Category: Labor

The carbon footprint of the average San Diegan — including residential energy use and transportation — is larger than that of the average resident of Los Angeles, a review of available data shows. San Diego lags behind LA in policies and programs to reduce energy use.

by Lane Tobias

As a lifelong sports fan with allegiances to various East Coast sports teams that garner hatred amongst competitor fan bases (I won’t go into all of my favorite teams as to not draw the ire of the many native San Diegans who read the OB Rag) I have been encouraged on an emotional and philosophical level by the early season success of the San Diego Padres.

In a well attended raucous meeting on April 13, 2009, of the San Francisco Labor Council – representing nearly all the unions in San Francisco – the Council unanimously endorsed a resolution condemning the raid by the president of SEIU International Andy Stern on Unite-Here throughout the country. (SEIU stands for Service Employees International Union – and is one of the most influential unions in the country.)

As expected, Mayor Jerry Sanders held a press conference this morning in front of the Ocean Beach library. And as expected, Mayor Sanders announced that in his new city budget proposal, no libraries or library services will be cut for this year’s budget.

“We heard you, Ocean Beach,” the Mayor said. “There will be no library cuts.” The crowd applauded.

by Judi Italiano

In another shameless effort to pit the public against City employees and their Unions based on lies, the Union Tribune editorialized this morning that “to no one’s surprise, organized labor rebuffed the mayor’s bid to negotiate $32 million in employee benefit concessions to help close a $60 million deficit in the budget year that will begin on July 1.”

by Anna Daniels

This past Friday morning (April 10) the SANDAG Board of Director’s meeting had an agenda item for a special Transit Operations Funding workshop. Thirty public speakers presented testimony for and against additional fiscal support for MTS. (SANDAG is the San Diego Association of Governments – a coordinating policy body for the area.)

by Frank Gormlie

Water quality testing around Mission Bay is being severely cut back … Mission Bay is losing two life guards. But don’t worry! The Department of Homeland Security iS funding 13 to 16 surveillance cameras to be installed around Mission Bay …

Socialism is once again up for discussion, so I thought it was time to propose an answer to the question: why socialism? And my answer is: Wednesday. What is Wednesday? Wednesday — or as my old man used to call it: hump-day — is the third day in the work-week.

FRESNO, Calif. – As the operations manager of an outreach center for the homeless here, Paul Stack is used to seeing people down on their luck. What he had never seen before was people living in tents and lean-tos on the railroad lot across from the center.

“They just popped up about 18 months ago,” Mr. Stack said. “One day it was empty. The next day, there were people living there.”

by Michael Moore

Nothing like it has ever happened. The President of the United States, the elected representative of the people, has just told the head of General Motors — a company that’s spent more years at #1 on the Fortune 500 list than anyone else — “You’re fired!”

I simply can’t believe it. This stunning, unprecedented action has left me speechless for the past two days.

When the city eliminated supervision at skate parks this year to save money, the parks filled with gleeful skaters who no longer had to pay $5 and be under the watchful eye of a supervisor.

Problems followed. The skate park at Robb Field at Ocean Beach was repeatedly tagged with graffiti, forcing city employees to make regular trips to clean it up. Reports surfaced of people drinking and smoking at the skate parks. Parks employees and police officers started checking in on the parks regularly.

Community activists and faith leaders gathered outside a local CVS pharmacy yesterday to warn consumers about expired products found on the shelves at CVS. The community leaders were reacting to the results of a survey, announced today, that found 77 percent of Greater San Diego CVS stores surveyed had expired goods for sale and that CVS stores operating in communities with higher concentrations of residents of color are more likely to lock condoms, creating a deterrent in communities most at risk of HIV/AIDS.