LATEST NEWS
The whining from some fast food chains that they won’t be able to afford paying for their employee’s health coverage under Obamacare has gotten a lot of press. But what is more troubling is the recent news that some big chains are concluding that the costs won’t be nearly as high as they had projected. The reason: their employees won’t be able to afford the health insurance and will instead pay a fine and remain uninsured. This fight is just the first battle in the coming war over Obamacare that will center on those who get left out. Big flaws in the bill will mean that many low-wage workers will be forced to choose between paying huge chunks of their income on premiums or on a penalty that leaves them with no coverage at all. Reformers should take note and get ready for the coming struggle.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Wendy’s lowered its estimate of the cost of Obamacare for each of its restaurants by 80 percent,
» Read more about: Obamacare: Not So Fast for Fast-Food Workers »
How will America, which espouses the virtues of forgiveness and freedom, successfully deal with the thousands of people who leave its prisons every year? As the nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world, the United States has a unique responsibility to chart a different, more humane course towards incarceration. Fifty years after the historic March on Washington helped usher the end of legally sanctioned discrimination, the formerly incarcerated remain stripped of basic rights. In many states they can’t vote, live in public housing or receive public assistance. And so they end up recycled in and out of some of America’s most deplorable institutions.
In the same way that Mississippi or Alabama were vital battlefronts in the struggle for civil rights a half century ago, California, with the country’s largest prison population, is ground zero for what many see as the major social and political issue of today. Like other states in the 1980s and 1990s,
» Read more about: Breaking Our Addiction to Incarceration »
At first glance, it is one of the nation’s hottest new education-reform movements, a seemingly populist crusade to empower poor parents and fix failing public schools. But a closer examination reveals that the “parent-trigger” movement is being heavily financed by the conservative Walton Family Foundation, one of the nation’s largest and most strident anti-union organizations, a Frying Pan News investigation has shown.
Since 2009, the foundation has poured more than $6.3 million into Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles advocacy group that is in the forefront of the parent-trigger campaign in California and the nation. Its heavy reliance on Walton money, critics say, raises questions about the independence of Parent Revolution and the intentions of the Walton Family Foundation.
(See interactive infographic, left, for donations from 2009 through March, 2013. Sources: Parent Revolution; foundation tax returns; foundation grant reports.)
While Parent Revolution identifies the Walton Family Foundation as one of several donors on its Web site,
» Read more about: Public Schools, Private Agendas: Parent Revolution »
James Rainey’s L.A. Times story, “Garcetti, Greuel Step Gingerly Around City Labor Issues,” shows the problem with the press’ approach to writing so-called “balanced” stories.
Rainey’s story is generally a good one, filled with facts and figures. He’s even careful to use his data to set the record straight when it contradicts what one of his interviewees says. For example, after the County Federation of Labor’s Maria Elena Durazo says “that the average city worker receives $32,000 in retirement,” Rainey writes, “The website for the city’s civilian retirement system puts the average pension benefit for 12,000 current retirees about 40 percent higher than Durazo’s figure.”
Okay, so he checks Durazo’s stats and she appears to be mistaken.
Imagine a system that gives companies enormous tax breaks for firing workers – and then forces those jobless workers to pay for those tax breaks themselves.
It might sound outrageous, but in California, that’s the reality. Just ask Joan Beighley, who worked at VWR in Brisbane for 14 years before her job was eliminated when her employer decided to take advantage of the state’s wasteful “enterprise zone” (EZ) corporate tax giveaway program. Thanks to this flawed program, VWR is able to collect up to $37,000 for each worker the company fired and replaced when they shut down their Brisbane facility and relocated to Visalia – even though no new jobs were created, and the jobs in Visalia pay a fraction of what the Brisbane workers earned for the same work.
The VWR move cost the city of Brisbane more than $2 million a year, while the company took in a windfall $1.5 million,
» Read more about: Law Proposed to Stop Enterprise Zone Tax Giveaways »
Netflix’s new House of Cards series offers an inside look at Beltway power games and is far better than most of this genre—which is why its retrograde and even racist union-bashing is so unfortunate. For example, Episode Five sympathetically portrays politicians who lie to unions, and claims eliminating federal funding for school districts engaged in collective bargaining is necessary for education reform.
Teachers’ unions are shown as completely out of touch with members, and run not by their female and African-American elected political leadership but rather by white male political consultants. And in an episode that could have been produced by either Michelle Rhee or the National Right to Work Committee, House of Cards depicts elite interests as knowing better what workers want than their own unions. Beneath its plot turns and star power, the series — whose theme is “Bad,
» Read more about: “House of Cards” No Friend to the House of Labor »
Sometimes you have to just love the California state constitution. It may right now be the one thing protecting us from the chaos inflicted on Chicago, where the largest mass closure of public schools in U.S. history is underway.
You might remember when Antonio Villaraigosa was first elected Mayor of Los Angeles. One of his first ambitions was to become the decision-maker over the L.A. Unified School District, to once-and-for-all improve the city’s schools. He wanted to have the power of other big-city mayors like Chicago’s Emanuel and Bloomberg in New York, mayors who now appoint their school boards and their school superintendents.
