A new Capital & Main series explores rising labor unrest in a nation of extreme disparities.
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”
Those are the opening lines from the Christmas story according to St. Luke, as written down by the team of scholars working under the direction of King James of England 500 years ago. Different translators have used different phrases over the centuries, but the frame for telling this story has always been taxes.
The Roman Empire wanted to make sure everyone paid their taxes, so Rome required its subjects to return to their towns of birth to sign into the national registry as part of a census, which allowed the keepers of the treasury to know who had paid and who had not. And that’s how Jesus got to be born in Bethlehem.
In California, we face a different dilemma. For decades now,
(This article first appeared on Equal Voice News.)
Rosa Rivera worked in housekeeping at the Best Western Golden Sails Hotel in Long Beach, Calif., for 20 years. In all those years, she never received health benefits, a paid vacation or a paid sick day. She often cleaned 17 to 18 rooms a day.
When Rivera heard that Long Beach voters on Nov. 6 had resoundingly approved Measure N, requiring nonunion hotels with more than 100 rooms to pay its workers at least $13 an hour and provide five paid sick days a year, she was overjoyed.
With the new wage increase, Rivera’s weekly paycheck would jump from $320 a week to $520, before taxes. She dared to dream of what it would be like to have almost $2,000 a month to live on.
Rivera, 43, shares a one-bedroom apartment with her daughters and granddaughters.
» Read more about: Hotel Grinch Lays Off Workers as Living Wage Law Takes Effect »
Maybe it’s time for the millions of American victims of gun violence to come out of the shadows and make real what guns are doing to our lives.
I’m one of those Americans. My white-haired, 82-year-old mother, after two hospitalizations for major depression, was able to easily purchase handguns from local Westside gun shops. The first time she let me know and, together with a female police officer, we took it away from her. The second time she used a gun to end her life.
I’ve often tried to picture the gun dealers who helped her make these purchases – standing behind the glass counter, advising this elderly woman on which gun would theoretically assure her personal safety. Never having used a gun in her life before, she went into the Santa Monica mountains to practice shooting it.
As we headed to my mom’s senior housing facility to retrieve the first gun,
(This post first appeared on Union Plus.)
No holiday tradition competes with the family meal. Between desserts decorated full of cheer and marvelous meats that melt in your mouth, ‘tis the season for a full stomach. Luckily for union members, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) and the United Farm Workers (UFW) have an amazing variety of ingredients such as Hershey’s chocolate and Montpelier Almonds to create the most delicious and view-licious recipes. Here are five fun holiday dessert recipes to help you be union, buy union and bake union.
Rolo Pretzel Delights (Thank the UFCW members for Rolo)
Ingredients: Small pretzels, ROLO Chewy Caramels in Milk Chocolate, Pecan halves
Directions:
(Note: This feature first appeared September 21, 2012.)
On September 14 the Web exploded with news that billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch had donated $4 million in support of Proposition 32. A San Francisco Chronicle editorial noting the donation labeled the brothers “conservative ideologues” – a moniker often applied to the Kochs. This description, however, gives the Kochs far too much credit for their supposed philosophical purity—particularly as it relates to the Prop. 32 battle.
Despite their reputations as libertarian true believers, the Koch brothers are nothing if not practical businessmen, who have no trouble taking advantage of government subsidies when it bolsters their bottom line. (Koch Industries, for instance, was for years heavily invested in the $6 billion, federally subsidized ethanol industry.) That bottom line runs up and down the state of California, where Koch Industries has hundreds of millions of dollars invested through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific—a gypsum,
» Read more about: Classic Koch: How Prop. 32 Could Enrich Two Billionaires »
President Obama must remember the message of election night and back away from cutting Social Security benefits.
That didn’t last nearly as long as I had hoped. I put on my Obama baseball cap – the one I picked up from a street vendor walking to the inauguration four years ago – a few weeks before the November election. I’ve worn it every day since, to both celebrate his victory and cheer on the president for keeping to a progressive promise in the fiscal negotiations. Part of that promise was telling the Des Moines Register that Social Security benefits should not be cut. But it looks like my cap is going back on the shelf if reports that Obama is willing to cut Social Security benefits prove to be true.
There are three things to keep in mind about the president agreeing to cuts in Social Security benefits.
As the economy slowly rebounds, we need to ask what kind of recovery we want in Los Angeles.
Experts point to tourism as a key industry poised to help drive recovery and growth in our region. The potential is certainly there. Tourism is the largest employer in Los Angeles, accounting for one in ten jobs. And hotels in particular have recovered past pre-recession levels, with projections for strong growth. Industry analysts PFK Hospitality Research forecast revenue per available room in Los Angeles to grow by an average of 5.6 percent per year over the next five years – on top of an 11.7 percent increase this year. (For comparison, the long-run average is 3.3 percent.)
However, jobs in hospitality and tourism come in very different shapes. Some of our large hotels succeed while paying good middle-class wages and benefits. Others offer only poverty jobs that leave workers struggling to support themselves,
» Read more about: The Economy Improves — Will the Minimum Wage? »
This past year saw an election cycle in which democratic voting rights were in question to a very troubling extent, despite claims by proponents of voter ID laws and limitations on early voting –however implausible–that they were concerned with the integrity of democracy. At least Californians could take some comfort in the fact that the state defied national trends and made it easier to register, not harder (or impossible) to vote.
So for me, as an Angeleno, it was both jarring and eye-opening to hear the recent debate surrounding a mail-in election on new taxes to pay for a streetcar loop in downtown Los Angeles. I say jarring and eye-opening because some of the arguments combined a modern confusion with a very, very old prejudice about democracy. It was a reminder that we should never assume democratic principles are secure and beyond doubt.
A little background is in order.
Every year I watch A Christmas Carol on TV to remind myself not to give in to the frustrations born of shopping, traffic and rushing from one holiday gathering to the next. Whether we are religious or not, the holiday season is an opportunity for all of us to be grateful for what we have and to share our good fortune and good will.
Oh yes, it’s a timely story, but I’ve also often taken comfort in the fact that it’s a story from a bygone era—19th century England, with all the horrors of the economic injustice characteristic of the pre-union Industrial Revolution. Thank God we’ve progressed to a better time than that!
Or have we? Imagine my surprise when I heard about the response of some Long Beach hotel owners to that city’s new living wage law for workers at the city’s largest hotels (100 rooms or more).
Labor 411’s Test Kitchen is just in time for the holidays! We’re sharing a recipe for Homemade Eggnog, which is THE traditional holiday beverage. We’ve got a recipe to make it using all union-made ingredients – and you’ll find the union brands listed next to each item. This quintessential holiday beverage is perfect to share with your friends and family.
Be forewarned: This recipe contains a little bit of alcohol. Do not consume alcohol if you are underage.
Eggnog Ingredients
6 eggs (separated) – Alta Dena, Horizon
3/4 cup sugar – Domino Sugar, Sugar in the Raw
1 pint heavy cream – Alta Dena, Horizon
1-1/2 (1.5) quarts milk – Alta Dena, Horizon
(or 1 quart milk + 2 cups whiskey) – we suggest Knob Creek
½ cup rum – Bacardi
Directions
Beat egg whites until fluffy,
