Tell me who directed him -- who gave him instructions? Did the Board tell him, let City Council know that we think they don't have authority? Did the Board reach that decision?
Well, I not only think they should, but what's the purpose of having a Board? (Applause.)
I want everybody in the audience to know I have and I think all the members of the Council have a high regard for the witness. She's worked in City Council for many years. She did an outstanding job. Now, when you work for somebody you have to follow their policies. When she works for the Mayor, she may have to follow different policies than when she worked for the City Council. But what we're trying to do is not embarrass you. What I'm trying to do is find out who makes the decisions for the Board. For PHA in 72 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 this area. Your answers are accurate. I can understand sometimes the Housing Authority may have full power to do and instruct the Board as to what to do or instruct the executive director. But in this case, where PHA is being asked to appear here, who had the authority to tell Mr. Greene or Mr. woolly that they had the freedom to write these letters to Council?
Now, that would be in your jurisdiction as Chief of Staff.
With Board hat on. I don't want to set Mr. Greene adrift. He has kept the Board apprised. The union did appear at a PHA Board meeting and presented the union's position at the Board meeting. I did know that Mr. Greene was not going to be appearing here, so I don't want to imply that Mr. Greene was acting completely outside the purview of the Board. There was no Board resolution, for example, saying the Housing Authority will not appear in City Council. That did not happen. But I personally was aware that the Housing Authority was not going to be coming here to testify about the negotiations and support that 73 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 decision.
Well, tell me if this Committee decides -- or the Chairman of the Committee as authorized by the resolution decides that the Board members should be subpoenaed, because I just think it's awfully important for us to know who sets the power, and we have to know is it the Board or is it the director. Because if the Board agrees with the director, despite the fact that I know each member of the Board very well over long periods of time, I may find that, in addition to requesting that Mr. Greene be disciplined for discourteous conduct toward the City Council and disrespectful conduct, it might involve members of the Board, but I just don't know who is responsible for this action. Did the Mayor authorize this?
The Mayor is not involved in this. The Mayor actually directed me to come today. But for that -- we don't want to have a donnybrook with City Council. The Housing Authority has tried very hard to work more closely with Councilmembers over the course of the last five years than it has historically. So what we don't want is a donnybrook. We think that PHA is a very 74 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 valuable partner, particularly in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia, and we value the relationship that the Housing Authority has developed with the City. We think it serves the citizens of Philadelphia. We provide a better housing product. We're coordinating on social service issues. The Police Department --
Please. Please. Everybody be in order. I think what the audience is saying, they think the City Administration ought to put its money where its mouth is. (Applause.)
Because you might be right in theory, but certainly the way in which it's been reported that PHA is acting is not as if it wants to treat people the way the City Council thinks people ought to be treated. And, therefore, that's the reason we extended the courtesy of inviting Mr. Greene to come and we got this very terse letter from an outside attorney. I think it was Kenneth Jarin, if my memory is right. The very first communication from an outside firm saying, I'm out of town. Telling us, oh, he's got important business out of town, much more important than City 75 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 Council's business; therefore, nobody could come. We ate that. We didn't like to eat it, but we ate it. We then went on and politely invited Mr. Greene. When we get a letter -- maybe because somebody was worried about our questioning you about phase -- this time from a house counsel apparently, saying that he's not going to come. And then we did what we finally had to do, which was the subpoena. It is not pleasant in government to be subpoenaing people that we'd like to regard as colleagues, working together with us for the betterment of the City. But when they try to tell us to butt out, that we have no business making a study, that they are imperial in their own right and make their own laws, that makes it pretty difficult. So we then subpoenaed. And then to get this kind of letter, two letters from Mr. Woolley, I don't know whether I've ever seen the man -- and I'm told he's in the room here -- does he want to come forward and explain? (Applause.)
