A Million Stories

All the news we care to print.

by Holly Otterbein and Juliana Reyes

Thomas Pitilli

Now it's time for This Week in Harrisburg, our occasional rundown of the drool-on-your-shirt crazy, perpetually backward and possibly corrupt doings of the country's most populous full-time legislature!

The week's big news: Nothing! From now until 2011, your state legislators will be campaigning for the November election, dillydallying during a leadership vote right before Thanksgiving, and probably bathing in lakes of special-interest cash. But they almost certainly won't be passing any more laws.

Why? Because it's mid-October, and the state House and Senate are officially done for the year (unless they have an eventful lame-duck session in November, which is unlikely). Technically, they're in "recess," but since they never work anyway, calling it a "recess" isn't quite accurate, right?

Let's review how much our representatives in Harrisburg are like spoiled, slothful children (hint: a lot): They neglected to impose a tax on the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. Senate Republicans are claiming it's because Democrats in the House lobbied for the highest tax rate in the nation; clearly, then, we shouldn't levy any tax at all on the ever-booming, environment-destroying industry. Meanwhile, Gov. Ed Rendell remains cluelessly optimistic, assuring the commonwealth that meetings about the proposed tax have yielded a "terrific discussion" and made "significant progress."

Oh, but there's more work our state legislature — BTW, one of the best paid in the nation — hasn't finished: Representatives had vowed to create a $4 million independent office to study Pennsylvania's fiscal condition by October; they haven't. The Senate did attach an amendment that would do so to a bill tackling the state's ballooning pension plan — which will go from costing taxpayers $842 million annually to $4.7 billion by 2012, and thus is in dire need of reform. However, the Senate's move guarantees that the bill won't pass, since it likely violates a constitutional provision that keeps two bills from existing in a single piece of legislation.

Also, that bill that would plug a huge gap in transportation funding? It didn't pass, either. Neither did one giving the governor and legislature more control over the Delaware River Port Authority, which is simultaneously rife with corruption and lacking in accountability.

Way to go above and beyond, reps.

Meanwhile, there are a couple bills that are thankfully dead for now, but could very well sprout into half-alive zombies once the spring session begins. First up, the open-records law we told you about a couple weeks ago [A Million Stories, Oct. 7, 2010], which would have restricted access to government contractors' documents and impose fees for merely looking at records, among other things; there wasn't enough House support to pass the bill — which the Senate OK'd unanimously and without debate (fitting) — but who knows what will happen the next go-round. Another bill to keep your eyes on is S.B. 1399, which would ban insurance companies participating in the health care reform act's state exchange program from covering abortions, except in the case of rape, incest or a medical emergency. (Nearly 80 percent of private insurers now cover abortions.) In fact, under the proposed bill, even rape victims must report the crime within 72 hours in order to be covered — a burden that pro-choice advocates say is both unconstitutional and, quite frankly, pretty damn insulting. With right-winger Tom Corbett leading in the governor's race, we have a bad feeling about these two bills.

But hey, wait a minute! These cads are up for election in a couple weeks! Vote accordingly, people. Please?

When we visited the Philadelphia Security Officers Union (PSOU) this spring, its security guards at the Philadelphia Museum of Art were duking it out with their employer, security service giant AlliedBarton, which had appealed the union's election to the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) [A Million Stories, April 15, 2010]. Since then, AlliedBarton — surprise! — appealed again, and lost again.

So now that the union's officially official, we can bring you the next episode in this embittered saga: contract (read: wage) negotiations. AlliedBarton and PSOU managed to play nice over the non-economic issues, but once money came up, things got ugly. For most of the last decade, the guards received a 25-cent raise each year to keep up with inflation — not great, but something. The past two years, however, they've received nothing. So what did AlliedBarton offer the newly minted union? Twenty-five cents an hour.

PSOU had requested a $3.45 an hour raise, to $13.48 an hour, plus some benefit increases. Considering their 1992 hourly wage was $14.64, it's not surprising that the union rejected AlliedBarton's offer. Understandable, perhaps — unless you're AlliedBarton Vice President and Regional Manager James Gorman, who, in a written statement, blasted the union for demanding "a wage increase that seems out of touch with today's economic realities."

Yeah, we get it, there's a recession. Still, in 2005, City Council passed a bill ordering city-supported employers to pay their workers at least 150 percent of the state minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or $10.88 an hour. AlliedBarton guards at the art museum are currently making $10.03 an hour. (We'll give you a second to do the math.) And while there may be legal technicalities that get the Art Museum off the hook, the Art Museum has promised Council that it will abide by those rules, says Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. Since AlliedBarton is a museum subcontractor, Goode says, that promise applies to them, too.

And if the museum doesn't make good? "I can assure you that their level of subsidy will be in jeopardy in the next year," Goode says. (Art Museum officials declined to comment for this story.)

That's nice and all, but PSOU Campaign Director Fabricio Rodriguez says this battle is not just about having friends who can put the screws to your adversaries: "It's a question of empowerment. These guys want to win justice through a negotiation process."

Meanwhile, PSOU continues to grow. Though it lost its election at the Philadelphia Housing Authority's Norman Blumberg Apartments [Naked City, "Target: Carl Greene," Andrew Thompson, Aug. 25, 2010], it won at the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. in early October. And the guards employed by the art museum's two other security companies, Scotland Yard and Roman Sentry, will also soon vote on joining the union.

But, as with AlliedBarton, these companies aren't going down without a fight. According to Rodriguez, Roman Sentry is sending anti-union literature to its employees. (Roman Sentry declined to comment.) What's more, shortly after pro-union organizer Juanita Love spoke at a PSOU rally on the Art Museum steps earlier this month, Roman Sentry fired her for "abandoning her post." Love says her supervisor told her she could leave her station, and anyway, she thinks Roman Sentry is punishing her.

Love wasn't the only union ally who got the ax, Rodriguez says. While Rodriguez believes these terminations violate federal labor law, he can't go running to lawyers right now — there isn't enough time or money. The Roman Sentry union election is Oct. 21.

This week's report by Holly Otterbein and Juliana Reyes. E-mail us at amillionstories@citypaper.net. Get your daily fix of news, sports and commentary on The Clog.