Category: Labor

I want a plug-in hybrid. A vehicle with lithium-ion batteries good for 40-45 miles, two wheel drive, a six speed computer controlled transmission with a computer that starts a small generator; an 11 hp portable generator is rated for 6200 watts, and yes, burns gas, for now. Modular construction would make it easy to replace the gas power generator with a fuel cell or other non-internal combustion power source.

As it helps push for legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, the country’s fastest-growing union is engaged in its own labor dispute with employees it is seeking to lay off.

The Service Employees International Union, considered the most influential union in the nation, has notified the union that represents about 220 of the SEIU’s national field staff and organizers that it is laying off 75 of the employees.

The Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in Congress this week, but the action wasn’t all in Washington. Around the country, grassroots efforts are growing to pass this critical bill to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain.

Hundreds of phone calls and handwritten letters have gone to U.S. senators this week, urging them to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

A higher-than-normal rate of cancer diagnoses in the building that houses UCSD’s literature department has been the subject of near-constant discussion in recent months, but it’s an issue that’s been on the department’s radar for years.

“We’ve been talking about this in the hallways for almost as long as I’ve been here,” said Anna Joy Springer, a creative-writing professor who’s been teaching at UCSD for six years.

Between 2000 and 2006, faculty and staff who work in the building reported at least eight individual cases of breast cancer. Of these people, two have died.

by Anna Daniels

The third community input meeting on the upcoming budget was held this Saturday, February 21, at Hoover High School in City Heights. The auditorium was packed to overflowing! Fifty seven citizens provided public testimony about what services they considered essential and non-essential as well as ideas on how to save money and generate more general fund revenue. Fifty of those citizens said libraries and park and recreation services are essential because they provide kids with safe meaningful alternatives to the streets and opportunities for their future.

by Frank Gormlie

Residents in this County, when asked what San Diego County government does, are often hard-pressed I have found, to list more than a couple of things. Uh, collect taxes they’ll respond, … uh, run the sheriffs office, uh, … and then there will be a long, thoughtful pause. And maybe they’ll add one or two other services.

Well, the County does collect property and other taxes, and it does finance the Sheriff’s Office – although the Sheriff is elected separately. But the County does so much more.

By Paul Krugman

By now everyone knows the sad tale of Bernard Madoff’s duped investors. They looked at their statements and thought they were rich. But then, one day, they discovered to their horror that their supposed wealth was a figment of someone else’s imagination.

Unfortunately, that’s a pretty good metaphor for what happened to America as a whole in the first decade of the 21st century.

Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium …

On February 10, 2009 San Diego Unified, located in the middle of one of the largest military complexes in the world, took the uncharacteristic step of banning rifle training conducted under the military’s high school JROTC program. Eleven schools with rifle ranges were affected in the nation’s eighth largest urban district.

Before the board meeting began, speakers representing local high schools and colleges addressed an outside crowd of 200 students, parents, teachers and community supporters. Some high schools sent so many students that two charter buses, courtesy of the AFSC, were used for transportation.

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion. It’s not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.

Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.

The internal division within the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) has taken a serious turn for the worst, breaking out in open warfare between the factions. This new trench to trench in-fighting has resulted in a new national healthcare workers’ union, but has also disrupted local labor negotiations at Tri-City Hospital, already beset with its own internal battles.

On yet another morning of grim economic news, President Obama sought to further distance himself from his predecessor on Friday as he announced steps that he said would strengthen organized labor and improve the lot of middle-class Americans.

At a White House ceremony, the president signed three executive orders that he said would “reverse many of the policies towards organized labor that we’ve seen these last eight years, policies with which I’ve sharply disagreed.”

The debate over the recent vote of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education on a Project Stabilization Agreement with the local Building Trades continues here. Pat Flannery – blogger, city gadfly, community activist – has been very critical of the PSA, and we re-post his most recent comments. The Center for Policy Initiatives speaks up for organized labor, and we re-post their website comments.

The right not to associate – union shop or merit shop
VS
Fight the barrage of lies with facts: School board vote is good for San Diego