PHILADELPHIA–“After years of taking programs and services away from the children at Jay Cooke and Huey Elementary schools, the District has decided to give these schools to charter school companies rather than make the investment necessary to fix them.

“Since 2011, Cooke and Huey have lost teachers, counselors and other staff; and have endured deep cuts to funding for extracurricular activities, books and materials. As is the case with schools across Philadelphia, the District has made matters worse by failing to fill teacher vacancies, and paying Source4Teachers millions for not providing substitutes.

By Ian Millhiser

– WASHINGTON, DC — Let’s not beat around the bush.

– Public sector unions just had a simply terrible day in the Supreme Court on Monday. Justice Antonin Scalia, the justice who seemed most inclined to agree with them prior to oral argument, took a hard turn against them within just a few minutes of argument. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is normally this closest thing this Court has to a swing voter, appeared to grow increasingly angry with the unions as the argument proceeded. Plus the Supreme Court has already dropped two big hints that it’s ready to cut of a major source of funding for public sector unions. Oral arguments cannot always predict the outcome of the case — just ask the millions of Americans who are now insured because of Obamacare — but if they offer any predictive value, a lot of unions are very frightened right now.

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association involves what are alternatively referred to as “agency fees” or “fair share fees,” which unions charge non-members to recoup the cost of services performed for those non-members. As ThinkProgress previously explained,

Unions are required by law to bargain on behalf of every worker in a unionized shop, even if those workers opt not to join the union. As such, non-members receive the same higher wages (one study found that workers in unionized shops enjoy a wage premium of nearly 12 percent) and benefits enjoyed by their coworkers who belong to the union.

Absent something else, this arrangement would create a free-rider problem, because individual workers have little incentive to join the union if they know they will get all the benefits of unionizing regardless of whether they reimburse the union for its costs. Eventually, unions risk becoming starved for funds and collapsing, causing the workers once represented by a union to lose the benefits of collective bargaining.

To prevent this free-rider problem, union contracts often include a provision requiring non-members to pay agency fees.

In essence, these fees exist to ensure that non-members do not get something for nothing. Instead, they require the non-members to pay their share of the costs of obtaining the benefits of unionization.

The plaintiffs in Friedrichs argue that such fees violate the First Amendment, at least with respect to public sector unions. As a general rule, the First Amendment does not permit the government to compel someone to say something they disagree with, and the plaintiffs claim that requiring non-union members to subsidize collective bargaining by a union that they may not agree with essentially rises to the level of compelled speech.

Were this a case where the government actually required private citizens to subsidize the union’s bargaining, the plaintiffs may have a point. The First Amendment is strongest when government uses its power as “sovereign” to compel individual action. It is much weaker, however, when the government only seeks to manage its own employees. As Justice Kennedy explained in his opinion for the Court in Garcetti v. Ceballos, “government employers, like private employers, need a significant degree of control over their employees’ words and actions; without it, there would be little chance for the efficient provision of public services.”

Yet, whatever force Kennedy’s words may have in the abstract, it quickly becomes clear during oral arguments in Friedrich that they have not convinced Justice Kennedy. Shortly after Edward DuMont, the Solicitor General of California who is one of three attorneys arguing in favor of agency fees, takes the podium, Kennedy launches into a monologue about how many teachers disagree with the position taken by their union. When David Frederick, another lawyer defending the fees, points to Kennedy’s opinion in Garcetti, Kennedy appears to grow angry at the suggestion that his prior opinion controls this case. In perhaps the most ominous sign for unions, Kennedy also drops the words “compelling interest” in a brief quip about what the state must demonstrate in order to justify entering into an agreement that provides for agency fees.

Those two words are one prong of a test known as “strict scrutiny,” the most skeptical test the Supreme Court applies under the Constitution. When a justice tells you that you have a burden to demonstrate a compelling interest, they are typically telling you that you should lose your case.

Before Monday’s argument, unions had some hope that conservative Justice Scalia might cross over and give them the fifth vote they need to preserve agency fee agreements (all four of the Court’s more liberal members appeared all but certain to vote to uphold such agreements). During oral arguments on the Court’s 2014 decision in Harris v. Quinn, a closely related case that expressed deep skepticism of agency fees, Scalia asked some questions which suggested that he was concerned that the legal argument against agency fees goes too far. That Justice Scalia, however, did not show up in Court on Monday. The one that did show up compared agency fee agreements to a law compelling people to subsidize the Republican Party.

