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A Review of “Cesar Chavez” the Film: Sí, Se Puede

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By Byron Morton/ OBRag

Cesar Chavez shows the political evolution and the struggles of the man behind the movement during the 1960s to organize the farm workers in California. Through the United Farm Workers (UFW) Chavez (played by Michael Peña) brings bargaining rights and dignity for the impoverished farm workers. The UFW motto during this time was “Sí, se puede” or yes, it is possible.

It is important to remember at that time in the 1960s the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 did not protect farm workers and others. The Act “is a foundational statute of US labor law which guarantees basic rights of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining for better terms and conditions at work, and take collective action including strikes if necessary.”   [Read more…]

UCSD Graduate Students Strike After Just Demands Not Met

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Strikers disrupt classes and block public thoroughfares to get a decent raise while upper level administrators continue to receive exorbitant salaries and enjoy a culture of lavish living

By Daniel Gutiérrez

Graduate students at the University of California, San Diego represented by the United Auto Workers Local 2865 initiated a two-day strike Wednesday, April 2nd, that will end Friday, April 4th. The strike at UCSD is part of a statewide action occurring at all the campuses of the University of California for these reasons. Graduate students have been bargaining for months now and have faced an unresponsive University of California Labor Relation bargaining team that barely allowed a 3% increase in pay to Teaching Assistants, still leaving them below the poverty line and far behind competitor universities.

Graduate students and undergraduate supporters began to assemble in front of the university’s emblematic library at 8:30 am to begin their activities. Students were able to successfully close Gilman Avenue for nearly twenty-five minutes in an attempt to cause delays for the city and school bus services.

Strikers created human barricades along a busy pedestrian avenue that cuts through the heart of the campus. Later in the afternoon, strikers attempted to storm the Office of Graduate Studies, but the office locked its doors to them and even one of their own employees.   [Read more…]

UCSD Graduate Students Protest Controversial Employment Policy

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Doctoral students rally against the 18 Quarter Limit

By Daniel Gutiérrez

La Jolla, California — Students at the University of California, San Diego stormed the Office of Graduate Studies Tuesday, April 1, to protest a controversial employment policy implemented across the University of California. The “18 Quarter Limit” restricts doctoral students by only allotting them 18 quarters to be teaching assistants, readers, or graduate student researchers. Such positions, if secured, reduce a graduate student’s tuition from roughly $5,200 a quarter to a mere $196. The action came on the eve of the two-day strike that will be held April 2nd and 3rd at UCSD.

The 18 Quarter Limit greatly affects graduate students who begin their studies in MA programs and then transfer to doctoral programs. This is because their access to funding begins to expire after their first quarter in the university as Master’s students.   [Read more…]

San Diego Fast-Food Workers Hit by Wage Theft to Hold Action

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Outrage grows as new poll shows stealing from employees is rampant industry wide 

By Center on Policy Initiatives

Fast-food workers and community and faith leaders will hold an action Thursday against systemic and illegal wage theft in the industry—just days after the first-ever national poll of fast-food workers showed companies like McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s are stealing money from 89 percent of their employees. 

The action comes as two former McDonald’s managers speak out for the first time about how they were forced to steal from workers’ checks. In a video made public Tuesday, the managers talk about how they shaved time off of workers schedules, among other practices, so they wouldn’t “blow labor,” or spend more than they were supposed to, on workers.    [Read more…]

If César Chávez Were Alive Today, He Would Join the Resistance Against Walmart

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By Sarita Gupta / Alternet

This month, a new film documenting César Chávez’s historic campaign to organize farmworkers in America was released in time with what would have been his 87th birthday. Chávez rose to prominence as a founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW), where he organized thousands of poor Latino workers laboring in fields throughout central California.

Through nonviolent but aggressive tactics — many of which we’ve seen revived today — Chávez and the UFW successfully won higher wages, safer working conditions, and collective bargaining rights for generations of farmworkers, culminating in the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.

So as we celebrate the legacy of this historic leader, we must also pause to consider that today farmworkers — and others laboring for low wages along the food supply chain — are still struggling. Back then, Chávez and his supporters famously camped outside grocery stores to encourage shoppers to boycott grapes until conditions and wages improved. But today, instead of a grocery store, he may indeed have been standing outside of a Walmart.   [Read more…]

The Small Business Owner’s Case for a Higher Minimum Wage

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By Jay Porter / jayporter.com

I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but around these parts there’s a strong movement forming to raise the minimum wage. Most of the municipal proposals are in the $10-13/hour range, but the zeitgeist seems to be heralding a $15/hour minimum wage.

People getting paid more for their work is a heartwarming notion, so it can be pretty easy to get behind these proposals on an emotional level. Economically, one sees macroeconomic cases made both for and against a higher minimum wage. I haven’t found the arguments in either direction particularly compelling. At the small business owners’ level, I hear from people both in favor and against raising the minimum wage.

