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Serving Witness on Labor Day – The Story of Grocery Workers “Valaria” and “Daniela”

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Grocery Workers Valeria and Daniela who want to organize Valeria and her mother Daniela both work at a Latino Grocery Store which is part of a larger Southern California supermarket chain. Valeria is a shy and soft spoken 24-year-old who aspires to be a social worker. She and her mother Daniela live in a small home at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in North San Diego County.

They love their tranquil community and caring neighbors who look out for one another. Valeria’s mother has worked at the grocery store for 8 years and helped Valeria get a job as a bagger 4 years ago. Now, Valeria is the Scan Coordinator, ensuring that the prices on every single item in the store are correct.

It’s a big responsibility and during the busiest times of the year, the work days can seem endless. Valeria helps her mother with as much as she can but finds is difficult to move beyond living paycheck to paycheck. When asked what she would do with a little extra money, her eyes fill with tears, and she says “I’d buy my mom a birthday present”.   [Read more…]

Serving Witness on Labor Day – Janitor “Marisol”, Whose Daughter was Admitted to UCSB

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My name is Marisol and I have been a Janitor for 13 years. I overheard my son tell one of his friends “My mom is a warrior and she is my best friend” and I realized how proud of me my children were.

“I am from Embarcadero, Guerrero in Mexico. I came to the US 14 years ago because I was a single mother with two children and I wasn’t making enough money to provide for them. My son was 12 years old and my daughter was only 5 years old when we came to this country. I had to work two jobs to provide for them. I worked in childcare from 5:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. I would go home to feed my children a meal before going to work as a janitor from 4:00 p.m. to 12:30a.m.   [Read more…]

Serving Witness on Labor Day – San Diego City Worker “George”

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George is a Greens Keeper at the Balboa Park Golf Course for the City of San Diego.

He is 28 years old, and for the past 7 years he has worked to keep the City’s public golf courses beautiful and functional for all San Diego residents and tourists to enjoy.

His day begins at 5:30 a.m. During his shift he may do everything from mowing the greens and tees, to maintaining his equipment. George takes a great deal of pride in his work. Most people don’t know that the grass on a golf course is as short as onetenth of an inch. George has to be precise in his work to be sure he doesn’t cut more than one third of that “tenth of an inch” – or the grass could dry out and become brown. That mistake would be noticeable for days and could affect the prestige of the course.   [Read more…]

Who Doesn’t Want to be Mayor of San Diego?

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By Doug Porter

And you thought getting rid of the last Mayor was a circus? Wait until you see the field of dreamers looking to replace him on November 19th.

The list of candidates filing with the city clerk’s office about their intention to vie for the top job in San Diego grew to thirteen yesterday and includes only one well known politico, Nathan Fletcher.

Telephone polls are being conducted, one of them asking questions about a potential candidate who doesn’t even live in the city of San Diego.  Readers over at SDRostra, the local conserve blog, report being polled about Matt Romney, son of former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The younger Romney doesn’t even live within the city limits; he resides in the 4S Ranch development north of Rancho Penasquitos.

Among the more interesting questions being asked by poll takers are questions linking the timing of the election to passage of a city-wide living wage ordinance. That same poll, believed to have been paid for by a labor union, also asked about City Councilman David Alvarez—somebody who’s not been the subject of much speculation when it comes to mayoral candidacies.   [Read more…]

Fast Food Workers Organizing in San Diego; First Action Set for Thursday

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By Doug Porter

Standing up for better wages in the fast food restaurant industry; it’s been like the little engine that could.  Last November it was just a couple hundred fast food restaurant employees in New York City.  By July the movement grew to include thousands of workers across seven other cities, including Chicago, Detroit, and Seattle.

On Thursday, August 29th, one day after nationwide commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the march for “Jobs and Freedom”, fast food and retail workers in 35 58 cities nationwide will stage one day strikes, job actions and demonstrations.

Here in San Diego the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, led by Rabbi Coskey will be answering the nationwide call for higher wages and better working conditions.  They’re urging people join them at 1st and Broadway on Thursday at 10am to stand in solidarity with fast food workers around the country. (More info here)   [Read more…]

Progressive Politics in the Post-Filner Era; Getting Beyond “BlenderGate”

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By Doug Porter

Rumors of the Filner’s imminent resignation swirled through the city yesterday like scraps of newsprint caught up in the wind eddies regularly whipping through San Diego’s downtown canyons.

Could IT be today? Would IT be this week? Was the City Attorney working out a deal?

Several dozen people gathered at mid-day to protest the possible return of Mayor Bob Filner to City Hall, chanting “Bob must go!” for the assembled press corps.  The minions of the mainstream media nodded their heads in approval.

The organizers of the recall movement weren’t taking the resignation rumors seriously.  Organizer and Republican activist Michael Pallamary told UT-San Diego, “There’s no reason to believe he will resign. It’s not in his DNA. You got people now turning their tune from resign to recall. There’s only recall. There’s no way he’s going to resign.”   [Read more…]

Corporate Education Reform Goes to College: San Francisco is the “Chicago of Higher Education”

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By Jim Miller

This summer few people outside of the Bay Area probably noted what was one of the most important stories about higher education in America: City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is losing its accreditation.

