Union members have been working without a contract since September. PASNAP officials have accused Temple of “bad faith bargaining” and said the strike was over issues including wages, staffing levels and a so-called gag clause that they say prevents union members from speaking publicly about the hospital.
Sandra L. Gomberg, interim executive director and CEO of Temple University Hospital, said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that the medical center has replacement workers for the striking PASNAP members.
Gomberg said the two sides remain far apart on wages.
On Saturday, March 27, the first day of the congressional Easter Recess, President Barack Obama announced the recess appointment of highly controversial SEIU and AFL-CIO lawyer Craig Becker from Washington, D.C. and practicing union lawyer Mark Pearce from Buffalo, N.Y., to be Board Members on the five-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The two recess appointees will join current Chair Wilma Liebman to give the NLRB a three-member Democratic majority of former union-side lawyers. Under a recess appointment, Becker and Pearce will serve until the end of the next session of Congress, that is, until the end of 2011.
The following is an excerpt from Walter P. Palmer, 3rd’s Publisher’s Column in the Winter 2010 Construction Today (R) magazine.
Forward or reverse?
This winter the industry in planning mode. Contractors are preparing to weather 2010, developers are trying to secure funding for projects and unions are working hard to keep people employed. At the GBCA we are planning for the upcoming labor negations. This Association will bargain with the carpenters, laborers, cement masons, operating engineers and rodsetters – whose contracts expire on May 30. Many of the trades including the Electricians, Roofers, the Sheet Metal trades, and the Mechanical contractors all are also preparing to begin the bargaining process in the coming weeks and months.
At a recent Delegate meeting of the Carpenter’s Local Union 623, there was a unanimous vote to freeze the wages at their current rates until April 30, 2011.
The contract will be extended for one year and will expire on April 30, 2013.
There will be a letter from the Council to make this official.
Average earnings for all New York City construction workers dropped an estimated 7% to $63,300 in 2009. That was down from $68,800 in 2008.
New York City’s construction industry generated only 106,500 jobs in January 2010, its worst showing in nearly five years, according to employment data analyzed by the New York Building Congress and released on Thursday.
Construction employment typically dips during the winter months but this year’s dismal showing reflects the moribund state of the industry, as well as the traditional seasonal drop off. There are more than 500 stalled construction projects in the five boroughs, according to the city’s Department of Buildings. That’s clearly weighing on employment. January’s figures fell 12% from the year-ago period and 16% from January 2008. … Read More
KYW is reporting that unionized nurses and allied professionals at Temple Hospital in North Philadelphia are threatening to go on strike at the end of the month.
The approximately 1,500 staffers are ready to walk over two main issues: the price of health care, and what the union calls a “gag rule” the hospital wants to impose on staff and union leaders. The group has been without a contract for almost six months.
Emergency room nurse Rebecca Eakin heads up the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals:
“Nobody who is a registered nurse or is a professional technical ever really wants to go on strike. But we feel that it is important for us to be here, to stand up for our professional lives and to stand up for our patients.”
Hospital spokeswoman Rebecca Harmon says that hospital management is looking for what’s termed a “nondisparagement clause” that would apply only to the union.
As for any strike, she vows the hospital will ”remain open and will continue to deliver uninterrupted quality care to all of our patients.”
A recent decision to move Pennsylvania inmates to other states has editorial boards calling for Pennsylvania policy makers to address the problem of prison overcrowding.
Sentencing mandates and parole policies certainly play a role in causing prisons to be filled beyond capacity, but the General Contractors Association of Pennsylvania believes there is another issue that continues to go unnoticed: The commonwealth has been unnecessarily hampered from increasing the capacity the Department of Corrections so sorely needs.
Spring 2009 was the target for the Pennsylvania Department of General Services to award contracts for six prison construction projects to expand its inmate housing capacity.
It is now March 2010; three projects with a total value of about $35 million have been awarded, and three projects with a value of more than $800 million remain on hold.
While delays happen, and it is easy to blame bureaucracy, DGS is not at fault. The real culprit is the Pennsylvania Separations Act of 1913.
A five-day labor dispute has been settled between a Teamsters’ local and the Philadelphia Regional Produce Market.
Teamsters local 929 president Rocky Bryan said his membership voted 106-30 in favor of the three-year package.
Workers will receive that double-time pay on Sundays until they move into the new, $218-million produce distribution center on Essington Avenue later this year.
On pay, the Teamsters members get a $500 bonus, no wage increase the first year, and 30-cents-per-hour increases in each of the next two years.
Media inquiries please contact Lisa Godlewski at 215-568-7015 or by email at .
LaborLink is published by the General Building Contractors Association, Inc.,
36 South 18th Street, PO Box 15959, Philadelphia, PA 19103. For information about GBCA please visit our Website gbca.com. GBCA is the Philadelphia Builders' Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America. It is a construction trade organization dedicated to skill, integrity and responsibility.
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