These two men, with scant education experience, were sure they could do better than life-long educational professionals. They had been elected to run their cities, not their cities’ schools. But, hey, ambition knows no limits. And with the backing of the multimillionaires of the Gates, Broad and Walton foundations,
» Read more about: School Daze: The Attack on Public Education Continues »
“Independent Contractor represents that Independent Contractor is an independent contractor.”
I try to cultivate an appreciation for language, linguistic uses and linguistic misuses. I have an especial appreciation for legal writing, in all of its absurdity. I tend to become inured to the way that people – typically more powerful people – use language to obscure rather than to elucidate.
I also read a lot of legal documents, especially agreements between port trucking companies and individual drivers. These tend to be awful, one-sided, unconscionable documents. Port trucking companies employ drivers, and then write “CYA” documents to attempt to hide the fact that they are misclassifying their drivers. The owners create sham truck leases and force drivers to sign them. All par for the course in an industry as dysfunctional as port trucking.
But then I read a sentence like that one,
» Read more about: The Crooked Language Behind Job Misclassifications »
It’s not every day that L.A. voters are given the chance to hear a range of the city’s political candidates explain their positions on vital issues in a daylong, in-depth forum. But that’s exactly what’s being offered Monday April 1 for Angelenos who are eager to learn what their potential leaders believe in.
Join Climate Resolve, LAANE and scores of other environmental and community organizations for a candidate forum on April 1. Candidates for Los Angeles City Council, City Controller and City Attorney will outline their positions on key issues regarding the environment, transportation, and jobs.
This is an exclusive chance to understand each candidate’s position on the critical, far-reaching issues that will determine how Los Angeles will address the challenges ahead.
WHEN: Monday, April 1, 9:00am – 4:00pm. You can attend some or all of the discussions.
WHERE: Yosemite Hall at the California Endowment,
» Read more about: L.A. Candidate Forum on the Environment, Transportation and Economy »
The minimum wage is back on the rise. Last month Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which would raise the federal wage to $10.10. State legislatures aren’t waiting. The New York state assembly approved an increase to $9 plus indexing, the New Mexico state senate approved an increase to $8.50, and the Hawaii state senate and house each passed increases.
But that hasn’t stopped the doomsayers. The conservative Cato Institute called the minimum wage “zombie economics.” Paul Ryan said that “history is very clear” that it “costs jobs.” Marco Rubio said that “We have a lot of history to prove” that “raising the minimum wage does not grow the middle class.”
In fact, the historical record is quite clear. “Consider the Source: 100 years of Broken Record Opposition to the Minimum Wage,
» Read more about: What ‘Zombie Economics?’ The Minimum Wage & Its Critics »
Over the past couple of months, lead stories on every media outlet across this nation have covered the “gloom and doom” angle of six-day postal delivery. But last Sunday, thousands of Letter Carriers, union members and allies came out to set the story straight on the real crisis that is facing the United States Postal Service.
In San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco, rally participants let the communities they serve know that if the overzealous plan by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to eliminate Saturday mail delivery is allowed to happen, it would be one of the biggest mistakes our government would ever make.
Rally participants set the facts straight by letting everyone know that regardless of what he has been threatening to do, Postmaster Donahoe lacks the legal authority to implement this plan on his own. Decisions on delivery schedule are the purview of Congress, and every year for the past 30 years,
» Read more about: Postal Rallies: “Save Saturday Mail Delivery!” »
We’re still legislating and regulating private morality, while at the same time ignoring the much larger crisis of public morality in America.
In recent weeks Republican state legislators have decided to thwart the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in “Roe v. Wade,” which gave women the right to have an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Legislators in North Dakota passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks or after a fetal heart beat had been detected, and approved a fall referendum that would ban all abortions by defining human life as beginning with conception. Lawmakers in Arkansas have banned abortions within twelve weeks of conception.
The morality brigade worries about fetuses, but not what happens to children after they’re born. They and other conservatives have been cutting funding for child nutrition, healthcare for infants and their mothers, and schools.
Spring equinox always arrives in what feels like the middle of winter. Snow falls in the Northwest while the Northeast tries to dig out from under the most recent storm and ice still covers Midwestern roads. Even in Los Angeles, spring does not really feel like, well, spring until sometime in late April or early May. The foundational spring stories of the Northern Hemisphere also have that hidden element.
Passover in the Jewish tradition tells the story of a people oppressed by enslavement in Egypt, the dominant empire of its time. Over and over again terrible experiences overtake the land, but the slave masters refuse to let go. A plague of frogs is not enough. Nor locusts. Nor dying animals. Nine times the plagues come and the masters will not relent. Then, suddenly, with number ten, the slaves are released, or actually, told to leave. It could have happened after the first disaster.
» Read more about: Spring’s Awakening and the Dawn of Change »
It’s time for California, long a leader in green energy investment, to take another big step forward on the environment and job creation.
When Californians passed Proposition 39 last year, they voted for more carbon reduction, school improvements and jobs – all through a five-year, $2.5 billion program using revenues from newly closed tax loopholes to pay for investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Now state policymakers are making critical decisions as they craft the guidelines for this massive new investment.
