Labor: Building Our Workforce, Building Our Economy

Building our Workforce, Building our Economy
http://joehoeffel2010.com/labor

As governor, I will defend Pennsylvania workers' right to organize and fight to ensure they receive fair wages, rights, and benefits. A strong economy cannot be achieved without a strong, healthy workforce. It isn't enough to just create jobs: we must ensure the workers who take those jobs will be paid a reasonable income, be guaranteed fundamental rights, and be covered by health and retirement programs which will protect them during and after their careers. We must be sure those protections extend to all workers equally. And we must recognize that the workforce will be strengthened when it has the opportunity to discuss issues directly with the governor.


GUARANTEED WAGES, RIGHTS, AND BENEFITS

I support the minimum wage, both as an economic issue and as a moral imperative. A worker is entitled to a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and a worker should be guaranteed earnings sufficient to stay above poverty. Similarly, I support the prevailing wage, which benefits skilled labor by guaranteeing a reasonable income on state-contracted jobs. By pegging a prevailing wage to the average bargained wage for a trade, employers bidding for a state contract cannot submit artificially low bids which would result in underpaid workers.

And I support project labor agreements where they control costs and improve efficiency. These agreements will be designed to welcome competitive bids for state projects from all qualified contractors — union and non-union — under agreed compensation and work rules and with responsible contracting provisions to get projects properly completed on time and on budget by well trained and fairly compensated workers.

The right of labor to organize is fundamental. Employers should not be allowed to intimidate workers in attempts to prevent unions from forming or to restrict or inhibit union activities. I support legislation to protect the right to organize, like the proposed federal Employee Free Choice Act and the National Labor Relations Modernization Act, and will work to create such protections in Pennsylvania.

Recent changes to workers compensation and unemployment compensation have helped others at the expense of workers. I will fight to restore lost workers compensation benefits such as increasing the compensation above the current 60% of income at the time of illness or injury and reducing the time a worker's case must be managed by a company-approved physician. I will also fight to maintain and improve unemployment compensation, a safety net which benefits not only the families with a wage-earner out of work but also the local businesses which provide essentials to such families.

As a state representative I voted for the fair share provision of Act 195, and as governor I will continue to protect Act 195. When unions negotiate and enforce contracts which also benefit non-union workers, it is only fair that those non-union workers pay the percentage of the union dues which directly supports those actions of the union which benefit them. I also support a Public Employee OSHA law for Pennsylvania, to extend the federal safety and health standards to the state and local levels of public employment.

We must keep state pensions as defined benefit programs. Switching to a defined contribution program, as some have proposed, would create two classes of workers; such a policy would drive away well-qualified applicants and tell current workers we don't value their professions. There is evidence that defined contribution doesn't work, and states which have tried it — like West Virginia, with their education pensions — are returning to defined benefits after experiencing problems. Defined benefits are simply more stable for retirement in a rocky economy. We need to build safety nets, not cut them. We must ensure a safe and secure retirement for all current and future state employees.


EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL WORKERS

When supporting the rights of workers, it is imperative that we also strive for those rights to be equal for all workers. I support efforts to eliminate discrimination related to employee wages, benefits, and rights. Employers should compensate workers for the value of their work — they should not be allowed to underpay for certain jobs which tend to be (or historically have been) disproportionately held by women. I support legislation (following the lead of 27 states) to require insurance plans which cover preventive medications and devices for men to also cover a full spectrum of contraceptive devices and medications for women. And I support the Healthy Families, Healthy Workplaces Act, which will require employers to provide sick leave on a sliding scale based on the number of employees and hours worked.


SUPPORT FOR HUMAN SERVICES

In hard economic times, working people are the first to suffer the consequences. When the economy falters or plants close, workers and their families depend on safety nets such as Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment benefits, work force programs, and SCHIPS.

Labor has an abiding interest in the maintenance of an adequate state budget for the provision of human services, not only as potential recipients but also as providers. Pennsylvania must provide an adequate human services budget both for the benefits themselves and for the staffing necessary to administer those services. As governor, I will restore the funding to these programs as I have outlined in papers on civil rights, the economy, and health care.


LABOR EDUCATION

Pennsylvania supports many business education programs in our State System of Higher Education, but our state and state-related institutions have nearly eliminated funding for labor education. That trend must be turned around.

Not only do Pennsylvanians need to learn the heritage of workers’ trials and triumphs, but all interests are served by workers and their representatives receiving the latest education and training in negotiating and administering contracts, in participating meaningfully in labor-management forums, and in the ability to communicate with each other and with the employer community. I will restore funding for labor education programs in the Commonwealth’s public institutions of higher learning, to be allocated on a competitive basis.


AN OPEN DOOR POLICY

Under recent administrations, there has been one negotiation table where labor has sometimes felt left out: the governor's table. As governor, I will open the door to the governor's office and invite labor to my table. I will seek labor's input regarding appointments to various positions of interest to labor, including boards such as the Workers Compensation Appeals Board and the Work Force Investment Board. And I commit to keeping that door open for regular Governor's Labor Round Table discussions throughout my administration.