There's only two bodies that can separate me from my being a Councilman; one is the Lord, who has the power to do 76 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 it at any time, and the other is voters. But Mr. Woolley did it in the second letter. I was no 4 longer Councilman Cohen. I was just Mr. Cohen. I had no title. It was not as if I was Chairman of this Committee, because he never referred to the committee. He just referred to Mr. Cohen. Taking away my post. He's a little premature.
Really, the behavior of PHA at best has been abominable.
I would hope that this would not destroy what we've been trying to create as a very productive relationship. I think that the collective bargaining process presents probably a very unique situation that is actually between the union and management and that relationship is a relationship that is probably unique. I can't think of very many other issues where the Housing Authority would assert the kind of position that it's asserted in this instance.
When will Mr. Greene be here, ready with the documents? When would he come here with the documents? Tomorrow, Monday, 77 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 Tuesday?
And if Mr. Woolley comes forward, we'd like to know the answer?
Councilman, I had asked somebody to run back to my office to bring you, as Chief of Staff asked us to do, to bring copies of the contracts. And the copies that were in my office have my scribbling on them, so we'll get some clean copies and we can get those to you first thing in the morning.
That might handle the duces tecum part, but how about the basic subpoena part?
The other thing I wanted to just amplify in terms of what Joyce had been saying, is that we treat and consider the collective bargaining process to be something --
You can from the 78 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 process. You don't have to exclude us. We stay away from it. But when City employees complain about the way they're treated during the process, then we have a very strong and legitimate interest in finding out what's wrong with that process.
And I respect the Councilman's view. My own experience is that the best way to settle collective bargaining agreements are for the parties to sit and work through the issues and we've been doing that. (Audience reacts.)
Not successfully, because aren't you a year late? (Applause.)
Councilman, we have worked through the process with two of our unions already. The process is continuing.
But Mr. Foley, I respect your opinion about your powers and your views, that it would be better to leave you alone. That's your view. But we're asking you to respect our view, that it's important that we get involved to the point of making sure that there is a process ongoing. The content is within PHA and the union's 79 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 powers. But we want to make sure that contracts get signed on time. And we want to know if they don't get signed on time, whose fault it is. We will be as bitter and as complaining toward the union, if they are at fault, as we are with you. But we don't have any authority over the union. They are not related to City, but we believe we have authority to determine why an agency with the important duties of PHA has failed to come to an agreement with its employees. And, secondly, we want to know because -- I will state this now as my opinion. It is my opinion that what is going on in PHA today is an effort to see how far the City Administration can move in the direction of terminating the pension system for all employees in Philadelphia. (Applause.)
It makes no sense to me that the City would permit PHA employees to suffer a different fate from all other employees. So you are using PHA as a testing ground to see how far you can get by. You have apparently intimidated, scared, or wrongly convinced other labor unions to give up their rights. I note that a 80 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 number of the unions involved are unions closely allied with the person reporting the press to be very influential in the City Administration currently. He's the head of the Redevelopment Authority, the building trades unions. For the life of me, I cannot understand how a union that fights so hard for prevailing wage rates would permit any one of its affiliates to agree to a diminution of pension rights. (Applause.)
And so at this point I don't believe that that occurred. That's why the subpoenas went to the documents. We've got to see that in writing and deal with the union. The union fights very hard for the high wage rates. And I want to know, if it happened, why did they change their position with respect to PHA employees? The only thing that makes sense is that usually in agreements between people, there are two sides. And this may be the other side, that in return for support from the unions, maybe the unions are taking a position which may not be in the interest of labor movement. I don't want to reach that conclusion. But tell me, does it make sense to impose -- to take 81 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 away pension rights of PHA employees and let everybody else's pension rights remain the same? Of course it makes no sense. The PHA employees are now guinea pigs to see how far can this Administration get with diminishing the pension rights. Now that's my concern. So that's the reason we're so interesting in knowing about these contracts. And these are contracts that were put forward by Mr. Greene or by Mr. Woolley. I don't know who decided it ought to go in the letter, but it's in the name of Mr. Greene, though the letter is signed by Mr. Woolley. You have said in that letter that this is proof of the fact that cutting pension rights is okay with unions, and that's an absolute disgrace. It couldn't be okay with any legitimate union, could it? Would any legitimate union agree to say that pension rights are going to be capped by given year, whether it's 2003 or 2005 and that continuous work thereafter means nothing? You're destroying the whole pension system. And if Philadelphia does it, it's a bad sign for the whole nation. (Applause.)
