In what was widely seen as a stunning rebuke to President Obama’s efforts to speed through congressional approval of the administration’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, the House of Representatives last Friday rejected a key measure needed to “fast track” the controversial pact.
The defeat came in a vote on one of two related bills that both needed to pass for Fast Track to move forward — a reauthorization of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) funds, a program that pays for job retraining for those thrown out of work because of free trade deals like TPP.
House Republicans have vowed to get another floor vote on TAA as soon as early this week to allow the White House a second chance at fast track.
The reauthorization failed by a lopsided 126-302 — a margin attributed to the efforts of a broad coalition of labor unions,
» Read more about: The Trade Agreement California Dodged – For Now »
The problems are well documented. Northrop Grumman botched the upgrade to New York City’s 911 systems while billing the city $300,000 to $430,000 annually for each of their 137 consultants. A $132 million dollar contract to upgrade phones and Internet services for municipal agencies in Orange County, California is already $13 million over budget while municipal employees report repeated outages and failed solutions from the contractor, Xerox. And who can forget all those failed Obamacare exchange websites brought to us by mega-information technology contractors such as CGI and Oracle?
For too long, local and state governments have turned over control of their critical digital infrastructure to companies claiming they could do the work cheaper and faster than public employees. But after the last few years of failures, cost overruns, and plain old shoddy work, local leaders are finally realizing that in this digital age,
» Read more about: Insourcing Taxpayer Savings and Efficiency »
It’s no secret that former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich has some misgivings about the direction of the American economy. But the prolific writer, radio commentator and longtime University of California, Berkeley professor isn’t thrilled about how we are educating our kids, either.
As part of a new project with the activist group MoveOn.org, Reich recently released a video that described our education system as “squashing passion for learning, eroding the love of teaching and grinding up generations of young people.” The critique is accompanied by a set of proposals to reinvent American education – one of 10 planks in a broader agenda titled “10 Ideas to Save the Economy.”
Reich has addressed the nation’s education challenges in his books, including 2011’s Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, as well as in his 2013 film Inequality for All (available on NetFlix,
A recent L.A. Times story profiled a fast-food worker who, according to reporter Don Lee, would lose eligibility for Medicaid if his wages were raised to $15. His wage gains could be “wiped out” by the higher health care costs he’d end up paying. Lee’s portrayal was inaccurate and misleading.
The story centers on 53-year-old Douglas Hunter, a Chicago McDonald’s cook and a leader in the Fight for $15, a national movement of fast-food workers who are pushing for $15 in hourly wages and the right to form a union without employer retaliation.
Hunter is currently enrolled in CountyCare, a Medicaid-managed care plan that pays for his health care, including more than $700 per month in medications and supplies he needs to manage his diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure. Contrary to Lee’s assertion, Hunter would still qualify for Medicaid based on his income if his wage were raised to $15.
» Read more about: L.A. Times Calls Out Fight for $15 Guy, Gets It All Wrong »
The newest front in the battle over the retirement security of California’s public employees opened June 4 with the release of the language for a proposed ballot initiative that would rewrite the state’s constitution to virtually outlaw traditional defined-benefit pension plans for future state and municipal workers.
The measure, dubbed “The Voter Empowerment Act of 2016,” would effectively shift all new public employees from the various defined-benefit plans currently in place to 401(k) plans, beginning in 2019. It would then lock those plans in place by adding the burden of direct voter approval on government employers who want to continue offering traditional pensions after 2019.
Also see in this series:
The security offered by defined-benefit retirement plans has been typically used by government employers to compete with the private sector in recruiting quality candidates for public workforces.
» Read more about: New Retirement Ballot Proposal: The Language of Cuts »
No city offers Californians a better example of voter-approved pension-cutting than San Jose. In 2012, then-mayor Chuck Reed, who is the co-author of the new “Voter Empowerment Act of 2016,” persuaded citizens to pass Measure B. Some provisions of the San Jose law were later thrown out by a Santa Clara County Superior Court, but an uneasy atmosphere lingers over this city whose public employees were vilified by Measure B’s supporters. Capital & Main recently discussed the fallout from Measure B and previous budget cuts, with a city firefighter who requested that only his first name be used.
