From the Full Frontal website:
MMA fighter Leslie Smith is doing what she does best: fighting. This time for Project Spearhead & collective bargaining rights for her and all UFC fighters. Allana Harkin steps into the ring. Produced by Halcyon Person with Lauren Walker.
By Eric Loomis / Lawyers, Guns & Money
Time to return to one of my oldest hobby horses: the horror of the self-checkout counter. Between no one knowing how to use them, the fact that companies are asking you to labor for free instead of paying people, and the job destroying side of them, this provides absolutely nothing positive for the world. Kaitlyn Tiffany has a good piece at Vox on these and other problems with them:
I saw a self-checkout in the Urban Outfitters in Herald Square and almost called the ACLU: Some lucky employee sits on a stool near the self-checkout stations and does nothing but remove ink tags from things before you buy them? Sure. What is a person if not just a slightly more dexterous arm than the ones that robots so far have?
Nearly 8,000 union members have gone on strike at Marriott hotels in seven cities around the country, including San Diego. Workers at the Westin Gaslamp Hotel joined the nationwide walkout this week, and are picketing in shifts from 4am to midnight daily.
Locals from UNITE HERE around the country started taking strike authorization votes in September, as members grew frustrated working under expired contracts. To date, there are also picket lines in Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with five locations in Hawaii.
While the theme for the work stoppage is “One Job Should Be Enough,” the union is pushing for new contracts will cover more than just raises. The union has made a big push to force hotel companies to adopt panic buttons for housekeepers, as a way to reduce the likelihood of sexual harassment and assault. [Read more…]
Environmentalists on Monday slammed President Donald Trump’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter warning that it “would enshrine and globalize Trump’s deregulatory zealotry into a trade pact that would outlast the administration and imperil future efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment.”
Presented as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), many have noted that Trump’s trade deal, as Bloomberg put it, “looks more like a rebranding than a revolution,” despite Trump’s vows when he was a presidential candidate that he would negotiate a new deal that’s dramatically better for American workers. As experts and campaigners comb through the details of the agreement, environmental activists are homing in on provisions they warn would endanger people and the planet. [Read more…]
It has been the worst of times and the best of times for the American Labor Movement in 2018.
Economic inequality has continued to spiral out of control as policy coming out of Washington, DC designed to tilt the scales in favor of the rich and corporations weakened the rights of working Americans at every turn. At the Supreme Court level, anti-labor justices joined the assault against labor and undermined public sector unions’ rights to collect dues. This, combined with a tax bill that radically redistributed wealth upward and paved the way for new austerity measures aimed at gutting Social Security and Medicare, had some pundits sounding the death knell for unions and the legacy of the New Deal.
But in the midst of all this dire news, a funny thing happened: workers fought back in the unlikeliest of places. West Virginia, Arizona, and Oklahoma were hit by massive teacher strikes and huge protests demanding higher pay for educators, better conditions for students, and an end to the underfunding of public education.
They shocked the world and won. [Read more…]
Here’s a little something for Labor Day. The stage musical Working is based on the work of Studs Terkel and premiered on Broadway in 1978 with music by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso. Over the years it has grown and evolved and includes new material created by new composers such as James Taylor and Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose work was first featured in 2009. Much of the new work was unavailable as a recording until last March. Here’s one of Miranda’s contributions that was released as part of that offering: “Delivery”. [Read more…]
It shouldn’t be news to readers of the SD Free Press that life here under the perfect sun isn’t always so easy, particularly for working people. Indeed, as a Bloomberg report outlined last May, “The gap between the have and have-nots in San Diego was the ninth-highest out of 100 cities between 2011 to 2016.”
As usual, this report received not much more than a shrug in the place where happy happens as we were too busy spectacularly failing to address our shameful homelessness crisis yet again while the supply of high-end condos downtown and elsewhere continues to grow. So it goes.
It’s the same old story over and over again here–and everywhere else.
Edward Ring of the California Policy Center (CPC) just published a scurrilous attack on public schools, teachers and their unions. This mean spirited and factually challenged screed comes from a State Policy Network (SPN) member organization. The baseless attack is more evidence of a conspiracy to avoid federal tax law by masquerading as a non-profit while carrying out a political agenda.
Ring begins by saying private sector unions might not be so bad if they are controlled and admits unions “played a vital role in securing rights for the American worker.” He then delivers this jingoistic slam, “If they [unions] would bother to embrace the aspirations of their members, instead of the multinational corporations their leaders now apparently collude with, they might even support immigration reform.”
However, according to Ring, public sector unions are an abomination and teachers’ unions are the worst of the worst. He states,
“The teachers unions are guilty of all the problems common to all public sector unions. They, too, have negotiated unsustainable rates of pay and benefits. They, too, elect their own bosses, negotiate inefficient work rules, have an insatiable need for more public funds, and protect incompetent members. But the teachers union is worse than all other public sector unions for one reason that eclipses all others: Their agenda is negatively affecting how we socialize and educate our children, the next generation of Americans.”
Not all deplorables are running for office. Today’s politicos covered in this column are not on the ballot this fall, but their influence has shaped local politics over the past decade. They’re really excited about an upcoming opportunity to sell the public on a rehashed version of what they call pension reform.
Faced with the prospect of burning, looting, and potholes, San Diego voters overwhelming approved Proposition B in 2012. This flavor of ‘pension reform’ was sold as the only possible solution to the city’s budget crisis. It was ‘vote for this, or your city will fail.’
The measure switched all new city hires, except police, from pensions to 401(k)-style individual investment plans. It hasn’t been a financial solution for the city’s money problems as much as it has changed the employee-employer relationship. [Read more…]
We have heard the argument against the “Fight for 15” campaign, which tells us fast food jobs require no skill and no expertise and, therefore, are not worthy of making $15 per hour.
That argument is rubbish, something fast food chain employers know all too well — and the primary reason behind their ‘no poaching’ policies. These policies allows food chains to block workers from changing branches in search of better pay or promotions, all while the company pays the lowest wage they can. In fact, they will even cheat these skilled workers on their already low wages hoping nobody reports them to our local Employee Rights Center or the State Labor Commissioner’s office.
Now, according to the Associated Press, the state of Washington has busted several food chains, including McDonald’s, Arby’s, Carl’s Jr., and Buffalo Wild Wings for having such policies that violate the state’s anti-trust laws. The state’s attorney general said businesses must compete for workers just as they compete with other businesses. Those chains have agreed to settle legal claims by ending those practices. [Read more…]
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 135 president Mickey Kasparian is, once again, in the news. In recent years, prior to becoming embroiled in scandal, Kasparian presented himself as a progressive leader in local politics.
That was before multiple women from the local filed (and subsequently settled) lawsuits against him. That was before he was ‘I Quit/You’re Fired’ as president of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. That was before he operated in sync with the ultra-reactionary Lincoln Club to oppose Democrat Nathan Fletcher as a candidate for County Supervisor. That was before he jumped into bed with the National City reactionary mayor’s attempt to derail the candidacy of a progressive Latina.
And that was before the latest scandal triggered by accusations that Kasparian was seeking to avoid having to face his membership in a re-election campaign in the wake of allegations about nearly $700,000 in union funds being used to settle a gender based lawsuit filed by a women with another union.
Phew. Doesn’t sound very progressive, does it? [Read more…]
Tip: It has nothing to do with the way food is cooked. The Washington Post reports that Attorneys general in ten states and the District of Columbia are investigating the practice of franchises including provisions in their agreements that restrict hiring among franchisees. They are being led by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D), and along with Massachusetts, the group includes attorneys general in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. [Read more…]
