Most high school science teachers across the country now teach climate change, but about a third explain it away as a natural phenomenon. Another third tell their students that it comes from both natural and human causes. Meanwhile California almost reached its average reservoir and snowpack levels as measured at the end of March, and reports from around the world say that the oceans keep rising faster than expected and that annual temperatures continue go up. Last year finished as the hottest yet, following a decade of record-breaking annual tallies.
As if this weren’t happening, the fossil fuel folks keep pressing ahead. Our state’s three major privately-owned utility companies filed applications for a rehearing at the Public Utilities Commission, seeking a rollback of its recent rules encouraging rooftop solar panels. The big guys never give up.
So is there any good news this spring?
» Read more about: Spring Awakening: Uniting Against Climate Change »
The placards stacked outside the Ronald Reagan State Building said it all: “We Did It!” The hundreds of low-income workers who had just carried those signs had come to downtown Los Angeles Monday morning to celebrate “it” – the passage of a $15 an hour state minimum wage. The mood was jubilant, almost delirious, in anticipation of Governor Jerry Brown’s arrival to sign the measure, known as Senate Bill 3.
To be clear: The new wage law does not mean fast-food workers, janitors, in-home caregivers or others are about to jump from earning $10 an hour to $15. Come January 1, 2017, people earning the current minimum wage will move to a $10.50 hourly wage. The following January, it will go up to $11, not reaching $15 until 2022 (2023 for workers employed in companies with 25 or fewer workers). But along the way, workers who previously had to get sick on their own time will be given three paid days off – a big boost for their health and the well-being of both the people they work with and serve.
» Read more about: Sweet 15: Governor Signs $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Bill »
Remember when maggots were found in potatoes about to be served at a Michigan prison? That was just the tip of the iceberg.
A new report released this week details widespread cost-cutting by the food service company Aramark, whose contract was terminated by that state last year. Kitchens were not only unsanitary but dangerous. The company hired inexperienced staff, allowing prisoners to steal makeshift weapons and control the lunch line. Food shortages were especially common.
Michigan eventually replaced Aramark with a new contractor, but the report comes to an unambiguous conclusion: The underlying problems that ended the contract are “likely to resurface under any contract relationship.”
This is because, in a drive for profits, private corrections companies like Aramark routinely cut corners to lower costs. In private prisons, this drive often leads to more prison violence, lawsuits and staff turnover.
» Read more about: Hell’s Kitchens: Privatized Prison Mess Halls »
I met Brian Smith and his grandmother Jean on a Sunday morning in South Los Angeles. Brian was a recent graduate of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11’s “boot camp” training program designed to prepare new members for the rigors of the trade. I had first come across Brian at the Wilshire Grand Center construction site as he waited for an elevator so he could move his cart of materials to a higher floor. It was only his third day on the job – he seemed enthusiastic but unsure of what the future held.
Brian told me that a union electrician from the neighborhood had come to his home in his off time to help his grandmother with some wiring. Brian, who had been working as a marketer in the music industry, was looking for something more stable – a career he could depend on. The Local 11 electrician invited him to look into his trade.
Barring an unexpected reversal of fortune, California is on track to become the first state to officially raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. News first emerged on March 26 of an agreement with Governor Jerry Brown and leading Democratic legislators to raise the wage from its current $10 hourly mark to $10.50 beginning January 1, 2017, followed by continuous upticks that will result in the wage leveling off at $15 an hour by 2022. (Businesses employing fewer than 26 workers would get an extra year to institute the increases.)
After that the minimum can rise – but not fall – according to inflation. The agreement includes a provision giving workers three days of paid sick leave annually; it also permits California governors to freeze the wage in times of extreme economic downturn.
The movement toward a $15 wage has not followed a straight line,
» Read more about: Historic Minimum Wage Raise on California’s Horizon »
This morning the U.S. Supreme Court announced a 4-4 tie vote on Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a lawsuit in which Rebecca Friedrichs, an Orange County public school teacher, and other plaintiffs sought to deny teachers unions the ability to collect from their members “fair share” fees for collective bargaining. Because of the high court deadlock, the case, widely backed by ultra-conservative and right-to-work groups, reverts to a lower-court ruling in favor of the teachers unions.
