LATEST NEWS
Monday the Des Moines Register reported that Wells Fargo fired an employee who’d been arrested in 1963 for trying to use a cardboard dime on a coin-operated washing machine in a Carlisle, Iowa laundromat. Richard Eggers, a 68-year-old Vietnam War veteran, had worked in the bank’s home mortgage department at a $29,795-a-year job, the Register said. According to the bank, federal regulations barred it from employing workers who’d been convicted of crimes involving dishonesty, even if their criminal records had been expunged. The 2011 rules were applied retroactively to Eggers, who’d been with Well Fargo seven years.
So far the story’s been getting attention on the Internet and radio as one of those What a Wacky World We Live In fillers. It remains to be seen if the level of public outrage reaches a point where someone blinks and Eggers gets his job back. In the past,
» Read more about: Wells Fargo Fires Man for Stiffing Coin Machine – In 1963 »
My grandchildren live on pizza. Oh, they eat other things that young children like, but whenever mom or dad work late or events intervene, the call goes out for pizza man to deliver.
I was thinking about this when I read a piece in The Week a while back about franchisers who will soon need to cover the cost of health insurance for their low-wage workers or pay a fine. The case study focused on a guy who owns a string of chicken and Mexican fast food stops and who employs 425 workers. Some of these people run the front counter. Some do the deep frying. Some sweep up. None, apparently, have any health insurance.
The owner complains that providing these workers health insurance will cost him $546,000 a year – a cost that he says his business plan simply cannot support. Really? I thought.
» Read more about: Pizza, Health Care and the Minimum Wage »
The premise behind Proposition 37 is simple: People should have the right to know what is in the food they are buying. This ballot initiative would require the food industry in California to say on labels if the food it sells has been genetically modified. After that, it’s up to the consumer to make a choice.
Over the past week California Right to Know, the group behind Prop 37, has launched some new ads to make its point. And, if the 30-second TV spot below seems a little over the top referencing old chemical and tobacco spin campaigns for Agent Orange, DDT and cigarettes, remember that those first two products were made by the top funders against Prop 37 – Monsanto, Dow Chemical and DuPont.
» Read more about: Proposition 37 Ads: Label Genetically Modified Food »
As the GOP assembles in Tampa, the Business Roundtable is joining the corporate chorus complaining about the “burden” and “uncertainty” of government action to remove toxic air pollution, stop climate change, stem the dramatic increase of workplace repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel and give consumers information about calories in our Big Macs and human rights abuses built into our iPhones.
The Roundtable is a who’s who of CEOs from America’s largest companies in the energy, banking, pharmaceutical, retail, insurance, communications and food industries. The Roundtable published a wish list of health, safety and environmental “regulations of concern” that their corporate members — many of whom are big political givers — want the Romney/Ryan ticket to stop if elected.
What they call “concerns” are actually important health, safety and environmental protections that Americans need and want. Recent polls (here and here) show that Americans would prefer higher taxes over reducing food and drug safety programs,
» Read more about: Business Roundtable: Fighting the Common Good »
Arnold Schwarzenegger rode into the Governor’s office in 2004 on the campaign promise to “fix” the workers’ compensation system. Every day in 2004, the media hammered home Schwarzenegger’s talking points that California’s highest-in-the-nation workers’ compensation costs were driving employers, and jobs, out of the state.
In the face of a relentless media campaign and the threat of an extreme workers’ comp reform ballot measure, the Legislature passed SB 899 in 2004—a draconian bill that gutted the workers’ compensation system and created more pain and suffering for injured workers.
Since SB 899, permanently disabled workers have seen their benefits slashed to the bone. Medical treatment is delayed and denied by insurance companies, sometimes for over a year. As a result, injured workers are stuck at home battling insurance companies for the medical care they need, with no ability to return to work.
After eight years of watching injured workers struggle with a slashed permanent disability schedule,
» Read more about: Workers' Comp Bill: A Chance to Repair Arnold's Damage »
One of organized labor’s unlikeliest bright spots lately has been the United Steelworkers’ unionization of car wash employees. In an economy that has moved with blinding velocity from a Keynesian to Dickensian model, the largely Hispanic-immigrant labor pool available to car wash owners has been among the most grossly exploited in America. Their language and documentation barriers aside, “carwasheros” are known to toil in the hot sun for less than minimum wage – sometimes only for tips – and can be fired at the drop of a rag.
Which is what has made their solidarity and winning of three union contracts through the Los Angeles Clean Carwash Campaign all the more inspiring. This week Los Angeles carwasheros and the Southern California Library invite you to celebrate these victories by patronizing Vermont Car Wash at 6219 S. Vermont Avenue (at Gage).
“The way the health care delivery system developed in this country has been a global scandal,” said Michael Hiltzik, author and Los Angeles Times columnist, as he concluded the community program he moderated Wednesday [August 22] on the effects of the Affordable Care Act.
