilots killed in plane crashes, or crew members killed on boats.

Falls kill 14 percent. Contact with objects or equipment takes 10 percent of lives and homicides account for eight percent of all workers who die. Fires and explosions cost three percent their lives.

Fatalities in oil and gas extraction rose to 144 in 2014, the highest recorded.

Men are generally more likely to die on the job, with 4,454 losing their lives at work compared to 367 women. Nearly one in five women who lose their lives at work die from a homicide, with the greatest threat from a relative or domestic partner. Men are more likely to be killed during a robbery.

Next Friday’s event concludes with a ceremony at Penn’s Landing on the Delaware River where the names of the dead are read and flowers are tossed into the water in their honor.

A large group of railway workers are expected to attend to remember two of their colleagues who were struck and killed by an Amtrak train outside Philadelphia on April 2. The ceremony will take place at about 11 a.m., following a short parade on Christopher Columbus Boulevard.

Source – http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160423_More_older_workers_are_dying_on_the_job.html

By Jane M. Von Bergen

– At a time when Verizon’s rivals Comcast and RCN Telecom Services are bringing customer-service calls back from overseas, the New York-based telecommunications giant is closing domestic call centers and sending some of the work abroad.

The extent of the movement of calls out of the country is a key bargaining issue in the strike against Verizon, which enters its 10th day Friday.

About 37,000 to 39,000 union members from New England to Virginia walked off the job April 13, with job security as a top priority. The last time the two sides met was Monday, and no new talks are scheduled.

“They are sending 5,000 jobs to the Philippines, India, Mexico,” said Edward Mooney, district vice president of the Communications Workers of America, one of the two unions on strike. “If we couldn’t generate the customer base to employ people, it would be one thing.”

Talking to workers on the picket line last week, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam acknowledged that some of the company’s DSL calls are handled in the Philippines and described it as a small part of the business.

“Let’s talk a little bit about keeping our jobs here,” he told workers near Syracuse. “That’s been very misrepresented.”

Verizon confirms that it has call-center operations in Mexico, India, and the Philippines.

“As a global company, we do have call centers around the world, to support our various lines of business,” spokesman Richard Young said.

Verizon wants to consolidate call centers for operating efficiency and to route calls to centers that can best serve customers when they call, Young said.

“We are a 24-7 business. We have found that many of our employees don’t want to work on holidays and Sundays” or overnight, he said. “They don’t want to be mandated to work overtime.”

Union officials called Young’s comment spin, saying that Verizon workers know they have to work Sundays, holidays, overnight, and overtime. But any forced overtime, they say, is a result of understaffing.

Mooney said Verizon never fulfilled workload promises it made in the 2011 contract that expired in August.

For example, 67 percent of customer sales-related calls generated from Pennsylvania were supposed to come into Pennsylvania call centers, said Julie Daloisio, president of CWA 13500, the local that represents those workers statewide.

Instead, Daloisio said, her workers handle 46 percent of the calls.

In 2011, her bargaining unit had 2,100 members. Now, it has about 900, after many left with buyouts, she said. To handle the volume of calls promised in the 2011 contract, more than 600 people would have to be hired.

“Job security is our Number One goal in this round of bargaining and securing the work that has been shipped out,” Daloisio said.

In New Jersey, only 10 percent of the “trouble” calls for repair and service come through New Jersey call centers, said Robert Speer, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 827, which represents those workers and is also on strike against Verizon.

The rest of the calls go out of state, first to other union centers and then to nonunion contractors in the United States and abroad, Speer said. The 2011 contract had mandated that Local 827 workers would get 53 percent of the calls.

“Who can better service you than someone who lives in the state? They know when storms come through,” he said.

His call centers get some of the best customer-service ratings in the nation because of Verizon’s excellent training, Speer said.

“They are understaffed, sending my calls to the Philippines, India,” he said. “Why not send them to the best in the nation?”

Young, the Verizon spokesman, said numbers are more appropriately argued at the bargaining table.

But, he said, the structure of having calls answered in the state where they are generated is inefficient, dating back to a time when regulators required telephone companies, such as New Jersey Bell or Bell of Pennsylvania, to operate separately.

“We have tried to regionalize,” he said, with a large call center planned for Verizon’s building at Ninth and Race Streets in Philadelphia. “It streamlines training. You can have one expert supporting 20” customer-service operators.

Some call centers have gotten so small, he said, that there’s almost no point in operating them. Seven call centers in the company’s New England-to-Virginia footprint have fewer than six employees, he said; of those, two are in the Allentown area and one in Gloucester County.

Union officials say that is because employment has systematically been scaled back. The number of workers needed to handle even the volume of calls that were part of the last contract would fill Verizon’s existing centers.

Young said offers now on the table would provide for job security for close to 80 percent of the unionized workforce, a good deal in today’s economy.

“Who, in 2016, has lifetime employment contracts?” he asked. “It’s an idea from another era that has come and gone.