Capital & Main: What do you see as the biggest problem facing the San Jose Fire Department today?
Matt: Don’t get me wrong, I love the department I work for . . . Unfortunately with the budget cuts that our department [has] faced [for] over a decade,
» Read more about: San Jose's Pension-Cutting Legacy: A Firefighter's Story »
On April 10, the libertarian Reason Foundation held its strategic “pension summit” in Sacramento’s Sterling Hotel to reduce government workers’ retirements. A proposed 2016 state ballot measure to cut public employee pensions by shifting them from traditional, defined-benefit pensions to more volatile 401(k)-type retirements took center stage. At that point, the measure was months away from being submitted to the state Attorney General’s office for a title and approval of its wording.
The measure is co-authored by Chuck Reed, the former Democratic mayor of San Jose who successfully pushed a 2012 city pension-cutting ballot initiative, Measure B. Reed headlined the summit, which was open to the media only on an off-the-record basis.
“The political support is the relatively easy part,” Reed told Capital & Main after the summit concluded. “As long as you are solving a problem the public is willing to support it in the form of pension reform.”
But not everyone shares Reed’s optimism.
» Read more about: In Their Own Words: Pension Disrupters Speak »
My wife Susan and I have just returned from a three-week trip to the East Coast. The journey included a week or so in Washington, D.C., which Susan had never seen and which I have not visited in a couple of decades. Our purpose was to witness the graduation of a nephew, but we also had time to visit the various monuments that cover the core of the city. These memorials invariably quote some of the masterpieces of our heritage, a reminder of the values that ground the American experiment in democracy.
We left Los Angeles as Baltimore’s social upheaval was erupting – during the same week that marked the 23rd anniversary of the so-called Rodney King riots here. It felt appropriate that on our first night, following dinner in a gentrifying neighborhood of the Capitol, a friend took us to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. He said it was best seen at night,
Massachusetts’s Taxpayer Protection Act is the gold standard when it comes to ensuring government contracts are awarded fairly and will result in cost savings that don’t simply rely on slashing wages and benefits for workers. Also known as the Pacheco Law, the legislation was passed in 1993 after years of wanton government outsourcing led to drastic failures and outrageous corruption by contractors. The reckless privatization of critical services such as mental health care for Massachusetts’ most vulnerable citizens led to the creation of important standards and protections for public workers, service recipients and taxpayers.
Businesses that want to win a contract with the Commonwealth must prove they can lower costs to do the same service at the same level of quality, while providing their employees with the same wages and benefits as the public agency. A uniform process for evaluating and awarding contracts ensures conflicts of interest are rooted out while the state auditor oversees everything.
» Read more about: Taxpayer Act Threatened in Massachusetts »
The ongoing battle to restore the seven percent cut in IHSS hours provides a microcosm of the problems involved in fixing the long-term health care system in California for its most vulnerable clients.
This past January the state Senate’s Select Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, chaired by Senator Carol Liu, issued a report titled, A Shattered System: Reforming Long-Term Care in California. Its authors concluded that seniors, the disabled, their families, caregivers and state and local governments suffer from a “costly and fragmented, ‘non-system’ of long-term care services and supports.”
A lack of political will has produced a dysfunctional system of services for the aging.
After a year-long program of research and hearings, the committee determined that continued reliance upon the existing patchwork of programs and services for the state’s growing aged and disabled population will result in “unnecessary expenditures,
» Read more about: Aging in California: Shattered Dreams, Broken Care Systems »
When Governor Jerry Brown unveiled his revised 2015-2016 budget on May 14, hundreds of thousands of In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) recipients, the low-wage caregivers who serve them, and the health rights activists and labor unions that champion their interests learned there was an apparent seven percent solution to restore previous cuts made to IHSS service hours.
