Afscme

Earl Stout, head of the city's blue-collar union, has displayed a "disturbing pattern" of disregard for the union's bylaws, a union judicial panel from Washington has concluded. In a 20-page ruling made available to The Inquirer yesterday, a three- member panel from the international headquarters of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said that Stout violated union rules in a failed effort to engineer the election of a candidate to the city's pension board last spring.

Philadelphia's largest municipal union will press ahead with a federal lawsuit charging the city government with sex-based wage discrimination, because private negotiations to drop the suit have collapsed, a lawyer for the union said yesterday. The class-action suit, filed in December in U.S. District Court, alleges that the city is illegally paying women less than men for jobs that require equivalent skills, training and responsibility. It seeks millions of dollars in back pay for about 4,000 city workers.

In an unusual move, senior union officials from Washington will supervise and run the May 10 election of officers for the largest union of city employees. The international headquarters of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees yesterday sent telegrams to District Council 33 officials and candidates for office advising them of the international's decision to supervise the election. The decision comes a week after District Council 33 delegates voted to ask the international to run the election, in which president Earl Stout is seeking to retain his office against challenger James Sutton.

Earl Stout, the controversial boss of the city's blue-collar union, violated the union's bylaws in an unsuccessful bid to consolidate his power last spring, a union judicial panel from Washington has determined. In a 19-page opinion, a three-member panel from the international headquarters of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees concluded that Stout tried to engineer a change in the District Council 33 constitution to give himself many of the powers now held by the union's autonomous locals.

Bedlam erupted last night at the headquarters of the city's largest blue-collar union. About 100 members of District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees stood outside for hours, awaiting word on the hotly contested election for president - which began at 7 p.m. Members had been locked out of the building since 3 p.m., something they said had never happened before during an election. At 11:20 p.m., several delegates stormed out, screaming that the election had been stolen by incumbent president Jim Sutton.

Philadelphia labor leader Henry Nicholas said that the resolution of the fight between two national labor organizations over his health care union will give stronger bargaining positions to non-professional workers in hospitals and nursing homes in the city. The Philadelphia local of Nicholas' National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, also known as District 1199C, voted over the weekend to become part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Bucks County government's largest union is polling its members in an attempt to determine what they want during forthcoming contract negotiations. About 2,000 of the county government's 2,500 workers are unionized. The county's largest union - the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council No. 88 - represents about 800 employees. Most union-county contracts expire Dec. 30. AFSCME surveys ask employees to determine which issues are most important to them, including salaries, working conditions and health insurance.

A committee composed mostly of Earl Stout supporters has won a temporary order from Common Pleas Court barring the parent organization of the city's blue-collar union - and its weightlifting security force - from running the District Council 33 election on Tuesday. The temporary restraining order, signed by Common Pleas Judge Nicholas D'Alessandro yesterday morning, bans the international union of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees from participating in the election until a judge decides if the international has the authority to set the election's rules.

It has been a good week for thousands of Pennsylvania workers but a bad one for Pennsylvania unions. Wednesday, it was announced that Council 13 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) had tentatively settled a lawsuit filed by nonmembers who had been forced to pay "fair share" fees to support the union. Under the proposed settlement, which still needs the approval of U.S. District Judge William W. Caldwell, AFSCME agreed to reimburse nearly 52,000 current and former nonmembers, who have been paying the fees since 1988.

The Casey administration yesterday reached agreement with the state's largest employees' union on a new contract that, recognizing the state's sorry fiscal shape, provides no pay raise in the first year and only a moderate boost next year. The two-year pact, which must be ratified by a majority of the 41,000 affected members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, would be retroactive to July 1. Gov. Casey announced the tentative agreement at a hurriedly convened news conference only about 20 minutes after another news conference on the state budget had ended.

A union affiliated with more than 800 municipal supervisors is suing the City of Philadelphia, saying it asserted an unrestricted ability to furlough those employees for any reason and length of time. AFSCME District Council 47 filed the suit in federal court Friday. The furlough provisions were recently enacted by the Civil Service Commission, appointed by Mayor Nutter. D.C. 47 filed the suit on behalf of AFSCME Local 2186, which is not covered by D.C. 47's contract. The furlough changes, which the suit says are unconstitutional, affect about 5,500 city workers.

