Bargaining

The state Fraternal Order of Police yesterday labeled legislation to solve the city's short-term budget crisis a disgrace for including sweeping and unrelated changes to the state pension system. House Bill 1828, scheduled for a vote Tuesday, calls for a state takeover of distressed pension funds, and removes significant pension benefits from the collective bargaining process. Supporters say the proposal would provide much-needed relief for municipalities struggling to fund their pensions, while also providing short- and long-term pension help sought by Philadelphia.

Upstaging even Gov. Christie's playbook in New Jersey, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has pushed too far in demanding steep concessions from his state's public employees. Walker is justified in asking state workers to contribute to their pensions and pay more for health care. But he crossed the line by also insisting on eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for public employees. That proposal prompted tens of thousands of protesters, understandably, to descend on the state capitol every day for the past week.

8 tonight AMC Two experts in police bargaining skills square off in this tense 1998 drama. Samuel L. Jackson (right) plays a hostage negotiator who turns his expertise inside out when he is framed for a crime. The excellent cast also includes Kevin Spacey and John Spencer.

With only one dissent, the Supreme Court yesterday took a legal weapon out of the hands of more than two million unionized workers who negotiate with employers acting in unison. The decision, in a case that involved a labor dispute in the National Football League, affects other professional sports and the entertainment, construction, transportation and retail industries, among others. Unions may not file antitrust suits against employers who agree among themselves to impose wages, hours or working conditions on employees after bargaining collapses, the court said.

NEW YORK - For just the second time since the beginning of the lockout, representatives for the NBA owners and players met Wednesday. The bargaining session, which lasted about six hours, included NBA commissioner David Stern and National Basketball Players Association executive director Billy Hunter. Neither side was as forthcoming with details as after previous meetings, but Stern did promise additional sessions would be scheduled for September as the league tries to avoid a delay in the opening of training camps, which historically start around Oct. 1. The NBA is scheduled to begin its regular-season schedule Nov. 1, and many observers believe the "drop-dead date" for not missing any games is around mid-October.

FACING ONE of the most important crossroads in the NHL's recent history, one Flyer will have a big say in whether next hockey season starts on time. After a 3-day executive board meeting at the Peninsula hotel in Chicago, the NHL Players' Association announced that 31 players, including Flyers forward Scott Hartnell, will be a part of the negotiating committee with executive director Donald Fehr. Hartnell, 30, spent three seasons as the Flyers' team representative for the NHLPA.

SEPTA and Transport Workers Union leaders may never have heard of George W. Taylor. The late Dr. Taylor, Harnwell professor of industry at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is known as the father of the concept of binding arbitration for peaceful settlement of workplace disputes. His examination of the conditions leading up to strikes led him to describe the negotiating atmosphere created by management as "crisis bargaining. " Crisis bargaining is a consequence of a new management team attempting to correct decades of indifferent and ineffective decisions by prior managers - within a few months of bargaining for a new labor agreement.

Orchestra, musicians meet with federal mediator From Peter Dobrin's "ArtsWatch" http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/ artswatch Lawyers from the musician and management sides of the Philadelphia Orchestra met Monday with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington D.C. The idea is to try to begin resolving some of the differences that have kept the parties from reaching a new labor pact despite many months of...

School board members made their message clear to the approximately 20 residents attending a meeting Tuesday night: They want deregulation. Financially, the district should be run as a business, they say, and the state is making that impossible. "At parties, when people tell me their business is regulated by the government, I tell them they don't know what regulation is," said Superintendent Joseph P. Batory. "This is the most regulated industry in the United States. We have thick books full of fine print that regulate what we do. That's all we do all day - follow the rules.

The Toronto Star reported yesterday that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Canadian diplomat Maurice Strong might join forces to create a new professional hockey league if the NHL continues its lockout, which wiped out the entire 2004-05 season. According to a 71-page business plan reviewed by the newspaper and circulated to prospective Wall Street investors, the new league would be called the International Hockey Association. Meanwhile, the NHL and the players association held small-group discussions for 9 hours yesterday in an attempt to reach a new collective bargaining agreement.