The IHSS program provides care to nearly a half-million, low-income seniors, children and persons with disabilities so they can safely live in their own homes. It is an alternative to institutionalizing the elderly and the disabled, and saves the state hundreds of millions of dollars, while enabling program recipients to receive personalized care from IHSS workers – most often family members – who assist them with hygiene issues, meals, house-cleaning, transportation and medical care.
“As of July 1st 2015, the seven percent reduction in IHSS service hours will be restored and funded by the Managed Care Organization (MCO) tax or another revenue source,” California Department of Social Services (CDSS) Deputy Director of Public Affairs Michael Weston told Capital &
Thousands of aging and disabled Californians, along with their home care providers, have been on edge to see if a seven percent cut in home care services will be restored in the state budget, as Jim Crogan details for Capital & Main. But this year’s tug-of-war at the margins of the state budget is just a foreshadowing of serious struggles to come over the next 15 years as a tidal wave of new seniors changes the face of our state.
The number of Californians over 65 will nearly double by 2030.
Despite California’s falling birth rates, the state’s population has grown faster and stayed younger than the country on average, thanks to immigration. But the outsized numbers of baby boomers has begun to outweigh those moving in, and it will leave us with a much older population.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s one of those truisms that’s been echoed in various forms throughout the ages, from the likes of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and even the Spider-man comics. Unfortunately, powerful major corporations like Walmart don’t often take responsibility for their tremendous impact on America and the rest of the world. As Walmart opens its annual shareholder meeting on June 5, we at the Food Chain Workers Alliance urge stockholders and executives alike to consider our newly-released report, Walmart at the Crossroads, which examines the impact of Walmart’s food supply chain on labor and the environment.
Walmart, number one on the Fortune 500 list of American companies, has net sales totaling $473.1 billion. With foodstuffs making up 55 percent of its sales, this corporation controls 25 percent of grocery sales in the U.S. Consequently, Walmart’s actions and inactions reverberate through the food chain,
» Read more about: Walmart at the Crossroads: Live Better, Do Better for All of Us »
The mass Ellis Act evictions and planned demolition of rent-controlled housing in Beverly Grove is a tragedy. Tenants and their supporters continue to protest, generating strong media coverage over the evictions being carried out by Matthew Jacobs, Chairman of the California Housing and Finance Agency. The agency’s mission is to “[support] the needs of renters and homebuyers by providing financing and programs that create safe, decent and affordable housing opportunities for low to moderate income Californians.”
L.A. is suffering from a wave of Ellis Act evictions that local officials have the ability to stop
Yes, Jacobs is a hypocrite. He has no business working for a state housing agency. And Ellis Act evictions are an outrageous circumvention of local rent-control laws.
But Jacobs would not be evicting these tenants under the Ellis Act if Los Angeles prohibited the demolition of rent-controlled housing.
» Read more about: Why Isn’t L.A. Protecting Rent-Controlled Housing? »
In a recent interview with Capital & Main, economist Jared Bernstein candidly explained why he doesn’t see corporate America rushing to solve the country’s income disparity crisis, and why America cannot educate itself out of inequality. Instead, Bernstein, who is Vice President Joe Biden’s former top economic advisor, returned to themes found in his new book, The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth With Prosperity, In it, Bernstein lays out an ambitious agenda to restore the lost relationship between economic expansion and the well-being of most Americans.
In this podcast he acknowledges the Obama administration’s missed opportunities during the early days of the last recession, while claiming that the present political dysfunction, with its gridlock of federal legislation, is not an accident but a political strategy that serves the status quo and is the enemy of full employment.