This isn't Bush Land. 82 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 This is Philadelphia where I've so proudly asserted at so many meetings, Philadelphia is a labor city. (Applause.)
We always respect labors' rights. Are you trying to tell me I've been wrong all these years, that Philadelphia is a City that takes advantage of being Democratic, while it actually destroys workers' rights? Is that what you're trying to tell us? We can't believe that. Therefore, we want this to come out in the open and we want any effort to hurt pension rights to be made known publicly to everybody in the City. (Applause.)
I like what Ms. Wilkerson said when she said PHA wants to cooperate with us, but I don't see any signs of cooperation except by kneeling and surrendering all of our rights. And to give up everything you have in the name of cooperation, to me isn't cooperation. It's self-execution. And workers are not going to execute themselves because they have themselves and their families to support. And it's a disgrace that the City of Philadelphia is doing this. If in fact that's the case, that's what these hearings are for. 83 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 Is this the case? And we needed the documents. We were ready to apologize to PHA today, had Mr. Greene come and said, this is wrong. We were joking when we wrote in the letter that unions agreed to give up their pension rights. So you see our frustration. We just can't understand how the City of Philadelphia can let itself be in this position. I kind of joked -- and Governor Rendell said it. He said the Mayor sometimes is his own worst enemy. I said in a different way. I said, I think Mayor Street ought to stop being the campaign manager for Sam Katz. Because that's what's happening here. (Applause.)
I think it's terrible. That's our dilemma. We thank you for the documents if you get them to us. We wanted to have them today so we could get an answer today. But we'd like to have them. We've got to have Mr. Greene here to answer, and we need an answer. Councilwoman Blackwell, I felt very content with PHA when I learned you and Joyce Wilkerson and the others were on the Board. I've known all of you well. I think very highly of you. 84 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 I thought for the first time, like Joyce Wilkerson said, I thought PHA was in excellent hands. But if Carl Greene is your boss, then I think I would want to reconsider whether he'd be the kind of boss I would want to work for. (Applause.)
But if you are his boss, then I think you have the power, your Board has a power, to act as a Board and to correct the situation. And then we can recess these hearings and all go home and have a good dinner. That's our problem.
Councilman, I'd just wanted to add, in terms of process, to make the Committee a aware that federal mediators, people who are skilled and experienced in the collective bargaining process, are involved at the request of the unions. And we've met with them and we're continuing to talk to them and be at their direction and suggestion. And so in terms of process --
That's on negotiations. We applaud that. It has nothing whatever to do with our demand for Mr. Greene to appear here. He's been appointed by the Mayor, by 85 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 the former Mayor. He has a contract with the City of Philadelphia. He's doing City work and he's trying to say that City Council has no power whatever. And we have to absolutely reject that. When he gets a subpoena from us, we expect him to come in and apologize, apologize for his action and the action of other PHA employees in denying our authority. And from there we can go on.
I think the concern is driven by the process. The collective bargaining process, it's a delicate, sacred process. The parties, the unions, and the management, they get together; they talk; they try to have discussions. And my experience is that it's difficult to get contracts in this setting.
Mr. Foley, for 30 years -- I think my labor experience, Mr. Foley, is longer than yours.
It is. And that's why I thought you would respect that process.
For 30 years I was counsel for Local 107 of Electrical Workers. I spent much time in negotiations and arbitrations with them. I think I know the field. We're not 86 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 interfering at all with negotiations, mediation, or arbitration or whatever applies, but we are determined, as a City Legislative Body, to carry out our duty, and we resent deeply the effort of PHA to use the negotiating process to deny City Council the information it needs to conduct City business and we're not going to permit you to do it, no matter what the cost may be to the City. (Applause.)
