Victory for Workers’ Rights in Santa Barbara ‘News-Press Mess’
This is an excerpt from a cross-post at the California Labor Federation by Melinda Burns, Teamsters Graphic Communications Conference.
The National Labor Relations Board last week ordered the Santa Barbara News-Press to reinstate me and seven other reporters who were illegally fired nearly five years ago, after our newsroom voted to unionize. I was the first to be escorted out of the building in October 2006, one month after we voted overwhelmingly to join the union. I was a senior writer, I had been at the paper for 21 years, and I had won local, state, regional and national awards for the paper with my reporting.
Back in July of 2006, the News-Press newsroom faced a crisis. Five top editors resigned, alleging that Wendy McCaw, the multimillionaire owner, was improperly meddling in news coverage, in part by arbitrarily disciplining her own reporters and editors. In September of that year, seeking to protect our professional integrity and job security, we newsroom employees voted 33-6 to join the Graphics Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Thousands Take a Stand in Sacramento for Workers’ Rights in Wisconsin
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This is a cross-post from the California Federation of Labor by Communications Director Steve Smith.
When Wisconsin’s new right-wing governor decided to make it his personal mission to eliminate the rights of teachers, nurses, bus drivers and other public servants, he probably thought it would be a cakewalk. After all, Gov. Scott Walker has a Republican-controlled legislature that is on board with his radical plan to eliminate collective bargaining for public-sector workers. What he didn’t count on was the extraordinary resolve of working people to stop his assault on our values. For more than a week, tens of thousands have protested at the Wisconsin Capitol. The fight back spread to Ohio, Indiana and other states where politicians are attempting to strip workers of their voice. And it didn’t stop there. All over the country, workers are standing in solidarity to beat back these attacks.
An Open Letter to Calif. Rep. Darrell Issa
California Labor Federation Legislative Advocate Mitch Seaman points out how California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is busy catering to his rich corporate donors rather than representing the people in his congressional district.
Dear Rep. Issa,
Politico reported Tuesday that last month you delivered letters to more than 150 corporations, trade associations and conservative think tanks, requesting a list of their least favorite “existing and proposed regulations” that you, as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair, could help eliminate. The article further highlights your appeal for “suggestions on reforming identified regulations and the rule-making process.”
Obviously there’s been some sort of mistake. As I’m sure you’re aware, Duke Energy, Toyota and Bayer—all recipients of your letter—are not residents of California’s gorgeous 49th district. Maybe you were thrown by the names of the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA), hoping they were consumer-driven nonprofits focused on improving the safety of oil production and transport—assuming you’d like to protect the 49th district’s world-class beaches and environmental beauty.
Californians Urged to Vote and Avoid a ‘Meg Moment’
One of the worse things that could happen next Wednesday would be for Californians to wake up and find out they’re having a “Meg Moment”—the awful realization that you should have voted, but didn’t.
To make sure Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman doesn’t buy the election after spending $163 million of her own money, the California Labor Federation has launched a new TV ad urging Californians to “Protect Yourself from a Meg Moment” by voting. The ad uses Whitman’s own words to expose her failure to vote for much of her adult life, while at the same time urging people to get to the polls.
The ad is part of the state federation’s largest-ever get out the vote (GOTV) mobilization effort supporting Jerry Brown for governor, Sen. Barbara Boxer and other working family candidates on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Whitman Makes Money the ‘Old-Fashioned Way’—Tax Breaks for the Rich
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One thing you’ve got to say about Meg Whitman, California’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, she sure knows how to make money. She amassed more than a billion dollars despite a not-so-shining track record as CEO of eBay, board member of Goldman Sachs and other corporate stops.
Now, she stands to add to that fortune and maybe replenish her personal coffers after dumping some $141.6 million of her own money into her campaign to buy the election.
One of her cornerstone economic proposals is the elimination of California’s capital gains tax. If elected and able to abolish the tax that mainly benefits the mega-wealthy, Whitman could net some $40 million during a four-year term as governor, according to a new report. Now that’s making money the old-fashioned Republican way—tax breaks for the super rich.
Union Activists Counter Unprecedented Election Cash from Corporations, Front Groups
West Virginia Fire Fighters (IAFF), California Ironworkers and Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) and AFGE members across the country are fighting back against the hundreds of millions of dollars Republicans, corporations and phony front groups are pouring into the November elections.
