Last week’s Twitter IPO triggered stories about “tech culture’s” impact on San Francisco and the broader society. It made me ask: is there really a culture of tech outside the workplace and, if so, what is it? More importantly, does labeling popular activities among young workers as “tech culture” create divisions among people who otherwise could be working together to solve social problems? Many (including myself) have identified the term with a libertarian political philosophy, hostility to unions and overwhelming white and Asian-American workers under-40 without kids. It is also identified with the rise of artisan coffees and foods, wine bars, upscale restaurants and the now legendary $4 toast that led the Courage Campaign to launch a petition to Mayor Lee regarding the city’s rising costs.
But associating “tech culture” with the politics of the tech elite, as occurred after Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s founded a pro-immigration reform group that ran opportunistic ads supporting the Keystone XL Pipeline and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
(Randy Shaw is the editor of BeyondChron and author of The Activist’s Handbook, Second Edition. This post first appeared November 14 on BeyondChron and is republished with permission.)
Last week’s Twitter IPO triggered stories about “tech culture’s” impact on San Francisco and the broader society. It made me ask: is there really a culture of tech outside the workplace and, if so, what is it? More importantly, does labeling popular activities among young workers as “tech culture” create divisions among people who otherwise could be working together to solve social problems? Many (including myself) have identified the term with a libertarian political philosophy, hostility to unions and overwhelming white and Asian-American workers under-40 without kids. It is also identified with the rise of artisan coffees and foods, wine bars, upscale restaurants and the now legendary $4 toast that led the Courage Campaign to launch a petition to Mayor Lee regarding the city’s rising costs.
Author and documentary film co-producer (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Iraq for Sale) Kerry Candaele’s newest work records the transformative power that Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has had upon the lives of four people. These stories took him to a dozen countries on five continents, part of a journey of discovery about one of music’s greatest achievements. In Candaele’s new documentary, Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony, the Ninth’s “Ode to Joy” choral finale emerges as a soundtrack for social justice and world brotherhood.
In this film, which Bill Moyers calls “beautiful and powerful,” Candaele recounts the struggles of rebellious students like Feng Congde at Tiananmen Square, who played the “Ode to Joy” over loudspeakers as they faced the tanks,
» Read more about: Interview With the Director of ‘Following the Ninth’ »
For generations, Americans have relied on public service workers to inspect the food we eat. In fact, one major concern of the recent government shutdown was that food inspectors would be furloughed, endangering or shutting down the food supply chain across the country.
American public institutions have a long track record of keeping our food disease-free. Yet as this service is increasingly outsourced to for-profit corporations, it is leading to repeated oversight failures that have caused illness and even death. And too often, the for-profit entities that are now responsible for keeping our food safe have conflicts of interest that encourage them to rubber-stamp inspections rather than ensure our food is safe.
The Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has proposed a “Modernization of Poultry Inspection.” But “modernization” is just public relations babble for removing USDA inspectors from poultry lines and letting companies police themselves.
» Read more about: Removing USDA Poultry Inspectors: What Does the Fox Say? »
Twenty-seven port truck drivers walked into the Rancho Dominguez offices of Total Transportation Services, Inc. (TTSI) Thursday and presented their employer with a petition. Their demand was simple: to be properly recognized as employees. TTSI is one of the largest port trucking companies in the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. TTSI’s business model – like the vast majority of port trucking companies in the country – relies on misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors.
When companies like TTSI misclassify their employees, they not only deprive the public of much-needed revenue by avoiding taxes, they also deprive workers of hard-earned wages by deducting business expenses like lease payments and fuel from drivers’ paychecks.
As TTSI driver Jose Rosales states, “Some weeks we aren’t even breaking even. How can I build a future for my family this way?”
Rosales and his fellow TTSI drivers who delivered yesterday’s petition are also seeking recourse through the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE),
» Read more about: TTSI’s Port Drivers Demand to Be Treated as Employees »
On December 5, as part of its 20th anniversary celebration, the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy will honor OUR Walmart, an organization determined to transform conditions at the world’s largest retailer. Frying Pan News recently asked Walmart employee Martha Sellers, who has worked at the company’s Paramount store for 10 years, to reflect on her role in one of the most ambitious social justice efforts of our time.
Frying Pan News: If you could sit down for a one-on-one conversation with Walmart CEO Mike Duke, what would you say?
Martha Sellers: Explain to me why you cannot afford to pay us a living wage when it is proven you make mega bucks. Why?
You spend your money on all these things but your associates. Why?
You spend money on PR and opening more stores when the stores that are already open are not doing well.
» Read more about: Fear Is No Option: Walmart Associate Martha Sellers »
This morning L.A. Observed disclosed the death of its business editor and writer, Mark Lacter. LAO editor-in-chief Kevin Roderick reported that Lacter’s “wife, the author Laura Levine, told me that Mark suffered a stroke yesterday and could not survive the bleeding on his brain. He was 59 and died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.”
A former Los Angeles Business Journal editor, Lacter was a regular commentator on radio station KPCC and also published in Los Angeles magazine. In 2005, he was named by the Society of Professional Journalists as Distinguished Journalist of the Year
Although Lacter would often infuriate Frying Pan News readers with his swipes at unions, he also railed against developers who were manipulating the government’s EB-5 visa program and, more notably, against the outlandish inequality between Los Angeles’ haves and have-nots.
This morning L.A. Observed disclosed the death of its business editor and writer, Mark Lacter. LAO editor-in-chief Kevin Roderick reported that Lacter’s “wife, the author Laura Levine, told me that Mark suffered a stroke yesterday and could not survive the bleeding on his brain. He was 59 and died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.”
A former Los Angeles Business Journal editor, Lacter was a regular commentator on radio station KPCC and also published in Los Angeles magazine. In 2005, he was named by the Society of Professional Journalists as Distinguished Journalist of the Year
Although Lacter would often infuriate Frying Pan News readers with his swipes at unions, he also railed against developers who were manipulating the government’s EB-5 visa program and, more notably, against the outlandish inequality between Los Angeles’ haves and have-nots.
With all the hoopla about the centenary of the L.A. Aqueduct last week, I looked again at an article on a related piece of our history – the birth of public power. The early 20th Century was an age not entirely unlike our own, with high levels of inequality and most of the wealth controlled by a powerful few. It was in this climate that Los Angeles’ labor unions and working class communities fought for a publicly owned energy utility, to be sold at cost.
Jeff Stansbury argued in a 2011 L.A. Times opinion piece that while the reformers of the day are often credited for bringing public power to the city, they had actually allied themselves with L.A.’s three private electric companies, which wanted to control the power that would be generated by the aqueduct’s hydroelectric plants. Meanwhile, the Central Labor Council, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and other unions pushed for a citywide straw poll in 1911 that would come down on the side of municipal power for homes and businesses.
» Read more about: The Birth of a Public Utility, the Future of a City »
At the National Employment Law Project (NELP), where we advocate for low-wage and unemployed workers, some of our most inspiring moments have come from being involved in campaigns where labor and the community work together for greater economic justice.
The recent passage of AB 218 — Assemblymember Roger Dickinson’s “ban the box” bill — was a shining example of the labor movement working in alliance with the community to expand economic opportunity to people hardest hit by unemployment. The unions, led by the California Labor Federation and SEIU Local 1000, were an essential partner to the powerful coalition that organized with NELP for more than two years to provide a second chance to the one in five Californians with a criminal record who struggle to find work. In addition to our partners that co-sponsored and led the charge organizing in support of the bill – PICO California,
» Read more about: New Law Eases Job Barriers for Former Prisoners »