By Jason Gottesman

– So-called “paycheck protection” legislation that passed the Senate in October began its way through the House Tuesday as the House State Government Committee sent Senate Bill 501 to the full House along a party-line vote.

According to committee Majority Chairman Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler), the legislation is on track to be considered by the House when they return to session in the first week of February.

The bill—sponsored by Sen. John Eichelberger (R-Blair)—would eliminate the ability of public sector labor unions to automatically deduct political donations from members’ paychecks.

Democrats on the committee unanimously opposed the legislation and expressed a number of procedural and substantive concerns with the legislation.

Speaking to the procedural concerns, Rep. Mike O’Brien (D-Philadelphia) noted members only had about 15 minutes’ notice that the bill would be considered in committee Tuesday and did not have time to review proposed changes to the bill.

“Certainly in the interests of an open and transparent process, I think it’s important that we have time to review this material,” he said before moving to table the bill until after Wednesday’s House floor session.

The motion to table failed along a party-line vote with Rep. Metcalfe noting the committee has had the bill since October and Democrats were able to review the legislation enough to file a number of amendments to it.

Substantively, Democrats on the committee noted that the Commonwealth allows automatic deductions for a number of different things like savings accounts and child support, to insurance payments and pension plans.

Many Democrats on the committee also argued that union members have to choose whether or not to have the contributions deducted from their paycheck and aren’t forced to donate to union political activities.

“This legislation is nothing more than a bold faced attempt at really just going after unions, it has really nothing to do with taxpayer money,” said Rep. Steve McCarter (D-Montgomery). “All of these things are bargained across the table. In effect, what we are really doing here is attacking the collective bargaining process that people have a result of being members of a union.”

Republicans on the committee posited having the Commonwealth involved in collecting what they say amounts to taxpayer dollars that are then used by unions for political purposes that could lead to tax increases is an inherent conflict of interest.

“It has nothing to do with the costs, it’s simply a matter of right and wrong,” said Rep. Dan Truitt (R-Chester). “It’s simply a matter of not having state resources used to collect money that is ultimately used for political purposes.”

While the bill took a step forward Tuesday, its ultimate conclusion might not be so positive.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s office noted shortly after the committee vote that he opposes the bill.

“The governor does not support paycheck protection legislation,” said Gov. Wolf’s press secretary Jeff Sheridan.

Source – http://plsreporter.com/Home/TabId/56/ArtMID/472/ArticleID/1122/%E2%80%9CPaycheck-protection%E2%80%9D-legislation-begins-march-through-House.aspx#.Vqiq01vpVuE.facebook

Philadelphia area RNs say Union YES!

In separate elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board over the past week, registered nurses at two area hospitals voted to become members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals. RNs at Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill voted 164-130 on January 16th to join the union. Four days later, RNs at Hahnemann University Hospital in Center City held their vote. Hahnemann presented their nurses with an unusual anti-union tactic that got national attention, but didn’t dampen the RNs’ spirits for standing up for themselves and their patients — they voted 516-117 to join PASNAP. The two votes will bring union representation to over 1,200 RNs, and the momentum is still building — the 450 RNs at St Christopher’s Children’s Hospital, which like Hahnemann is owned by national hospital chain Tenet Healthcare, will vote soon in their own NLRB representation election. Welcome to the union, brothers and sisters — roll the union on!

A look back at the first year of the Raising Wages campaign

The AFL-CIO held its first Raising Wages Summit a year ago. The summit was designed to bring together the many activists and organizations across the country who had been fighting to raise living standards for working people and close the wealth and income gap that has grown so much in the past decade. The first year saw notable successes, including Philadelphia’s recent passage of a law to step up enforcement of strictures against wage theft. The AFL-CIO’s summary of the first year of the Raising Wages campaign includes a link to their full, downloadable report. We’ve made great strides but there is so much left to do. As President Trumka said, “In the year ahead, we will continue to push for a comprehensive economic agenda that puts working people first. Raising wages is not a hobby, it is our mission.”

Celebrate grassroots organizing with the Media Mobilizing Project on Friday, January 29th

On Friday, January 29th, join the Media Mobilizing Project for their 10th Annual Community Building Dinner and for the premiere of their film Groundwork – Justice in the Birthplace of America, a portrait of five Philadelphians fighting at the grassroots level to win justice for their communities. Check out the Facebook event page for all the details of this great evening with MMP.