In West Virginia, you’ll remember that a Republican TV ad for multimillionaire and mostly Florida resident John Raese’s campaign for the U.S. Senate used actors—encouraged to come to the auditions looking “hicky” in trucker caps and flannel shirts—to portray West Virginians.
The outcry over that condescending slap in the face to real West Virginia voters forced the National Republican Senatorial Committee to pull the ad last week. Now, some IAFF members who are real West Virginians are on the air (see video) backing Gov. Joe Manchin (D). In a commercial airing around the Mountain State, Mark Roberts, a Dunbar firefighter (IAFF Local 1228 member), says:
Joe Manchin doesn’t hire Philadelphia actors to play hicks in his ads. We need a real West Virginian to fight for us in the U.S. Senate.
IAFF President Harold Schaitberger says the Raese ad was offensive:
We didn’t have to ship in East Coast actors who pretend to support Joe because West Virginia is filled with firefighters who are proud to support him. West Virginians realize that Joe Manchin has been a fantastic governor, and they also understand that his legacy of service provides evidence that he will be an even better senator.
Union Members Getting Out the Vote in Critical Central California
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Rachel Johnson, California Labor Federation Communications intern, sends us this cross-post from the Labor’s Edge Blog on union members mobilizing to get out the vote.
The Central Valley could be the California equivalent of Florida or Ohio in presidential politics—a critical battleground that may determine the fate of an election.
That’s why unions have placed special emphasis on the region this year, ramping up more phone banks, precinct walks and worksite visits than ever before. And if this past weekend’s Central Valley get out the vote (GOTV) kickoffs are any indication of how much grassroots energy there is statewide for Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer and other working family candidates, it’s going to be a good night on Nov. 2.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker joined hundreds of union volunteers and national and state leaders to launch the final phase of the California Labor Federation’s massive grassroots mobilization for the 2010 elections with union member-to-member walks in Modesto, Tracy and Sacramento.
Fiorina, Whitman Hold Their Tea Parties in Private
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California Republican candidates Meg Whitman, for governor, and Carly Fiorina, for the U.S. Senate, share many traits. They are both mega-wealthy CEOs with job-killing records. While they portray themselves as competent, sensible and reasonable business women, both are really anti-worker corporate cutthroats who embrace the extreme right-wing agenda that’s taking over the Republican Party this fall.
Another thing they share: concerted efforts to keep their connections and meetings with the radical Tea Party out of the public eye—especially the eyes of moderate voters. But thanks to Joe Garofoli at the San Francisco Chronicle, California voters know with whom and where they are sipping the Tea Party’s Kool-Aid.
California Latino Voters Say Fiorina ‘No Es Mi Amiga’
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Carly Fiorina, California Republican U.S. Senate candidate, shares a wide range of skewed views straight out of the Sarah Palin manifesto. But there is one key Palinesque policy she embraces that she’d just a soon the state’s Latino voters didn’t dwell on.
Fiorina, who casts herself as friend of Latinos, is a strong and strident supporter of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law that civil rights groups denounce as discriminatory and an open to door to racial profiling. As a U.S. senator, Fiorina very well could back a national anti-immigrant law patterned after Arizona’s.
Today the California Labor Federation, Brave New Films and SEIU California unveiled a new bilingual video, “Carly No Es Mi Amiga” (Carly is Not My Friend) that exposes her anti-immigrant agenda and close ties to Palin’s radical and inflammatory immigration rhetoric. Says Art Pulaski, California Labor Federation executive secretary-treasurer: Read the rest of this entry »
Corporate Scandals No Bar to Campaign Cash for Whitman
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Who says opposites attract? Two billionaire CEOs—California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and her deep-pocket angel, Henry Samueli—are pretty darn cozy. Both their companies have been targets of federal investigations, which looked into whether they were engaged in the same kind of shady Wall Street dealings that drove the economy into meltdown.
Last night, Samueli held a Whitman fundraiser at his beachside Corona Del Mar mansion, where $50,000 bought you four tickets to an “intimate” and “private” dinner with Whitman, four “photo opportunities” and eight tickets to a cocktail reception. For the more budget-minded, a mere $25,900 scored you two dinner tickets, two photo-ops and six cocktail tickets.