I just wanted to say that we'll get those contracts to you. Clean copies. We'll get those to you first thing.
I wish you would raise again with Mr. Greene the question of coming, because I am going to be instructing the counsel for the City Council to immediately begin court action on the subpoenas, unless we receive word that Mr. Greene is going to be honoring them quickly. And we're going to be pursuing as vigorously as we can. I'm going to be sending out all kinds of alert information to all the workers in every union in the City, telling them my view as to why this has occurred, and that this is the effort of the City to jettison the whole pension system. That's what I 87 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 think is happening. (Applause.)
Now, is Mr. Woolley in the room? I would ask him to come forward for the purpose of answering one question in his letter. Would you come forward? You've heard my characterizations of your letters, so I'm not going to repeat them. In your letters you say the City gives minimal funding. Can you explain what you mean and how much is minimal funding? You use that phrase in two letters. What is the amount of the minimal funding that the City expends?
Because through the amount of money that we receive from HUD and our operating, as well as our capital fund, the money we receive from the City typically involves our social services programs, which in the scheme of things is a small percentage of what we -- 88 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117
I'm not interested in your calculation as to whether it's a small percentage or not. I'm interested in actual dollars. I would also like to know what portion of the Chief of Staff's time is spent. I'd like to know the portion of the Councilwoman's time. They get salaries from the City. That's money invested in the City. I would like to know -- and there are many other City services made available. I would like to know what the total cost of the contribution by the City is to public housing in the City of Philadelphia. (Applause.)
I will want to know, who picks up the trash, how that's paid for; how are the water bills paid for that the City bills everybody else for; how do they bill PHA and what do they get. I would like to know the cost of sewage, the cost of gas, if gas is the energy used. I would like a complete accounting because my understanding of minimal funding is quite different from yours. In my judgment, the sum is quite large. You spend a 89 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 lot of City money. You get a lot of City support, and most important of all, you serve the largest single portion of people Philadelphia of any landlord. You're the biggest landlord in the City of Philadelphia. More people depend on PHA for housing than any other person. So don't try to trivialize the role of the City of Philadelphia in your agencies. We would be remiss if we didn't thoroughly investigate you if you were a private agency. We would be totally derelict of duty if we let you run your own show without checking on you as we're doing now. And everything that's happened is proof of the fact that our checking on you, if anything, has long been overdue. (Applause.)
Can we have an answer on Mr. Greene? Is he going to come? Are we going to proceed? I'd like to have an answer as quickly as possible because I will immediately -- we're going to recess this after Mr. Little testifies. Rodney Little, the Vice President of the Fraternal Order of Housing Police is here and I want to recognize him and I'll just ask him to be a bit brief. After that we're going to terminate it. But 90 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 I would respectfully request that I would like to have by tomorrow at noon a statement from the City with respect to whether Mr. Greene is going to appear together. He doesn't have to present the documents if you are going to present them separately or whether he's not. And if not, please take notice that the City Council attorneys will be instructed to prepare papers for court beginning tomorrow afternoon if we don't hear from you. (Applause.)
Whatever the time it's going to take, it's going to have to take. Whatever the impact on the people of Philadelphia will be, so be it. Because you're making that decision. We're not. So we leave to you the decision of whether we can begin the development of a cooperative relationship or whether we've got to get to the core of all of the questions we've raised today. Thank you for coming, Ms. Wilkerson, Mr. Foley and Mr. Woolley. Mr. Woolley, my request from you is, sir, a complete tally of all of the funds for the last Fiscal Year that can be attributed to the City 91 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 of Philadelphia, including that portion of the time spent by Board members who hold other positions because when they get the money they're only getting money because they're doing City of Philadelphia business. And if they're not doing City of Philadelphia business, then we've got to take that money that's paid to them away from them. (Applause.)
And my counsel informs me that when we talk about money, it includes in kind contributions, in addition to cash, just like the finance campaign committee reports. They have to list in kind contribution, in addition to cash. That's what we would like. Is that clear, Mr. Woolley?