After years of wrangling, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), one of the seven regional accreditors in the western United States whose job it is to ensure the quality of higher education programs announced that CCSF was losing its accreditation in July of 2014.

Why should you care? Because ACCJC’s decision had very little to do with the quality of instruction and much more to do with imposing a new business model on community colleges that narrows their mission and opens the door to more privatization in American higher education. And San Francisco is being used as an example to intimidate other colleges to fall in line with ACCJC’s questionable “reform” agenda. Thus, what happened in San Francisco could happen in San Diego.   [Read more…]

The Times They Are a Changin’ for Organized Labor

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By Doug Porter

The manifestations of union activism are changing in San Diego and around the country, and it’s time this story got some attention.  One of the biggest non-corporate interest groups—organized labor—is undergoing a fundamental reassessment of their role in society.

On the national level, the upcoming quadrennial AFL-CIO convention, set for Los Angeles next month, will most likely approve starting a process that will bring community, ethnic and environmental groups closer (and possibly in) to the fold.

Discussions with groups like the NAACP, La Raza and the Sierra Club are already ongoing about their role in such an umbrella grouping, including the possibility of  granting grass roots organizations “decision making power” within the AFLCIO, according to a July 27th Wall Street Journal article.   [Read more…]

Driven to Despair: The Plight of San Diego’s Taxi Drivers and How We Can Help Them in Their Fight for Economic Justice

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By Jim Miller

Last week President Obama sought to turn the nation’s attention toward the fact that the income gap is fraying the U.S. social fabric.  In an interview with the New York Times he noted that “the idea is to promote those things in service of the lives of ordinary Americans getting better” and told reporters that he keeps a framed program from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in his office to remind him that there was a “massive economic component to that” as well as a civil rights focus.

Sadly, however, while Obama discussed the need to move away from the austerity policies of the Republicans and how fiscal policy might be used to help American workers he didn’t even mention the notion that we could empower workers themselves in their fight for a better life. Indeed, he hasn’t really done much in this regard for his entire presidency, but perhaps we might see a pivot in this direction in the coming weeks.  Surely there’s plenty of work to be done on this front.   [Read more…]

The US Has Not Created ONE Breadwinner Type Job in Over 10 Years

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Only part time, temp and minimum wage jobs are being created

By John Lawrence

A breadwinner job is a job that is sufficient to support a family, including rent or mortgage, car payment, adequate food and nutrition, health care, education and savings for retirement. That meant a job paying $50,000 a year in 2007 when the US economy peaked. At that time there were 71.8 million “breadwinner” jobs in construction, manufacturing, white-collar professions, government and the like. These jobs accounted for more than half of the nation’s 138 million total payroll.

Breadwinner jobs are the foundation of the Main Street economy. But after losing 5.6 million of these jobs during the Great Recession, less than 4 percent of these jobs have been recovered. The 3 million jobs recovered since the recession ended in 2009 have been mainly in part-time work, temp jobs and in health, education and social services (the HES complex).   [Read more…]

I Smell a Rat! Congressman Darrell Issa’s Birthday Present for the US Postal Service

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By Doug Porter

It’s probably not on your personal calendar, but tomorrow, July 26th, will mark the 238th anniversary of the Post Office in the United States.  And San Diego’s Darrell Issa has cooked up a very special birthday celebration: he wants to end home mail delivery.

The Community and Postal Workers United group is seeking to raise public awareness of the Congressman’s scheme, and they’ve scheduled their own birthday party at Rep. Darrell Issa’s office  (1800 Thibodo Rd., Suite 310, Vista CA 92081) starting at noon on Friday.

Featured will be piñatas that resemble the Congressman and a giant inflatable rat. There’ll be barbeque and cake afterwards at the union’s Anahiem offices.

What this is all about is yesterday’s (July 24th), House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform approval of Issa’s “reform measure”(HR 2748) by a vote of 22 to 17. The vote was along party lines, with all Republicans voting in favor of the measure and all Democrats voting against it. All amendments submitted by Democrats were defeated by the same margin.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: Sex Work in America

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By David Rosen / Alternet

Three centuries before Las Vegas was founded, New York was known as sin city. It was home to drinking, gambling, and most especially, illicit sexual pleasures. One of New Amsterdam’s first sex workers was Grietje “Little Pearl” Reynies, a lively bawd or “doxie.” Taunted by seamen on a departing sloop with the cry, “Whore! Whore! Two pound butter’s whore!” she allegedly lifted her petticoat and pointed to her naked backside, replying, “Blaes my daer achterin.”

Daily media reports often headline tantalizing stories of the NYPD arresting streetwalkers, breaking up a prostitution ring, and closing storefront sexual massage parlors. “Sin” still sells. However, between 2008 and 2012, the state Division of Criminal Justice Services reports the NYPD arrested only 5,834 people for patronizing prostitutes. On average, that’s only 1,167 arrests per year, 22 or so a week – and that’s in a city with 8 million-plus adult residents and visitors (e.g., businesspeople and tourists) prowling the city streets every day.   [Read more…]

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