Austerity, budget crisis, GOP, trade unions, unemployment

Will Pennsylvania Take North Carolina’s Austerity Path?

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PA House GOP Budget Will Kill Jobs And Slow Economic Growth

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO

Beaver County Blue via Phillylabor.com

The state legislature will convene on Monday, June 3rd to begin crafting a final 2013-2014 budget. We need to make sure that the state budget supports all working families in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is facing a $500 million deficit. We rank 49th in the nation in job creation, which is reflected by our high unemployment rate. Governor Corbett has cut state funding by $1 billion to our school districts since he took office in 2011, while giving a $1 billion tax break to businesses. In February, Governor Corbett proposed yet another budget that is not in Pennsylvania’s best interest, making even more cuts in education and other areas necessary to keep our great state running. Corbett’s budget continues the phase out of the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax (CSFT), costing taxpayers approximately $365 million a year, and fails to expand Medicaid, which would insure half a million hard-working, low income Pennsylvanians at very little cost to the State.

On Wednesday, May 29, House Republican leaders introduced a 2013-2014 budget that is $100 million less than Governor Corbett’s budget that he proposed in February.

Continue reading Will Pennsylvania Take North Carolina’s Austerity Path? →

elections

Arrests Escalate at 6th Week of Protest at NC Legislature

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More than 150 arrested at NC legislature during Monday protests

Published: June 3, 2013 Updated 5 hours ago

A demonstrator is arrested for an act of civil disobedience inside the Legislative Building on Monday, June 3, 2013. The sixth in a series of protests led to the arrest of 151 people, the largest mass arrest since the N.C. NAACP began organizing the weekly civil disobedience events in April.

By John Frank — jfrank@newsobserver.com

RALEIGH — Jennifer Ferrell stopped so her husband could take her picture. Then she waved goodbye to her 3-year-old twins and marched into the Legislative Building to get handcuffed.

“I’m excited. I’m not nervous,” the 34-year-old Raleigh resident said as she walked in a line of demonstrators. “I’m passionate. I’m not crazy.”

For weeks now, Ferrell heard about protesters getting arrested at the statehouse to demonstrate against the Republican majority’s legislative agenda. And like many Monday, she felt compelled to add her voice to the chants and her wrists to the handcuffs. “I knew it was time to stop watching and do it myself,” she said.

Authorities arrested 151 people in the rotunda between the legislative chambers during the latest “Moral Monday” protest – the largest mass arrest since the N.C. NAACP began organizing the weekly civil disobedience events in late April.

The number is nearly the equivalent to the arrests at the four prior protests combined and brings the total above 300 this session.

The crowd of spectators also exploded, with hundreds rallying on the mall outside the legislative building, listening to speakers condemn Republican legislative leaders. “That’s extreme,” shouted the Rev. William Barber, the N.C. NAACP president, into a loud speaker as he listed legislation Republicans have approved this year. “That’s immoral, and we must stand up and wake up right here, right now.”

Police estimated the crowd at 1,000 – about five times more than the last protest – but organizers counted 1,600.

Continue reading Arrests Escalate at 6th Week of Protest at NC Legislature →

elections

New Hampshire AFL-CIO Endorses HR 676

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Author of Medicare for All Rep. John Conyers (D)
Author of Medicare for All Rep. John Conyers (D)

New Hampshire AFL-CIO Endorses HR 676

“On Saturday, May 4th the New Hampshire AFL-CIO unanimously passed a
resolution supporting HR 676 and the adoption of a national single payer
health care system that covers all Americans for all necessary medical
care including prescription drugs and dental,” reported President Mark
MacKenzie.

New Hampshire is the 42nd State AFL-CIO Federation to endorse HR 676,
Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, sponsored by Congressman John
Conyers (D-MI).

“HR 676 will save hundreds of billions of dollars by eliminating the
private health insurance industry with its high overhead and profits,”
said MacKenzie.