Source – http://www.philly.com/philly/business/labor_and_unions/20160422_Sending_call-center_work_overseas_is_a_key_issue_in_Verizon_strike.html

By Jim Saksa

– Philadelphia taxi and limo drivers promised to take “further action” beginning Tuesday unless Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) CEO Rochelle Cameron takes steps to stop ride-hailing companies UberX and Lyft from operating at the airport.

News that Uber started allowing UberX drivers to pick up passengers from the airport was first reported by the Inquirer on Saturday. Through the app, Uber had previously blocked UberX drivers from PHL pickups. Taxis and limos, including limos hailed through UberBlack or UberSUV, pay hourly fees to the airport for the right to pick up passengers there. UberX and Lyft have ignored those fees.

According to a press release jointly issued by the Philadelphia Limousine Association (PLA) and the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania, Lyft started illegal airport pickups last June, whereas UberX began PHL operations last Wednesday. UberX has a larger presence in Philadelphia than its competitor Lyft, said Philadelphia Limousine Association spokesman Ali Razak, making their decision to muscle into airport pickups much more financially damaging to limo and taxi drivers. Razak described limo drivers as “desperate,” saying: “We can’t take it anymore.”

Razak said the taxi and limo drivers would give PHL officials until Tuesday to provide a satisfactory answer to their request, promising “a series of actions,” if the official response was tepid.

In an email, city spokesperson Ajeenah Amir said: “PHL and other city officials are in ongoing discussions with the parties involved. PHL has been informing passengers that state law prohibits ride sharing, and have posted signs on the monitors throughout the airport. Philadelphia Police Department are [sic] also enforcing this state regulation.”

Upon hearing this statement, Razak did not sound impressed. “There is nothing to discuss.”

“Should they discuss and negotiate with other criminals too?” Said Razak. “[City officials] are saying ridesharing is not allowed. We know they are not allowed. Why are [UberX and Lyft] there? Are they more powerful than the law?”

Saying that the city still had all of Tuesday to provide a response more acceptable to the drivers, Razak said that “one of the main actions could be a protest at the airport, a huge protest with taxis and limousines, everyone together.”

This isn’t the first time vague threats have been issued in Philadelphia’s ongoing ride-hailing saga. Back in March, a coalition including the PLA and the Taxi Workers issued ominous threats to take “extraordinary measures” in March unless Mayor Jim Kenney intervened in their dispute with the ride-hailing companies. Kenney ignored that ultimatum, which resulted in some muted protests near city hall. A few weeks later, the PLA—but not the Taxi Workers—promised to strike during the Democratic National Convention in late July.

UberBlack and UberSUV links passengers with limousines that are fully licensed and certified with the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA), which regulates taxis and limos in Philadelphia. UberX and Lyft connect passengers with drivers using their own cars. Access to arrival pickup zones is regulated by Philadelphia International Airport, which is overseen by the city’s Commerce Department.

Razak said that Uber was punishing UberBlack drivers by allowing UberX to operate at the airport. In recent months, UberBlack drivers have fought against their employer over the expansion of UberX in Philadelphia, which the PPA and the Court of Common Pleas have said operates illegally in the city. The PLA opposes a bill currently stymied in Harrisburg to legalize ride-hailing companies throughout Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. Razak also alleged that Uber was manipulating the app to artificially increase the estimated arrival times for UberBlack pickups, compared to UberX. As of Monday afternoon, pickup times at the Airport via the Uber app showed two minute wait estimates for UberBlack and three minute estimates for UberX.

When asked to respond to Razak’s added allegations, a spokesperson for Uber pointed to the wait estimates and also noted that UberBlack drivers get to use the Airport’s specifically designated limo pick up area near baggage claim, whereas UberX drivers need to go somewhat further to the private vehicles pickup area.

When asked whether Lyft had operated at the airport without paying the pickup fees, a spokesperson for Lyft responded by email: “We look forward to working with Philadelphia International Airport staff and are optimistic PHL will join the more than 40 airports across the country who have embraced the benefits ridesharing brings to their passengers.”

Source – http://planphilly.com/articles/2016/04/18/philadelphia-airport-next-arena-for-taxi-fight-against-uberx-lyft

By Associated Press

– United Airlines workers have ratified a set of new contracts that will increase their pay and benefits over the next five years.

Airline and union representatives said Saturday that the vote was “overwhelming” in favor of the contracts, which govern about 30,000 employees including airport workers, security officers and other staffers.

The new pacts will increase pay by about 30 percent over five years, raise pension benefits and halt outsourcing of some union jobs.

United said the agreements follow four months of negotiations and were reached before the old contracts were set to be amended.

Chicago-based United Continental Holdings Inc. recently negotiated separate deals with its pilots and dispatchers. It’s also in talks with flight attendants and technicians.

Source – http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/92891-united-airlines-workers-ratify-new-contracts-