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50 Is the New 65: Older Americans Are Getting Booted from Their Jobs — and Denied New Opportunities

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By Lynn Stuart Parramore / AlterNet 

In every corner of America, millions of people are terrified of losing their jobs and falling into financial ruin. Men and women with impressive professional achievements and credentials are being let go, nudged out and pushed aside. They are pounding the pavement and scouring the job sites, but find themselves turned away even for the most basic retail jobs. Not because they aren’t competent. Not because they lack skills. But simply because they have a gray hair or two.

This is not just a story of people in their 60s or 70s. Workers as young as 50 are shocked to find themselves suddenly tossed onto the employment rubbish heap, just when they felt on top of their game. They’re feeling stressed, angry and betrayed by a society which has benefited greatly from their contributions.

As the global population grows older, age discrimination is on the rise. It could be headed for you, much sooner than you think.   [Read more…]

Why Free Trade Agreements Don’t Work, But Could

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Outsized influence by corporate interests continue to prevent free trade agreements from delivering on their promises of economic prosperity.

By Andy Cohen

There has been a lot of consternation and handwringing lately about free trade agreements and their benefits/detriments to our overall economy.  My San Diego Free Press colleague Anna Daniels recently penned a piece largely lamenting the 20th anniversary of the signing of the NAFTA treaty:  “Twenty Years of NAFTA:  Capital Freely Crosses Borders While People Can’t”.

Anna is entirely correct:  NAFTA did not deliver on the promises that were made upon its signing.  And it laid the foundation for an exodus of capital and good paying jobs to other low wage locales, in Mexico and around the world.  But NAFTA’s failures—and the inherent problems with the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that is currently being negotiated—are not due to the fact that free trade is inherently bad or unsustainable.  Quite to the contrary:  The concept of free trade can be potentially extremely beneficial to all parties involved, if the treaty is done right.   [Read more…]

UT-San Diego Shafts its Employees, Blames Obamacare

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By Doug Porter

Employees of the UT-San Diego are the latest casualties in the sordid saga of the right wing’s assault on the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

UT Publisher Doug Manchester has made opposition and denigration of the President’s health insurance reform agenda a top priority since the day he bought the paper. His editorial pages have been (figuratively) screaming about the impending end of Western Civilization for months on end.  The ACA’s primary pillar—the individual mandate—was actually a conservative counter-proposal to President Clinton’s attempt to implement universal health care nearly two decades ago.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Shadow Government Steps Into the Spotlight

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Former Mayor Jerry Sanders steps back into the spotlight to undermine San Diego’s elected government

By Andy Cohen

We often hear, particularly when a government entity is seeking to raise revenues for an important project (or, on occasion, a not-so-important project) that the associated revenues amount to a “jobs tax,” or a “job killing tax.” It’s a favorite meme of those of a particular political persuasion or economic status. Ordinance ‘A’ is a JOBS KILLER! We must not allow it to pass! Requiring health care is a JOBS KILLER! Any ordinance requiring a living wage is a JOBS KILLER! The minimum wage is a JOBS KILLER! Increasing the sales tax by one-half of one percent is a JOBS KILLER!

It’s an effective scare tactic used by those on the political right to prevent governments from being able to raise enough revenues to provide services that residents demand. That’s especially true here in San Diego, where we have a history of demanding services without providing a means to pay for them. We’re notorious for that.

As far as the Lincoln Club, or the San Diego Taxpayers Association, or the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, or, to a lesser extent, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation is concerned, any revenues raised by the city for the provision of services—or just day-to-day operations—is a JOBS KILLING tax. Any regulations placed on any local businesses are JOBS KILLERS and are a hindrance to our economy. Anything that benefits workers is a JOBS KILLER.   [Read more…]

Merry Christmas, Sex Pistols Style

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By Jim Miller

Every holiday season one of my favorite tasks is collecting and delivering all the toys donated by my union brothers and sisters in the American Federation of Teachers to the Labor Council office for the annual toy drive. My union, along with many other San Diego locals who participate in this annual ritual, do so in order to help out the families of unemployed workers struggling during the holiday season.

This year, just a few days after I made my usual delivery, a friend shared an article with me from Dangerous Minds on another, way cooler but little known solidarity effort from the Golden Age of punk rock: “When the Sex Pistols Saved Christmas.”  It was on Christmas of 1977 that the notorious Pistols played their last gig in the United Kingdom in Huddersfield as a benefit for striking firefighters who were in the ninth week of their struggle and were down to next to nothing. The Fire Brigade Union was striking because, as the piece notes, the cost of living was skyrocketing and “the pay in the pocket of the average worker was worthless.”   [Read more…]

Saving San Diego from “The Paper Bag Tax” and Other Political Misnomers

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By Doug Porter

Paper, Plastic or Save The Planet? It’s about time we had that discussion in San Diego.

Apparently the approved strategy for the right wing in opposing just about anything these days is to call the thing that you’re opposing a “tax”. And, as is the case with the Neighborhood Market Association’s opposition to a proposed ban on plastic bags, any time the word “tax” is used is a good time to manifest a sudden concern for working class families.

It was this deep concern for the lives of “taxpayers, mothers, fathers, brothers and working class San Diegans” that prompted “community leaders, including Mark Arabo, president of the Neighborhood Market Association” to call a press conference yesterday in front of Rainbow Market in the Chollas Creek neighborhood.   [Read more…]

Trucking Companies to California: Your Puny Laws Don’t Apply to Us

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By Jon Zerolnick/Capital & Main

Several leading port trucking companies have taken a bold new position in the ongoing battle over whether or not they are misclassifying drivers as independent contractors. In recent filings with the U.S. District Court, they have attempted to position themselves as beyond the reach of California’s employee protection laws. In effect, they are saying that whether or not they are misclassifying drivers there is nothing the State of California can do about it.

