For several years, Walmart’s annual shareholders meeting has been the staging ground for high-profile protests against the retail giant’s treatment of its employees. As Walmart workers from across the country — many of whom are on strike — once again converge this week on the corporation’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, one startling fact stands out: none of them, or any of the retail giant’s 1.4 million workers, are represented by a union.
Walmart’s success in keeping its American workforce entirely nonunion is, of course, well documented — so much so that observers of the company’s chronic labor strife almost take it for granted. But even in the context of a long national decline in union membership among American workers, it is staggering that the country’s largest employer, and one of its stingiest, has remained union free.
While Walmart contends that its employees have no use for union representation,
» Read more about: Walmart’s War Against Unions — and the U.S. Laws That Make It Possible »
Two State Senators held a press conference this morning outside Déjà Vu Showgirls, one of two Sacramento-area strip clubs that the Frying Pan News documented as benefitting from a controversial tax credit program. State Sens. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, and Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, urged fellow legislators to join them in reforming California’s enterprise zone program.
Criticism of the enterprise zone program, which our Gary Cohn recently investigated, seems to be gathering attention. Documents received last week by Frying Pan News showed that Déjà Vu Showgirls and Gold Club Centerfolds received a combined two dozen vouchers for tax credits of up to $37,000 per employee, despite paying most of them around $9 per hour. The program also requires no evidence of job creation. In his piece “How Enterprise Zones Are Killing the California Dream,” Cohn quotes two Californians who had been laid off while their former employers received credits for their lower-paid replacements.
» Read more about: Heat Grows on “California Dream Killer” Tax Program »
There are no Walmart stores in San Francisco. And yet, four members of the company’s board of directors are influential Bay Area residents. On May 29, a group of Walmart workers assembled outside the residence of Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, a Walmart director, who has a 38th floor penthouse apartment above the Four Seasons on Market Street in San Francisco.
Donning bright green T-shirts and chanting, “Stand up, live better,” the workers were gearing up to join roughly 100 members of OUR Walmart, a nationwide organization of Walmart associates, in going on strike and caravanning to Bentonville, AR, where the retailer will hold its annual shareholder meeting June 7.
OUR Walmart’s stated concerns include things like giving employees the option of working full-time, and providing a level of wages and benefits that ensures employees aren’t forced to rely on government assistance to get by.
Dominic Ware,
» Read more about: Walmart Workers Strike, Rally Outside Marissa Mayer’s SF Penthouse »
(Note to Our Readers: About a month ago, a multi-year struggle by food service workers at Pomona College finally culminated in victory. The college had resisted their efforts mightily, even firing many workers under the pretext of their immigration statuses. On May 22, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice Los Angeles, whose members did much to help win this campaign, honored those workers and their struggle by giving a “Giant of Justice” award to Christian Torres, one of those workers fired by the college. Former UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm gave Christian an absolutely fantastic introduction, and then Christian went and blew John out of the water — as he’d be the first to proudly admit. Christian’s story is a compelling one, both of a struggle to win a union, but also of the struggle of immigrants everywhere. Rather than try and tell it ourselves, we thought best to share his version with you.)
Thank you so much for this;
California’s controversial $700 million enterprise zone program has long been shrouded in secrecy. But now Frying Pan News has obtained documents showing that the Rancho Cordova strip club Gold Club Centerfolds has been approved for enterprise zone tax credits. The documents show that the gentlemen’s club has received credits worth up to $37,440 apiece for nine employees — sales associates, door hosts and security officers — who are paid from $8 to $9.25 an hour.
See Gold Club Centerfolds’ tax credit documents here.
The documents reflect only a portion of all approvals for Gold Club Centerfolds. The approvals were granted by Sacramento’s enterprise zone manager and came in 2011. The documents were obtained by the California Labor Federation under a public records request. The labor federation also requested records to see if another Rancho Cordova strip club, Déjà Vu Showgirls, has similarly been approved for tax credits,
» Read more about: In Black and White: Strip Club Approved for Tax Credits »
John Thomas and Hans Burkhardt have a lot in common. For more than 17 years each man had a good paying union job, with health and pension benefits, near San Francisco Bay. Thomas worked as a warehouseman for VWR International, a medical supply company with a warehouse in Brisbane, south of Candlestick Park. Burkhardt also worked as a warehouseman, for BlueLinx, a building products company with a facility across the bay in Newark.
The similarities don’t end there. Both Thomas and Burkhardt are now collecting unemployment, having lost their $22-an-hour jobs after their employers moved to take advantage of California’s enterprise zone plan, a controversial state program that is supposed to create jobs.
The enterprise program, established in 1984, provides $700 million in tax breaks for companies that set up business or move to one of 40 zones within the state.
