San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Business / Labor

May Day: The Forgotten Celebration of America’s Labor Struggles

by

By Brett Warnke

On the books, May 1st is officially Law Day, whose origins (like the holy portions of the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust”) came out of the Eisenhower Administration’s rhetorical battle against the Soviet Union. Of course, the silent smear was that radical workers lacked respect for a nation of laws. But for those with a sense of history May 1 is and shall be a day of observance for workers mourned after the bloody Haymarket Affair in 1886 which later became memorialized when strikers pushed for an eight-hour work day.

Is it so hard to imagine an era of endless work? Of plutocrats and bought government? Of a used, dispirited and duped population?   [Read more…]

Rancho Santa Fe School District Threatens to Expel Children of Teachers as Negotiations Drag On

by

By A Concerned Teacher

What began a decade ago as an effective collaboration between a school board and its teachers has become a divisive tool enabling the Rancho Santa Fe superintendent to use the threat of expelling the children of teachers in their district if they will not agree to settle their contract.

By using a sunset clause in current contract language, Rancho Santa Fe administration simply stalls negotiations to run out the clock and stipulates that if there is no settlement, Board policy 4111 will be void and teachers will be forced to remove their children from the Rancho Santa Fe School District.   [Read more…]

Mayor Faulconer’s Republican Unicorns: Jobs! And the Minimum Wage Veto

by

The Committee for Slave Wages and Free Puppies for Everybody Lives On

Have you seen the Falconer for Mayor ads in social media yet? San Diego’s incumbent mayor is claiming credit –sort of– for a 34% drop in local unemployment since he was elected. If you buy into this claim, you’ll love the expected follow-up ads claiming credit for the sun rising, the sun setting, and better-than-usual surf in Ocean Beach.

Think of this employment claim as like a candidate standing next to a cardboard cutout of somebody famous, hoping for the perceived endorsement. In Faulconer’s case, this cutout could be anybody but a member of his own political party since it would be hard to find a living Republican with a positive economic record. And hasn’t he heard the proclamations from his fellow Republicans about how jobs are fleeing the People’s Republic of California?

Independent mayoral candidate Lori Saldaña called Falconer out this claim this week, pointing to the reality that San Diegans are working more for less money, thanks to his veto of a minimum wage increase in 2014.   [Read more…]

Listen Liberal: What’s the Matter with the Democratic Party?

by

Thomas Frank has written the most important political book of 2016, and one that should disturb and hopefully influence progressives for years to come. If you have ever found yourself not just horrified by the lunatic right but also frustrated by the hapless and compromised “left,” Frank is your man. If you want to feel good about “your side” but are still troubled by the fact that economic inequality remains at historically high levels despite the last eight years of Democratic Presidential rule, Frank has some uncomfortable truths for you to ponder.

And it’s not just about those damn Republicans.

In his new book, Listen Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, Frank does his usual stellar job of research and analysis where he painstakingly makes his case by using the words of his subjects to illustrate his argument.   [Read more…]

Working Without a Net

by

By Tom Sullivan / Digby’s Hullabaloo

David Dayen shares scenes from his life in the “gig” economy, or what he calls “the 1099 Economy.” They are tales a lot of freelance writers can relate to, I imagine, as well as anyone working for themselves and receiving no benefits. Perhaps the most startling bit of data from research by Princeton’s Alan Krueger and Harvard’s Lawrence Katz is that the growth in those sorts of jobs accounts for pretty much the entire growth in the job market over the last decade. It is one key reason, Dayen argues, why voters are angry:   [Read more…]

City Council Races Beg the Question: When is a Democrat Not a Democrat?

by

Are there candidates running for City Council in Districts 3 and 9 supported by interests with a history of backing Republicans really Democrats? Do campaign donations define a public official?

Is Bernie Sanders a Democrat? Is Hillary Clinton just a Republican in drag? How about Congressman Scott Peters after his votes on refugees and trade? Are people who used to be Republicans ever to be trusted? Where do you draw the line?

Today I’ll explore these questions as they impact a couple of local contests…   [Read more…]

Here’s to the Folks Who Demanded the Impossible and Brought Us the $15 an Hour Minimum Wage: The Labor Movement

by

Time to give credit where credit is due. It was not the noblesse oblige of individual politicians or the Democratic Party that brought us the $15 dollar an hour minimum wage, it was the labor movement. Surely, the governors of New York and California and their fellow Democrats in those statehouses deserve credit for listening to the cry for economic justice and having the good sense to do the right thing, but the historic victory of the Fight for $15 that we have just celebrated would never have come to pass without the bold vision and prolonged struggle of working people standing together and demanding what many called impossible.

