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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 »
Whenever the subject of raising hourly pay to a livable level comes up in Los Angeles, you can expect two stalwart foes: The Chamber of Commerce and the Central City Association. They both represent business and they always argue that paying working people a wage they can live on will hurt business owners. I cannot recall a time they ever claimed anything else.
But now a new voice from the business community has surveyed the field of low-wage work and come up with a conclusion quite opposite the Chamber’s and the Association’s. A member of the faculty at MIT’s Sloan School of Management (named after a former president of General Motors, no less) compared wages and company results among sales people and check-out clerks. These jobs happen to rank one and two in the number of employees in the country, and they are notorious for low pay, part-time hours and oppressive working environments.
For many, the legacy of Labor Day has been forgotten. We forget about the struggle that so many fought and even died for to achieve decent working conditions. We take for granted that children no longer have to slave away in American factories for 17 hours a day, six days a week. We undervalue what it took to get the weekend. After all, that’s what makes Labor Day such a treat in the first place–we get a three-day weekend instead of the boring old two. And for those of us still lucky enough, the 40-hour work week is just the standard.
Longtime president and founder of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers said:
“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man,
35th Annual Labor Day Parade: Join the L.A. labor movement as we celebrate Labor Day weekend!
Monday, September 1
Parade begins 10 a.m., Broad Ave. and E Street
Rally and picnic start noon, Banning Park
Wilmington, CA
Download Flyer
For more information, contact the Labor Day Committee at (562) 595-1891
Labor Day Concert with Sheila E, Eric Benet and Irvin Mayfield Quintet
Monday, September 1
Doors open 4 p.m., concert starts 5 p.m.
Conga Room at L.A. Live
Download Concert Flyer. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Todd Hawkins at todd@thetoddgroup.net or (213) 300-9342.
Assembly Bill 1522, created to give all California workers at least three days of paid sick leave, passed the legislature Friday, but with a key change: In-home health-care workers who assist disabled and elderly Californians will now be excluded from coverage. The compromise resulted in two important union backers of the bill, authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), to withdraw their support.
According to the Sacramento Bee, “The Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees abandoned the bill after it was rewritten to exempt home health-care workers.”
Another closely watched measure, Senate Bill 270, also passed its final hurdle Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports. The bill, authored by senators Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Ricardo Lara (D-Huntington Park/Long Beach), will ban single-use plastic bags in grocery stores and other retail outlets.
In a victory for public safety over private profitability, Senate Bill 1019 passed the state Assembly and Senate with strong bipartisan consent on August 27 and 28. Known as the Consumers’ Right to Know: Flame Retardants in Furniture bill, the measure – introduced by Senator Mark Leno, (D-San Francisco) — requires upholstered furniture manufacturers to disclose to consumers the use or absence of flame retardant chemicals on furniture labels.
“SB 1019 gives consumers what they have demanded for decades—the right to know what is in their furniture and the power to make an informed decision about whether to purchase it,” Leno said in a press statement.
Given SB 1019’s diverse support—from business associations to consumer groups, environmental organizations and labor unions—it appears likely Governor Brown will sign the bill by the September 30 legislative deadline, after which it would take effect January 1, 2015.
Getting business on board with SB 1019 proved to be a critical turning point for the bill.
» Read more about: Public Safety, Worker Protection Bills Advance to Governor’s Desk »
There is a long tradition in the United States, and perhaps most of the world, of binary thinking when it comes to work.
This weekend marks the unofficial end of summer as well as a chance for us to reflect on the achievements of American workers. This year workers across our country have a lot to celebrate, thanks in part to a series of executive orders signed by President Obama.
The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order is particularly important for Americans working for a federal contractor. The Federal government spends $500 billion in taxpayer dollars every year for goods and services provided by federal contractors, but too many are guilty of repeated and flagrant violations that endanger the lives of workers and cheat employees out of pay. Obama’s executive order will keep taxpayer dollars out of these companies’ coffers by requiring all bidders to disclose labor-law violations as far back as three years.