Sending a still-combative message to city union leaders after a three-year no-contract standoff, Mayor Nutter announced Wednesday that he would give salary increases to about 5,500 nonunion and supervisory employees while imposing benefit concessions he has been unable to win at the bargaining table. The leaders of the city's two nonuniformed unions, Herman J. "Pete" Matthews of AFSCME District Council 33 and Cathy Scott of District Council 47, immediately denounced the compensation package as a poorly disguised pay cut. They said it strengthened their resolve to fight the mayor's proposals on pensions, health care, and furlough authority for their 12,400 members.

Health care workers from AFSCME 1199 voted unanimously Wednesday to authorize union leaders to call a strike if a contract settlement can't be reached by July 1. Members met and rallied at the Pennsylvania Convention Center Wednesday before demonstrating outside Thomas Jefferson University Hospital on 11th Street between Chestnut and Walnut. The union, which represents nurses aides, food service workers and custodians among others, is engaged in contract negotiations with hospitals including Jefferson, Hahnemann Hospital, Temple, and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

By Matt Zencey Before moving back to Phillies land last year, I had spent 30 years in Alaska, where I could drive along that wilderness state's sparse collection of highways and roads, totally distracted by beautiful scenery, ignorant of important commercial messages and urgent social causes. Now that I'm back here in civilization, in Pennsylvania, driving in blissful ignorance is not a problem because, unlike Alaska, Pennsylvania has billboards. On a recent trip along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I was able to further my education considerably, both as a citizen and a consumer.

WITH FIVE Republicans seeking two open City Council at-large seats in the Nov. 8 general election, we're not surprised to hear that voters were receiving calls in a push poll this week. We were surprised to hear that one of the candidates criticized in the push poll is paying for it. The pollster, using the bogus business name Atlantic Opinion Response, asks voters what they think of the candidates: state Rep. Denny O'Brien , lawyer David Oh , Northeast Chamber of Commerce head Al Taubenberger , financial consultant Joe McColgan and lawyer Michael Untermeyer . Then the pollster pushes negative questions about three candidates: Oh misled voters about his military service; O'Brien will be eligible for two government pensions if elected; and Taubenberger cares more about business than neighborhoods.

HARRISBURG - Two tentative contract agreements for Pennsylvania state employees were announced Thursday. Kathy Jellison, president of Local 668 of the Service Employees International Union, said a deal was struck Thursday night after four straight days of negotiations. Local 668 represents 10,000 state workers. Jellison did not provide details of the agreement with Gov. Corbett's administration but said it protected both union members and taxpayers. Earlier, the administration and Pennsylvania's largest state government union reached a tentative contract accord for about 45,000 state employees that officials said Thursday would combine a wage freeze with subsequent pay raises over four years.

Already boasting the support of two city labor unions, mayoral candidate T. Milton Street Sr. sought the backing Tuesday evening of a third, but failed. Delegates from District Council 47 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which represents Philadelphia's white-collar government workers, voted at their Walnut Street headquarters not to endorse either Street or Mayor Nutter in the May 17 Democratic primary. Nutter was not invited to the meeting.

Angry union workers marching and chanting in the streets. Democratic lawmakers fleeing the Capitol to block the legislative process. A Republican governor standing his ground against collective bargaining. If it could happen in Wisconsin, the birthplace of collective bargaining with government, might a similar drama await Pennsylvania, with its equally rich if sometimes turbulent labor history? Or New Jersey? Unlikely, say officials and union leaders on both sides of the Delaware.

It was no accident that Pennsylvania's top two Democratic statewide candidates reserved an hour of their insane schedules Tuesday for lunch with 200 to 300 retirees of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Organized labor - with cash and the shoe-leather equity of thousands of volunteers - will help determine whether Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak and gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato can win next week's midterm election. "There's a tide moving across America - it's not a blue tide, it's a red tide, and all we've got to do is stop it," AFSCME international president Gerald McEntee told the crowd at the lunch.