Badges, Budgets and Betrayals 1

The Philadelphia Officers and Workers Rising (POWR) campaign has been building a movement for family-sustaining wages since 2005.

It is a complex story involving SEIU, AFSCME, sub-contracting, Democratic mayors, 9-11 and the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act. If you want to see how the current system of labor law is slanted against the rights of workers and why we need real labor law reform, not just for union but for American workers in general, then this video series is for you!

During the next few weeks, the Philadelphia Security Officers Union will try, against all of the odds, to establish their independent union. This series will document that effort.

Video Journal: Doughnuts to Museum

In early July, a delegation for guards and community supporters tried to deliver a letter to Gail Harrity (CEO of Phila Museum) requesting a meeting. We arrive before 9 to the administration offices of the museum and requested that someone, a secretary, and intern, anyone, from the Ms. Harrity's office come out and take our letter and assure us that it would be given to the President.

A security guard came and told us that he had direct orders to not take our letter.

We came back, hoping to catch Ms Harrity on her way to work and to make sure that others that she worked with knew what we were trying to do. We should up before 9 AM on July 24.

We talked with a bunch of workers as they went in as well as a major donor who was leaving the building after a meeting with the fundraising department. Almost everyone was nice to us even though a couple of the "higher-ups" were scowling at us from inside of the gated parking lot. Shortly after 9 AM a captain of the AlliedBarton guards showed up and told us to leave and we did without incident.

Mr. Scarvo is wrong on EFCA

An article in yesterday's Scranton Times Tribune gives us the perspectives of Mr. Frank Scarvo, a manager for Keystone Automotive.

In Mr. Scarvo's opinion, the binding arbitration provision of the Employee Free Choice Act would harm employees. He also says that the current workplace regulatory agencies are sufficient. It is easy enough to discover with some research or, as many workers have found out through first hand experience, that this is untrue.

Mr. Scavo should know that there are many dirty tricks that employers use when they don't want to deal with the union that their employees worked hard to form and win. Most commonly, they draw out the collective bargaining process with excessive appeals. This unfair practice of forestalling process is hardly uncommon.

In fact, I came across a study on the American Rights at Work website conducted for the U.S Trade Deficit Review Commission. This 2000 study found that 32% of workers who have chosen to from or join a union remain without a union contract a year after having won their election.

Most of all, however, Mr Scavo gives too much credit to the current government regulatory agencies. Also in 2000, my father was refused the right to take lunch at the gold mine where we worked in Juneau, Alaska. He was fired - illegally - for the unspeakable act of taking his lunch in dignity. He used every legal remedy given to a worker with no income. Still, it took the Mine Safety and Health Administration nearly three years to recognize my father's right to take a lunch break in a clean and safe environment.

To deal with the indignities and abuses that innumerable workers face on a daily basis, the most effective means of self-empowerment is a union. The Employee Free Choice Act would give those workers who need change a reasonable option for remedy, a union of their choosing.

PHILA MUSEUM EXHIBITS INDIFFERENCE

CEO Harrity Displays Similar Show As Last Year But There Is New Reason To Be Hopeful

Philadelphia, PA- A delegation of security guards and supporters were turned away from the staff entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art without achieving their goal: delivering a letter to the office of CEO, Gail Harrity.

The delegation included security guards Cecelia Lynch, Juanita Love and Thomas Robinson and supporters; Paul Dannenfelser (President of AFSCME Local 2187), Lance Geren, Esq.(Freedman and Lorry), Fabricio Rodriguez and Eduardo Soriano (Jobs with Justice) and members from the Students for Democratic Society (Robin Markle and Jeff Rousset) and the Student Labor Action Project (Kate Harkins and Amanda Ahlesmeyer).

The small group arrived at the Perelman Annex of the museum at 8:50 a.m. and spoke with the AlliedBarton security guard at the front desk. They were quickly referred to the captain of daytime security.

The captain took the group’s request into Perelman Annex, but returned to announce that Ms. Gail Harrity had left for a meeting a few weeks prior. He offered to accept the letter on her behalf.

“We decided that it was not acceptable to leave the letter with the security captain since the letter concerned the company that he worked for. There were dozens and dozens of people working in the building. We figured that some one could take a minute and accept our letter,” stated Fabricio Rodriguez, Executive Director of Philadelphia Jobs with Justice.
The captain returned into the annex to speak with personnel from the office of Robin Procter, Director of Human Resources. He returned a few minutes later with new instructions from Procter’s office.

“I was ordered to not accept your letter and to tell you to set up an appointment,” said the captain.
The group, which has been requesting a meeting since December 2007, departed a few minutes later.
“We expected to be treated this way,” says Thomas Robinson, Chairman of the Philadelphia Security Officer’s Union.

“Since we expected to be ignored again, another group of Jobs with Justice activists in Cleveland had agreed to make an appearance at Timothy Rub’s office in Cleveland,” states Robinson.

Mr. Rub, the incoming director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and current CEO of the Cleveland Museum of art, oversees a unionized security work force at his institution and will take charge of the Philadelphia museum on September 1st.
At approximately the same time this morning, Debbie Kline and Elizabeth Pangrace of Cleveland Jobs with Justice met with Mr. Rub’s secretary, who assured the activists that the letter would be handed to him as soon as he got out of his meeting.


The Philadelphia activists are committed to reaching out to Mr. Rub, and are hopeful about the possibility of new labor relations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art upon his arrival.

New Museum CEO Rub Welcomed By Philadelphia Security Guards: Guard Union Requests Talks

Philadelphia, PA- A delegation of security guards from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and their supporters in Cleveland, Ohio and Philadelphia, PA plan to hand-deliver a letter to Timothy Rub the newly-named, incoming CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art asking for a dialogue about working conditions.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art named Mr. Rub the new director on June 30.

The Philadelphia Security Officer’s Union began its campaign to organize the security guards at the museum in 2007. The union was able to win paid sick-leave in September of 2008 and is now hoping that Rub will be more open to dialogue that his predecessors.

“We have been reaching out to museum leaders but they have never agreed to meet with us,” states Thomas Robinson, Chairman of the union.

Union members talk about many problems facing security officers at the museum: from unaffordable health care to the lack of training and low-wages, including a recent role back of the expected annual $.25/hour raises.
“I hope that Mr Rub is sympathetic to how unfair it feels to have your raise taken away,” States Jennifer Collazo a union member and guard at the museum.
“The most that we could have gotten with our raise was $520 per year. Mr Rub lost more than that last year” said Collazo, referring to media reports that Mr. Rub had to have his pay reduced by 15% last year from $400,000.
The Philadelphia Security Officer’s Union will be supported by local labor support group Jobs with Justice as well as by the Jobs with Justice affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio.