I’m from the Midwest. More specifically, I’m from the mitten state (and I don’t mean Wisconsin!). I grew up in a pretty stereotypical hard-working, blue-collar community. Many of my family members and friends’ parents worked for the Big Three. We had a pretty good life. Everyone went on vacations, we all had multiple cars per family, we had someone to mow the lawns in the summer and shovel the driveways in the winter. Life was good for Michiganders who were working for General Motors or one of their many suppliers. What could go wrong, right?
Then it all unraveled. I’ve watched Michigan, and especially the town I grew up in, go from middle class to low income in less than 10 years. I’ve seen the ranks of the homeless population grow to include large numbers of women and children.
» Read more about: Can Tourism Deliver the Good Life for Angelenos? »
(Editor’s Note: This reposted feature originally appeared on the Huffington Post in slightly longer form.)
Through a story of personal tragedy and the virtues of small-town life, voluntarism, and compassion, the New York Times’ David Brooks has written a column that unwittingly exposes our nation’s outrageous cruelty and callousness.
In his December 30 column, “Going Home Again,” Brooks tells the story of Ruthie Leming, a school teacher and mother of three daughters in St. Francisville, Louisiana (population 1,765), who last year, at age 40, was diagnosed with a virulent form of cancer. Brooks understandably laments the tragedy and applauds Ruthie’s community, which rallied around her and her family as her health deteriorated.
“There were cookouts to raise money for her medical care,” Brooks reports. On April 10 last year — officially “Ruthie Leming Day” — “more than half the town went to a fund-raising concert”
» Read more about: Compassionate Cruelty: A Conservative's Panacea »
Fresh produce is not a phrase you hear often in East L.A. Just visit any corner store and you can see why.
East L.A. is one of many “food desert” communities in the L.A. Basin. – communities where healthy, affordable food is difficult to obtain. Walk down any street and you will find a fast-food joint way sooner than you’ll locate a healthy food market. Our residents and kids are bombarded with chips, candy, ice cream and advertising for alcohol when they do go shopping. It’s no wonder that a child will sooner pick up a bag of “takis” (a popular chip brand) than go on looking in vain for healthy food.
In East L.A., the common venue for food purchasing is the corner store. These stores are typically small businesses that sell alcohol, tobacco, snack foods, sodas, candy and very little fresh, high-quality food products. Unfortunately, the fruits and vegetables they sell are frequently bruised,
(This reposted Harold Meyerson blog originally appeared in slightly different form on American Prospect. )
In 1938, Congress passed, and FDR signed into law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established the first federal minimum wage and overtime protections. And that, to the extent that most Americans think about the minimum wage, was that. To be sure, Congress occasionally raises the minimum wage (though they’ve got a long way to go to make it a living wage), but the national law, covering all workers, has long since been established, right?
Not quite.
In fact, the 1938 law only passed when Roosevelt and congressional liberals agreed to exclude some categories of workers—categories that included many millions of people—from its coverage in order to win the votes of the Southern Democrats they needed to pass it. So agricultural workers (by which Southern Democrats meant,
» Read more about: Behind the Home Care Workers’ Wage Victory »
(This reposted feature by David Wallis originally appeared on the American Prospect.)
At a time when legislators, consumer advocates and the Occupy movement batter big banks for their questionable business practices, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America have gone soft and fuzzy. The nation’s two largest banks are running saccharine television commercials that portray the massive multinationals as the Bailey Building and Loan Association.
Bank of America recently rolled out its “Opportunity” campaign to highlight the company’s nationwide bid to lend a hand—i.e., money— to small businesses. (Ironically, It’s A Wonderful Life director Frank Capra modeled the Bailey’s bank on BoA.)
In Brooklyn, tenants of a green affordable housing project partly funded by BoA gush over their sleek new apartments, replete with AC and electric keys. “No one can pick the lock,” notes a tenant in a web version of the ad.
» Read more about: Two Soft-Hearted Banks: It’s a Wonderful Lie »
As a resident of Lincoln Heights, I’ve always been able to use public transportation to get around. I live in what you could call a “low-income transit village.” Most of the major bus lines that connect our region are within walking distance of my home. Bus lines like the 45 and 81 provide me access to South L.A. to visit friends, while the 84 and 251 connect me to my family in East and Southeast L.A. This is on top of the Gold line and all the destinations it opens up for me.
Unfortunately, easy access to public transportation is not available to many Angelenos. This is far more than an inconvenience, because often the communities that lack bus and rail options also suffer from high poverty and unemployment rates. For those fortunate enough to have a job, driving in many cases is not an affordable means to get around,
Once again the holidays are upon us and, like everyone else, I’m running around, from one party to the next. It’s a chance to catch up with folks I haven’t seen in ages or have been meaning to see for ages. It’s also a time of numerous fundraisers. Which means I don’t have to shop.
