skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Cleaners From PA and Other States Rally for New Contract

play audio
Play

Thursday, September 29, 2011   

PHILADELPHIA - Thousands of cleaners and other property-service workers from Pennsylvania and several other states turned out by the thousands Wednesday, calling for a fair contract.

What these workers want from their employers, says Wayne MacManiman, area director for the Mid Atlantic District of Service Employees International Union 32 BJ, is what anyone expects from their jobs.

"A priority to us would be to protect what we bargained for over the past 10 years in terms of health benefits, bettering our pensions, things like that, but I would say health care is our No. 1 issue."

MacManiman says his union works to clear up the perception that people who are janitors don't deserve decent wages.

"I don't look at them as janitors. I look at them as people working hard trying to support their families, trying to support their communities and things like that, and we need good-paying jobs."

In terms of what has to happen at the bargaining table for a strike to be averted, MacManiman says what employers are willing to do on health care will set the tone.

"We don't know what the position of management is going to be, and I can just tell you that health care is going to be a very, very serious issue for us if the approach is to attack that in any way, shape or form."

About 2,600 members who work in Philadelphia are due up first for contract talks, MacManiman says, so locals in other parts of Pennsylvania and in other states are keeping a close watch on how those talks go. He says a vote taken Wednesday by the property-service workers in Philadelphia authorized the union to call a strike if negotiations fail to move forward.

The contract expires at 12:01 a.m. Oct 16.



get more stories like this via email

more stories
Iowa families can apply for up to $7,600 a year for private school costs. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

An ethics committee in the Republican-led Iowa House has dismissed a complaint filed by a group of community activists against a state lawmaker for hi…


play sound

Each spring, hundreds of thousands of California high school seniors have to figure out if they can afford to go to college in the fall - and two new …

Health and Wellness

play sound

A health care workforce shortage in New Hampshire is leaving Alzheimer's patients and their families with few options for treatment. Patients facing …


South Dakota ranks 49th in the country for its contribution to indigent legal defense costs, according to a 2023 report from the Indigent Legal Services Task Force. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

South Dakota is creating an Office of Indigent Legal Services after House Bill 1057 passed the Legislature with nearly unanimous support this month…

Environment

play sound

A Knoxville-based environmental group is voicing concerns over what it sees as an increasing financial strain imposed on taxpayers by nuclear weapons …

Environment

play sound

A bipartisan law set to take effect this summer prohibits foreign adversaries from buying Hoosier farmland. The signature of Gov. Eric Holcomb was …

Social Issues

play sound

Today, people across Arizona are voting in the Presidential Preference Election, a chance for registered Democrats and Republicans to choose their …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021