This outcome of the closely watched suit, which could have crippled public employee unions, had been expected following the February 13 death of conservative Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. (Note: The CTA is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)
» Read more about: Breaking News: Split Supreme Court Vote Sinks “Friedrichs” »
Within the next 20 years, the number of Californians beyond retirement age will increase by two-thirds, to 12 million. Many of them — half, by some estimates — will have saved less than they need to subsist on after they stop working, leaving them no choice but to either work until the end of their lives if they can, or live out the rest of their years in or near poverty.
Some of those seniors of tomorrow, no doubt, were during their working lives too short-sighted to invest in their employers’ 401(k) plans, or to open Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) on their own. Or they might have been struggling to support families, pay back student loans or were so chronically underemployed that saving money for retirement was out of the question.
See Also — Retirement: A California Mirage?
In 2012, state legislators recognized this looming problem of the future elderly poor and wrote the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Trust Act,
» Read more about: Retirement Board Facing Critical Pension Decision »
More than seven million people—over one-fifth of California’s population—work without a path to retirement. They have neither a 401(k) — the so-called “roller-coaster plan” tied to the stock market — nor a traditional pension that was once considered a worker’s right and which is now a rare species outside of government employment or the public education system.
There is nothing that legally compels a typical American employer to offer any kind of retirement plan to employees. But the average Social Security recipient earns about $15,600 per year in retirement benefits — a near-poverty income in the 21st century.
See Also: Retirement Board Facing Critical Pension Decision
That could change for Californians when state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon’s “California Secure Choice’’ retirement savings plan takes effect. Meanwhile, as one union official put it, “Many employers’ retirement plan for their workers is that they work until they die.” Or,
Last Monday the U.S. Department of Justice announced a powerful new effort to stop local practices that unfairly target poor people by trapping them in “cycles of poverty that can be nearly impossible to escape.” Courts across the country are requiring people arrested with minor misdemeanor charges—like driving with a suspended license—to pay fines before getting their day in court. If they can’t afford the fine, they are forced to wait behind bars until they can.
In a statement and letter, the DOJ shed light on what the agency calls a “bureaucratic cover charge for the right to seek justice,” but also on another alarming practice: the use of for-profit companies to collect fines and manage probation.
On top of fines collected on behalf of courts, many private probation companies charge their own fees for things like drug testing and supervision. If people can’t pay these fees—which can be as high as the fines themselves—they can be sent back to jail.
» Read more about: Criminal Justice: The High Price of Breathing While Poor »
I have been working at the Wilshire Grand Center construction project for a year and a half as a filmmaker trying to capture the daily effort and skill that goes into building our city’s tallest structure. I have approached this three-year project with respect – like one who surfs big waves or climbs our highest mountains – aware of the dangers and humbled by the power and vastness of the environment. I’ve seen many construction workers make the sign of the cross as they arrive in the morning – a gesture of faith and an appeal for safety and guidance. At safety meetings every morning, they are reminded that the main goal is to go home to their families and friends at the end of the day.
Yesterday, one of those workers – an electrician – fell to his death from the 53rd floor. The state’s occupational safety agency,
» Read more about: Reflections on the Wilshire Grand Tragedy »
Twenty years ago a small group of Los Angeles faith leaders – both clergy and lay people – sat around a table in a church library and came up with a name for a new advocacy organization. We were convened by Maria Elena Durazo, then head of the local hotel workers union, and Madeline Janis, founding director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. The group would bring the voice of the religious community into the debate at City Hall to establish a living wage.
That idea was simple enough. If the city contracted out work to private companies, the employer had to pay more than minimum wage, something closer to what the minimum wage would have been if it had kept pace with inflation.
CLUE, unions and Latino activists recently pushed Anaheim to adopt district elections.
The group decided to call itself CLUE – Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.
» Read more about: CLUE: 20 Years of Fighting for Economic Justice »
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education are shining a light on troubling conditions they uncovered in the state’s property services industry. Their new report, Race to the Bottom: How Low‐Road Subcontracting Affects Working Conditions in California’s Property Services Industry, was released last week.
Women janitors and security guards in the industry— a rapidly growing sector of the state’s economy– are at increased risk of violence and sexual harassment, due to a combination of factors that allow the problems, as the study claims, “to occur and to remain unchecked.”