» Read more about: How Enterprise Zones Are Killing the California Dream »
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is facing the greatest crisis in its 78-year history. On Thursday, May 16, the full Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on the president’s nominees — three Democrats, two Republicans — to the National Labor Relations Board. Without swift confirmation of these nominees, the NLRB will soon be reduced to zero members, and for the first time in board history, the president will be unable to appoint members by recess for at least a year. By blocking the nominations, Republicans appear intent on incapacitating the NLRB for much of the president’s second term.
For the past two years, Republicans and anti-union groups have gone all-out to stymie the work of the labor board, and they have found a powerful ally in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In January, in a decision that would have invalidated hundreds of presidential recess appointments over the past few decades,
» Read more about: Employers’ New BFF: DC Circuit Court of Appeals »
“This systematic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation, or two,” said David Camp, the Republican chairman of the House tax-writing committee, at an oversight hearing dealing with the IRS. “This is not a personnel problem. This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too intrusive, too abusive.”
David Camp has it wrong. There has been a “systematic” abuse of power, but it’s not what Camp has in mind. The real scandal is that:
The IRS has interpreted our tax laws to allow big corporations and wealthy individuals to make unlimited secret campaign donations through sham political fronts called “social welfare organizations,” like Karl Rove’s Crossroads, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Priorities USA.
This campaign money has been used to bribe Congress to keep in place tax loopholes like the “carried interest” rule that allows the managers of hedge funds and private equity funds to treat their income as capital gains,
Since 2011, the Construction Careers Coalition has secured agreements with public agencies to bring good jobs and benefits to local community members through public construction projects. These agreements are bearing fruit: At each of the six public agencies, we have exceeded our hiring goals for local residents, which means that more families can support themselves and more money flows back into our local economy.
The coalition has used a key tool, the Project Labor Agreement (PLA), to create public accountability and good middle-class jobs for local residents. A PLA is an agreement between a government agency and construction unions in which both sides offer concessions to ensure that construction work is completed on time and on budget. The Construction Careers Coalition has focused on adding a Construction Careers policy to PLAs here in L.A. as a way to create green infrastructure that employs local people. At each agency, the policy has set goals to hire local construction workers,
» Read more about: What Does It Take to Employ L.A.’s Poorest & Most Disadvantaged? »
What is the single biggest economic problem facing people early in this century? It is not the budget deficit or national debt. It is the eroding and disappearing of good jobs. People with good jobs – jobs that provide decent pay and benefits and the flexibility to be able to take care of one’s family – are the fuel of the economy and the basis for broadly shared prosperity. Good jobs, and the things that go with them – a good education, affordable health care, and a secure retirement – are the very definition of a successful economy.
The public gets it. When asked to identify “the single biggest problem facing this country today,” 40 percent answered “jobs and the economy.” Number two was “budget deficit/national debt,” at six percent.
Four years after the official end of the Great Recession, the real economy – not corporate profits or the stock market – remains stalled.
» Read more about: Making “Good Jobs” the New Narrative in Washington »
Dozens of Stockton-area workers and seniors streamed into the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter [Thursday] morning to deliver an important message: Walmart must pay its fair share for health care.
It was the second stop on the statewide “Close the Walmart Loophole” tour.
Not even the grey sky or the rainy weather could dampen the spirits of the members of AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees], UFCW [United Food and Commercial Workers], Teamsters and other unions and seniors from the California Association of Retired Americans who all came together to fight for what is right for taxpayers.
Richard Andazola, President of the San Joaquin-Calaveras Central Labor Council:
“We’re here to send a message that a few big corporations like Walmart shouldn’t get to evade the law just because they have an army of lobbyists on their side.
» Read more about: Stockton Workers and Seniors Fight “Walmart Loophole” »
On May 15, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa celebrated the launch of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s Small Business Direct Install (SBDI) energy efficiency program at Supermercado Latino, a neighborhood market near Memorial Coliseum in South Los Angeles. The market received free retrofits that will save it 44 percent on utility bills while helping reduce L.A.’s reliance on coal power. SBDI is one of the key initiatives won by RePower LA, a coalition committed to saving Angelenos money on their energy bills, reducing dependency on dirty coal and creating local, career-path jobs for L.A.’s hardest-hit areas. RePower LA has also been instrumental in the creation of the Home Energy Improvement Program (HEIP) and the Utility Pre-Craft Training program (UPCT).
“The cleanest, cheapest energy is the energy you don’t use,” said Villaraigosa. “The Small Business Direct Install program helps reduce the carbon footprint of small businesses that would otherwise be unable to afford energy audits and retrofits.”
Through the SBDI,
» Read more about: Mayor Applauds RePower LA’s Small Business Program »
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview appeared yesterday.)
Frying Pan News: Is there something in particular that bugs you about the immigration bill?
