Guest Commentary: Vote No on “Office of Pandering”
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Shall the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to create a Department of Labor, headed by a Cabinet-level Manager, to enforce Urban center laws that protect Philadelphia workers; to oversee labor relations, such as collective bargaining, with the City's unionized workforce; to investigate compliance with worker protections ready along in Urban center contracts; and to manage programs concerning City employees; and to create a Board of Labor Standards to review and adjudicate matters arising from such work?
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Guest Commentary: Vote No on "Office of Pandering"
A onetime Urban center Council candidate on why the ballot question proposing a new Office of Labor should neglect
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Guest Commentary: Vote No on "Office of Pandering"
A former City Quango candidate on why the ballot question proposing a new Role of Labor should neglect
May. 29, 2020
Question No. one on the master election would amend the Philadelphia Domicile Rule Charter to create a Section of Labor to oversee labor relations and to ensure compliance with the city's labor related ordinances. Seems reasonable, doesn't it?
It may surprise you that there already is an Part of Labor that does basically the same matter. Why practice nosotros need to amend the lease? Manifestly we don't.
Sure, labor relations are an of import office. Ordinances that relate to employment demand to be enforced or they are meaningless. Having a unit to handle those specialized areas can brand sense, merely similar the Department of Licenses and Inspections handles enforcement of matters related to such things every bit zoning and building codes. Whether you call it a department, office or something else is a distinction without a difference.
The politicians promoting this subpoena say that this will make the 
department "permanent." Okay, what does that mean? Let's look at a very recent instance. The mayor's mail service-Covid-19 revised budget says, "The Office of Special Events, the Office of the City Representative, and the Office of Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy will terminate to be, although some resources and functions will be retained and shifted to other departments."
Wait a minute. Isn't the City Representative specified in the Home Rule Charter? In fact, Article IV, Affiliate 2 of the Charter, entitled "City Representative," establishes the function and outlines its duties. Then Mayor Kenney can't make the office "cease to exist," regardless of his priorities. You'd think that someone in the Police Department (established in Article IV, Chapter 4 of the charter) would have read information technology earlier the proposed upkeep was released.
City Council has amended the Lease to create an Office of Immigrant Diplomacy, a Commission on African-American Males, an Office of LGBT Affairs, a Commission on Universal Pre-K, a Commission for Women, an Role of Sustainability and a Youth Commission.
That being said, the mayor does have significant authority regarding spending. While the mayor cannot spend more than than the budget appropriates for whatever part, department, board or commission, with few exceptions non all of the allocation need exist spent. So a mayor could easily have a City Representative "in name only" and not authorize spending for the office even if it was appropriated in the budget. And so much for making an office permanent.
What's really going on hither? Pandering. Pure and simple.
City Quango has demonstrated a disturbing tendency to use the charter to pander to one special interest or another. They accept amended the Lease to create an Role of Immigrant Affairs, a Commission on African-American Males (merely not females), an Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs, a Commission on Universal Pre-Kindergarten, a Commission for Women (but non men), an Office of Sustainability and a Youth Commission. Let's assume that all of these entities exercise good things (I'chiliad from the government and I'm here to help you). All of their functions could have been established within the existing structure of metropolis government. None of them were necessary.
Council should not be willy-nilly alteration the Dwelling Dominion Charter every fourth dimension a member has a grouping that it wants to pander to and enhance their electoral prospects. It just mucks things upward, both in terms of government function and elections. More significantly, this sort of "rigging the system" is why it is so difficult to defeat an incumbent, particularly in a district.
Ane way to solve this problem simply permit City Council to continue to use this process to enhance its members' reelection might exist to eliminate all of the same offices and create a single "Office of Pandering" with the authority to focus on whatever special involvement group that city council wants to brownnose to at any given time.
Until and then, don't permit this process continue.
Matt Wolfe is a Republican Ward Leader in West Philadelphia. He can exist reached at [email protected]
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/guest-commentary-vote-no-on-office-of-pandering/
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