Towards a fair-wage, low-waste, worker-friendly and publicly accountable economy.

This Week's Kaiser Security Guard Strike and the Bigger Picture

May 10, 2008

This last week I worked with SEIU to help publicize a strike by security guards at Kaiser Permanente facilities in California. (That work was sponsored by SEIU, but this is not a sponsored post.)

The security guards at Kaiser facilities in California work for a company named Inter-Con Security, which then contracts with Kaiser. All other employees at Kaiser are unionized, and Kaiser is a responsible company with their employee relationships. And in other states like Oregon, the Kaiser security guards are unionized. But, for some reason, the security guards in California are not employees of Kaiser and the contractor, Inter-Con, is fighting unionization. In fact they are engaging in tactics that are not legal, including intimidation, interrogation of employees to find out who is trying to form the union, and other anti-union tactics. (It is legal to form a union and supposedly protected by law.) This week the guards went on strike to demand that these illegal tactics stop, and that laws against such tactics be enforced.

There are, of course, bigger issues in any strike and any drive to unionize. What it comes down to is that corporations are able to amass incredible power and wealth, while individuals on their own are not. So when individuals find themselves up against corporations they have little to no ability to stand up against this massed power and concentrated wealth. Employees are just one example of this dilemma. Most employees are not in a situation that makes it possible to ask for fair pay, benefits, sick pay, health insurance, etc.

Over time, though, workers learned that if they can organize into a single unit and act together they are able to fight back. This is known as organized labor, or unions. And by going on strike, shutting down the corporation's ability to bring in the bucks, they gain leverage over the corporation and can improve their situation. This is, in fact, what brought America its middle class -- weekends off, 40-hour workweeks, sick leave, vacations, pensions, raises, reasonable pay, etc. And, in fact, you can see that since the decline of the labor movement many of these benefits have been disappearing. We have been losing pensions and health care and raises, etc.

But it is not just employees who have a difficult time standing up against corporate power. Look at the vast power of the tobacco and oil industries to set the country's priorities. As many as 3-400,000 Americans still die each year from cigarettes that were marketed to children who did not have the maturity to resist while addiction to tobacco is especially strong if it begins at an early age. Yet we are still unable to fight back against the horror this industry inflicts.

And the oil companies and coal are able to fight efforts to reign in their power. We are unable to get our government to fund sufficient alternatives to automobiles, like urban rail systems and other mass transit, or high-speed trains between cities. And alternatives to oil and coal energy generation like solar, wind and research into others are all stymied or severely underfunded even though we know entire, new job-creating industries could be launched.

Our hopes for one-person-one-vote ideas about democracy continue to suffer from the one-dollar-one-vote corporate assault. It is not clear what the eventual outcome of this battle will be.

Posted by Dave Johnson - Comments (0) - TrackBack (0)

Why We Need Strong Unions

April 01, 2008

It has been a long time since the general public has heard about the benefits of unions. If we read or hear anything from the corporate media today it is usually about "corrupt" unions "driving up prices," "taking" dues from wages or "causing companies to leave" the state or country. And who would expect a corporate-controlled media to ever say anything good about unions or bad about corporate rule!

Have you heard the saying, "The labor movement - the people who brought you the weekend?" Think about that seriously for a minute. The reason we have weekends off, vacations (such as we do have them), an 8-hour workday, sick leave, child labor laws and so much more is because people organized into unions and demanded those things.

Do you know why manufacturing jobs have "traditionally" paid good wages? The reason is because unions organized the manufacturing industry.

In fact, unions are the reason we have a middle class in America.

Do you know why unions were formed? Before there were unions wages, working hours, worker safety rules, worker rights and general working conditions were terrible. This is because there is a huge imbalance in our economic system. Corporations have the ability to organize huge amounts of money and resources as well as to influence the government. But individuals are on their own. And in the 19th and early 20th century a very few people used the power and influence of corporations to perpetuate a system that enabled them to collect most of the proceeds of the industrial revolution and the work of millions largely for themselves, sharing very little with the regular people of the country. So to counter the power and influence of the big companies workers learned that they needed to organize themselves to help each other. And so the labor movement was born.

The unions were able to bring millions of regular people together to fight back against the consolidated power of corporations. Slowly over time working conditions, wages, etc. improved. And through this organized effort the government became more responsive to regular people as well.

But the owners of the corporations fought back. In the late 1960s and early 1970s a corporate-sponsored conservative political movement was organized. They used modern marketing techniques to influence people and persuade them to yield more and more power back to the corporations. In the decades since they have been able to largely take over the government and to wear down the unions to a fraction of what they were.

And we can all see the results. When unions were strong people had retirement pensions and health insurance and good wages they could count on. When unions were strong our government was much more responsive to the will of the people not the corporations.

Why can you do about this? You can join a union and start to fight back!

Why should you join a union? I've been looking around online for info and arguments to help make the case, and here is a compilation of some of them. (Each link means the info following it is from a different website. Click through the links for more.)

Cause trouble where you work - print this out and stick it on bulletin boards around the workplace when no one is looking.

Union Workers Have Better Health Care and Pensions

Union workers are more likely than their nonunion counterparts to covered by health care and receive pension benefits, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. In March 2007, 78 percent of union workers in the private sector had jobs with employer-provided health insurance, compared with only 49 percent of nonunion workers. Union workers also are more likely to have retirement and short-term disability benefits.

Dignity: The presence of a union means employees must be treated fairly by their employer, and that you have a voice and vote in important decisions that effect you.

Power: An employee has little power and almost no way to improve wages, benefits, or working conditions. Collective Bargaining balances the power that an employer has over its employees even in a "Team" or high performance work environment.

Protection: Without a union there is no due process at work. Unions provide a grievance & arbitration procedure which ensures fairness for all employees.

Here are five good reasons to join your co-workers in uniting to form a union:

# 1 - Working together, union members have the strength to win better wages, affordable health care, a secure retirement, and safer workplaces.

# 2 - The "union advantage" is substantial. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, union members are much more likely to have health benefits and pensions.

# 3 - For people of color and women workers, the union impact is even greater. Women workers who are union members earn nearly $9,000 a year more than their non-union counterparts. For African-American workers, the union differential is also about $9,000, and for Latino workers the yearly advantage is more than $11,000.

# 4 - In addition to helping workers win better wages and benefits, unions help all workers by giving working families a stronger voice in our communities, in the political arena, and in the global economy.

# 5 - By joining together, we can build the strength to hold elected officials accountable, stop the "race to the bottom" by employers who cut wages and benefits in favor of bigger profits, and win improvements such as affordable, quality health care for all.