Governors and mayors across the country have an opportunity to follow President Obama’s lead to simultaneously protect contractors and taxpayers.
» Read more about: Labor Day 2014: Fair Pay and Fair Play for Workers »
Food for Less grocery workers and the Kroger Corporation backed away from the edge of a cliff Tuesday, following weeks of a labor standoff. Both sides averted a potentially devastating strike with a tentative labor agreement whose proposed contract covers some 6,500 workers at 90 stores throughout Southern California.
Employees authorized a strike in July and then launched a consumer boycott in the face of Kroger’s threat to slash contributions to medical plans, reduce hours and transfer the work of higher-paid employees to those lower on the wage scale.
In mid-August hundreds of workers turned out on informational picket lines and urged consumers to shop elsewhere. During this time, Kroger recruited strike-busters from Ralphs, another grocery chain it owns.
Why did Kroger refuse to budge? The Cincinnati-based Fortune 500 Company that owns Food 4 Less, Ralphs and Frys recorded a half-billion-dollar profit for the first quarter of 2014,
» Read more about: Food 4 Less Workers Reach Tentative Agreement With Kroger »
Things are heating up inside the state Capitol in Sacramento. As an August 31 deadline for the end of the 2013-14 legislative year looms, union labor is facing off with business forces over the fate of pending laws governing pay, employee benefits and the environment.
A level playing field is not part of the lobbying landscape when it comes to swaying undecided legislators on these bills, said David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union-United Health Workers West. Huerta told Capital & Main by phone that business lobbyists enjoy a two-to-one numerical advantage over labor representatives under the Capitol dome.
Huerta witnessed that dynamic first hand this pivotal week as business and labor interests met separately with state lawmakers over Assembly Bill 2416, the California Wage Theft Recovery Act.
Introduced by Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley), AB 2416 would mandate local programs to allow employees to file liens against employers for unpaid wages.
» Read more about: Business Interests Clash With Public’s As Legislative Year Ends »
Throughout the two-year debate over a plan by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) to shut down San Francisco’s nine-campus City College, the school’s supporters held their tongues on one key belief. Namely, that the commission had long ago made up its mind to shut down the college and no amount of restructuring could change the ACCJC’s mind. A recently filed court document, however, has confirmed this widespread suspicion.
The San Francisco Superior Court filing, first revealed in a Los Angeles Times story, disclosed that not one of the ACCJC’s own 15-member evaluation team ever suggested that CCSF’s accreditation be revoked; instead, the commission admitted, its panel merely recommended a form of academic probation that would allow the school to fix some administrative and accounting bugs in its system. Despite that, the ACCJC’s executive committee voted in 2012 to ignore the evaluators’ recommendations and threatened the school with the loss of its accreditation.
» Read more about: Fiasco: Attack on San Francisco City College Outrages CA Officials »
Last night the California plastic bag measure, state Senate Bill 270, fell four votes short of the required 41 to pass the Assembly. The bill’s support crossed partisan lines – however, several Democratic legislators from the Central Valley and Southern California voted no or did not vote at all. The San Jose Mercury News reported that out-of-state lobbyists representing Hilex Poly, an East Coast plastic bag company, spent nearly half a million dollars to sway legislators to oppose SB 270.
How did your state representative vote? See the voting screen, above.
SB 270, sponsored by senators Alex Padilla, Kevin De Leon and Ricardo Lara, would restrict single-use plastic bags in California, a proven policy measure to limit ocean litter. A similar ban has been implemented in more than 100 communities across California – and in such large cities as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose. The effect has been reduced litter – with no jobs reported lost.
“I question America ” — the famous words spoken by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer 50 years ago this week at the tumultuous Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City — is a fitting reflection of the soul-searching that the country is once again going through in the wake of the turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri.
To understand both the progress America has made, and the many challenges it now faces, in terms of racial justice, it is useful to remind ourselves of the battle that occurred a half century ago and the life of Ms. Hamer, a sharecropper and activist from the Mississippi Delta who galvanized the country with her stirring words and her remarkable courage.