Really? Aren’t we all supposed to be consuming to keep the economy humming? Or at least idling? So they say. I was supposed to go out and shop after 9-11 too. I didn’t take the capitalists’ advice then and I’m not taking it now. Not totally, that is. Because I do spend a ton of money during the holidays. But I spend most of my hard-earned cash on drinks and food, which I would argue feeds the local economy, and that’s more important to me in our current tough times.
Part Two of a two-part interview
I spoke with DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, before he and the association were given LAANE’s City of Justice Award at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on December 8. The first half of the interview ran yesterday in the Frying Pan.
Caroline O’Connor: Do you feel that the NFL owners had an agenda to bust the players’ union?
DeMaurice Smith: I made it perfectly clear to our players that the existence of our union was what was at stake. I believed that the day I took the job. It was important for our players to understand that this was not just a contract negotiation.
CO: It appears that there was a lot of real solidarity among the star players and all of the players. How was that achieved?
Black Friday may be a distant memory already, but as we head deeper into the holiday shopping season, there are some important lessons to be learned about the psychology of marketing and the real cost of bargain hunting.
Here’s a cautionary tale from my own life: One year on the day after Thanksgiving, my uncle, a tech geek, woke my brother and me up at an ungodly hour to get to Fry’s Electronics by 5 a.m. The doors opened at 7 a.m. Despite us ending dinner early, waking up before the crack of dawn and standing around in the dark for hours, most of the deals had already been whisked off the shelves by the time we got in the door. We wandered around a store so crowded it bordered on unsafe before finally buying some gadgets just to feel like we hadn’t wasted our time.
This year, as the recession continues,
» Read more about: Black Friday and the Psychology of Scarcity »
Part One of a two-part interview
I stole DeMaurice Smith. That is, I grabbed 20 minutes with the executive director of the NFL Players Association, between poses in front of the step-and-repeat and shaking hands with enthusiastic dinner guests. Smith and the association were honorees at the December 8, LAANE City of Justice Awards Dinner, along with Culture Clash and the main guest of honor, Madeline Janis, at the Beverly Hilton. Later, Smith gave a rousing speech to a packed ballroom without looking at a single note. Just sayin’.
I wanted to know more about the guy I saw on TV during the first half of 2011 who brought all of the football players into a huddle — not to call out plays on the field, but to talk organizing strategy and give pep talks on contract negotiations.
» Read more about: NFL’s DeMaurice Smith on Everyday Work and Ordinary People »
Here’s an issue custom made for the Occupy movement: the billions of dollars spent every year by local and state government on tax breaks and subsidies meant to attract businesses. Occupiers outraged about bank bailouts should check out the new study, Money for Something, by Good Jobs First, which finds that government largesse often comes with no strings attached in terms of job creation or job quality.
The report seems to have struck a chord with a newly responsive press, which has been given license by the Occupy movement to, however belatedly, shine a spotlight on the myriad ways in which corporate America has rigged our political system to their advantage. Check out the excellent New York Times piece on this important expose.
» Read more about: WebHot: Here’s the Money, Now Show Us the Jobs »
T’is the season of the full mailbox. Every day when I pick up our mail, the box is stuffed with requests for donations. My wife Susan and I get them from everyone – from CARE to the Salvation Army to cancer research to the Red Cross. We get them just like you do because this is the time of year when people think about giving to others – and tax deductions only count if you make that donation before December 31.
Poring over some demographic materials a few years back, I realized that Susan and I are among the top three percent of givers in Southern California. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could a low-paid Methodist minister give away enough money each year to be in the upper echelon of generosity? Especially with all the wealth in Los Angeles.
Turns out, it wasn’t hard at all. We practice the ancient religious tradition of tithing – we give away 10% of our income.
(Editor’s note: This letter first appeared on cleanandsafeports.org, coinciding with yesterday’s protests organized by the Occupy movement at ports up and down the West Coast.)
We are the front-line workers who haul container rigs full of imported and exported goods to and from the docks and warehouses every day.
We have been elected by committees of our co-workers at the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, Tacoma, New York and New Jersey to tell our collective story. We have accepted the honor to speak up for our brothers and sisters about our working conditions despite the risk of retaliation we face. One of us is a mother, the rest of us fathers. Between the five of us we have 11children and one more baby on the way. We have a combined 46 years of experience driving cargo from our shores for America’s stores.
» Read more about: An Open Letter From America’s Port Truck Drivers »
For some time Merle Haggard’s lyrics about vanishing jobs and workmanship have seemed more like a lament than the pep talk they were intended to be:
I wish a Ford and a Chevy
Would still last 10 years
Like they should . . .
When a man could still work, still would.
And are the good times really over for good?