Speaking at the National Council of Jewish Women Los Angeles, expert panelists acknowledged the obvious limitations of the act, which was found constitutional (for the most part) by the Supreme Court at the end of June. They also cited new benefits flowing from the legislation. But what became very clear was that there are steps we in California can take to make reform more meaningful even without action on the federal level.
If you want to skip the context and the bad news and go straight to what we can do now, please jump down the page to Recommendations for Action.
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, when Senators Chris Dodd and Barney Frank drew up the landmark regulatory bill that bears their names. One of its lesser-known provisions required U.S. companies to list the inclusion of any “conflict minerals,” mined in or near the violence-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo, that comprise their brand-name products. The thinking was that this would help cut off funding for the armed groups ravaging that unfortunate country.
But that was way back in 2010, when the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law. With touching innocence, the act entrusted the Securities Exchange Commission to establish the enforcement mechanism for this part of the legislation. This week, retail giant Walmart, along with arch-competitor Target and some other companies, got a free pass from Section 1502 of the law. The news, carried by the Wall Street Journal,
» Read more about: Walmart Dodges African “Blood Minerals” Rule »
Whether it was a newscaster scratching his head over yet another alleged Marilyn Monroe porn film or a conservative pundit worried about Congressman Todd Akin’s hurt feelings, people had silly things to say this past week. Here is a modest sampling.
A few weeks ago an agonized fundraising appeal went out from three right-wing millionaires on behalf of the so-called “Californians for Reforms and Jobs, Not Taxes” campaign against Proposition 30.
Apparently business executives Floyd Kvamme, David Marquardt and Mark Stevens had learned that Prop 30, also known as the “Protect Schools and Local Public Safety Act,” would cause the wealthiest Californians to have to part with one to three percent more of their enormous incomes to support public education and public safety programs. Faced with the unnerving prospect that millions of school children might have smaller class sizes, and neighborhoods across the state might become safer places to live and work, they sprang into action.
Their letter to their friends in the one percent did not beat around the bush. Aimed unerringly at the naked desire of some capitalists to become ever richer at the expense of everyone else,
» Read more about: Teachers, Nurses: Save Our State from Bungling Billionaires »
The seven-month standoff between the bankrupt Hostess Brands, Inc. and the union workers that drive their trucks and bake their Twinkies is about to come to an end, and it isn’t looking good for workers. Hostess, who filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in January, sent a letter out to workers Monday putting forth a final offer to the Teamsters, the largest union at Hostess. The offer releases Hostess from millions of dollars in pension obligations, and if approved, will result in eight percent wage cuts within one year.
Frank Hurt, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union (BCTGM), the second-largest labor organization at Hostess after the Teamsters, expresses justified anger at the offer. He tells In These Times: “I would never sign this piece of crap. They keep giving us new proposals and each one is even worse than the last.”
Hurt’s union has a particularly weak hand in negotiations.
» Read more about: Hostess Brands' Contract Offer: Let Them Eat Twinkies »
Seven workers at the Embassy Suites hotel in Irvine have filed a complaint with Cal/OSHA against the parent company, HEI Hotels and Resorts, about the hotel’s so-called safety program. These workers, who are currently in an organizing campaign with UNITE HERE Local 11, say that this program discourages workers from reporting injuries on the job to reach the goal of an “accident-free workplace.”
Now Cal/OSHA is investigating HEI’s “Safety Bingo” program, which offers up to $25,000 or a new car as the grand prize. “Safety Bingo” promotes a blame-the-worker mentality instead of addressing the real hazards that exist.
“They could be using that prize money instead to fix the hazards and protect workers from getting injured in the first place,” says Andrea Nicholls, Health and Safety Coordinator at the L.A. County Federation of Labor, who is assisting the workers throughout the investigation.
This case, if successful, will set a new precedent in California in combatting employer programs that appear to prevent accidents,
» Read more about: Is "Safety Bingo" More Like Safety Russian Roulette? »
In recent years, we have seen companies from across the spectrum make green claims. Sometimes they are selling the truth, but often they are simply selling snake oil – like the presentation I heard recently by Athens Services pitching a 30-year rolling contract extension to the West Hollywood City Council.
Athens is one of the region’s largest trash and recycling haulers, but it is hardly an environmental leader. The company’s proposal to West Hollywood for what’s known as a single stream method of waste disposal could produce unacceptably high levels of wet and hazardous wastes that contaminate recyclables. The proposal also lacks accountability measures to track where recyclables are actually going. By contrast, San Francisco, with the highest diversion rates in the country at 77 percent, relies on a source-separated exclusive franchise system with high standards to meet its goals.
Not only is Athens proposing an environmentally dubious solution, it is asking the City of West Hollywood for something it’s fighting tooth and nail against in Los Angeles – a long-term exclusive contract.
» Read more about: Athens’ Laughable Double Standard for Waste Disposal »
On Saturday, July 28th, over 800 Teamsters gathered at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds to kick off a massive member mobilization against Proposition 32, the “Special Exemptions Act.” Teamsters came from as far away as Redding to Bakersfield, Salinas to Visalia – an area roughly larger than 41 states. View photos of the event here.
