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Amazon Go: The End of Jobs?

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Amazon Go is the latest job destroyer by virtue of the fact that it is a grocery store with no check-out lines. High tech devices will monitor every item you put in your high tech grocery basket so you just load up and go. Your credit card will be charged the correct amount. It isn’t clear if a robot will bag your groceries or if you’ll do that yourself. This feat of automation is only the harbinger of things to come. With artificial intelligence and robots, jobs will be automated out of existence except for a few software engineers who will design the various systems.

So far there is only one store open and that’s in Seattle, but soon … soon check-out cashiers can kiss their jobs good-bye. By the same token, truck drivers will be losing their jobs to self-driving trucks.   [Read more…]

Inequality in America: Incomes Collapsing for Bottom 50% as Top 1% Soars

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While most of us were busy watching the Trump administration and their crack team of “populist” millionaires light the world on fire, a new study released by Thomas Piketty, Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, and Emmanuel Saez underlined the fact that the steep costs of our historic level of economic inequality are being borne by those at the bottom of the economic system, particularly here in the United States. As the Market Watch story on this new research outlined:

In the U.S., between 1978 and 2015, the income share of the bottom 50% fell to 12% from 20%. Total real income for that group fell 1% during that time period.   [Read more…]

Union Density in San Diego Below State Average

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By Murtaza Baxamusa

There were about 185 thousand union members in San Diego, based on surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2016. About 110 thousand of these workers are in the private sector. There are additionally 20 thousand workers covered by union contracts in the region. The continuing employment recovery in the last two years contributed to an increase in union membership.

Union density is the share of workers that are union members. It is an important measure of union prevalence that determines the impact of collective bargaining agreements on area-wide labor wages and benefits. In 2016, union density was 12.9 percent for all workers in San Diego. It was about 6.2 percent in the private sector and 45.5 in the public sector in San Diego. Union membership rate in California stayed almost constant at 15.9 percent since membership grew by 65,000 members at the same pace as the overall employment.   [Read more…]

#NotOurLaborSec: Fast Food Workers Protest Puzder Nationwide

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As protests against Andy Puzder erupt around the country, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tells labor secretary nominee he has a “sneering contempt” for workers

By Nika Knight / Common Dreams

For the third time since anti-worker fast food CEO Andy Puzder’s nomination for Labor Secretary was announced, fast food workers flooded the streets in protest on Monday.

Days before Puzder’s confirmation hearing on Thursday, hundreds of cashiers and cooks ralliedin front of the St. Louis headquarters of Hardee’s and the Anaheim, Calif. offices of CKE Restaurants, the conglomerate overseen by Puzder that includes Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants.   [Read more…]

In This Post-Filner Era, the Democratic Party and the Labor Council Need to Do Better

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An open letter to Jessica Hayes, (Chair, San Diego Democratic Party) and Dale Kelly Bankhead (Secretary-Treasurer for the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council), from Sara Kent.

Over the past two months, I have hoped for brave action from each of you. As women who hold positions of power in San Diego who should be stalwarts of fundamental Democratic ideals, instead of being proud of your leadership, I am gravely disappointed.

Not only for you, but for all of us.   [Read more…]

How Not to Be the Resistance: Local Democratic Party and Union Leaders Fail Early Test

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Last week I dedicated my column to outlining how, despite the emergence of inspiring protests in the streets and amongst the progressive base, many key Democratic figures in Congress and in the national leadership of the building trades unions still didn’t seem to understand what time it was. Sadly, it only took a few more days to see a couple of stunning examples of how not to be the resistance right here in San Diego.

On January 26th, Jessica Hayes, the newly elected chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party, took advantage of her presence at a forum hosted by the Democrats for Equality entitled “#The Resistance: Women Lead the Way” to attack not the dangerous plutocrats running the country, but a key element of the Democratic base: unions.

The last few weeks have also held its challenges for local labor leadership as protesters, including Donna Frye and Irene McCormack, picketed outside the monthly delegates meeting at which there was no mention whatsoever of the elephant in the room, the lawsuits filed against Labor Council President Mickey Kasparian and what this means for local labor at this perilous moment in the history of the movement.   [Read more…]

Prominent Democrats, Community Activists Call on Labor Leader Kasparian to Stand Down

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Four years after the Bob Filner scandal, little has changed with the leadership culture in the centers of power on the left in San Diego–namely labor and the Democratic party.