Even with some signs that industry is making a timid return to America, organized labor is struggling to influence political events. The Frying Pan spoke about this on December 8 with UNITE HERE president John Wilhelm, shortly before he introduced honoree DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFL Players Association, at LAANE’s City of Justice Awards Dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Wilhelm, whose union represents hospitality workers across North America,
» Read more about: John Wilhelm on Whether the Good Times Are Really Over »
The Australian woman with the large framed glasses signaled me to come over to her table, where her husband and she were having a difficult time understanding the check. It’s a conversation I’ve had many times with our overseas guests at the RH restaurant inside the Andaz Hyatt Hotel on Sunset, where I work as a waiter.
“No, Ma’am, a server’s gratuity is not included in the check.” I told her.
She looked at her husband and blushed. They had been at the Andaz for a week. They had eaten in the restaurant at night a handful of times, but they hadn’t tipped their servers anything. They were embarrassed. I was embarrassed. It’s an odd thing to guide someone on how to pay you.
Of course as an employee, I’m never allowed to tell a customer what to tip. That is an offense that I would likely get fired or disciplined for,
» Read more about: An American Waiter: Reaching the Tipping Point in L.A. »
Criticized for focusing more on what it is against than what it is for, the Occupy Wall Street movement has now found an organizing issue it can embrace. Perhaps because so many Occupiers have recently been evicted from their encampments in cities across the country, they have found common cause with the growing number of American families facing foreclosure. Last week, after the Los Angeles Police Department evicted Occupy LA from the park outside City Hall, Mario Brito, one of the group’s lead organizers, said that the movement’s activists would begin to set up occupations at the homes and country clubs of major bank executives reside and to work with other groups to protest the growing wave of foreclosures.
More and more homeowners facing wrongful foreclosure evictions are taking a bold stand by resisting banks’ unfair actions. They are deciding to stay in their homes and fight. When the banks or sheriffs come knocking on their doors,
(This post by the California Labor Federation’s Steve Smith first appeared at Labor’s Edge.)
A new report released today by the AFL-CIO shows that more than 305,000 Californians will lose their unemployment benefits on December 31 if Congress fails to act to extend unemployment insurance.
Electrician Alexander Stewart, who has been out of work since July 2010 and will lose benefits if Congress fails to act by the end of the year:
We elect Congress to look out for the interests of everyday people. It’s appalling that elected officials would let petty politics stand in the way of extending unemployment insurance, the only thing keeping my family and so many others afloat in these tough times.
In California as well as across the country, jobless workers and their communities will be holding actions Thursday to call attention to the ongoing jobs crisis and to urge Congress to take immediate action to extend unemployment benefits.
» Read more about: Unhappy New Year for Jobless Californians »
More than one million Americans work at Walmart. I am one of them. I started at the Mount Vernon, Wash., store in November of 1999 as a sales associate in sporting goods and worked my way up to an assistant manager. After a couple of years I no longer had any pride in my job. I felt like I was treating people like property instead of employees. Now I work as a sales floor associate and a front-end cashier.
Many of my co-workers became homeless because they had their hours cut. Many associates are living in poverty and are afraid to speak out and ask for more hours. They fear retaliation.
You’ve heard that story before. But here’s something new. I have joined the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, OUR Walmart for short. It is a new organization of former and current Walmart associates who are coming together to get respect at work from one of the nation’s largest employers.
» Read more about: Don’t Discount This: Walmart Worker Issues Challenge to Her CEO »
What is the trucking industry response to claims that port drivers are actually employees who have been stripped of their basic rights by trucking companies? Robert Digges, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations, tripped on his own tongue on a CBS national news segment when he tried protesting the idea that trucking companies are cheating workers – and it’s getting picked up on blogs like the Daily Kos.
“They (trucking companies) believe they get a more productive employee – excuse me a more effective worker – a worker who is efficient, who has some skin in the game.”
So, the industry that dismantled the Los Angeles Clean Truck Program finally lets the truth slip: port truck drivers are actually employees who have had their rights stripped from them by greedy port trucking companies seeking to pad their bottom line.
“As long as we are independent contractors (the company) doesn’t have to cover benefits,
» Read more about: Trucking Industry Exposed for “Ripping Off” Workers and Tax Payers »
As Janet Heinritz-Canterbury of the California Alliance for Retired Americans explains it, retirement in America has historically rested on a three-legged stool – the pension from your job, income from your own investments and assets, and Social Security.
But where are most Americans today in their ability to even contemplate retirement? Most of us no longer get pensions from our jobs; what investments we may have are losing money while home prices have declined; and now some members of Congress and possibly President Obama are out to substantially lower Social Security benefits.
According to the American Association of Retired People (AARP), a frightening 35 percent of Americans over 65 currently rely only on Social Security (an average person gets benefits of $14,000/year) to survive. On January First of this year and continuing for the next 19 years, an additional 10,000 people A DAY will be turning 65.
» Read more about: Retirement: Sitting on a One-Legged Stool »