Lest there be any doubt, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also appeared firmly against agency fees. At one point, Roberts suggested that any bargaining position taken by a union that would cost the state any money at all is a matter of public concern subject to rigid First Amendment review. Justice Clarence Thomas was, as usual, silent. Although it is very unlikely that the Court’s most conservative member will side with the unions.

That leaves the plaintiffs with what appear to be five clear votes giving them the right to get something for nothing.

Source – http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/11/3738048/public-sector-unions-just-got-brutalized-in-the-supreme-court/

By The PhillyPublic Record

– The Democratic National Convention Committee has qualified 26 hotels as sites for its approximately 6,000 delegates and alternates participating in Convention week activities at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia Jul. 25-28. Fifty-seven state delegations will fill hotel rooms in the city and at Valley Forge.

“The delegates do the work of the Convention and are our most important guests,” said Rev. Leah D. Daughtry, CEO of the DNCC. “We worked very hard to ensure that the majority of state delegations secured one of their top three hotel choices. Philadelphia is an excellent city for a Convention and it has a great array of top-notch hotel properties which will serve the delegates well next July.”

State delegations use their hotels as a base of operations during the convention week. Each delegation begins its day by hosting breakfast at their respective hotels to preview the day’s Convention activities. In addition, delegates use their hotels to host receptions and conduct official business, including meetings and press conferences.

The DNCC and the hotels will ensure that delegates have convenient access to the Wells Fargo Center during the Convention hours through the DNCC’s transportation system.

Source – http://www.phillyrecord.com/2016/01/pols-onthe-street-mayor-council-relationship-could-be-boon-in-kenney-administration/

By James Jennings

– Griffin Campbell and Sean Benschop were sentenced to 15 to 30 years and 7 1/2 to 15 years in prison, respectively.

Contractors Griffin Campbell, 51, and Sean Benschop, 44, were both sentenced to long prisons terms following their convictions in a building collapse that killed six people inside the adjacent Salavation Army at 22nd and Market streets on June 5, 2013.

Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn Bronson sentenced Campbell, the demolition contractor overseeing the job, 15 to 30 years in prison. Benschop, the operator of the excavator at the site when the unsupported wall at former Hoagie City at 2136-38 Market Street toppled onto the neighboring building, was sentenced to 7 1/2 to 15 years.

Campbell was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, 13 counts of recklessly endangering another person, one count of causing a catastrophe and one count of aggravated assault. Benschop pleaded guilty to six counts of involuntary manslaughter and the additional charges of aggravated assault, conspiracy, causing a catastrophe and thirteen counts of reckless endangerment.

District Attorney Seth Williams issued the following statement regarding today’s sentencing:

“I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and grief Mr. Campbell and Mr. Benshop caused the friends and families of those who lost their lives, and those who were injured, when the Market Street Salvation Army Building was crushed by a four-story, unsupported masonry wall in June of 2013. The Assistant District Attorneys who prosecuted this case and me hope that today’s sentences make clear the need for safe demolitions in our city and, most importantly, it helps to bring closure to the victims’ loved ones who are still dealing with this tragedy.”

Six people – Juanita Harmon, Roseline Conteh, Mary Simpson, Kimberly Finnegan, Anne Bryan and Borbor Davis – were killed during the collapse, with 13 more people injured the tragic incident.

The District Attorney’s office sought a 25-to-50 year sentence for Campbell, who, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, is planning to appeal.

The deteriorating building was owned by Richard Basciano, who was not criminally charged. He is named as one of the defendants in a civil suit relating to the collapse, along with Campbell, Benschop, Plato A. Marinakos Jr. — the demolition architect for the project who was granted immunity for his testimony against Campbell and Basciano — and others.

Source – http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/01/08/prison-time-for-contractors-convicted-in-deadly-building-collapse/

BY Shaun Richman

– The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was a bad bill, and it is deader than dead. It is time for labor to propose a comprehensive set of amendments to the nation’s primary collective bargaining law, the National Labor Relations Act.