“As President of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO I am proud to have our members
actively participate in the movement to win passage of HR 676 and to make
health care a human right.”

On May 21, 2013, HR 676 gained another co-sponsor in Congress with the
addition of Danny Davis (IL-7). HR 676 now has 42 co-sponsors.

Continue reading New Hampshire AFL-CIO Endorses HR 676 →

elections

Labor Endorsed Candidates Advance in PA Primary

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Labor Wins On Primary Day

The Labor Movement across Pennsylvania flexed its muscle on primary election day, propelling many of our endorsed candidates to victory.  In municipal, school board, and judicial races, and in two special elections for state house, it was a good day for working families, and for the candidates who support us.

“Elections have consequences;” said Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale.  “After seeing the consequences of recent election cycles, labor members and a majority of voters from across the Commonwealth stood together yesterday in so many of these elections, and delivered victories for Pennsylvania’s workers.”

In the special election for House District 42, Dan Miller (D – Allegheny) won a commanding 20-point victory over his opponent to fill the seat of newly elected State Senator Matt Smith.   Kevin Schreiber (D – York), running in the 95th House District to replace Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, also won on Tuesday by an impressive 15-point margin.

“The voters in HD 42 and HD 95 spoke loud and clear, in what will become a referendum opposing the failed policies of the Corbett Administration, in favor of a pro-worker, pro-community agenda;”  added Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Frank Snyder.  “The PA AFL-CIO would like to give special credit to the Allegheny and York / Adams Central Labor Councils, who spearheaded these Special Elections through their early recommendations and affiliate-field mobilization.”

Central Labor Council bodies from across the Commonwealth also endorsed in many local elections, and worked hard to propel their candidates to victory.

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elections

PA DEP Forced to Reveal Drilling Damage in 161 PA Water Supplies

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Dimock, Pa. resident Craig Sautner shows off his water.
Dimock, Pa. resident Craig Sautner shows off his water.

Oil, gas drilling damage in 161 Pa. water supplies

SCRANTON (AP) — Oil and gas development damaged the water supplies of at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and businesses between 2008 and the fall of 2012, according to state records obtained by a newspaper.

The (Scranton) Times-Tribune first requested the records in late 2011 under the Right to Know law, but the Department of Environmental Protection mounted legal challenges and didn’t release the records until late last year.

The Times-Tribune analyzed nearly 1,000 letters and enforcement orders written by DEP officials. The determination letters are sent to water supply owners who complained that drilling activities polluted or diminished the flow of water to their wells.

About 17 percent of the investigations across the five-year period found that oil and gas activity disrupted water supplies either temporarily or seriously enough to require companies to replace the source. According to the letters, faulty wells channeled natural gas into the water supplies for 90 properties. Three of those cases were tied to old wells, one of which caused an explosion at a home after gas entered through a floor drain and accumulated in a basement.

The department repeatedly argued in court filings that it does not count how many determination letters it issues or track where they are kept in its files. The DEP has also fought efforts by The Associated Press and other news organizations to obtain similar records.

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elections

Labor Unions to Oppose Obama Nominee for Commerce Secretary

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EXCLUSIVE: Organized labor to oppose President Obama’s nomination of Penny Pritzker for commerce secretary

National hotel workers union upset with Pritzker for labor practices at Hyatt Hotels, the source of her family’s fortune

By / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Monday, May 20, 2013, 1:22 PM
Updated: Monday, May 20, 2013, 1:57 PM

ObamaPritzkerChip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Obama’ with his nominee for commerce secretary, Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker, at the White House earlier this month. A major union announced Monday that it will oppose her nomination.

Organized labor will break its silence and oppose President Obama‘s nominee for Commerce Secretary, Chicago’s Penny Pritzker, the Daily News has learned.

The decision stems from long-standing grievances with labor practices at the Hyatt Hotels chain, a source of her family’s fortune, and despite earlier reports that unions would not raise objections to the nomination.