Union members earn better wages and benefits than workers who aren't union members. On average, union workers' wages are 30 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts. While only 14 percent of nonunion workers have guaranteed pensions, fully 68 percent of union workers do. More than 97 percent of union workers have jobs that provide health insurance benefits, but only 85 percent of nonunion workers do. Unions help employers create a more stable, productive workforce--where workers have a say in improving their jobs.

Unions are making a difference. With most of the economic benefits of our economy going to corporate America, working people are using the power of collective action to get their fair share.

Workers never got anything without uniting for it.

* The 40-hour workweek
* The 8-hour workday
* Overtime
* Sick Leave
* Paid Vacation
* Employer-paid health insurance
* Pensions
* Safety and health protections
* Grievance procedure for wrongful discharge and discipline
* Fairness in promotions
* Higher wages

Just think of what you and your coworkers may be able to win if you had a union contract.

And, finally, it's time for the wealthiest to share the pie: Income for the Wealthiest Is off the Charts.

Posted by Dave Johnson - Comments (2) - TrackBack (0)

From Take Back America - Monday

March 17, 2008

I am at the Take Back America conference in Washington DC.

One common discussion here at Take Back America is that conservative economic policy chickens are coming home to roost. Another phrase I am hearing is Wild West Banking. People here are talking about the big story in the news right now: an economic and financial crisis that some economists are saying is the worst since the depression.

For decades, as conservative economics increasingly led to lower wages, loss of pensions and health insurance, and general "you're on your own" economic insecurity many people have been using up their savings while other people turned to borrowing to make up the difference, taking out second mortgages or running up credit cards.

Meanwhile the financial system, increasingly deregulated, cooked up riskier and riskier schemes -- like loaning money to people and companies to use to make their payments on their existing debt.

Now we appear to be reaching the limit of people's ability to borrow. And when people and companies have been borrowing to meet their payments this can mean a collapse. When people can't pay the mortgages the financial companies aren’t receiving their payments. So they can't make their payments, and the companies they aren’t paying can’t make their payments. Think of this as a spiral of debt extending from the overextended consumer at the bottom to the biggest financial companies at the top. Now that spiral is beginning to "unwind."

This is happening because of so many years of conservative government focused on deregulating and on protecting the interests of the corporations and the wealthy instead of protecting the interests of the public from the moneyed interests. This is what conservatives do. A while back I wrote a very short post titled Republicans and Economics:

...there was a REASON that Americans were loath to elect a Republican into the government for an entire generation after the Great Depression: They remembered.

But eventually the public forgot, and the moneyed-interests used their money to again become the dominant voice in the public discussion. They used this dominance to persuade people to dislike unions, accept 401Ks as alternatives to pensions, and all the rest of the things that have led to another economic crisis. But even many of my progressive readers didn't understand what I meant. So I had to add an update,

Previous generations REMEMBERED. There was nothing to add. Over time people have forgotten how Republican economics caused the depression, and how they fought every single program that helped the people at the expense of the wealthiest and the powerful corporations. (And in fact led to the prosperity that the wealthiest and corporations enjoyed since.)

But now people do not remember how concentration of wealth, corporations preying on citizens, anti-union policies, etc. LED TO the economic collapse.

The depression was ended by pro-union policies, redistributive taxes, REGULATIONS on businesses and the fuinancial sector, and an understanding that We, the People run the government, and the reason we have corporations is for OUR benefit, not just the benefit of the few.

Over time, as I said, people forgot. And here we are again.

How do we help the public understand what is happening and how conservative policies are responsible?

One possible way is to use a shorthand -- call this the "Iraq Recession." It isn't entirely accurate, but it does lay the blame exactly where it belongs. Up to three trillion dollars will be spent by the time we are out of Iraq, assuming it ends soon. And Iraq is entirely a Republican enterprise. So this shorthand places the blame where it belongs. What do you think?

Posted by Dave Johnson - Comments (1) - TrackBack (0)

The "Job Killer" Soundbite

October 16, 2007

During my tenure in the California legislature, I found it somewhat humorous that every bill calling for greater corporate accountability and responsibility to the health and well-being of the public or workers was called "a job killer"by the California Chamber of Commerce. This appellation was almost always not only overly simplistic, but wildly dishonest and inaccurate. When I brought a bill to require that we consider the health impacts on women and children of various chemicals and compounds when we establsih acceptable health standards, and not just consider the impacts on the average 6 foot 175 pound male, the bill was attacked as being a "job killer".

The first time I heard this, I thought the accuser was just kidding. But then I realized that the allegation came from a package of "talking points" handed out by the California Chamber of Commerce as part of their propoganda campaign to defeat any measures that would otherwise regulate their big business bosses. How in the world could you otherwise justify defeating a measure designed to protect the health of our people, and especially our children?

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Celebrating Women's Equality through Workforce Justice

August 23, 2007

Now that the budget impasse is over (we'll have more to say on that subject in this coming week's update,"While California Dreams" ),we are focusing on Women's Equality Day. This Sunday, August 26th marks the 87th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave women the right to vote after a 75 year struggle. There are many ways to mark the occasion. In California, there are at least two such ways we can ensure that victims of employment discrimination continue to have the opportunity to seek redress in the courts. For that to happen, our legislature should pass Assemblymember Julia Brownley's AB 435 and Assemblymember Dave Jones' AB 437 Both of these measures are pending in the California State Senate.

Brownley's bill, AB 435, specifically extends the statute of limitiations within which women can file suits for gender-based wage discrimination. It requires that all employers maintain their records of wages, wage rates, job classifications and other terms and conditions of employment for five years, and extends the statute of limitations for a civil action to collect back wages to four years, or, in the case of willful misconduct, to five years. The current statute of limitations is two years, unless the violation is willful in which case it is three years.

The Jones bill, AB 437 is necessary because the current US Supreme Court has demonstrated a commitment to overturn, and thus destroy, many hard-fought gains for women, minorities and other "protected classes" of people in this country. One such effort occurred in May of 2007 when the Court voted, by a 5-4 majority, to overturn decades of precedent in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. In doing so, the Supreme Court severely limited workers' ability to bring pay discrimination claims against employers who break the hard-fought laws prohibiting discriminatory compensation practices on the basis of gender, race or other prohibited criteria.

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Posted by Hannah-Beth Jackson - Comments (0)

The Big Corporate Bullies Are At It Again

July 17, 2007

The Big Corporate Bullies are at it again! Just when we thought they'd be embarassed and hiding from their latest shenanigans---pawning off bad medicine (think VIOXX) or seeing their Chinese competitors getting caught trying to sneak tainted pet food, toothpaste and fish into the U.S., they're back themselves trying to slam the courthouse doors shut so they can't be prosecuted for their own often dangerous antics.