» Read more about: Podcast: Jared Bernstein Talks About the Recession, Unions and the TPP »
As it states on its website, “for more than 35 years, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) has supported the needs of renters and home buyers by providing financing and programs that create safe, decent and affordable housing opportunities for low to moderate income Californians.” But now some apartment dwellers in Beverly Grove and the Fairfax District are wondering whether the agency’s chairman, Matthew Jacobs, has forgotten— or perhaps, never really embraced—the noble purposes expressed in the state agency’s mission statement.
A state housing chief is using the Ellis Act to evict his tenants
Jacobs has sat on the board since 2012 and was designated chair by Governor Jerry Brown in December, 2013. He has an extensive, accomplished background in real estate finance and development, and is the Principal at Bulldog Partners, LLC., a real estate development company that is now in the process of using the Ellis Act to evict 17 tenants from four rent-regulated buildings,
» Read more about: Mass Evictions Spread to Fairfax District »
Some 70 years ago, the song “Rosie the Riveter” crackled over the wireless while a Norman Rockwell illustration of Rosie flexing her bicep popped from the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. By depicting the rivet gun-toting icon on her lunch break, Rockwell hopped aboard the government-fueled propaganda bandwagon that had only one aim: to recruit and train a female workforce capable of churning out munitions, aircraft, tanks and destroyers for a costly, brutal war that spanned two oceans and three continents. Rosie the Riveter did the job, and an estimated 18 million women left the house for the factory (or shipyard) — giving many the freedom to work outside the home for the very first time.
The larger the share of female employment, the lower the wage across all industries
Today,
» Read more about: A New Rosie the Riveter for a New America »
It’s become an unsettling fact of political life that as election turnouts dwindle, campaign spending skyrockets. Los Angeles’ recently concluded school board races, which drew a paltry 7.6 percent of potential voters, underscored this point. Ref Rodriguez, who unseated the District 5 incumbent, received most of the $2.2 million contributed by political action committees (PACs) controlled by the California Charter Schools Association Advocates. Rodriguez has co-created several charter schools and his backers, unsurprisingly, came from that community. Among the familiar local names of extreme wealth and influence were Eli Broad, Richard Riordan and William Bloomfield. Equally familiar to followers of school privatization were more distant funders such as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Walmart heir Jim Walton, Laurene Powell Jobs, the Gap Inc.’s Fisher family members and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Rounding out Rodriguez’s cascade of thousand-dollar checks were names associated with high-powered investment firms,
» Read more about: Is Voter Turnoff Inviting a Progressive Rollback? »
“The Lord has always taken care of me,” says Catherine Green, as she emerges from a moment of reflection and peers intently around her living room. On a plaque by the kitchen are words from Isaiah: “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.” She says the quote has always given her strength in difficult times.
By the end of May, the 90-year-old Green will have tendered a reluctant, pain-filled goodbye to the Golden State and the familiar comforts of the Los Angeles apartment she has made into a home over the last 30 years. She is one of dozens of Boulevard Villa residents—many of whom are elderly, disabled or on Section 8 housing vouchers— who are being unceremoniously evicted from their 43-unit Mid-City apartment complex by its new owners, Lafayette Square Apt. LLC. The eviction of every resident of 1625 Crenshaw Boulevard,
» Read more about: Evicted Crenshaw Tenant: 'This Ain’t Nothing But Greed' »
On Wednesday, May 20, the day after a Santa Barbara County fire inspector discovered a stream of contaminated crude oil flowing onto a pristine segment of the Southern California coast, a group of researchers published a study linking the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill to a mass die-off of bottlenose dolphins. The 46 carcasses examined for the study had suffered from “rare, life-threatening and chronic adrenal gland and lung diseases.” The researchers concluded that these diseases were “consistent with exposure to petroleum compounds as seen in other mammals.”
46 years after the first oil spill that wrecked the Santa Barbara coast, not much has changed
Hearing this, the casual observer might say duh, and wonder why such a study makes the news at this late date, a full five years after British Petroleum’s oil rig exploded and sank,
» Read more about: Slick With Denial: 'Self-Regulation' and the Latest Oil Spill »