But who are we kidding – most people are going to give or withhold their support for this initiative based largely on their perceived self-interest. So here’s my self-interest — as a small business owner, I selfishly think a higher minimum wage is great for me. Make it $15 an hour. Make it $20. The higher, the better, at least until dishwashers get paid as well as office workers.   [Read more…]

City Council Makes First Step Towards Raising the Minimum Wage in San Diego

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By Doug Porter

The room was packed yesterday for a meeting of the Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee as Councilman Todd Gloria successfully gained approval to draft ballot language on a measure proposed for the November ballot raising the minimum wage and granting paid sick leave for San Diegans.

Gloria will consult with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith and bring the measure back for consideration by the committee on April 30th. We can only hope the City Councilman president has the language double-checked by an outside attorney who doesn’t have a vested ideological interest in the measure failing.

A coalition of faith-based, community and labor groups called Raise Up San Diego! turned out over 100 people carrying neon green signs expressing support for the concept yesterday. They’ll need to keep the pressure on until the full council takes a vote (no later than the end of August) for the measure to appear on the ballot.   [Read more…]

Three Years, Three Million Dollars, Three Excuses and Now, Three More Months for Failed Balboa Park Centennial Group

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By Doug Porter

Board members with the failed Balboa Park Celebration, Inc.(BPCI) have taken their case to KPBS, blaming ex-mayor Bob Filner, the failure of Plaza de Panama parking plan and the competing agendas of park organizations for their group’s lack of accomplishments.

Details revealed in the first of a two part series, including comments from co-chair Nikki Clay, Stephen Russell and Patti Roscoe, by reporter Angela Carone paint a sad picture of the planning and preparations for a year long centennial celebration.

The release on Friday of a Transition Agreement empowering BPCI staffer Gerry Braun to handle shutdown of the organization (and collect another $39,000 while doing so) has just added to outrage felt by those in the community already upset with the group.   [Read more…]

Corporate Welfare and the Minimum Wage

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By Joslyn Stevens / Common Dreams

The arguments against raising the minimum wage are bullshit. The majority of Americans including conservatives support an increase yet congress continues to drag its feet on doing right by the people they claim to serve.  The conservative “pull-yourself up-by your-bootstraps” mentality has become an acceptable excuse to justify kicking people when they’re down.

The greedy and elitist attitudes of CEO’s and bankers have created a culture of entitlement in this country in which stealing from others less powerful is the best way to get to the top regardless of the social cost.

The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009  despite cost of living increases and the fact that Americans are being forced to get by on less pay, food stamps, unemployment, savings etc. Every resource the working poor needs to stay afloat or get ahead is gone or disappearing.   [Read more…]

Vladimir P’s Got Nothing on Bonnie D – Spin to Win Charged in Deputy DAs’ Unanimous Endorsement

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By Doug Porter

Vladimir Putin may know how to rig an election, as his minions probably did in pulling off 97% approval for Crimean secession from the Ukraine this past weekend, but District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis know how to spin one: don’t bother with actual votes, just claim a unanimous victory.

Following a February vote from the San Diego Deputy District Attorneys Association, the Dumanis campaign issued a press release declaring, “Deputy District Attorneys Announce Unanimous Endorsement of DA Bonnie Dumanis, ” followed by “BREAKING: Deputy DAs unanimously endorse Dumanis” on Twitter.

UT-San Diego ran with a story saying that the board of the Deputy DAs Association unanimously endorsed the incumbent.   [Read more…]

Haven’t We Met Before?

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By Norma Damashek

In response to requests I received for the names of people I alluded to in last week’s commentary Too Many Years of Inbreeding I’m providing a list of Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s recent appointees, plus a brief description of who they are.

Many names will be familiar to those of you who have been following city affairs over the years.  For others, the people on this list may not ring a bell; like the city’s water and sewer pipes they tend to operate beneath the surface.  But their organizational interconnectedness and crossovers are readily identifiable by one and all.   [Read more…]

UCSD Graduate Student Workers Call Strike

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By Daniel Gutiérrez

Graduate students affiliated with United Auto Workers Local 2865 at UC San Diego have announced a two-day strike for Wednesday, April 3, and Thursday, April 4. The dates selected for the strike fall on the first week of the school’s Spring Quarter.

The UAW Local 2865, which represents over 12,000 graduate student workers across the campuses of the University of California, voted and passed the strike. UAW Local 2865 has been in contract negotiations with the University of California for nearly a year. Union representatives have been meeting with labor-relations delegates for months trying to secure better wages for graduate student workers and improve work-place conditions.

The University has been hostile towards any advancement in workers’ rights, despite ever-growing expenditures on management. Despite the fact that many of the school’s graduate student-workers receive poverty wages, the UC administration continues to treat its own like royalty.   [Read more…]

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