What is it now? It's a new initiative they've just filed with the California Attorney General's office which will allow them to avoid accountability when they get caught doing things like discriminating against their employees on the basis of race, gender, age or disability. If this initiative makes it to the ballot and passes, they'll be able to get away with refusing to pay their workers for their earned pay, be passing off known damaged and dangerous products, illegally pollute our air and water with inpugnity. The list goes on and on.

How are these profiteers planning their next attack on protecting the public? They're staking out an initiative which will all but end class action lawsuits in the state of California by making them so hard and expensive for the little guy to bring to court, that they'll all but vanish. Using Bush-like double-speak to hide their true identity, these greedy CEO's and corporate polluters go by the totally misleading title of " Civil Justice Association " otherwise known as C-JAC. Like Bush's cronies, they're anything but seeking justice---it's just more and more about their profits and the public be damned.

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Posted by Hannah-Beth Jackson - Comments (2)

Cal State Faculty Strike Looks Like a Go

March 23, 2007

With the Cal State University faculty having voted overwhelmingly to strike as a result of the impasse with CSU's adminstration over its contract, Speak Out California has called for support of the Faculty's efforts to negotiate a fair contract with the CSU administration. If you didn't receive our ACTION ALERT, please go to our HOME page and click on the TAKE ACTION link at the top of the page. From there you'll find a model draft of a letter to go to state legislators urging their support for the Faculty Association in its efforts to receive a fair contract. In addition, Speak Out is seeking your support for legislation which will add sunshine to the CSU's compensation practices which have given favored administrators raises of up to 60% in the past two years while faculty salaries lag up to 35% below counterparts in other state university systems.
The California State University system is one of the key educational components to our state's future so we've been following this closely. Here's the most recent update from Speak Out Board member and Assistant Professor at Cal State Sacramento, R. Stanley Oden as to where the situation stands now.

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Posted by Hannah-Beth Jackson - Comments (0)

Everyone gets one house before anyone gets two

March 12, 2007

Last week, the Chron's Surreal Estate columnist put together a broadly considered column on some of the structural issues that affecting housing price madness in California. But somehow an issue that studies have shown quite incontrovertibly to have the effect of driving up housing prices - income inequality - didn't make the cut.

In a 2005 column on this topic, Homes as Hummers, Paul Samuelson refers to the work of Robert Frank, a Cornell economist who had an eye-opening chapter in the Demos Inequality Matters book and has a terrific web presence...

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Lettuce, Vioxx, and Cigarettes in a perfect world

March 01, 2007

If this were a perfect world, putting these three items in the same sentence might not rouse any kind of negative response. For some who don't read the newspaper or haven't been personally impacted by any of these products, lumping them together might seem puzzling. But for those who realize that these are just examples of what happens when industries are not regulated in how they function and are able to set their own "voluntary" standards in dealing with the public health impacts of their goods, it becomes quite clear that "voluntary" participation in protecting the public doesn't hold a candle to the concern for profits in our oh-so imperfect world.

There are so many examples of the public learning too late to save the lives of those who were unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of corporate indifference to public health and safety that it would take far too long to list them. But we do know that one of the important functions of government is to regulate industries and businesses that produce goods and services that can be potentially harmful. Sadly, we see over-and-over again instances when we simply end up closing the barn door after the animals have fled. Unfortunately, when we're dealing with leaders who would rather let these businesses regulate themselves (i.e. letting the fox guard the hen house), the door often doesn't get truly closed until more damage and death occurs and the public cry becomes too loud to ignore. Enter State Senator Dean Florez who represents portions of the Central Valley and is seeking to protect the public health by introducing his "California Produce Safety Action Plan" designed to create and enforce effective safety standards in the growing and processing of leafy vegetables in California.

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Seriousness

February 26, 2007

In Sunday's SF Chron, clever seeming anti-urbanist critic Joel Kotkin tells an increasingly familiar story about the tarnished reputation of the Golden State:

Our magnificent state may still be the home to Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the nation's largest port complex and the world's richest agricultural valleys, but by many critical measurements the state is slipping.

What are the problems, and how can we move forward through them? Is Mr Kotkin or anyone else in the state proposing serious solutions?

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Cal State University dispute-Time to strike?

February 23, 2007

Here at Speak Out California, we've been closely following the dispute between the California State University Administration and its faculty, represented by the California Faculty Association (CFA). The Administration has been quick and generous to give itself hefty raises and increased benefits (all approved by its overseeing organization, of course), but has been worse than Scrooge when it comes to its all-important faculty.

With the help of Speak Out California Board member, R. Stanley Oden, Associate Professor at Cal State Sacramento, we've been able to provide you with updates on the progress, or lack thereof, in the salary dispute that seems to be headed toward a strike call in the near future.

At present, the CFA is trying to achieve its reasonable and arguably modest efforts to bring salaries for its members closer to parity with other similar institutions of higher education through normal channels. Speak Out California welcomes your comments or suggestions on the situation and will be looking at what can be done to help resolve this serious impasse.

In the meantime, here is Professor Oden's latest update on the stalement and the current efforts to resolve it and prepare for a possible labor strike.

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Obama and narrative

February 21, 2007

[Cross-posted at dailykos.]

Barack Obama's announcement speech was terrific. It had some genuinely spine-tingling moments; moments we haven't had in far too long, like where he stands tall against right wing scapegoating of immigrants and gay people. But about two thirds of the way through, he gets into the "Let us" section. There are 20 uses of the construction "let us..." packed into the next six paragraphs. This was the weakest part of the speech. It felt like an ordinary laundry list, like he stepped out of telling an otherwise compelling story for those few paragraphs.

Education, health care, support for unions, ending of poverty, energy independence - these are all great goals, these are my goals as a progressive. So why did this part feel so flat?

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The impending Schwarzenegger health care disaster

January 07, 2007

The big news this week is going to be the release of the Governor's health care plan. Ordinarily, giving the Governor a shot and seeing what he comes up with would be the right thing to do, but you read it here first: this is going to be an unmitigated disaster.

This is a complex topic, but from my perspective there are two simple principles that any health care plan has to adhere to to have any hope of success. One is easy, and one is difficult:

First, get employers out of the loop. This should be the easy one: there isn't a single employer in the United States that honestly wants to be in whatever business they are in AND in the health care provider business. This system barely made sense when it first started, and given the changes that have happened in the economy since then, it makes no sense whatsoever now.