Media Mobilizing Project 10th Annual Community Building Dinner

Friday January 29th, 6:00 – 9:00 PM

University of the Arts, Hamilton Hall, 320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia

Thank you to the men and women who will keep us safe this weekend during Winter Storm Jonas

As the Northeast braces for Winter Storm Jonas, we say “Thank you!” to all the men and women who will keep working this weekend in the service of keeping our roads clear, our hospitals staffed, our emergency services on call and on the job, our stores open, and our utilities and public services in good repair. Your dedication and hard work represents the best of what organized labor stands for!

Source – http://www.pa.aflcio.org/philaflcio/index.cfm?action=article&articleID=FE4B0CC8-C0E1-4A43-9BBD-A1234648EF7B

Attention: All Interested Individuals,

– If you are unemployed, laid-off, looking for your first job, or simply want to advance or change your career, this is the right place to start.  Check out the resources located on this site, to find out more about Philadelphia job openings, job training programs, career trends. Visit a PA CareerLink® center near you. All services are free to Philadelphia residents.

Source – http://www.philaworks.org/

By Richard Freeman, Eunice Han, Brendan Duke, David Madland

– Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association—a case that could further erode union coverage. Now, new economic research from the Center for American Progress strongly suggests that one-third of the decline in the share of middle class workers is directly tied to the decreasing share of workers in unions.

The analysis breaks down the falling share of middle-class workers into three factors associated with unions—the decline in the share of workers in unions, known as union coverage; a decline in the share of union workers who are middle class relative to nonunion workers, known as the union equality effect; and the interaction between the decline in union coverage and the union equality effect. By using an economic technique known as a shift-share decomposition, the research finds a decline in union coverage accounting for 35 percent of the falling share of middle-class workers and that the combination of the shrinking share of union workers and the reduction in the union equality effect explains almost half of the decline in middle-class workers.

The United States has long called itself a middle-class nation. But that statement is less true today than it was 30 years ago.

The most widely used barometer of the financial health of the middle class—real median household income as published by the U.S. Census Bureau—has barely grown over the last thirty years. At the same time, the middle class has been hollowed out as incomes have polarized, with more households at the top and the bottom and fewer in the middle of the income distribution. A recent report by the Pew Research Center showed that the share of adults in the middle class—defined as adults whose households make between 67 percent and 200 percent of median U.S. income—fell from 61 percent in 1971 to just 50 percent in 2014.

Unsurprisingly, the same trends of slow growth and rapid polarization are also found in the main source of middle-class income: wage and salary earnings. Median weekly earnings of full-time workers grew 18 percent between 1984 and 2014 despite a 79 percent increase in labor productivity in the United States. As with the income distribution, the earnings distribution has polarized: the share of full-time workers who make between 67 percent and 200 percent of median U.S. earnings fell from 68 percent in 1984 to 60 percent in 2014.

This report examines the role that the decline of labor unions over the past 30 years has played in the hollowing out of the U.S. earnings distribution. We* expect that the decline of unions has reduced the share of middle-class workers because union workers are more likely to be middle class than nonunion workers. Unions represent workers in the middle of the income distribution, which raises the earnings of workers who would otherwise fall below the middle-class threshold. We call the higher share of union workers among middle-class workers the union equality effect.

In this report, we use a technique—known as a shift-share decomposition—that breaks down the falling share of middle-class workers into three factors associated with unionism:

• The first part is due to the decline in union coverage, namely the fact that when a smaller share of workers are in unions, fewer workers benefit from the union equality effect.
• The second part is due to a decline in the union equality effect. As earnings have polarized over the past 30 years, the middle-class share of union workers fell from 83 percent to 72 percent, which is more than the decrease in the share of nonunion workers in the middle class. This reduces the union equality effect.
• The third part is associated with the interaction between the decline in union coverage and the union equality effect.

The decomposition leaves a residual part with no direct connection to unionism that is instead due to the decline in the middle-class share of nonunion workers.

Our main findings are that the decline in union coverage accounts for 35 percent of the falling share of middle-class workers and that the combination of the shrinking share of union workers and the reduction in the union equality effect explains almost half of the decline in middle-class workers. To the extent that union-induced wage increases spill over from union to nonunion workers and that union advocacy produces economic and social policies that benefit the middle class, our results understate the impact of the weakening labor movement on the hollowing out of the U.S. middle class.

Source – https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2016/01/13/128366/what-do-unions-do-for-the-middle-class/