WALKING THE BEAT: New Business Ideas From Organized Labor

BY JOE SHAY STIVALA/ Innovative ideas are coming out of the AFL-CIO convention and organized labor. A German-style WORKERS’ COUNCIL is forming at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee by the UAW. SOLIDARITY Partners helps organize workers outside the collective bargaining process. Working America and Teamsters are looking at efficiency at Los Angeles ports. Labor will zero in on filibuster reform and voter-registration laws. Labor intends to speak for ALL WORKERS…. The results for the AFL-CIO HALL OF SHAME AWARDS should be finalized this weekend. Vote for your choice. Could the winners be NUTTER, CORBETT, PILEGGI, TURZAI, GLASER? Will some of the names in consideration bring a tie vote?? There WAS condemnation of the Corbett-Nutter duo at the national AFL-CIO Convention.

And GOP conservative legislator Daryl METCALFE says Corbett’s 2nd term is doomed…. And if Nutter, upon retirement, as the rumor says, runs for Congress in the 1^st Dist. – did he already WRITE OFF 20,000 votes saying he would not officiate at same-sex marriages?

STATE SEN. Tina Tartaglione is joined at multi-ward picnic in Burholme Park by Peter Lyde, Judge Holly Ford, Judge Jacqui Frazier-Lyde and City Controller Alan Butkovitz.

City Controller Alan BUTKOVITZ has advised 300 bridges in the city need repairs. The City Bridge Maintenance unit spent $1.2 MILLION with MOST of it in salaries. WHAT! You can’t have a bridge unit mostly to just to pay employees! Save money and GET RID of some of the many $100,000-a-year city jobs! 10 JOBS = One MILLION for BRIDGES!… BUTKOVITZ also issued the threat to stop L & I paychecks for slow cooperation in the building-collapse probe. If necessary, DO IT!

How about the ASSESSOR’S OFFICE First Level Review backlog? That office always had two vehicles to seek a REMEDY: 1/ The INQUIRY taken by phone, email or in person from the very-capable customer-service unit there – or talks with the Assessor (known as evaluator in Philly), and 2/ APPEAL to the Board of Revision. I wondered if the First Level vehicle was to hush criticism of AVI.  The daily press wrote there was only a small number of First Levels filed in the city. NATURALLY the wards NOT increased in market value would NOT be filing first levels in great numbers. The heavy concentration of First Levels WOULD be in the wards that were increased. The office director said that he needs 150 assessors, and has only 115. There are PLENTY of supervisors and administrators, so, Mr. McKeithen, let the supervisors and assessors with no (or a few) first levels help out the assessors who are overwhelmed so that they can finish on time.

Not being able to get your view heard on what the PRESIDENT should do with the SYRIA issue, can put one into a fit of pique. Thus the article I saw: “Before vote on Syria, visit Section #60” at Arlington National Cemetery, where you will find the dead from battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. A majority of Americans now feel the Iraq War was UNNECESSARY – at $10 billion a month. We had the momentum on our side in Afghanistan, until BUSH diverted troops to Iraq…. The testimony of a relative against another relative can be like a knife in the heart. So it may have been in the MULGREW trial. I heard prosecutors can pressure family or relative best to cooperate. Way back, I remember a decent fellow who went to jail to keep his wife free. One policeman told me an agent said he would arrest his own mom to win a case (?). The strong loyalty between man and wife is a known factor. Study the Opera FIDELIO if you doubt this. This writer is a Life Member of the Southeast Police Chiefs Assn.  And good guys have bad days. Bob MULGREW is a good man!

CONTROLLER Alan Butkovitz is flanked by Ward Leaders Robert Dellavella and Lou Agre, Judges Holly Ford and Frederica Massiah-Jackson, congressional candidate Marjorie Margolies, Judge Jeffrey Minehart and Ward Leader Bill Dolbow.

The FUMO reunion party canceled. Much ado about nothing. More important is that FUMO brought $8 BILLION for our CITY over 30 years! Fumo gave us 10 YEARS with NO INCREASE in our electric bills. WHAT did his critics in government or the media bring to our beloved city in revenue or savings? NARY A DIME, methinks…. SAD NEWS: the passing of Judge John Chiovero, who in retirement took interest in being president of his condo association. Missed by his friend ARNIE. Judge Dan ANDERS completed a 34-mile RUN! He beat the Spartans! BIRTHDAYS:  Karen SUGARMAN has hers on the 28^th; will she wear Penn Red and Blue? Joe PULTRONE has his today; maybe driving a ’57 Thunderbird? Tamika OGLESBY at Temple University gets ready for Oct. 1! Tara and Brianna SCHAFFER days apart: the roaring Libras. State Rep. John SABATINA, Jr. (class guy) celebrates on 10/6! Many Happy RETURNS!

PORT OF PHILLY:  The US Coast Guard Cutter SLEDGE arrives at Penn’s Landing on Saturday for a weeklong port visit which will have tours…. On Mar. 1, 2014 USS SOMERSET will be commissioned into the Navy fleet at Penn’s Landing – a MAJOR EVENT for a ship named for Somerset, Pa., where the airliner crashed on 9/11!

Hats off to Donna POWELL for completing 20 years’ service at DRPA. Donna will be tendered a dinner bash in Romano’s on 10/18!… Hard-working State Rep. Vanessa BROWN was praised at the Congressional Black CAUCUS in Washington! The Caucus promoted ORGANIZED LABOR.

U.S. H.B. 1150 is NOT GOOD for ill former asbestos workers, better for corporations! The GOP shows true colors with voting to remove millions from FOOD STAMPS. 170,000 are VETERANS!… The AFL-CIO has begun a POW-MIA Remembrance Day. Sen. Bob CASEY led the effort to return the remains of Air Force Major Louis GIULLERMAN, who crashed in

Laos 50 years ago, back home to West Chester for burial. CASEY fights for location of more MIAs…. The Coalition of Labor Union Woman is gearing up for a BIG national convention.

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