There are two primary sources of political capital that are going to power reform in this area: the very high level of ambient citizen disgust, and - if someone makes the case to them - small and large businesses whose competetiveness is being harmed by the current system. Every last drop of political capital from both sources is going to be necessary to put the second and much more difficult principle into effect, which is:

Second, housebreak the insurance companies. They may need to be removed from the system entirely. It's possible that any for-profit entity where providing care is a cost subtracted from the bottom line is simply never going to successfully provide care.

But maybe they can. I can imagine a system where cleanly regulated insurance companies do add value, by helping contain costs both on the demand side (through promoting wellness) and on the supply side (by being a countervailing power to the service providers) And given the political reality of where we're at, making them go away completely isn't going to happen soon. So regulating them, giving the marketplace some basic ground rules like stopping the cherrypicking of healthy customers, would be a great start.

Why the Governor is structurally incapable of getting this right is on the flip...

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Underlying economic realities

October 13, 2006

If the economy doesn't feel like it's really improving to you (even though the numbers might suggest otherwise), here's a pretty good summary of why from the Center for American Progress. The dow may keep going up, but that's not doing much for most of us out here!

Posted by Dan Ancona - Comments (0)

The Republican Tax machine

September 07, 2006

This past Monday we celebrated our tradition of Labor Day. This holiday is intended to reflect upon and honor the hard work and honest wages of Americans who serve their employers in the caverns of huge and impersonal bureaucracies, toil with their sweat and back-breaking energy to plant and harvest the food we eat, assemble the precision equipment and machines used to make the products we consume, inspire and encourage our youth, care for our needy and provide the fuel that allows big businesses to flourish. All these efforts comprise the backbone of America and the engine of our economy.

Reviewing the numbers provided by credible researchers from all political perspectives, the one thing that is clear is that the Bush Administration and Republican policies in general care little, if anything, for the working people who make this country great. From the middle class that has experienced a decrease in its net spendable income, to the poor who see no hope at all, the failure of the Republicans to try to lift the lot of the overwhelming majority of Americans is stunning in its neglect and indifference. While the top 1% or "earners" have seen their incomes increase an average of 22%, the median household income fell 2.7% from 2000 to 2005.

Rather than let the Republican spin-machine manipulate these numbers in their misleading boasts about economic prosperity, what we see today in America is the massive expansion of the income divide, fueled by policies than encourage big corporations to renege on their pension commitment to their workers, push people into part-time work so they don't have to pay overtime, reduce or cancel health insurance for their employees and otherwise scoop up profits that should be shared with their workers. They have successfully shifted their policies to give bigger paychecks and fatter retirements to their uppper eschelon management and CEO's.This intentional shift to serve multi-national corporations and their greed have generated policies that have made the road so tough for working families to keep up, let alone move forward.

The Republican policies simply shift who the tax-collector is: It's EXXON/MOBIL and SHELLwho tax us now in the form of unconscionable profits, BLUE CROSS and SECURE HORIZONS for health care. The new taxes are the uncontrolled increase in insurance premiums. Unlike our traditional taxes, however, where the money goes to provide services and and critical functions like fixing our roads, educating our children and providing public safety and firefighting protection, the Republican taxes go into the pockets of fat-cat CEO's who have seen their incomes increase hundred-fold while the poor working stiff has seen his or her income stagnate and buying power diminish.
Today we pay less into our public coffers so services are diminished while we pay more into corporate coffers because Republicans like George Bush and Arnold Schwarzeneggerare more concerned with their corporate contributors than the citizens of our country.

Let's call it like it is: The Republican tax. Where your hard earned money goes out the door to pay the ever-increasing prices at the gas pump; the increase in health care insurance; the increases in fees and tuition at our colleges and universities and what do we get in return?

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It's the new cruelty

August 01, 2006

In terms of sheer, unmitigated callousness, this may be the worst thing the Republican Congress has ever done. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the minimum wage "increase" bill that just passed the House and is now in the Senate would in fact decrease the minimum wage in some places, by invalidating the way some states have changed the rules around how tips and wages are calculated. From the EPI piece:

H.R. 5970 is the first time in history that the federal government has acted to put a ceiling on minimum wage levels, rather than establishing a national floor from which the states can make improvements.

Remember that this is on top of tying this mess to the Paris Hilton tax cut. So if you live in an expensive city and love it but are waiting tables and scraping your way out of debt, you're going to get your wages cut, while sister Paris, god bless her, gets a cool $91 million out of the deal. Makes sense, right? We wouldn't want to, you know, punish the people who work the hardest or anything.

As an added stab of irony, this bill would go partway towards fixing another tax related disaster that I've had the pleasure of being personally affected by, the Alternative Minimum Tax. (My whole sob story is here, in the form of written testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee, if you're morbidly curious). But instead of being able to get on board with the good folks over at ReformAMT, I now have the singular pleasure of actively opposing something that would right an injustice that was visited on both myself and many of my friends. Senator Feinstein: don't even think about it.

Posted by Dan Ancona - Comments (0)

Flashreport freedom smackdown

July 17, 2006

I'm in the process of reading George Lakoff's latest, Whose Freedom? The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea. It's great, and obviously something I've been thinking about a lot too. I'm only about a third of the way through, but so far Lakoff is taking a much different approach to understanding the conservative notion of freedom than I have. He's either being more charitable or more nuanced, or he's just flat out wrong.

My take on conservative freedom is that it all pretty much boils down to property rights, and Russell Kirk had it about right when he put it seventh out of ten and after a bunch of stuff about defending the moral order. This is what is behind the endless bellyaching about taxes we get from the conservative punditry: It's becauase they're just not really into any kind of freedom beyond that, whether you describe it as substantial freedom or FDR's four freedoms or cognitive liberty or whatever. And the reason the current occupant of the White House talks about it so much is pure Orwell: it's a pretty word and it sounds nice in speeches and hopefully no one will notice what a shallow mockery they're making of the concept in their actual policies...

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More on the importance of labor

June 20, 2006

[As part of our ongoing coverage of labor issues, please consider this crosspost from UAW member and UC-Santa Barbara grad student Daraka-Larimore Hall, author of hoverbike. This can be a tough issue for some progressives, especially those of us that are new to the movement and that grew up under Reagan. But it's incredibly critical, not just for the success of our movement but for the day to day existence of so many Americans. Give it some thought. -da]

Let's get a few things straight. Labor is not a special interest. Unions are not anachronisms. The modern economy has not made worker's organizations obsolete. One would think that these would be uncontestable principles among progressives in the United States. Unfortunately, waning union strength, years of effective conservative propaganda, and the predominance of middle-class professionals in Democratic circles have conspired to make us somewhat forgetful of these basic truths.