As Steven Greenhouse rightly noted in the New York Times, back in 2012 when the Fight for $15 began “many scoffed at their demand for $15 an hour as pie in the sky.” Nonetheless the labor movement led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) pushed long and hard, starting at the local level.   [Read more…]

Lies of the Rich and Famous: Off-Shoring Dark Money and Fighting the Minimum Wage

by

As leaks of confidential documents go, the Panama Papers dwarf past disclosures. The story isn’t new: rich people use offshore shell corporations to avoid taxes. But the detail is stunning. And there is reportedly much more coming over the next month.

Enough documents to fill six hundred CD’s leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca reveal the dark money dealings of world leaders, celebrities and dozens of Fortune 500 billionaires. More than 370 journalists from more than 70 countries are following up on leads using corporate filings, property records, financial disclosures, court documents and interviews with money laundering experts and law-enforcement officials.

A much ‘smaller’ story impacting a much larger number of people in the US appears today in the Washington Post (via the Center for Media and Democracy) showing internal polling commissioned by Chambers of Commerce revealing a large majority of business owners being supportive of increasing minimum wages, paid sick leave and other reforms.   [Read more…]

A $15 Minimum Wage Didn’t Fall From the Sky and the Sky Won’t Fall Because of It

by

“There’s no turning back. We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind & heart” – Cesar Chavez

An ambitious demand tracing its origins to fast food workers walking off the job in 2012 took a big step towards becoming real yesterday as proposals to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour advanced in California and New York.

In California, hundreds of low-wage workers and members from supportive unions traveled to the Capitol to watch as the bill (SB3) was voted on in both legislative houses. California State Secretary of Labor David Lanier later told a cheering crowd that Governor Jerry Brown would sign the bill in Los Angeles on Monday.

In New York,  Gov. Andrew Cuomo made it official Thursday night, announcing the state budget deal he reached with Legislature leaders included a $15 an hour minimum wage. The New York deal is multi-tiered with different regions of the state getting different rates of increases.     [Read more…]

Assault on Public Employee Unions Fizzles at the Supreme Court

by

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association Gets Split Decision 

Rebecca Friedrichs, the elementary school teacher honored with a ‘Torch of Freedom Award’ at the San Diego County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln-Reagan dinner last weekend, won’t be celebrating this weekend.

This morning, in a single-sentence order, the Supreme Court announced that the judgment of a lower court rejecting an effort to defund public sector unions “is affirmed by an equally divided court.”. A four-decade-old opinion protecting public sector unions will live to see another day.

Friederichs and nine other teachers served as plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by the conservative Center for Individual Rights (CIR) and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The claim being made was that the free speech rights of non-union members entitled them to contribute nothing to the costs of representation, even if they’d already opted out of fees supporting unions’ political activities.   [Read more…]

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, California – The $15 Minimum Wage isn’t a Done Deal

by

A quick read through today’s news might lead the casual reader to believe California is all-but-set to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The Los Angeles Times already has an article featuring interviews with low wage employees and low-margin employers talking about the impact of the proposed increase.

The New York Times, Washington Post and the wire services all have stories about what is really no more than a back-room handshake agreement. Gov. Jerry Brown is set to make an announcement today, and then the sausage-making in the legislature will begin. The promise of more food on the table for as much as 38% of California’s workforce could very easily end up looking like a shit sandwich.

In today’s column, I’ll take a look at what’s been proposed and the forces already at work to derail or water down the deal.   [Read more…]

November Ballot Measures in Turmoil: Fifteen Bucks Per Hour and a Football Stadium

by

An attempt by the City of Upland to delay a referendum overturning its ban on medical marijuana dispensaries has led to an appellate court decision challenging the presumption of a two-thirds majority being needed for tax increases in citizen-based ballot measures.

This is huge. And what seems like a good thing could end up being a nightmare, thanks to flaws in California’s initiative process. This ruling should mean a restoration of ‘majority rules’ when it comes to citizen-driven projects.

However, given the rash of special interest gaming of the electoral process, it could mean the public will be paying for projects benefiting private interests. In San Diego, that means the path to success could be a whole lot easier in the San Diego Chargers’ quest for a new stadium.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry