(The following message from Edward James Olmos is republished from the L.A. County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, with permission. The concert mentioned took place Oct. 3.)
Forgive me, but I’m going to be blunt. Proposition 32, the so called “Stop Special Interest Money Now Act” is a misleading, cynical and unfair attack on working families and labor unions.
That’s why I’m standing with Working Californians and their No on Prop 32 campaign. And that’s why Crosby, Stills & Nash and Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman are joining Working Californians to play a special benefit concert in support of the No on Prop 32 campaign this October 3rd at Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE. Want to come and join me?
Get your free ticket for the No on Prop 32 concert with Crosby, Stills & Nash and Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman, at the link below:
http://action.truthonprop32.org/concert
The people behind Prop 32 wrote in giant loopholes and created special exemptions to give billionaire CEOs,
» Read more about: Edward James Olmos: Come to the Stop Prop. 32 Concert »
When we found out we were expecting twins in 2005, my husband was a teacher and I worked for a small non-profit. We were overjoyed but anticipated a tight squeeze in our small, two-bedroom apartment, where we lived with our 9-year-old son. We were lucky to live in California, where we could worry more about where to put twin cribs than how we would financially survive my maternity leave. That’s because, in 2002, California became the first state in the country to pass Paid Family Leave (PFL). This benefit has made a huge difference for thousands of families like mine who could not otherwise afford to take time off to bond with a new baby or care for a seriously ill family member.
Cassandra Engeman, author of a new policy brief, “Ten Years of the California Paid Family Leave Program: Strengthening Commitment to Work, Affirming Commitment to Family,” lauds the passage of Paid Family Leave as the first step toward filling a huge gap in public policy.
» Read more about: The Right to Care: State's Paid Family Leave Turns 10 »
Workers at a Southern California warehouse that moves Walmart merchandise returned to work after a 15-day strike that included a six-day, 50-mile pilgrimage for safe jobs.
By midnight Friday morning, workers from all three shifts at the 24-hour facility returned to work after winning safety improvements on the job and drawing a response from Walmart about poor working conditions in its contracted warehouses.
“We no longer feel like we are working in the shadows,” said Carlos Martinez, a warehouse worker who went on strike and participated in the 50-mile WalMarch from the warehouses in the Inland Empire to Downtown Los Angeles. “We’ve never had this much attention on our working conditions and I have never felt this much support. I feel ecstatic going back to work and proud that we have all stood together as a team.”
Though Walmart initially dismissed workers concerns about conditions on the job as “unfounded,” by the end of the six-day march,
» Read more about: Inland Empire Warehouse Strikers Return to Work »
The opponents of the proposed Long Beach Living Wage are just getting organized. They’ve run an ad on Craigslist offering “a very competitive hourly wage” of $15 an hour to fight a measure that would guarantee a modest $13 an hour and five sick days for about 2,000 workers –housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers and janitors — who labor in the largest Long Beach hotels. I find it ironic that the opponents of Measure N themselves are offering more than the Living Wage proposal would mandate, clearly aware that $13 an hour isn’t a high enough wage to attract even part-time workers. Yet their campaign messages suggest the hotel Living Wage could do drastic damage to the city’s economy.
“We’re going to reach out to the residents of Long Beach at the grassroots level, neighbor to neighbor and relay our message- No on N,” says the job posting. If theirs were truly a grassroots campaign they would have plenty of community volunteers lined up to talk to Long Beach voters.
» Read more about: Long Beach Living Wage Foes Seek Backers on Craigslist »
Today’s body politic has no shortage of rhetorical bile, but no campaign attack ad comes close to matching 1988’s race-baiting Willie Horton commercial for sheer visceral partisanship.
Horton was a black murder convict who raped a woman and stabbed her male companion while on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison. The ad — which showed a photo of Horton, with the words “raping” and “stabbing” flashing behind him – blamed former Massachusetts Governor and then-presidential candidate Michael Dukakis for Horton’s release. It is generally thought of as a low-water mark in American politics—stoking racial stereotypes in a Machiavellian push for victory at any cost. But it worked. Dukakis never recovered from the attack and George H.W. Bush went on to win the presidency.
Rather than facing censure, the political consulting outfit behind the Horton ad, the Dolphin Group, has thrived ever since.
» Read more about: The Dolphin Group: Prop. 32's Dark Messenger »
When you compare big business’ rationale for opposing an exclusive commercial waste franchise system with the proposal they’re pushing for now, the two are hard to distinguish.
Don’t Waste LA is calling for an exclusive franchise system to serve our businesses and apartment complexes, consistent with the path taken by 55 other Los Angeles and Orange County cities, along with San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Seattle and countless cities up and down the state. The coalition joins the City’s Bureau of Sanitation, the environmental community, waste experts and high-road haulers in arguing that exclusive systems are the only legitimate path for the city to reach its Zero Waste, clean air, job and health and safety goals.
On the other side, Angelenos for a Clean Environment (ACE), as pure an embodiment of “astro-turf” advocacy as has ever been seen in L.A., is a coalition organized by business lobbyist Cerrell Associates,
» Read more about: Hypocrisy or Incompetence? (What the Waste Wars Tell Us) »
» Read more about: Lalo Alcaraz: Proposition 32's Super Backers »
In case you missed it—and that seems unlikely—Monday night we saw the beginning of the end of a labor dispute, and it only cost about $500 million.
The dispute in question is what has been an unfair fight between the National Football League owners and 121 referees who were locked out before the season began. Replacement refs were hired and fans have been complaining about poor officiating for weeks.
Monday evening, those replacements blew an end of the game call, giving the underdog Seahawks a victory on the very last play. You can check out the video here, and you can get some good context from the excellent L.A. Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik here.
The story has led people down many paths. There’s the sex angle, since at least some of the replacement refs came out of something called the Lingerie Football League,
» Read more about: The NFL Referee Lockout: One Very Bad Call »
Workers at a Southern California warehouse that moves Walmart merchandise filed a complaint with Cal/OSHA Monday detailing a high rate of injury associated with unreasonable quotas. They are seeking an immediate investigation of the facility.
The complaint, filed by Warehouse Workers United on behalf of two workers – one of whom is currently on strike to protest retaliation at the warehouse – documents repetitive lifting at extreme rates. These working conditions that have led to back injuries of multiple warehouse workers within the last year at an NFI warehouse in Mira Loma, California dedicated to moving Walmart goods.
According to the complaint filed with the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health against employers Walmart, NFI, and staffing agencies Warestaff and Select: “The workers who do this work are required to perform at an extreme rate under the pressure of managers who aggressively pressure workers to meet quotas with threats,
» Read more about: Walmart-Contracted Workers Charge High Injury Rates »
The Koch brothers entered California’s political fray September 14, a Friday, with a $4 million donation to a new pro-Proposition 32 political entity called California Future Fund. By Tuesday, September 18, the fund had released its first TV spot, titled “Telephoto.” What does $4 million in Koch cash buy? Let’s take a look at this half-minute spot, shot by shot.
00 min. 01 sec. – If we had millions of dollars of Koch brother money, maybe we could afford a telephoto lens too.
00:06 – Clearly not shot with a telephoto lens. Thematically, the scene should have been shot through the open window. Instead, our supposedly heroic cameraperson with a telephoto lens of moral clarity is physically inside the room with the shady suits. They look quite comfortable with his presence. A perfect metaphor for Prop. 32.
00:10 – “Big corporations and government unions control politicians,” our ominously-voiced narrator tells us.
» Read more about: Framed: Proposition 32's Deceptive TV Ad »