In her testimony before the credentials committee at the Democratic Party’s convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Hamer explained why the committee should recognize the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party over the state’s segregated official party delegation.
Most students of the 1960s may know about the FBI’s obsessive surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. and how the bureau’s shadowing and bugging of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s president would lead federal agents to infiltrate the civil rights and peace movements. Now, a new book by Ben Kamin throws a spotlight on the man whose close friendship and collaboration with King provoked J. Edgar Hoover’s wrath and paranoia. Dangerous Friendship analyzes the relationship between King and Stanley Levison, a lawyer and wealthy businessman with a radical past. The book tells how Levison, known as King’s ghostwriter and closest white friend, advised King on strategy and raised righteous amounts of money for his cause; the story also shows how their friendship prompted the Kennedy White House to force King to shun Levison for more than a year.
Kamin, a nationally known rabbi, also explores how Levison’s personal solidarity with African American struggles reflected a traditional Jewish embrace of equality and social activism.
» Read more about: Tonight: Ben Kamin on MLK’s “Dangerous Friendship” »
It was just another summer backyard barbeque. A few veggie patties followed by a few burgers on the grill. Some drinks. Some salads. Maybe a couple dozen people. There were neighbors, several community activist types, a couple of clergy and a handful of other religious folks, plus a few workers from a local hotel and some iron workers. Wait, who?
Yes, the gathering was called together by CLUE – Clergy and Laity United for Economic-Justice – in a supporter’s back yard. We met to share some summer food, deepen our friendships and to mark some victories that might otherwise go without notice – benchmarks that shouldn’t be forgotten so quickly.
One victory involved a Santa Monica hotel. Workers there secured a “labor peace agreement” with management that protects some basic worker rights. Employees can now post signs about the benefits of a union knowing they will not get torn down and destroyed.
Public-private partnerships (P3s) deserve scrutiny before contracts are signed, and that principle is made clear in a recent four–part series by Len Boselovic of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette (full disclosure: I was interviewed for and am quoted in the series.)
It is not in dispute that America is in great need of updates to our crumbling infrastructure. In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issued a report card that gave the nation’s infrastructure an embarrassing grade of “D+” based on unmet needs to repair and rebuild roads, bridges, drinking water and wastewater systems, schools, rail and transit systems, and public parks. ASCE also estimates that the US needs to spend $3.6 trillion in the next seven years to recover from decades of neglect and divestment.
Public-private partnerships use private capital from investors to finance public infrastructure projects.
» Read more about: Infrastructure: Public-Private Partnerships Must Be Two-Way Streets »
Los Angeles County’s car wash workers seemed to face overwhelming odds when they began to organize a few years back. Carwasheros considered themselves lucky if their bosses simply paid them for the correct number of hours they had worked, let alone if they received the legal minimum wage – some were expected to work for only tips. Many car wash employees were undocumented immigrants in an industry known for its high turnover and were counted as among society’s most vulnerable workers.
And yet, with the help of the United Steel Workers union’s CLEAN Car Wash Campaign, car washers began to prevail in a series of court battles that resulted in owners being ordered to improve working conditions and to conduct their accounting practices above-board. In 2012 the state’s Department of Industrial Relations assessed more than $4.8 million in wages and civil penalties against California car wash owners,
Imagine being a waste worker sorting through trash for recyclables with only tattered gardening gloves and being pricked by a used hypodermic needle. Under the current conditions of many recycling companies, you would be told, “Get back to work” and simply have to bandage your wound – sometimes with pieces of paper from a pile of trash. And if you tried to talk with your boss about your fear of spreading illness from the needle to your family or friends, you are immediately fired. This is a true story of a former trash sorter – who was also considered a temporary employee – at a trash sorting facility in Los Angeles.
This story – of gross negligence and denial of company responsibility for basic worker health and safety protections – is too common a reality in low-wage industries. Bill Raden and Gary Cohn covered the plight of temporary workers in the food processing industry in a Capital &
» Read more about: New California Bill Will Dispose of Abuse of Temp Sanitation Workers »