Donald “D” Taylor, president of the 270,000-member union of hotel and restaurant workers known as UNITE HERE, confirmed the move to The News on Monday. His opposition was spurred by his just learning that the Senate Commerce Committee was moving up its confirmation hearing for Pritzker.

The union had been led to understand that hearing would take place perhaps well after the Memorial Day weekend. But the surprise decision to move up the hearing forced the union’s hand.

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Cooperatives, Economy, Green Jobs, Steelworkers

‘Clean and Green’ Industrial Laundry Comes to Pittsburgh as a Worker Cooperative

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By CUNY CED

Pittsburgh, PA is the home of a new worker cooperative, the ‘Clean and Green Laundry.’  The industrial-scale cleaning firm was brought into being by a joint effort of the United Steel Workers and the City University of New York School of Law’s Community Economic Development (CED) Clinic, both of whom are in a new partnership with the Mondragon Cooperatives, the largest worker-owned cooperative in the world, located in Spain.

Under the new partnership, the CED Clinic, in collaboration with Pennsylvania-based Regional Housing Legal Services, will help launch the job-creating effort, an eco-friendly laundry based on Mondragon’s cooperative model.

Pittsburgh Clean & Green aims to re-employ 100 primarily minority laundry workers, who were laid off when their Sodexho Corporation laundry closed. They will work in a new state-of-the-art facility in Pittsburgh’s Central District.

 

Photo: Industrial laundry similar to ‘Clean & Green’

CUNY’s CED Clinic will provide legal support for a new model of unionized worker cooperatives—called “union coops”—recently launched by Mondragon, the United Steelworkers union (USW), and the Ohio Employment Ownership Center (OEOC).

“Union coops can create well-paying, democratically run workplaces in communities hard hit by the economic recession,” explains Carmen Huertas-Noble, associate professor and director of the CED Clinic. “The union component of the model provides front line worker-owners with the security of a collective bargaining agreement and leverages the organizational expertise and economic power of the labor movement.”

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elections

“Right to Vote” Constitutional Amendment Introduced

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Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chair Congressional Progressive Caucus
Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chair Congressional Progressive Caucus

Representatives Pocan and Ellison Introduce “Right to Vote” Constitutional Amendment

Saturday, 18 May 2013 11:25 By Brendan Fischer, PRWatch | Report

“The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected,” wrote Thomas Paine in 1795.

Yet contrary to popular belief, there is no affirmative right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. This gap in our founding document has provided an opening for the wave of voter suppression measures that swept the country in recent years, and before that, the poll taxes and Jim Crow restrictions that disenfranchised millions. This week, two Congressmen — both from states at the epicenter of today’s voting rights struggles — are seeking to fix that.

“The right to vote is too important to be left unprotected,” said Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, who is co-sponsoring an amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote.

“Even though the right to vote is the most-mentioned right in the Constitution,” added Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the bill’s other sponsor, “legislatures across the country have been trying to deny that right to millions of Americans, including in my home state of Minnesota. It’s time we made it clear once and for all: every citizen in the United States has a fundamental right to vote.”

U.S. Constitution Does Not Protect Voting Rights

Under the U.S. Constitution, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments ensure the vote cannot be denied on the basis of race, the Nineteenth prohibits discrimination based on gender, the Twenty-fourth outlaws the poll tax, and the Twenty-sixth Amendment extends voting to age 18. When the U.S. Constitution was ratified, the franchise was limited to white, property-owning men, and these amendments have edged the document closer to its democratic aspirations.

But beyond those amendments — and a few federal statutes, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which might be neutered by the Supreme Court this term — the right to vote is mostly a matter of state law. And states in recent years have hardly been careful about protecting access to the ballot box.

After Republicans gained new statehouse majorities in the 2010 elections, a majority of states introduced proposals to enact restrictions on the right to vote. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 25 laws and 2 executive actions passed in 19 states between 2011 and 2012 to impose strict ID restrictions, or shorten early voting, or limit registration drives, among other measures. More restrictive bills have been proposed in 2013.

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