Some background: Of the approximately 12,000 port truck drivers in Southern California – about 110,000 nationwide – the overwhelming majority are improperly classified as “independent contractors.” This has dramatic repercussions, as these low-income, mostly immigrant drivers are thereby denied basic workplace rights and protections: no minimum wage or overtime or OSHA protections, no disability or workers comp or unemployment insurance, no legal right to organize a union. Instead, drivers are saddled with payments for the trucks they drive, leaving them to sometimes make pennies per hour for a 60+ hour work week.   [Read more…]

The Narrative Shifts in the Battle for Barrio Logan

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Alvarez comes on strong, shipyard labor calls out maritime lies and affordable housing advocates join the fray

By Brent E. Beltrán

On an unseasonably warm winter’s day in the heavily polluted community of Barrio Logan a shift in Maritime Industry’s false jobs narrative occurred.

At the home of Barrio Logan resident Hector Villegas (the same home that Councilman David Alvarez grew up in and caught asthma) the Environmental Health Coalition, under the leadership of Georgette Gomez, organized a press conference featuring Alvarez, Villegas, union leader Bobby Godiñez and affordable housing advocate Susan Riggs, executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation.

Before the assembled media hordes David Alvarez called out, in no uncertain terms, Maritime Industry lies and deception [see full text of his presentation below]. In his strongest opposition to the referendum yet he emphatically stated, “out-of-state billionaires launched and funded a referendum process to scare voters and overturn the democratically created and approved plan. It is truly regrettable that their paid petition gatherers have spread outright lies to fool voters into signing the referendum petition, threatening the City Council’s effort to create jobs and a healthy community for children.”

He went on to say, “The most egregious lie told by signature gatherers is also the easiest to disprove: it is categorically false that all maritime business must leave under the plan, all existing businesses can stay and expand up to 20 percent.”   [Read more…]

The Web of Industry Falsehoods About the Barrio Logan Community Plan Continues to Unravel

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By Doug Porter

Another day has gone by and another misrepresentation by opponents of the Barrio Logan Community Plan has been exposed.  In a city with an honest daily paper these untruths unfolding would constitute a scandal; sadly we live in a city where the dominant storylines are manipulated or ignored.

Today’s UT-San Diego has not a word about yesterday’s dramatic press conference in Barrio Logan. KPBS, City Beat and NBC7News all did cover the story, which, in a nutshell, was that the union members used by the shipbuilding industry to pack City Council hearings last fall have switched sides.

Union leaders told the press they’d come to the realization they were simply pawns in a campaign of misinformation and misrepresentation, as the first stage in a hardball campaign to defeat five years worth of effort to create a community plan full of compromises that sought equitable treatment for all the stakeholders.  The shipbuilders have decided they want a no compromise plan.   [Read more…]

Putting the David Alvarez Mayoral Candidacy into a National Context

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By Doug Porter

While many of the issues at hand for San Diego voters in the upcoming mayoral runoff election may be local, there is a bigger picture being watched by political observers nationwide.

None of the top ten cities in the United States have Republican Mayors. Electing Kevin Faulconer in San Diego would be a double win for the GOP especially if the large Latino population is taken into consideration.  It would also serve as a counterbalance to the perceived trend of big city electorates shifting more towards the left end of the political spectrum.

One only needs to look to incoming mayor Bill de Blasio’s solid electoral win in New York to understand just how seriously the right is taking this trend.  An article in the New York Times last Friday catalogues right wing attempts to blame Mr. de Blasio for crimes currently being committed even though he’s three weeks away from being inaugurated.   [Read more…]

Rep. Issa’s Loose Lips Looking to Sink Security for Obamacare Web Site

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By Doug Porter

Congressman Darrell Issa’s investigation into HealthCare.gov’s dismal performance during its first two months online has turned into a full-blown executive-congressional confrontation over concerns raised about the security of documents under subpoena.

On Wednesday acting in his role as Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa accused Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of criminal obstruction.  The administration has let the Republican Congressman know they won’t turn over documents related to the security of the Healthcare.gov website because they can’t trust him to keep secret information.

Congressman Darrell Issa’s game plan ought to be obvious by now. He announces a major investigation into an executive branch agency, holds a press conference or three implying this will be the scandal bringing down the Obama administration, leaks a bunch of partially redacted documents, holds hearings and… nothing ever happens because there is no scandal.   [Read more…]

Millions of ‘Missing Workers’ Continue to Make the Monthly Jobs Reports Look Better Than They Are

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By Meteor Blades / Daily Kos

The latest job growth report—released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics—would in normal times be an unalloyed piece of good news. The official unemployment rate fell to 7 percent (a five-year low), 203,000 new jobs were created (putting the economy on track to show the best job growth since 2005), the labor-force expanded and the labor-force participation rate grew, wages edged up and the percentage of people forced to work part-time fell (only partly due to a return to work by employees furloughed by the government shutdown). Add November’s results to the total, and 7.4 million new jobs have been created since February 2010, definitely nothing to sneeze at.

But those improvements conceal a continuing problem that keeps being ignored or explained away as just a matter of demographics: The missing workers.   [Read more…]

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