News Archive of December 2009

  •   Prevailing wage bill wins 1st vote from Pittsburgh City Council
    17 Dec 2009
    Get a job cleaning hotel rooms, washing windows, bagging groceries or serving cafeteria food in Pittsburgh's city-backed developments of the future, and you'd be guaranteed to earn what your peers elsewhere in town make, under legislation that got initial council approval yesterday.
  •   Pittsburgh City Council debates prevailing-wage rules
    11 Dec 2009
    Faith Jetter admittedly doesn't know much about a proposal before City Council that would require employers occupying publicly subsidized buildings to pay market-rate wages.

    But the 46-year-old housekeeper at the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel, Downtown, does know what it's like to live in poverty.

    "I know what it's like having to decide whether to pay rent or feed my kids, or keeping the gas on or buying my children shoes," Jetter said. "I currently have a union job, but I spent many years in non-union hotels."
  •   Economist says prevailing wage no deal breaker
    10 Dec 2009
    A Harrisburg labor economist plans to tell City Council members today that requiring businesses in publicly subsidized buildings to pay market-rate wages won't affect development projects within the city.
  •   Pittsburgh Council squabbles over prevailing wage bill
    10 Dec 2009
    A Pittsburgh City Council special meeting today on proposed new development rules, which would require that some workers on subsidized projects earn prevailing wages, veered into an argument over procedure and minutiae in which council members and guests frequently interrupted each other.
  •   Citizens speak out on Pittsburgh's prevailing wage legislation
    10 Dec 2009
    Faith Jetter admittedly doesn't know much about the proposal before City Council that would require tenants in publicly subsidized buildings to pay market-rate wages to employees, but she knows what it's like to earn less.

    "I know what it's like having to decide whether to pay rent or feed my kids, or keeping the gas on or buying my children shoes," Jetter, 46, of Lawrenceville said.

    Jetter, a housekeeper at the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel, was one of about 60 people who attended a meeting this morning with City Council.