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Unions 101

June 13, 2006

There's an interesting, thoughtful and deeply researched post over at dkos today. It's a must read. The anti-union sentiment in the comments is a little disturbing, although it does seem to be mostly just kvetching. The simple fact is that there is no way to build a global economy that works for everyone without unions.

The left hasn't done such a great job of telling our economic story over the past few decades, but unionism is a natural and maybe even inevitable consequence of the rights to free speech and free assembly. It is a huge part of the story of the American economy. The legal and cultural barriers we have placed on forming unions in this country deeply impact those two substantial freedoms.

If you need an illustration of how this plays out in workers' day to day existence, read about the Wal-Mart workers that are practically forbidden from even talking to each other in Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. Are there unions that need their gates crashed? Sure, but the solution to fixing any democratic institution that needs help is never to just walk away and give up. Individual organizations are different - sometimes those need to be given up on and rebuilt from scratch. But democratic institutions like parties and unions need to be treated with a greater level of respect.

This comment in the thread, with the usual poorly-reasoned anti-union litany of excuses certainly sounded familiar. I heard all of these and more (they forgot "whining about coercion") while trying to organize UC tech workers for UPTE. I think the eventual route to organizing techies may be more along the lines of a workplace democracy kind of movement, which a lot of workplaces are moving towards anyway since the limitations of the worker/management model are constantly getting more obvious.

While on the subject of thoughtful dkos posts, the last two foundations diaries of mine got picked up in the front page "diary rescues" like this one, which resulted in some interesting discussion, especially for the response to Russel Kirk one. Commenters there asked both for a more summarized form as well as elaboration, and I'll be trying to provide both very soon.

Posted by Dan Ancona - Comments (0)

Immigration and "something d-o-o" economics

April 04, 2006

A bedrock fact to keep in mind during the immigration debate is where the public is at on this issue, and that it isn't where the far right would have you think it is. A truly astonishing percentage of American voters support progressive immigration policies when they're compared with conservative ones. 79% favor earned paths to citizenship for people who come to this country to work. The National Immigration Forum has aggregated a bunch of data on this.

This data seems almost shocking because, as usual, the tone of the debate is being set by a few hard-right sources with incredible amount of media reach and impact. But in this case, the distance between the bloviating ideologues and both the mainstream of American opinion and the leadership of their party is a lot farther to travel than usual. The RNC and President Bush both did amazing outreach to Latinos in the 2004 and they appear absolutely serious about delivering the goods to this group of voters.

One topic that has been almost completely missing from this debate - Jimmy Smits character on the West Wing was the closest thing to a politician to mention this in public - is what the root economic causes of immigration are, and how we can address those. Remember back in the 90s, when one of the original selling points of NAFTA was that it would decrease immigration pressure? Obviously that hasn't worked out. The questions now are why, and what we can do to fix it.

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More on Battle Cry

March 29, 2006

David Batstone, in this issue of Sojourner's Sojourner email newsletter (which incidentally I think is probably the best email newsletter out there) covers some of the same territory I did in talking about Battle Cry. But he falls right into the trap of moralizing about content that I was trying to avoid...

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Strapped

February 22, 2006

I just heard about Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-somethings Can't Get Ahead, via the Oregon Bus Project's dandyslick email list. My response to most of the reviews I've seen and the quick facts on the site were "Oh good, I'm not completely insane." The author says this is happening to 60% of people my age, which jives well with what I've observed. Among my group of friends maybe it's a little less, as I would expect given the number of techies.

But this terrible, knee-jerk, straw-man review from Slate sums up a broad alternative response pretty neatly in it's subhead: "Twentysomethings who can't stop whining about how the economy is screwing them." How bad is it, really? Click for the extended entry...

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Greed and graft in 2005

December 28, 2005

Steve Lopez's annual review of business news is an annual must-read for me, and so I pass it on to you.

You really couldn't make up stuff any better than this.

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"She's not a real Kennedy, either"

December 02, 2005

Ouch!

As conservatives continue to freak out over Schwarzenegger's appointment of a Democrat as his Chief of Staff, our friends at Arnold Watch have the must-read on Susan Kennedy.

Check it out, and keep these salient points in mind when people inevitably ask, "But he appointed a liberal Democrat to run his office, so he must be moderate, right?":

• Kennedy may be a Democrat, but she's no friend of the people.


• She was a key part of the shady back-room, pay-to-play deals (think Oracle) that got Davis recalled and swept Schwarzenegger into office in the first place.


• The Kennedy appointment is all about the spin. Peel back a layer or two and you have the same corporate corruption and cronyism that is causing voters to be increasinly fed up with the conservative agenda.

As with most things Schwarzenegger does, this too is part of an act. The funny thing is he just still doesn't seem to be getting that he's dealing with some of the smartest voters on earth. This one is easy to see through, and it seems the only people who are moved by it are the right-wing conservatives. The best possible result could be a conservative challenger to Schwarzenegger in the primary. That's what I'll be asking from Santa!

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (0)

It's still a failed economic policy, no matter how many Democrats you hire

November 30, 2005

The Alliance has some good analysis of Gov. Schwarzenegger's latest staff shake-up: the hiring of Democrat Susan Kennedy as his Chief of Staff.

Conservatives in California are furious, and the Governor is doing the best he can to do damage control, apparently having called personally dozens of people to talk them off the ledge about his sudden "liberal" turn. But as stories later in the day today and tomorrow will point out, Kennedy voted in favor of four of the six initiatives Schwarzenegger was backing in the special election, Props 74 through 77. She is an openly gay pro-choice activist, but she calls herself a "moderate Democrat." That means only one thing: she's "moderate" on economic issues, which in this state means perpetuating a system that protects the rich and powerful at the expense of the most vulnerable among us: students, seniors and the poor.

So while it is fun to see the right-wing of the GOP go a little haywire -- anti-gay rights activist Randy Thomasson said "This is like George W. Bush appointing Hillary Clinton to be in charge of his administration" -- it seems clear that Kennedy's appointment won't mean anything real for progressives. The best she could do is try to get Schwarzenegger back on his track of being "socially liberal," which will be difficult alfter he vetoed the same-sex marriage bill and campaigned for Proposition 73. But even then, he will still be radically conservative on the central issue underlying all of the other major issues facing California right now -- education, jobs and health care -- and we have already seen where that philosophy takes us.

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Thankful I don't have Dan Walters' outlook on life

November 23, 2005

In today's Sacramento Bee, Dan Walters takes a grim look at next year's race for Governor, suggesting that Schwarzenegger could still win, despite abysmal approval ratings, if he sufficently slimes his opponent. Walters points out that this is what happened in the past two gubernatorial elections, when the incumbent was suffering from low popularity due to poor decisions and leadership. He also notes how easy that could be this year, given the exciting news from the Field Poll that a majority of Californians have no idea about the leading Democratic contender, Phil Angelides.

