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Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay will be one of the primetime speakers at Tuesday's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. He's expected to speak sometime between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., after former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. McLay will be followed by actor Tony Goldwyn, who plays the president on the TV show 'Scandal.' According to a release by Mayor Bill Peduto's office, McLay will speak about Pittsburgh's efforts to adopt the best practices on community policing. Pittsburgh is one of six cities nationwide participating in the U.S. Department of Justice's National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice. Mayor...

National union leaders made the case Monday for why Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton is a better choice over Republican nominee Donald Trump. National unions have overwhelmingly endorsed Clinton with many warning Trump would be disastrous for worker rights. The AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the National Education Association, AFSCME, among others within the labor movement voiced their support for her at the the Democratic National Convention. “We need a president that wants to raise wages instead of one that thinks wages are too high and doesn’t even think there should be a federal minimum wage,” SEIU International...

IMPORTANT:This information should not be downloaded using government equipment, read during duty time, sent to others using government equipment, or sent to anyone while in a government building because it involves election related activity.WASHINGTON – In response to the announcement that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has selected U.S. Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate, American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. today issued the following statement:“While representing Virginia in the U.S. Senate, Tim Kaine has been a vocal advocate for government workers and the programs we deliver to the American public. Like Hillary...

The de Blasio administration rolled out new set of relaxed disciplinary reforms for schoolchildren on Thursday that even managed to roil a recent ally, the head of the teachers union. Along with the Department of Education, de Blasio announced a total ban on suspensions for students in kindergarten through second grade claiming the current disciplinary tactics disproportionately affect students of color and those with disabilities.

[Wife's name], I just finished watching Donald Trump's speech tonight. He's trying so hard to convince people he's a statesman. But I'm not fooled by what I just heard, and no one who works in education should be, either. It's more obvious than ever that this man has a dangerous, disturbing vision of America. That he's committed to dividing us, cultivating fear, and exploiting frustration. Tonight, Donald Trump showed exactly why we can't afford to let him near the White House. If you agree, add your name to our list of educators ready to keep Trump out of the...

Philadelphia’s police union is blasting Hillary Clinton for inviting relatives of victims of police shootings to speak at the Democratic National Convention next week, but failing to include relatives of slain police officers. John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said the union was “shocked and saddened” by the planned choice of speakers at the convention, which opens Monday in Philadelphia.

In May, the state Department of Education named Tracy Horodyski as Michigan’s 2016-17 Teacher of the Year. But Horodyski, who has 16 years of classroom experience teaching at Kenowa Hills Public Schools in Kent County, won’t see any salary raise coming from the school district, due to a provision in her union contract. Like all Michigan teachers union contracts, the one at Kenowa Hills bases an individual's salary on just two criteria – the number of educational credentials acquired and years of service. The Kenowa Hills Public Schools teachers contract has 28 seniority-based pay tiers or "steps." There is generally...

A new bill in the House of Representatives, the Aviation Innovation, Reform and Reauthorization (AIRR) Act, sponsored by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pennsylvania), seeks to “privatize” the air traffic control system, which would strip oversight away from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and create a new, private, non-profit corporation to oversee air traffic control (ATC) operations.On the surface, this bill might sound like a good idea. But the word “privatize” is a misnomer. Instead of fixing legitimate problems with the FAA, the AIRR Act would overhaul the entire ATC system and replace a bureaucracy that is currently accountable to Congress with...

Baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, airplane cleaners, and other workers at Philadelphia International Airport voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to walk off their jobs in protest during the Democratic National Convention this month, according to a union that wants to organize them. The workers are seeking better scheduling, clarity on sick pay, a more predictable disciplinary system, and to be able to unionize. The vote, which took place at the airport, was 461-5 in favor of striking out of 500 on shift Tuesday participating. The workers, who number about 1,000, work for subcontractors hired by various airlines.

Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa had some profane, combative words for Republicans while warming up the crowd for President Obama in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.

Fred Gegare, who is challenging Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa in elections this month to head up the transport union, says that Hoffa and the US government are colluding to control the union by the use of intimidation. If true, the allegations could mean that 50 years of work trying to rid unions of mob influence has come to an end.  Hoffa and the Justice Department, says Gegare, have abused a decades-old consent decree, “which was once used to remove mobsters two decades ago, [but] is now being used to target [Hoffa’s] critics” through a “rogue investigative unit set up by...

