The years-long fight of Los Angeles Port truck drivers to be recognized as company employees– instead of “independent contractors” who lack workplace rights and protections – burst into a 48-hour strike this morning. The work stoppage by drivers for four major trucking firms is organized by Justice for Port Drivers and is targeting the marine container terminals at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Despite winning a string of labor court rulings in wage theft lawsuits, the drivers say they are still misclassified as independent contractors. That misclassification has meant that drivers are denied overtime wages, workers compensation, disability and a host of other benefits, and must pay for the fuel and maintenance of their vehicles. It has also guaranteed that after paycheck deductions, many drivers who work long hours during six-day weeks earn poverty wages.
This is the second strike in six months by drivers,
In an excruciating example of bad timing, the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP was scheduled to bestow its Lifetime Achievement Award to Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, at its May 15 banquet. Sterling is now under fire for racist comments caught on a recording that surfaced on the TMZ website. Even President Barack Obama weighed in, condemning Sterling’s remarks as “incredibly offensive.” The NBA is now investigating Sterling’s remarks and could invoke sanctions, including removing him as Clippers’ owner.
Embarrassed by the controversy, the NAACP announced Sunday morning, via Twitter, that is was withdrawing the award, which was to be presented at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles as part of the celebration of the chapter’s 100th anniversary. The NAACP also plans to honor Rev. Al Sharpton and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — as well as Walmart’s local charity and political operative and a top Fed Ex executive —
It’s been a long, dark road for America’s port truck drivers, but finally there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. After nearly 30 years of ruthless exploitation by the trucking industry, the drivers who transport the goods that fuel our consumer economy may be poised to rejoin the country’s middle class, thanks to an important determination by a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.
Last month, the NLRB’s Los Angeles office announced the settlement of a casebrought by truck drivers against Pacific 9 Transportation Inc. The drivers alleged that the company had illegally used threats and intimidation to prevent them from exercising their right to form a union, a practice that is rampant across the country thanks to our lax labor laws.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Pac 9’s drivers are considered independent contractors by the company and, according to labor law, independent contractors —
» Read more about: America’s Sweatshops on Wheels Find a Light at the End of the Tunnel »
After years of neglect, the minimum wage has suddenly become a major national issue. President Obama has proposed an increase in the federal minimum to $10.10 an hour, fast food workers are agitating for $15, and candidates who back a higher wage floor, including an avowed socialistin Seattle, are winning local elections. In February, the retailer Gap Inc. announced that it was implementing a nationwide minimum wage for 65,000 of its own 90,000 employees (although only $9 an hour).
The minimum wage is an important issue in other countries as well, although we rarely hear about these cases.
Almost 50 years ago, Bob Dylan recorded with an electric guitar and band for the first time and produced Subterranean Homesick Blues, a culture-altering event that claimed, among other things, that, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” That song signaled a cultural change that resonated with forward-looking people of the time, but the truth was ignored or dismissed by those who preferred to look back. Similarly, this is a moment when the wind is blowing strongly in the direction of justice, and those who ignore it risk being left behind.
In previous articles, we have highlighted the prevalent fiction of “independent contracting,” a deception that affects the 12,000 port truck drivers who dray goods out of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, among the 75,000 drivers nationwide. Drivers in the current system must pay a lease on a truck,
» Read more about: Port Drivers’ Misclassification Homesick Blues »
Energy efficiency is the Swiss Army Knife of public policy. It’s Veg-o-matic. It slices and dices. No matter the question, energy efficiency just might be the answer.
What technology saves you money on your utility bill? How can businesses become more competitive? What reduces greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest cost? Energy efficiency is the correct answer to all-of-the-above.
Now add another benefit: energy efficiency can help prepare us for climate change.
Think about the hot summer days when electricity use skyrockets. On L.A.’s hottest day on record – 113° Fahrenheit on September 27, 2010 – LADWP delivered a whopping 6,177 megawatts. It was the all-time high in power demand, mainly to power air-conditioners and refrigerators.
But, when the grid is overtaxed, there’s also a high likelihood of power outages. More than an inconvenience, blackouts are a public health problem. During the Chicago heat wave of 1995,
» Read more about: It Slices, It Dices – the Magic of Energy Efficiency »
There has been no shortage of ink spilled on the so-called “sharing economy”. To cut through the rhetoric, LAANE’s Jon Zerolnick spoke with Tom Slee, an Ontario-based writer whose work on the intersection of technology, politics, and economics has appeared in The Literary Review of Canada, The New Inquiry, The Guardian, and Jacobin.
Let’s start with some definitions. What is the sharing economy?
The sharing economy is internet platforms, and more-or-less independent people exchanging real-world goods and services through those platforms. This doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sharing, but that is the name now.
Some of these platforms started off non-commercial. I’m thinking of things like Couch Surfing, where individuals host each other in their own homes, with no money exchanged; it was a non-profit and provided a coordination service.
» Read more about: Couch Surfers and Billionaires: On the Sharing Economy »
What if we had no government services and everything we used to get from government was run by private corporations? McDonald’s could be running the welfare system, Target the public schools and Walmart our mass transportation networks. What would be wrong with that?
According to Donald Cohen, director of the nonprofit research and action group In the Public Interest, there’s a long list of problems we face when private companies take over government services. For one, it’s hard to find out how much money is being paid to the company’s employees and corporate heads. And, once a formerly public system is taken over by a private company, there’s often no way that voters can set standards for those salaries, the quality of the work done or the cost of services to the public. Right now if you don’t like McDonald’s corporate policies, you can pick another restaurant.
Earth Day is the birthday of the modern environmental movement in the U.S. and across the globe. Today, on this 44th Earth Day, the City of Los Angeles – the second largest in the nation and a mighty economic engine on the West Coast—celebrates its commitment to environmental protections and sustainability with a model Zero Waste ordinance just signed into law by Mayor Eric Garcetti. The days when the city sent three to four million tons of trash to landfills every year from apartment and commercial buildings are ending. Now, Los Angeles is set to achieve the highest recycling rates and best standards of environmental protection from the greenhouse gas emissions, air and groundwater pollution, and loss of recyclable material resources associated with our waste management.
Landfilling or burning millions of tons of trash subjects our residents and our environment to a distressing assault. Landfills and poorly regulated facilities disproportionately impact low income communities of color—as these communities are either employed or housed in close proximity,
You’ve heard him sing Ol’ Man River, but you may not know his name or that he was a left-wing activist. As mentioned in the program notes for the one-man show The Tallest Tree in the Forest, now playing at the Mark Taper Theater, “the most extraordinary thing about Paul Robeson’s life is that more people don’t know about it.”
For that we can thank the House Un-American Activities Committee that questioned Robeson’s loyalty and effectively destroyed his career, along with the careers of hundreds of other American radicals of the 1940s and 50s. And what a career it was. The son of a father born into slavery, Robeson excelled in collegiate sports and academics and, after earning a law degree from Columbia University, joined the Harlem Renaissance and became a brilliant stage and music performer. Robeson developed a worldwide following with his powerful renditions of Negro spirituals and later with his performance of Othello in New York,
» Read more about: The Tallest Tree in the Forest: Appreciating Paul Robeson »