Walters also is so kind as to give the Republicans a suggested head start:

But as the Field Poll indicates, [Angelides] has a very indistinct image in the larger voting public, and as he advocates billions of dollars in new taxes, he risks being defined as a tax-and-spend liberal in a state whose voters are not particularly keen on expanding government.

Okay, first of all, Angelides is not a "tax and spend liberal," because such a person doesn't actually exist outside of the right-wing conservative talking points. And the only reason he "risks" being labeled that is because of the right-wing smear machine, which includes biased columnists like Walters. And while voters have been told for years, again by people like Walters, that they aren't "keen on expanding government," poll after poll has shown that they are quite keen on doing whatever is necessary for improving public education, increasing access to higher education, upgrading the state's transportation system and rescuing the state's health care system from complete implosion.

Unlike Walters' beloved Schwarzenegger, Angelides is showing the kind of real leadership that will bring our state in a position to actually resolve these challenges that lie ahead. He is telling Californians the truth: that we cannot provide the services we want for all residents if the wealthiest people in the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country in the history of the world do not pay their fair share. That saving our state means a drastic revolution in the status quo -- the kind of revolution that moves us forward, beyond the narrow way of thinking that appeals to the most selfish instincts in people. One that says we are all one California family, and in a state that generates $1.3 trillion in wealth each year, we have the means to ensure that people are given a chance to provide for their families the kind of security that we all dream of, and that we all deserve.

So this Thanksgiving, I will be giving thanks that there are leaders out there, like Phil Angelides, who share that broad and positive vision, and who are doing something about it.

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (1)

Revisionist history

November 15, 2005

Dan Weintraub has a selective memory.

In a homage to Gov. Schwarzenegger's former political prowess, Weintraub gushes today about how worker's compensation reforms, a year and a half later, have actually caused insurance premiums to go down for small businesses.

Garamendi's latest recommendation brings to nearly 50 percent the cumulative rate reductions his office has called for since the Legislature in March 2004 passed a measure to overhaul the program, whose costs were spiraling out of control.

Although the commissioner's rate suggestions are not binding, insurers already have cut their prices by an average of 26 percent and will surely offer more reductions in the months ahead.

Clearly Weintraub has a lot of faith in the insurance industry. Okay...

What Weintraub is conveniently forgetting to mention is that Democrats wanted to pass an additional bill that would have guaranteed rate-reductions for small businesses that matched the savings caused by the plan, in order to prevent the insurance companies from hoarding profits. That is what Sen. Sheila Keuhl is talking about when she said "We are voting on this with a gun to our heads," as Weintraub quotes.

Weintraub's theory is that had the Democrats stood up to Schwarzenegger's threats to take the measure to the ballot box, they may have succeeded in killing any reform. My theory is that had the Democrats prevailed, small business owners would now be enjoying a 50% rate reduction, as opposed to 26%.

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (1)

Stronger together.

November 09, 2005

There was one moment in this months-long campaign that really sticks in my mind, and that I think is relevant to why progressives were able to defeat Gov. Schwarzenegger and his corporate-backed initiatives on Tuesday.

It was at the training for the Castro precinct walk in San Francisco last Saturday. Organizers were explaining to volunteers that we were targetting and trying to move only those voters who would be voting no all the first six initiatives. One of the volunteers asked, "What if they say they are going to vote No on 73, but yes on 75? Shouldn't we try to get them to the polls?" Nora Dye, one of the chief organizers from Planned Parenthood who was decked out in a "No on 73" T-shirt and buttons, didn't hesitiate. "We're all in this together," she said simply. "A vote for Prop 75 is a vote against all of us."

Each of the initiatives Schwarzenegger backed in this election touched on a piece of the conservative ideology that is failing us as a nation: government intrusion into personal medical decisions, attacking school teachers for problems in public education while at the same time cutting school funding, and the "it's my money" mentality that disregards the notion that we are all in this together, for the greater good.

Progressives are often criticized for infighting; we are too often defined by our inability to agree on anything. But we showed in this special election that on a very basic level, we know that our strength is in working together. A diverse group of public employees, private unions like the United Farm Workers, Planned Parenthood, consumer groups, good-government groups, the Democratic Party and multi-issue progressive groups like MoveOn, PowerPAC, the Courage Campaign and Speak Out California all came together to help in a beautifully coordinated campaign.

We didn't all agree uniformly on the details of absolutely everything, but we agreed to work together. Our voter guide was a great visual example of that. We were proud to be a part of it, and we look forward to the great things we know we can accomplish as we move ahead.

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (0)

Wealth capture is not wealth creation.

October 26, 2005

This morning's economic thought to ponder comes via this excellent diary on dailykos. It does take a second of thought to parse, but it's a good point. The focus of the state needs to be on supporting the processes that truly create wealth, like education, and protect us from the brutalities of a marketplace so we can keep taking risks without ruining our lives in the process. It's the high road!

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All of us, together

October 23, 2005

Via Political Animal: this is an interesting post from someone who took part in a focus group of Ivy Leage Democratic Party activists. I'm really curious as to who is running such a thing (and why!), which the author declines to get into. The whole post is a little boneheaded, and has the ring of a very smart person thinking about this problem for the first time:

Take the issue of being pro-market, for example. Not one person at the table listed a commitment to either entrepreneurs or free markets as a core part of the Democratic agenda. Yet everyone at the table was basically pro-market and pro-business BUT believed that America must pay more attention to those left behind by markets and businesses.

Given that Republicans always identify themselves as the party of markets and entrepreneurs, could Democrats make any headway with this kind of "yes, but" approach to the subject? But if framing isn't enough, how can Democrats alter the substance of their agenda without simply becoming more like Republicans?

In the final analysis, there was no answer to this question. Even a table full of Ivy League-educated Democratic activists couldn't come up with an answer to the question of what the Democrats want to offer America as a whole, and not just the disadvantaged. But the question itself is important, because it has the potential to force the Democrats to approach every major policy debate from a fresh perspective.

Absolutely this is an important question, and in the final analysis we're going to find an answer to it or continue to lose until we do.

I don't suppose there is much reason to think any particular subset of Democratic activists (Ivy League trained or otherwise) would have sat down and figured out what comes next. One of the problems with the current political moment is that fewer numbers of lefties - people who would ordinarily be bringing in new thinking - are politically engaged. Much of the citizenry has been distracted by the sound and fury of haywire American capitalism, sucked into eddies of techno-utopianism (been there!), run off by repeated exposure to withering blasts of anti-government rhetoric emanating from the right wing noise machine, or some combination of all of these. All three are massively powerful undertow currents in American civilization and there are surely other forces at work as well.

