Pot push lives in labor la-la-land

February 7, 2020

While Lt. Gov. John Fetterman crusades on legalizing recreational marijuana, one poll released last fall suggests Pennsylvanians may not be eager to jump on the bandwagon. They’re right to be cautious. Lost amid the legalization hullabaloo is the chaos unfettered pot will wreak on labor practices, workplace litigation, employer liability, healthcare costs and more. I know. I’m an employer. Among the jobs my company offers are forklift operators, where drug-induced impairment is not just an inconvenience but a major safety hazard. In 2019, 50 percent of those to whom we offered ...

Greek engagement or estrangement?

January 31, 2020

By Kelly Lewis Surrounding the nearly $2 trillion university industrial complex is the $250 billion alcohol industry with alcohol marketing budgets in the billions openly celebrating the consumption of alcohol across college football, March Madness, spring breaks and in movies and television. Whether we like it, admit or desire it, alcohol is a spirited cultural institution in America. Most college freshman and sophomores are predominantly under 21 years old, the legal age for alcohol purchase and consumption. Across America we’ve criminalized underage drinking, severely ...

Wolf, DEP must police Mariner East

January 29, 2020

In December 2017, Sunoco Pipeline reported that 25 gallons of drilling fluid had leaked into Raystown Lake during construction of its controversial Mariner East 2 pipeline. Flash forward to January 2020. Earlier this month, regulators announced that the spill was actually much, much larger — 8,320 times larger. In reality, the 2017 spill resulted in 208,000 gallons of leaked drilling fluid covering eight acres of the lakebed. As a result, the Department of Environmental Protection fined Energy Transfer LP and Sunoco nearly $2 million. The company must also spend $1.15 ...

Region important to Amtrak, too

January 23, 2020

By Dennis Newman A Mirror editorial published Jan 10 was titled “Amtrak important to region.” We completely agree. And the region is important to Amtrak, too. For Amtrak, Pennsylvania is truly the Keystone State, with more than 120 daily trains, and nearly 6.7 million people boarding or alighting a train in Pennsylvania in Amtrak’s fiscal year 2019. This is close to 10% of Amtrak’s nationwide ridership. Only two states have more Amtrak passengers. Ridership on the Amtrak-owned Philadelphia-Harrisburg Keystone Corridor, served by more than two dozen Amtrak trains per ...

Volunteer fire services on life support

January 19, 2020

When I joined the fire service in 1969, the last thing on any department’s agenda was recruitment and retention. In fact, a few years after I joined, my department closed its charter because we had so many members. Times were different then. The local economy was booming. You could graduate one day and have a job in the mines, steel mills or railroad the next day. Today, things are different. The most important item on every volunteer fire department’s list is recruiting and retention and for good reason. Over the past 40 years the volunteer fire service in Pennsylvania has ...

Program makes insulin affordable

January 17, 2020

April 19,1775 at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts was the “shot heard around the world,” which is the beginning of the American Revolution. This first bold statement by the American colonists was the initial phase of what most believe to be the greatest overthrow of tyranny. After many battles and engagements, the war was won, and freedom came to the United States. On Jan. 2, we were reading an article from one of the multiple emails we get, and it described Novo Nordisk starting a new program that offered patients insulin for $99 per month. This program ...