According to program coordinator for the Labor Occupational Health Program at U.C. Berkeley, Helen Chen, “Janitors and security officers at risk tend to work alone at night in empty buildings…isolated from almost everyone except their immediate supervisors.” Chen, who contributed to the report, announced the study’s findings at a press conference on March 8,
» Read more about: Study Shows Why Women Janitors and Security Guards Are At Risk »
Across the country, chronic underinvestment has left roads, bridges, water systems and other critical infrastructure in need of replacement or costly repair. Public financing is the least expensive way to meet these needs. But to fund the gap, some states and cities are turning to contracting arrangements called “public-private partnerships,” or “P3s” for short, which use private capital to finance public projects.
If done right, infrastructure projects—however they’re financed—can tackle inequality by boosting economic growth and providing quality jobs for disadvantaged communities. But since capital in P3s is more expensive than in public financing, and the public loses control over many aspects of P3-financed infrastructure, we should demand even more public benefit in return.
Thursday, along with the Partnership for Working Families (PWF), we released a report to help make sure P3s provide much-needed pathways to the middle class. The report, Building America While Building Our Middle Class,
» Read more about: Fixing Our Infrastructure — and Rebuilding the Middle Class »
Self-employed independent contractors in the Golden State can neither form unions nor negotiate collective bargaining pacts, but part of those conditions could soon change, according to Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego). Gonzalez, Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Women in the Workplace, introduced Assembly Bill 1727 on January 28 as an amendment to the state’s Labor Code. Gonzalez’s bill, which will be updated today, is called the California 1099 Self-Organizing Act. It would allow independent contractors to form employee associations that could negotiate working conditions and pay, though not to form labor unions.
“All workers should have the right to organize and collectively bargain,” Gonzalez said in an email to Capital & Main. “Our laws need to catch up to the innovation happening in our economy to ensure independent contractors have a pathway to these workplace rights as well.”
Assembly Bill 1727 would not compel employers to classify independent contractors as employees. » Read more about: ‘Self-Organizing Act’ — Cure or Band-Aid for Gig Economy Workers? »
I turned off onto a long dirt road about 15 miles outside of Montevideo, Uruguay and drove towards a wooden guard shack that stood across from a small farmhouse hidden by a long row of trees. Usually, if you want to meet a country’s president – or even ex-president – you have to fight through layers of bureaucracy, confirm that you are not a threat and have a very good rationale for being considered worthy to talk to. But in the case of Uruguay’s former head of state, José “Pepe” Mujica, you simply find your way to his home – something that apparently 30 or 40 people do every day.
Interview translated from the Spanish by Celia Brugman. Video camera by Jose Maria Ciganda.
Some come to ask for help – after serving four years as president of his country, Mujica is still a powerful member of the Uruguayan senate – some to offer advice,
» Read more about: A Morning with Former Uruguayan President José Mujica »
Last week, the country’s two largest private prison operators, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, released their annual financial reports. The numbers were what we’ve come to expect — staggering. Combined, the two publicly traded companies collected $361 million in profits last year. That’s profit — taxpayer money that could be going to fixing our criminal justice system, which is badly broken.
In the Public Interest ran the numbers and that means CCA made $3,356 in profit for every person it incarcerated, and GEO Group made $2,135. What if we spent that money on mental health care, drug treatment, education or job training for those prisoners? What if, instead of lining the pockets of private prison corporate executives and shareholders, that money was invested in cultivating safer conditions in our jails and prisons?
Most agree that our criminal justice system is in crisis.
Talking about infrastructure is like a dentist appointment. No one wants to do it, but if we put it off, even more serious consequences are all but guaranteed down the road.
We didn’t need the tragedy in Flint, Michigan, to prove that the foundation of our society—our water systems, schools, transit, highways and bridges—is crumbling. But, according to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), now—not down the road—is the time to talk about infrastructure.
As federal infrastructure spending continues to decline, states should invest now for a number of reasons:
» Read more about: Why We Need to Move on Infrastructure Now »
The way Esther Delahey sees it, her neighborhood in south Fresno, the Lowell district, has gotten a bad rap. Named in 1884 for the New England poet James Russell Lowell, the district is part of a larger area, hemmed in by three highways.
California leads the nation in having the most severely rent-burdened households, as well as having the largest shortage of affordable rental homes. (The U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development and other agencies consider families that spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent as rent-burdened.)
Isabelle Lopez, her husband and their dog live in a tiny room, perhaps 130 square feet, in the impoverished Lacy neighborhood in the Orange County city of Santa Ana.