The ink was barely dry on the asterisk in Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.'s rant about taking out those "son-of-a-b*tches" -- referring to Tea Party members -- when the vice president made his own contribution at a Labor Day rally. "This is a fight for the existence of organized labor," the veep shouted. "You are the only ones who can stop the barbarians at the gate!" And the diatribes have continued with the establishment of a website designed to track unfair comments made by those who, in President Obama's words, want to "cripple" America. Congresswoman Maxine Waters' snippet about telling the Tea...

Almost 55 months after confessing felonious conduct, Teamster money-laundering scandal figure, Jere Nash, has finally been sentenced. U.S. Dist. Judge Thomas P. Griesa (S.D.N.Y., Nixon) sentenced Nash Apr. 9 to a mere two years probation for his role in a series of schemes which lead to the embezzlement of some $885,000 from the Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters' treasury and to $538,100 in illegal campaign contributions to the failed reelection campaign of expelled IBT president Ron Carey. The sentencing appears to have been hush hush: the four N.Y.C. major dailies and the two Washington, D.C., dailies apparently did not cover the...

The Ohio river valley was once a foundation of the American economy, and of the Democratic party. For decades, coal- and steel-producing areas in south-east Ohio and south-west Pennsylvania voted Democrat. Union workers, supporting the party of organized labor, counted on steady and well-paid jobs. But the US coal industry has been unable to survive major shifts in the world economy and steel has been subject to mechanization. In recent years, those steady jobs have disappeared. This has turned the region into ripe territory for Donald Trump. In the Pennsylvania Republican primary, the billionaire won a crushing victory, sweeping the...

The secretary-treasurer of the state’s largest teachers union is one of several top union executives involved in a pension spiking scheme in public school districts. The arrangement increases the union officials' retirement payouts from the state-run school pension system. The officials are all former school employees who left public employment to work for the union full time. Under the spiking arrangement, however, they are still carried on school payrolls — and as a result are still accumulating pension credits with the school retirement system. Rick Trainor was a teacher for 21 years at the Mount Pleasant school district. In 2011...

In March, the United Auto Workers reported that its membership grew 1.3 percent in 2015. This may come as a surprise to some because a substantial number of UAW members work in right-to-work states like Michigan. But the report highlights something worker-freedom supporters — and even some UAW officials — already knew: Right-to-work can be good for unions. Right-to-work laws do nothing to diminish a union’s ability to organize a workplace or a worker’s ability to become a union member and pay dues. A recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that in 2015, unions in what...

Wal-Mart is "hugely profitable," writes the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in a recent commentary, generating "$482 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2016." Here, the writer falsely equates revenue (the money a company takes in before subtracting expenses) and profit (how much a company makes after it pays its costs). It's a common tactic used to shock readers and inflate the perception of a company's finances. Wal-Mart's actual profit, according to SEC filings, was only 3 percent of its total revenue. That works out to roughly $6,400 dollars in profit for each of the company's 2.3 million employees—a profit...

Buying a car or truck built in the USA, by members of the UAW, is a financial contribution to Clinton and other democrat candidates. The United Auto Workers (UAW) financially support ONLY democrat candidates. Do you want YOUR money supporting democrats?

A tentative labor contract for California’s state craft and maintenance workers hikes costs to taxpayers more than any deal bargained by the union in at least 11 years, according to a new report by the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. The pact with International Union of Operating Engineers Bargaining Unit 12, adds a total $473 million over four years to the state’s pay and benefits costs, the analyst’s office estimates. The figure includes increased pension, health care and other costs for the roughly 11,000 employees in Bargaining Unit 12 from July 1, 2016 to July 1, 2019. In sum, the analyst...

In an annual ritual that takes place every May, the AFL-CIO releases its “Executive Paywatch” report to publicize what it considers to be the excessive compensation of the CEOs of America’s biggest multinational firms. The nation’s largest labor federation reports this year that the typical CEO running an S & P 500 firm received total compensation of $12.4 million in 2015 while the average rank-and-file worker was paid just $36,875 — a pay gap of 335-to-1. But the AFL-CIO can only get such an inflated pay ratio by applying a series of statistical sleights... ...the AFL-CIO only considers a very...