This followed a similar kickoff in El Monte in April which was attended by over 1,400 Southern California Teamsters.
Attendees learned how Prop. 32, an initiative on this November’s ballot, is very misleading. The initiative says it will remove “special interest money” from politics, when actually it is riddled with exemptions for corporations and Super PACs. Prop. 32 doesn’t reform the broken system, it actually makes it worse by allowing unlimited corporate spending. Furthermore, Prop. 32 will eliminate the voices of working families and unions in the political process.
Joint Council 7 President Rome Aloise:
Prop.
» Read more about: Teamsters: Proposition 32 Is Dangerously Deceptive »
Ohio banjo god Rick Good has been getting some YouTube mileage out of “This House Is Not for Sale,” a protest folk song in the tradition of “I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister.” Its roots may also include Woody Guthrie’s “Do-Re-Mi” and the hobo anthem “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
The biggest inspiration behind Good’s populist lyrics, though, are plainly an election year in which America’s One Percent have been spending money like drunken sailors — make that drunken admirals — with the White House heading their shopping list. Sample lyrics:
You can buy a congressman. You can buy a judge.
You can back a super-pac and give your lies a nudge.
But we the people know the truth and we still have the right
To take a stand and build a land where money is not might.
(Note: On August 21 domestic workers rallied in Sacramento for AB 889, a bill that would afford them many of the same rights enjoyed by other California workers. This post by Alex Pearlman first appeared on GlobalPost and is republished with permission.)
They feed the kids and clean the floors, but domestic workers and caregivers are often maligned by a system that allows their abusive employers to fly under the radar.
Working outside of the public eye, domestic workers — whether documented or undocumented — consistently report unsuitable working conditions, unstable pay and unfair labor practices.
But no more, they say, in California.
Domestic workers there are demanding a Bill of Rights that would ensure fair working conditions statewide and mandate minimum wage pay and eight hours of sleep per night. The California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights (CDWBR) would also allow domestic workers to cook their own food in the kitchen they work in,
» Read more about: Domestic Workers Rally for AB 889 and Dignity »
Earlier this summer some friends invited me to a small dinner party where I met a man who manages money for people who have some. He decides where to invest their portfolios in order to get a steady return that they can live on without working. Since we had not met before, I did not want to cloud the new relationship with my attitudes, but I wanted to know what he thought about the state of the economy without prying into his expertise at stock picking.
“So where are we in this economy these days?” I asked.
“We’re nowhere,” he responded, “until we get it growing again.”
“Oh,” I said. “Growing like consumer spending or capital investment or jobs or…?”
“Growth in every way,” he said. “We need to buy more, invest more, yes, but we need more people too.”
I was shocked,
» Read more about: Questioning Economic Growth: How Big Is Big? »
As the summer winds down, family barbeques are in full swing and supermarkets are filled with shoppers searching for the right foods to grill up with friends and neighbors.
But do they really know what they’re buying? What they may not know is that Walmart has admitted it will soon start selling agrichemical giant Monsanto’s sweet corn, which has been genetically engineered with an insecticide inside it — not on the corn, but IN it.
Bt toxin works as an insecticide by disintegrating the lining of insects’ stomachs when they chomp on the corn. So what is this doing to the bodies of adults or children who eat the corn? We don’t know.
The genetically engineered sweet corn, which has also been manipulated at the DNA level to withstand pesticides that are sprayed on it, has never been proven safe. The US Food and Drug Administration require no safety testing of genetically engineered foods.
» Read more about: Walmart to Sell Genetically Altered Corn »
A question that is being asked by talking heads on the right-wing yak shows lately is, “Where are all the green jobs?” Well, there is a simple answer: Those jobs are here in the Southwest, my little conservative Debbie Downers. All over Southern California, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona you will find massive solar projects with thousands of construction workers getting their first paychecks in months or, in some cases, years. There are so many solar-energy jobs helping us climb out of the absolute depression in the electrical industry that you can’t swing a Birkenstock and not hit one.
That’s right, despite their efforts to kill every single meaningful jobs bill in the House and Senate for the last four years, conservatives have failed to stop the sprouts and shoots of the new green economy.
Why is it happening now? There is a requirement for all of California’s electric utilities to buy 33 percent of our power from renewable energy sources by 2020.
» Read more about: Earth to Right-Wing Pundits: The Green Jobs Are Here »
Last week we posted a video here on Frying Pan News, and apparently there’s some outrage. It seems some of our friends at Walmart felt we were comparing them to Hitler, and saw that as horribly unfair.
We got comments from Nikki Ung (ED of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, which supports Walmart), Bill Imada (lobbyist for Walmart), Dennis Huang (ED of the Asian Business Association, which also supports Walmart) and Greg Jenkins (who may or may not be a Walmart store manager).
We can understand why they are a bit behind the times on this one. After all, the Hitler parody meme has only been around for five or six years, and written about in The New York Times as far back as 2008.
For their reference, however, we suggest they check out a few other videos.