Maria Elena Durazo: Yes! We want to make sure that there’s an alternative to the past guest worker model. We’re hopeful that we can fix the language through what’s commonly referred to as the Labor-Chamber agreement. There are three elements to it. One, that there be an objective, data-driven analysis of the future needs of workers in this country.
» Read more about: The New America: A Talk With María Elena Durazo, Part 2 »
Phoenix, Arizona — Amber Zenzak, an office manager at a small carpet-cleaning company, took a moment recently to consider what life would be like each week without state support for child care for her children ages 3, 4, and 9.
“My day care costs would be $100 more than what I gross a week. My family would be out on the street,” she said, choking back tears and referring to the stability it provides.
“Those three young children would have nowhere to go, no food to eat. That’s not a situation that children should be in.”
Calls for the security and stability of children throughout the country, especially in Arizona and California, are continuing to surface, as families strive to earn a living in an economy that is still feeling the pinch of the Great Recession.
Requests for lawmakers to protect child care and other social services are occurring as many state budgets remain constrained and spending priorities are weighed and scrutinized.
» Read more about: Western Families Face Child Care Service Cuts »
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an irresistible historic tide that was poised to sweep away any objections.
Then came an angry backlash that saw anti-immigrant legislation passed in Arizona and Alabama that made Proposition 187 – California’s 1994 ballot initiative curbing immigrant rights – seem tame by comparison. Frying Pan News sat down with Durazo to discuss the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization is sponsoring with UNITE HERE, a union whose members are largely immigrants.
» Read more about: The New America: A Talk With María Elena Durazo, Part 1 »
The L.A. Times has not exactly been falling all over itself lately to curry favor with the city’s labor movement, with a seemingly endless stream of news stories, columns and editorials portraying unions in a less than sympathetic light. So the last thing one might have expected to see was a rally of workers and labor leaders coming to the defense of L.A.’s paper of record.
But desperate times call for desperate measures – and with the Koch brothers potentially poised to take over Spring Street, the present moment certainly meets the test.
In case you have tuned out the Times and every other source of local news, Charles and David Koch – patron saints of the Tea Party, best friends to climate change deniers and bankrollers of an endless parade of far-right causes – have set their sights on the Tribune Company’s empire. After emerging from a bankruptcy brought on by the rapacious practices of former owner Sam Zell,
» Read more about: Desperate “Times” at Anti-Koch Brothers Rally »
[Frying Pan News Note: A New York Times piece posted last night by Steven Greenhouse — and referenced below — revealed that “newly found documents indicate that apparel had been produced for Walmart at one of the operations in the factory building that collapsed last month.”]
The most dangerous job in the world, outside war zones, isn’t that of an undercover police officer or a firefighter or a bullfighter or aerialist. It’s sewing garments — particularly in Bangladesh.
The death toll in the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza has topped 1,100 and continues to rise. But Rana Plaza is merely the most deadly of an unbroken string of preventable disasters that have plagued garment manufacturing in Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest exporter of clothing, behind only China. It’s not even the most recent preventable disaster: Since the cataclysmic building collapse,
» Read more about: Harold Meyerson: Walmart and Bangladesh’s Death Traps »
Yesterday members of Warehouse Workers United and their supporters confronted Scot Rank, the CEO of scandal-plagued Walmart de Mexico, at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. The warehouse employees are fighting for improved working conditions at warehouse facilities operated by Walmart contractors. This raw video captures the protest.
» Read more about: Walmart de Mexico CEO Confronted at UCLA »
Some 53 percent of Americans say that the second Iraq war was a mistake. A recent Los Angeles Times article asked if the war brought change for the better. But no one asks what that war cost this country. The first trillion dollars we spent on it was only a down payment on what experts have estimated to be probably two trillion or more that we will spend over the next few decades to take care of America’s wounded and maimed. Our taxes provide care for those veterans, but both parties regularly propose cutting the Department of Veterans Affairs as a quick fix to balance the federal budget.
Covering the interest on the debt from this and other wars is a part of the budget Congress can’t cut, and it’s not cheap either. Every year taxpayers shell out an amount equal to six percent of the national spending plan just for interest on the national debt.
From time to time we may gripe about individual stories or columns that appear in the Los Angeles Times, but it remains our city’s paper of record and a powerful source of investigative journalism – at a time when such journalism has rapidly given way to rumor-sourced blogs written by dilettantes or pundits. That the Los Angeles Times may become the private toy of America’s most partisan conservative interests is not just a bad dream — right-wing billionaires Charles and David Koch may actually soon be running the paper, and it’s up to all of us to stop them.
It’s difficult to overstate how damaging it would be if the Koch brothers succeed in buying one of the country’s most influential newspapers. The Koch brothers would almost certainly use the Times to promote their ultra-conservative agenda. That would mean the end of fair,
» Read more about: Stop the Koch Brothers’ L.A. Times Takeover »