The reasons why some small but not insubstantial portion of those who are left choose to participate in our democracy are sometimes less than wholesome. I'm not necessarily saying that this guy was stuck in a focus group with a bunch of apple polishers, but it's possible. A more charitable explanation could be that they were just all too busy working the campaign gypsy lifestyle to dig into some of the more structural and philosophical issues feeding the ongoing implosion.

But I take strongest issue with the implication that no substantive Democratic alternative economics could possibly exist. It's a question of both framing and substance. Twice in the past week (both here and here) I've had to go into considerable detail chewing out Republicans who accused me of offering nothing more than "the usual liberal establishment talking points" or whatever. Too often we don't engage, but that isn't working. Republican policies haven't even been good for what they claim they're good for (like growth). By God, if we can't come up with an alternative to the supply-side horsepucky they've been shoveling at us for the past few decades, we really don't deserve to win!

I don't know if it's the high road (my preferred term), the moral economy (George Lakoff's), the "we're tired of getting trickled down on" economy or whatever the heck we'll end up calling it, but there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that an alternative exists. Whatever other features it has, I am absolutely certain that solidarity between the lower, middle and large chunks of the upper-middle classes will form the backbone of it, and this is an important tactical consideration to keep in mind.

The kleptocracy this poor country has become is nothing like the best of all possible economic worlds and it is borderline ridiculous (and indicative of how far gone things are) to suggest that it is. This assumption is omnipresent; it's why I can't ordinarily read more than a few pages of the Economist.

This dynamic is especially explicative here in California, where overwhelming majorities of voters are with the left on social issues. Economics is the only reason we lose here. Our wins will be few and far between until we have destroyed right-wing economic policies, frames, narratives and conventional wisdom by presenting a positive and hopeful alternative. I was first assured of our side's capability of delivering on this while hauling across frozen Iowa cornfields in a minivan full of Ph.D (and one Republican!) Dean supporters during the 2004 primary. It might take a while - conventional wisdom isn't replaced overnight. But it will happen.

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Stronger together

October 19, 2005

SEIU, a union that organizes mostly service economy workers, does great work. They were among my favorite folks to work with in Santa Barbara - they seemed to attract very sharp and together organizers with a lot of heart. That attitude seems to be pervasive through their whole organization, and their latest web effort is no exception: check out SinceSlicedBread.com. It seemed like a little bit too cute of an idea at first, but the interaction design is really nice so it works better than I expected it might. And you can win huge piles of money!

I took the opportunity to post this summary of the high road...

For the past thirty years, conservatives have defined many Americans' understanding of practically everything about economics. We need a widely understood progressive and democratic alternative to failed right wing, supply-side economic schemes.

Here is one possibility.

Progressive, democratic economics is about expansion: expanding security, expanding opportunity, expanding possibilites, expanding justice and expanding hope. The core moral vision is that society should give everyone the opportunity to develop their own capabilities as fully as possible. The way to get there is to take the high road, which has these six parts:

secure basic freedoms - like housing and health care

invest in the future - schools, basic research and infrastructure

democratize wealth - via strong unions, wage laws and progressive taxes

build the green economy - starting with energy independence

housebreak capitalism - by getting corporate money out of politics

globalize this - provide real leadership and halt the race to the bottom

The high road is the path to an economy that works for everyone!

There are definitely a lot of righties on there, ranging from constructive to angry. Sometimes in the same post even, like the one on mine. After he was done telling me I was full of it, the rest of his critique (which carefully avoided questioning the moral vision) was well thought out and reasonable enough to respond to. Congrats to SEIU for putting together an environment where that sort of interaction happens.

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More on the middle class squeeze

October 18, 2005

Going into a little more detail on this, the SF Chronicle's Sunday story on the middle class squeeze almost got it right. Here's what they missed. They ran this graph:

which clearly shows the top 5% pulling away like crazy from everyone else. But the real story is that that curve repeats itself the higher and higher you go into the data. The best description of this I've found is from David Cay Johnston's Perfectly Legal; the chapter that describes all this happens to be available for download (.pdf). Income growth for the bottom 99% of Americans from 1970 to 2000 averaged +$2710, which comes out to a raise of a whopping $1.35 an hour (assuming 40 hour weeks with two weeks off, which are just a dream for most folks now).

Meanwhile, the top 0.1% of taxpayers - in 2000, this was about 13,400 people - had income growth of +$20M and change, or more than ten thousand dollars an hour. It seems unbelievable, but this is what the numbers say. Here's another take on this data, it's an illustration of the chart found on page 37 of that pdf...

The ramifications of all this are a little tough to see. Just as the poor are invisible (modulo the occasional hurricane), so are the rich. However, one place they're showing up is in elections, including this special election in California. We'll have more on this later in the week, but in the meantime, here's yet another illustration of this effect.

A couple weekends ago, Jen and I went for a hike to a place called Five Lakes, which is sort of half way between the Alpine Meadows and Squaw ski areas near Lake Tahoe. While hiking, we came across what looked like a new ski lift, maybe one connecting the Alpine base lodge to the ridge that separates it from Squaw...

but we were wrong. As it turns out, that land is privately owned, and the owner of it has apparently decided to build his own private ski lift. Next time you hear a Republican whining about how oppressive taxes on the rich are, think about the guy who is building his own private ski lift.

The principle of taxing people according to their ability to pay that underlies progressive taxation goes back to before the founding of this country, and there are a small number of people in who clearly have the ability to pay a lot more than they are now. The rest of us are really tired of getting trickled down on.

Here's another particularly tough problem:

The plight of middle-income Americans is sometimes overlooked because the official poverty level, which the federal government has based since 1965 on three times an "economy" food budget, does not account for hikes in housing, energy or health care.

The reason this is tough isn't because it's so difficult to fix - it wouldn't be. It's just tough politically, because whoever's watch this gets fixed on is going to see what looks like a gargantuan jump in inflation! But we have to do this, because the amount of money that Californians (and many Americans) are spending on these neccessities have all gone completely bananas. Econometrics problems are a big deal; they're one of these almost hidden things that have a huge effect on people's perceptions and the policies put into place by the people they vote for.

Posted by Dan Ancona - Comments (2)

All the propaganda that's fit to print

October 17, 2005

Unbelievably, the LA Times has come out this morning with an endorsement of Prop 75.

This is yet another example of an increasingly disturbing trend that has liberals turning their backs on organized labor - without whom the causes in which liberals believe would be that much worse off: education, health care, the environment.

