Politics is the art of compromise. On this note, Capital & Main asked Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) about the removal of 365,000 In Home Support Service (IHSS) workers from Assembly Bill 1522, the paid sick leave bill she authored. (See “Landmark Sick Leave Law Signed.”) The measure, signed into law September 10, grants this employment benefit to 6.5 million private-sector workers statewide. It takes effect on July 1, 2015. IHSS workers help the disabled and elderly with their daily household and medical needs. According to the Economic Policy Institute, nationally 93 percent of such workers are female, with 27 percent of them Hispanic and 18 percent African American.
“At the end of the day,” Assemblywoman Gonzalez said, “we were forced to take that specific group out. “It was a condition of having the bill signed by Governor Brown. His view is that IHSS workers are in the middle of statewide bargaining,
» Read more about: Paid Sick Leave Law Excludes Homecare Workers »
Over a span of 20 summer days truck driver Daniel Linares had moved some 110 cargo containers at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for Pacific 9, a drayage company based in Carson.
Linares’ August 15, 2014 check showed his gross earnings to be $3191.87. But another line item on the check stub offered a nasty payday shock: By Pac 9’s calculations Linares owed the company $296.47. In other words, he had received a “negative” paycheck.
Pac 9, a company whose “180-plus independent drivers” annually deliver more than 100,000 containers from Southern California’s ports and whose “customer list includes many of the most recognizable Fortune 100 companies,” according to the company website, had handed Linares the bill for the insurance, registration and other expenses incurred for the truck he leases from the company. He had already paid up-front for its fuel.
» Read more about: Port Truck Drivers Receive “Negative” Paychecks »
There has been increased attention recently paid to America’s vast infrastructure needs. The White House, in conjunction with the Treasury and Transportation Departments, even held a summit this week to bring together key leaders from state and local governments, as well as private sector investors, to discuss best practices for increasing investment in infrastructure projects in our communities.
We know that rebuilding America can be an effective way to rebuild our economy as well, but only if the deals are designed in a way that truly reflects the needs of our neighbors and our neighborhoods. That’s why we at In the Public Interest developed the Infrastructure Justice framework, a useful document for anyone who wants to ensure the investments that fund infrastructure projects meet the true infrastructure needs of our communities and help build the middle class.
By carefully evaluating public-private partnerships (P3s), and negotiating to include best practices for transparency,
In this uncertain post-recession era, economic inequality seems to be the only thing you can count on being in full supply. It’s certainly a subject that’s increasingly on people’s lips – thanks in no small part to Jacob Kornbluth’s 2013 documentary, Inequality for All. The film, wryly narrated by economist Robert Reich, lays out Reich’s astute perspective on how our country has arrived at the point where 400 Americans own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the country combined.
Sunday the Southern California Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union will screen Inequality for All, an event that will serve as a refresher course for some and an eye-opener for others who have not seen the film. Afterwards, Harold Meyerson, American Prospect editor-at-large and Washington Post columnist, will offer his always lively insights into what’s happened since the documentary’s premier, along with a discussion of commercial property tax reform.
» Read more about: Harold Meyerson Speaks on ‘Inequality for All’ »
Among the puffier news stories making the rounds today has been Monday’s unveiling of a portrait of former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by painter/photographer Gottfried Helnwein. (The artist’s other subjects have included singer Marilyn Manson and Schwarzenegger’s fellow Austrian, Adolf Hitler.) The portrait is a giant, hyper-realistic yearbook image of a smiling Schwarzenegger, backgrounded by a ghostly outline of California’s state seal. It will hang in the Capitol next to a wildflower landscape occupied by a more modestly proportioned Gray Davis, the man Schwarzenegger replaced after the 2003 recall election.