The enablers and apologists for workplace sexual improprieties, gender discrimination, and retaliation continue to use the political clout and cash flow of their organizations as a shield, preventing them from answering for their behavior or learning from their mistakes.

Engaged women are leading the resistance to what portends to be an era of oppression and repression. They can’t fight the good fight locally or nationally if women within this movement are subjugated by abusive men in powerful positions. They cannot be expected to roll up their sleeves to make changes only to realize the institutional power they need amounts to more of the same.   [Read more…]

One-Third of Working Age Families in San Diego Can’t Make Ends Meet

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Latest data shows more than 1 million people living in families with incomes too low for expenses

Center on Policy Initiatives

A new report from the Center on Policy Initiatives finds that a third (33%) of all household in San Diego County have incomes below the level needed to cover basic living expenses.

Women and children are most impacted, largely because employed women throughout the county earn 74 cents for every $1 paid to men. Among households headed by single mothers, 69% have incomes below the bare-bones level known as the Self-Sufficiency Standard.   [Read more…]

How Twinkies Made a Few Billionaires Richer While Thousands Lost Jobs

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The Junk Food That Is an American Tradition

Remember when Twinkies went out of business and people mourned the loss of such a time-honored treat? How could such a sorry state come to pass? Weren’t Twinkies profitable any more? Were people consuming less of them because they were mostly sugar and not good for you? Wrong and Wrong.

As it turns out, it was all about some hedge fund shananigans designed to make the wealthy even wealthier while sacrificing the jobs and pensions of loyal workers. It’s called financial engineering, and it creates profits by destroying jobs.   [Read more…]

Feckless Democrats and Business Unionists Fail Early Trump Era Tests

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Making Deals with the Devil

As inspiring as the big marches were last week, it didn’t take long for evidence to emerge that there are still plenty of folks in the Democratic party and elsewhere who just don’t get what time it is. As I wrote on Martin Luther King Jr. day, it was dismaying to see prominent Democrats like Senator Cory Booker and twelve of his Big Pharma funded friends vote against Bernie Sanders’ effort to reduce prescription drug prices before the inauguration.

And that low bar was then pushed a bit further down when ex-Democratic Vice Presidential candidate and consummate corporate tool, Joe Lieberman, gleefully presented Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos while slamming American public education at her confirmation hearing. At that same hearing, Lieberman also failed to disclose that his law firm represents Trump.   [Read more…]

Donna Frye and Irene McCormack Show Solidarity with Kasparian’s Accusers

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“Doing nothing is not an option for people of good conscience.”

On a cold Wednesday evening in Kearny Mesa prominent San Diegans Donna Frye and Irene McCormack joined community members to show their solidarity with Sandy Naranjo, Isabel Vasquez and Anabel Arauz and call for the resignation of the President of UFCW Local 135 and San Diego and Imperial Labor Council, Mickey Kasparian.

Naranjo, Vasquez, and Arauz filed separate lawsuits against Kasparian accusing him of gender discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and other misdeeds. Also named in all three complaints are the union itself and in Arauz’s filing, Richard Barerra, executive assistant of the local.

McCormack was the chief communications aide to disgraced, former mayor Bob Filner and the first of many women to accuse him of sexual harassment. Former City Councilwoman Donna Frye, alongside lawyers Cory Briggs and Marco Gonzalez, was the first person to come out publicly to condemn Filner and call for his resignation.   [Read more…]

Campaign Against Labor Leader for Sexual Harassment Charges Heats Up – Protest to Call for Mickey Kasparian’s Resignation – Wed., Jan. 25th

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By Staff / The OB Rag

The campaign against San Diego labor leader Mickey Kasparian is heating up, as a protest calling for his resignation as head of the local labor council is being held today, Wednesday, Jan. 25th at 6pm outside a labor delegates meeting.

Three women have filed gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuits against Kasparian, the president of UFCW Local 135, who also sits as the President of the Labor Council.

Sandy Naranjo filed a gender discrimination lawsuit after being unjustly fired. Retired co-worker Isabel Vasquez filed a sexual harassment claim alleging sexual misconduct. And current UFCW employee Anabel Arauz filed a retaliation/discrimination claim against the union, Kasparian and secretary-treasurer (and current San Diego Unified School Board President) Richard Barrera.

Supporters of the three women are holding the demonstration today. They will be holding signs in support of Sandy, Isabel & Anabel and will be calling on San Diego Labor Council Delegates to show public support for these women and to demand the resignation of Mickey Kasparian.   [Read more…]

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