EFCA would have guaranteed a union’s right to a first contract, imposed punitive fines on employers that break the law and certified new union bargaining units by card check. EFCA was labor’s stalking horse for years before it effectively died when the Tea Party congress took office in 2011. It was our primary way of articulating to allies and legislators how the law stacks the deck in favor of the boss. It was our main vision for reform, membership growth and power.

Our allies look to the unions for our plan to restore workers rights in this country. If we don’t propose a new workers law, they will continue to flog the dead horse of EFCA.

The problem with EFCA was that it was too narrowly conceived and the card check proposal was a blunder. Industry pounced on it, waging a high-priced media campaign decrying how un-American it was that unions wanted to do away with the supposed sanctity of the secret ballot in certification elections. Nevermind the fact that such elections are a farce that would make Vladimir Putin blush; that the boss gets to draw up the voter list and watches every employee walk into the voting booth after having spent months threatening their jobs if they vote against his wishes and just generally scaring the shit out of people. (Although, having written that, it occurs to me that I’ve described a very American way of conducting an election. But I digress.)

The media onslaught had the effect of temporarily degrading public opinion of unions, and Obama did not prioritize the bill during the two years when his party controlled Congress. But Obama’s indifference did labor the favor of sparing us the humiliation of not gaining significantly more new members had EFCA passed.

I’ve organized under public sector card check systems, as well as under private card check agreements. It’s nice. It’s also more democratic. But, at best, card check helps workers who already want a union and who are already working with a union’s organizing department to possibly side step some of the worst parts of a boss fight. Creating the conditions for the great upsurge in union membership that this country badly needs will require more than a narrow tweak of the law.

But narrow tweaks are all that labor seems to put forward. In the Clinton years, unions merely sought a ban on the permanent replacement of strikers. Like Obama, Clinton failed to prioritize labor law while he had a congress he could work with. Today, the closest thing that unions have to a proposal for labor law reform is actually an amendment to federal civil rights statute. Richard Kahlenberg and Moishe Marvit’s proposal to make union organizing a civil right is a tacit admission that the labor act is just too difficult to amend. It is.

For 30 years after the passage of the 1947 anti-union amendments to the labor act, full repeal of Taft-Hartley was labor’s main legislative goal. George Meany’s AFL-CIO campaigned—unsuccessfully—for repeal like a special interest. There was little recognition from the broader progressive movement that Taft-Hartley—which carved workers out of coverage, restricted unions’ ability to engage in solidarity job actions and legalized “right to work”—was designed to kill the labor movement and had, in fact, kicked off the long, slow decline that are we still experiencing.

Our new reform proposal should aim to undo the worst of Taft-Hartley.

There will be no significant labor law reform for many years. Washington will remain gridlocked, and even if the Democrats did control all branches of government, they won’t move on our bill without a huge amount of pressure. This sad political fact should liberate us to propose a sweeping bill that gets at the heart of what constitutes economic power and civil rights. We should emphasize reform proposals that demonstrate how corporations want one set of rules for working people and another one for themselves. Here are some ideas for how to do just that.

Equal time. Why do bosses get to force employees to sit through mandatory anti-union presentations where lies by omission and outright lies are presented with no debate or challenge? The original Labor Relations Act declared it the policy of the United States to encourage collective bargaining, and to restrain employer interference with workers’ organizing rights. The concept of neutrality was inherent in the law. Employers successfully argued that it was unconstitutional for the government to prevent them from saying anything at all about their opinions on unionization. Employers now use their constitutionally protected dog-whistle speech to terrorize employees out of wanting a union. (Riddle: When is a threat that you will lose your job if you vote for a union not a threat? When it is phrased as a prediction of what might happen if a union forms and the company becomes “uncompetitive!”)

Fine, you have a right to free speech. But what right do you have to make your employees attend a “debate” where only the representatives of the “no” option can speak? An equal time provision for mandatory discussions of unionization, that made the non-invitation or non-attendance of a “yes” representative an unfair labor practice could serve to end the practice of captive audience meetings altogether. Regardless, think of the fun of making Rick Berman or the Chamber of Commerce defend the propriety of a restricted, one-sided “debate.”

Financial penalties. Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the fine. Seems perfectly reasonable, right? Unfortunately, the NLRB is limited to remedies that “make whole” an employee who is fired for union activity. Worse than that, technically the Board is supposed to subtract any unemployment insurance or other wages made in the interim from a back pay award. So, if an employer fires a union leader on the eve of a union election, his only punishment is to pay what he would have paid anyway minus whatever the employee was able to scrape together while waiting to get her job back.

Obviously, this incentivizes employee terminations during an organizing campaign, as the fine is far cheaper than bargaining wages and benefits increases for all the workers. EFCA contained a provision for real fines against employers who fire union activists, but that didn’t get enough attention over all the noise about card check. This provision should be a focus of future legislative efforts. There is no shortage of workers who can testify about how horribly they were treated by union-busting employers, and these stories must be told.

But why limit fines to cases of termination? Any violation of the act, particularly egregious on-going violations, should face a potential remedy of fines. The NLRB would be entirely self-funded if it could impose fines for the rampant violations of the act that employers commit. Hell, it could be an income generator for the entire federal government. And what would employers’ argument against financial penalties for breaking the law be? It couldn’t be anything more sophisticated than “we just think we shouldn’t have to take this law seriously.”

Organizing rights for supervisors. The idea that supervisors are not workers and don’t belong in a union is an ideology that was foisted upon us by Taft-Hartley. The prohibition on organizing rights for supervisors was inserted into the law at the request of the auto manufacturers who were deeply disturbed that their foremen had begun to form unions of their own after WWII. First-line supervisors are rarely given enough decision-making authority to be an actual boss and, prior to 1947, unions counted them as members (still do in some public sector units, and contracts where the boss agrees to look the other way).

These days, the questionable “supervisory status” of certain workers is used to force hearings that delay union elections and tie unions up in knots over concerns that “supervisory taint” of union activists ruled out of the unit could cause a successful union election to be over-turned. The bloat of middle management is one of the major inefficiencies in the U.S. economy – and union avoidance is a primary culprit. Give supervisors organizing rights. Give the workers that they nominally supervise a vote on whether they would be in the same bargaining unit or not.

Restore solidarity rights. Taft-Hartley placed severe limits on unions’ ability to engage in what, in mid-century shoptalk, is referred to as “secondary boycotts” or “hot cargo agreements,” but which the layman might simply understand as solidarity activism. Imagine a world where Yuengling busted their union (you live in that world; the year was 2007). Shouldn’t members of the UFCW have the freedom to refuse to touch that scabby piss-water and keep it off the shelves of your local grocery store? Now, imagine that workers at a Chinese sneaker factory go on strike. Shouldn’t members of the ILWU be free to refuse to help unload those dirty goods from the shipping containers, and Teamsters free to refuse to put them on their trailers? Before 1947: sure. Now: totally illegal.

Imagine the power we would have if workers could actually support each other’s organizing efforts across industries, and if companies who profit from the exploitation of “secondary” employers were brought to account for their complicity. Here’s the kicker: American consumers are subjected to secondary boycotts all the time! Usually it’s in the form of a cable company cutting off its subscribers’ access to a cable sports channel in a pay dispute. If the American people can understand and tolerate the one kind of “secondary” boycott, then they surely could tolerate the kind that’s actually in their economic interest. Alternatively, it should all be made illegal, and all cable companies should be compelled to carry every conceivable cable channel on their network for all consumers at all times.

Ban “right to work.” The Taft-Hartley amendment allowed states to pass so-called “right to work” laws that prohibit unions from negotiating an agency fee in shops where they are compelled to represent everyone. Initially, only the former slave states passed such laws. The Republican governors in states like Wisconsin and Michigan who have recently rushed these attacks on unions through their Republican legislatures have revealed the RTW agenda to be a nakedly partisan act. They’ve done us the favor of creating an opening for a serious proposal that union rights should be the law of the land and not the plaything of ALEC. It is time to ban “tight to work.”

The AFL-CIO should initiate a broad debate on what the “workers’ law” of the 21st century should look like, and all involved in the endeavor should shun cute or simple solutions. We’re gonna be out in the wilderness, politically speaking, for a while. Let’s not domesticate our demands for restored rights and powers too easily.

Source – http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18624/Labor_Collective_Bargainging_Employee_Free_Choice_Act_AFL-CIO