It’s worth remembering that Davis didn’t lose his job because he was some corrupt autocrat along the lines of Louisiana’s Huey Long. Instead, he was the collateral damage from a Texas-sized conspiracy led by energy trader Enron to hike up the cost of electricity for Californians. The resulting budget crisis and public backlash led to a celebrity coup in which frustrated citizens were allowed,
Today is a big day for Lionsgate Entertainment, and we want to help celebrate. That’s why on the occasion of the annual shareholder’s meeting of this hugely successful film company (taking place right now in Toronto), AFM musicians are proud to present a musical tribute to Lionsgate and its executive leadership – a little number we call “Right Here at the Top.”
AFM musicians created the song as part of our efforts to draw attention to Lionsgate’s destructive offshoring of musical scoring work, even as it simultaneously takes millions in tax dollars — moneys intended to enrich our communities. Of course the story told by the CEO in our song may not be exactly the story told by Lionsgate’s executives to their shareholders. But wait –– what’s that? The executives at Lionsgate fail to provide important information to their beloved shareholders?
August 28th marked the 51st anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. On that sweltering day in 1963, amidst an atmosphere of racial tension stoked by political indecisiveness, as well as acts of violent Southern resistance defined by bombings and bloody protests, 250,000 Americans converged on the National Mall. There, facing the Lincoln Memorial, educators, clergymen, entertainers, civil rights leaders, politicians and ordinary citizens listened to a day of speeches, prayers and song. They had gathered so that their voices could be heard throughout the nation, but one voice on that day would be heard above all others.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the last speaker when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. That historic oration is the subject of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream, by Chicago-based journalist Gary Younge. Its four chapters brim with key insights and revelations about those troubled times,
» Read more about: Gary Younge on MLK’s Most Famous Speech »
Readers of Capital & Main are all too familiar with wage theft and job misclassification – twin plagues that afflict American workers, especially truck drivers at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. Employers use wage theft to shortchange employees out of their wages and benefits by shaving hours off time cards; job misclassification, on the other hand, allows companies to deny that the people working for them are even employees at all, but freelancers who are ineligible for government-provided benefits such as unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation. By misclassifying their workers, employers do not pay the kinds of payroll taxes that provide these and other services to workers.
Now, thanks to an epic investigative series published yesterday by the McClatchy news syndicate (publisher of the Sacramento Bee), in partnership with ProPublica, these two issues have been pushed before a national audience.
» Read more about: News Series Exposes Massive Employer Fraud in Construction »
In 2012 California’s construction industry took in a respectable $152 billion, employed nearly a million workers and is now projected to grow 26 percent by 2020. But according to a recently released report, a pall is threatening to settle over this otherwise bright horizon. Sinking Underground: The Growing Informal Economy in California Construction identifies an ever-expanding segment of workers in the industry who are not reported by their employers or are misclassified as independent contractors—characteristics of the “informal economy,” or what is more commonly referred to as an underground economy.
The study’s disturbing research suggests that informal construction, which benefits the state’s unscrupulous labor brokers and contractors, and the real estate developers who hire them, is partly responsible for the hollowing out of California’s middle class.
Sinking Underground was conducted by the Economic Roundtable and tracked labor statistics from 1972 to 2012.
» Read more about: Study: Cheaters Prosper in State’s Informal Construction Economy »
The latest sign that the nation’s 14-year romance with the for-profit cyber charter industry might be cooling came last week when the Board of Trustees for Pennsylvania’s scandal-plagued Agora Cyber Charter School discussed completely severing its relationship with K12 Inc., the nation’s largest for-profit cyber charter management and curriculum supplier.
The action came nearly three weeks after an August 5 vote by Agora’s board to not renew its management contract with the online learning giant beginning with the 2015-16 school year.
Agora had been the jewel of K12’s 29-state network of virtual charters, accounting for 14 percent of the company’s annual revenues of $848.2 million. So when news of the August 5 decision came to light during an August 14 K12 Fourth Quarter investor conference call, it sent K12’s high-performing stock into a nearly 13-point tailspin. The call-in’s moment of revelation can be heard here:
» Read more about: Cyber Charter School Revolt Against K12 Inc. Continues »