My name is Rodney Little, Vice President, Fraternal Order of Housing Police. First, let me recognition to City 92 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 Council members for allowing us this golden opportunity to come before you to raise our concerns and issues. Also, we want to recognize some of the tenant Council leaders, basically tenant Council 7 presidents in public housing who are behind both 8 unions in regards to our fight. Some of them had to 9 leave. But let's give them a round of applause. 10 (Applause.) 11
And also to our members, we 12 want to thank you for coming out in this process. 13 First, let me say I'm going to take off 14 one hat as a minister and I'm going to put on a hat 15 as minister of defense. You know, because my 16 7-year-old could have answered your questions better 17 than what you just heard. 18 Now, Mark Foley is a pathological and 19 habitual liar. (Applause.)
The process in which he's talking about is PHA sitting in one room and we're sitting in the other. That practice has been for the past 5 negotiations where they come and just throw down a paper and say, this is my proposal. 93 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 And they don't want to entertain any counter proposals whatsoever. But I must necessarily express very emphatically that a great man, Martin Luther King, once said that injustices anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And PHA has exemplified injustice all over this City, and that's why we're here, Councilman, to raise our concerns and to engage in -- and like I say, right now, I'm in the military. I'm about to go to war. And you think that I have to go away and fight for a country and then come back where I'm losing close $7,600 a year in terms of my pension, something that I have worked and am striving hard for, for my kids. I refuse to sit up here and lay down. (Applause.)
You have these outsiders coming in to this City -- and I don't believe that Mark Woolley votes yet. I don't know if he has his voters' registration card. But what I'm saying is, I'm a taxpayer and they have blocked us out of the process in terms of making decisions in public housing to the point where we can't even attend -- as a direct result of these City Council hearings, we can't even attend the commissioner's Board 94 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 meetings. And that is a public process. Even today where we are allowed to take union days -- and I'm the Vice President. They have gall to say, no, you can't take off tomorrow to engage in no kind of union business whatsoever. We went on the radio show that Carl Greene has on Wednesdays, and he had gall to have Internal Affairs stop down here -- and you might as well say the lock-up process -- which he engaged and had us arrested, so to speak. Because we called the radio show and asked specific questions pertaining to contracts, pertaining to police. Yet he talks about he has no money. Now, you have $700 million that was given to him by HUD for move to work. You have over a $175 million in bonds here in Philadelphia. Not only is that process going on, he's also just allowed the individual workers in public housing to all be fitted for uniforms, and not only are they going to be fitted, they also enter into a contract with a cleaning company to clean the uniforms for over a million contract a year -- excuse me, 2 million. And I'm saying, he talks about he has no money for the union, but yet he can come in, Mark Woolley can come in, and they 95 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 borrow money from out of my pension to create a deferred Comp for them. And they probably are getting a 2 percent interest on that money. So they alluded to, oh, Mr. Greene lost money this year. But I'm sure he made a lot of money last year and the year before that. And not only is he continuing to make money, because he's still allowed to borrow money from my pension to put the money back in his. But yet, they want us to sit up here and say that, oh, its business as usual. That we have no rights to sit up here and question those individuals on the Board. No way whatsoever. Now, we asked that, yes, let us allow representation from the union bodies to be on the Board, but they refused to even address that. We're saying that, you're spending my money, and I'm taxpayer. I have a right to know where my money is going. I have a right to say where it can go and how I'm going to spend it. I'm just here to say that as minister of defense, we're going to hold court on Broad Street. So look out because here we come. (Applause.)
The hearing will stand in recess until the further call of the Chair. 96 3/27/03 - LAW & GOVERNMENT - RES. 030117 I'll expect to hear by noon tomorrow from Mr. Foley. (Council adjourned at 7:15 p.m.) - - - 97 C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of March 27, 2003, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: COMMITTEE ON LAW AND GOVERNMENT ___________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR and Notary Public