School facilities are the primary target of Proposition 39 retrofitting efforts. But if the measure is going to deliver on its promises of carbon reduction, healthier schools and neighborhoods, long-term career opportunities and a timely economic boost for communities that need it the most, the proposition needs to be implemented right.
I’ve been studying the green jobs sector since its early days, and my research and observations suggest some important recommendations.
» Read more about: Going Green and Growing Jobs, the Right Way »
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A stitch in time saves nine. One dollar spent on contraception saves three on pregnancy and newborn care, and that is just the beginning.
Nationally, we spend 11 billion taxpayer dollars a year on unintended pregnancies. But who’s counting? Automatic cuts built into the sequester slashed $86 million from family planning and reproductive health care for poor women. But that is not enough for Congressional Republicans, who are trying yet again to roll back the contraceptive mandate. If there ever was an indication that they are more interested in ideology than balanced budgets, this is it.
Research published this fall showed that effective, affordable, accessible contraception dramatically drops the rate of unintended pregnancy and related public health costs. In the study, whose co-author explained that it was essentially designed to mimic what Obamacare would have provided,
» Read more about: Contraceptive Mandate: Another Budget Hostage »
Last week I stood with hundreds of proud Angelenos outside the Department of Water and Power headquarters in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate a momentous announcement for the city and our environment. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proclaimed that Los Angeles will be completely off of coal power before 2025.
It will be a monumental shift.
“It took one hundred years to build up the power supply the DWP has today,” the Mayor explained, “but in a decade and a half, we’re going to replace 70 percent of it.” “Right now, 40 percent of our power comes from coal plants. But by 2025, that number will be zero.”
With the spotlight on our city, we were joined by national environmental leaders such as former Vice President Al Gore and Sierra Club Executive Director Mike Brune.
“This is a really big deal,” Gore said emphatically. “Americans worry that government is broken,
» Read more about: L.A.’s Big Energy Shift: Goodbye Dirty Coal »
If you’re like me, right now you may be scrambling to stock up on all of your Passover essentials. So what if I told you that you could get 12 boxes of matzah – more than enough to cover the eight days and nights of breadless revelry – for just over $40 bucks?
Ah, but there’s a catch: You’ll have to buy this miracle matzah pak at Walmart. Moral dilemma? You bet.
Last year we provided a short list of reasons you might want to think twice about a Walmart matzah binge. We wish we could report that Walmart had cleaned up its act since then, but alas, the world’s largest retailer has racked up a series of alleged corporate crimes and indiscretions that would make a pharaoh blush.
So before you succumb to those everyday low prices, here are five more reasons not to buy matzah at Walmart:
1) Hunger Strike: Remember those passages in the haggadah about the bread of affliction?
» Read more about: Five New Reasons Not to Buy Matzah at Walmart »
“What do ex-cons and trade unions in California have in common?” With those words, KTTV Fox 11 Vice-President and General Manager Kevin Hale begins his latest editorial criticizing California’s High Speed Rail Project, specifically a hiring policy that gives preferential treatment to disadvantaged workers.
“They are defining disadvantaged workers as former criminals and some union workers,” Hale says.
Mr. Hale is certainly entitled to his opinion about the bullet train, but when he starts lumping together criminals and union workers, I have to object.
His true anti-union colors are showing with that distortion of the facts.
Mr. Hale fails to mention in his editorial that the High Speed Rail Project also gives preferential treatment to several other groups, including veterans, single parents, former foster children, high school dropouts and the homeless.
But you’ll notice Mr. Hale doesn’t associate veterans, foster children or single parents with former criminals.
A new economy is coming. While Wall Street banks are on a trend of corporate mergers and acquisitions, Main Street businesses are generating community wealth while undergoing a transition of their own. Traditional companies are becoming worker cooperatives, both to sustain during tough economic times and because years of success have enabled these companies to reward their workers. State and local governments are beginning to get wise to this trend, too, adding legislative influence to an already vibrant movement.
Take the example of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, an umbrella company that runs a fleet of food service outfits based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Over the course of more than 30 years, Zingerman’s has become a statewide destination for food lovers, and their owners have become business community luminaries. Nearly 600 employees work in the eight distinct businesses that comprise the Zingerman’s Community, generating annual revenues of $46 million.
When voters approved Proposition 39 last November, they were voting for good clean-energy jobs, and energy efficiency projects in public schools and other public facilities that would save taxpayers money.
The proposition closed a corporate tax loophole and will provide up to $550 million annually in savings that, in the first four years, will go toward energy efficiency projects. An article that recently appeared in the industry press with the headline, “HVAC Contractor Ordered to Pay Nearly $1 Million for Violating Labor Law,” offers a cautionary tale for state lawmakers who are now considering how to spend those funds.
The article reports that California labor commissioner Julie Su ordered Ace Cooling & Heating Corporation, a contractor that installs heating and cooling systems for buildings, to pay nearly a million dollars in fines and wages to 10 employees for their work on a modernization project at El Camino Community College in Torrance.
» Read more about: Wage Theft Case Shows the Need for Workforce Standards »