In their argument, the Times admits that Prop 75 is being pushed by right-wing partisans in an attempt to weaken Democrats, while at the same time asserting that this measure won't "take public unions out of the political game."

Oh yeah?

Take a look at what has happened in other states where right-wingers aligned with Bush have pushed similar initiatives:

"Unions all over the country have an investment in this fight because they know that if they can no longer raise money for Democratic candidates and causes, there is no other group on the left that can amass the kind of political war chests that Republicans raise," says Elizabeth Garrett, a law professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who tracks state initiatives.

Such has been the case in the state of Washington, where passage of a similar law in 1992 - by 72 percent of voters - led to a precipitous drop in political contributions from teacher union members in the first year: from 48,000 contributors to 8,000. When Utah passed a similar law in 2001, only 6.8 percent of teacher union members allowed their dues to be spent on politics.

The Times also naively states that they can endorse this measure because it's public employee unions, and that if the right were going after private unions, as they did in 1998 in California, the Times would oppose that. The obvious reason being that it is ludicrous to say you are going to restrict how unions can raise money but not corporations. But the point here is that once Prop 75 is in effect, those fighting for the public interest will be so weakened that any number of unfair and right-wing initiatives will be able to pass in California with much greater ease.

Make no mistake about it, Prop 75 is dangerous. We must defeat it. We must not buy into the same conservative arguments of "it's my money." Those are the same arguments that produced tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans while millions of people suffer in poverty, and millions more struggle to make ends meet.

It's not *just* your money. It's your share of the wealth our society has created - wealth that wouldn't exist if we didn't all work together.

So while we can often count on the L.A. Times to get things right, there are plenty of occasions in which we can't. Remember, they also endorsed Pete Wilson in 1994.

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League of Cities to endorse 76?

October 07, 2005

Well this is disturbing. It's widely reported this morning (see rtumble) that the Governor is trying to get the CA League of Cities on board with Proposition 76, the school budget limits and imperial Governorship initiative, even though it would obviously be completely insane for them to do so. He's trying to play off the same fears that drove support for last year's Proposition 1A, namely that the state will raid local budgets at will when times are bad.

For better or for worse, Prop 1A passed, so the Governor isn't exactly being straight with the league here. Beyond that, the main reason the cities would be insane to support this is that it's going to lock in austerity budgets (like what we're experiencing now), for the entire state, forever. (or at least until we overturn it, like Colorado is having to do with TABOR, a similar bill passed by Republican extremists in their state ten years ago).

It's complicated, but think for a second about how national, state and local budgets are all chained together. Money is constantly going back and forth between all of them. So with the national fiscal picture a complete shambles due to President Bush's "bash,break and borrow" strategy, it has cascading effects all the way down to individual cities. Now the Governor wants to lock that policy in place in this state, and he's trying to get the league of cities to vote against their best interests by scaring them and playing to their parochial interests. It should be interesting to see how this gambit of his turns out.

Addendum: Jen's got an even better post on this over at PowerPac today. This was a case of unpremeditated coordination; sometimes one look at rough & tumble is all either of us needs!

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The expectations game

September 26, 2005

This little gem in the L.A. Business Journal today gives a glimpse into what the Republican strategy is for the upcoming special election and beyond into 2006. It's only an excerpt of the article without a subscription, but in it we hear from conservative strategist Arnold Steinberg, who supports the theory of the article that Republicans are "worried" Schwarzenegger might become another Jesse Ventura.

The Republicans, and to some extent even the Schwarzenegger campaign, are trying to set the Governor up as an underdog, in order to lower expectations about his performance in the special election. This is a classic Republican strategy, and we have seen it played out numerous times. Here's the real clue:

Furthermore, Schwarzenegger and his allies will likely be outspent in the Nov. 8 election by a margin of at least 3-1. Public employee unions, which have been airing a series of hard-hitting ads opposing the governor's special ballot initiatives, have already raised more than $50 million and are likely to collect millions more.

It always amuses me when people with the kind of money the Republicans and their corporate backers have try to play the underdog card. It's especially funny in Schwarznegger's case, because he clearly could have had access to a heck of a lot more money than the unions have if his ideas weren't so horrifyingly bad that the public has been rejecting them early on in opinion polls. Meanwhile, the California Teachers Assn. had to refinance its San Francisco headquarters in order to raise the funds necessary to fight off Schwarzenegger's attacks.

Until Schwarzenegger has to sell one of his Hummers, or one of his corportate CEOs has to refinance a vacation home or two, the underdog approach just isn't going to work!

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (0)

More of the same: Schwarzenegger supports Prop 75

September 18, 2005

So big surprise, Gov. Schwarzenegger is running for re-election next year. And big surprise, while addressing his party faithful at the GOP convention in Anaheim this weekend, he came out in favor of Prop 75, the anti-union initiative. Prop 75 just happens to be the only big business-backed initiative that is not failing miserably at the moment in the polls. Coincidence? We think not. So again, Schwarzenegger's actions are not motivated by his convictions or beliefs, but come out of pure political calculation.

An Orange County teacher that Schwarzenegger trotted out at the convention was quoted in the press today in support of Prop 75, saying it is an "employee rights issue." From the L.A. Times:

At the GOP convention, Schwarzenegger allies dispatched Sandra Crandall, a teacher at Moiola Elementary School.
"This is a freedom-of-choice issue," she said. "The issue is so simple, my kindergarten children understand it. Ask permission. Ask permission on how to use my hard-earned money."

This is completely flawed logic. Sure, it's her money, but the reason she has 20 5-year-olds in that classroom and not 30 or 40 is because of the union-led initiatives for class-size reduction. The state can pay her salary because of education funding protections in Proposition 98, which would never have happened without the union. So you just can't on the one hand, reap the benefits of the union and the political clout it has built up over the years, and on the other hand strip away the money that enables that work because "it's mine."

That is the crux of the difference between conservatives and progressives. Conservatives live in this fantasy world where they have somehow achieved everything "on their own," while progressives recognize that we all contribute to the well being of each other, and thus to the greater good.

We're glad Schwarzenegger has come out publicly in favor of Prop 75. It will make it that much more difficult to keep a straight face when he tells the public that this special election is about anything other than right-wing Republican-led partisan attacks.

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (1)

Unions strike back

July 29, 2005

A coalition of labor groups has begun collecting signatures for an initiative that would bar corporations from spending on political campaigns without first consulting shareholders. The initiative, which would not come before voters until next June, is in direct response to the "Paycheck Deception" measure on this year's special election ballot. If passed, it will restrict public employee unions from donating to election campaigns without prior approval from individual union members.

It seems unfortunate that our side didn't have this all ready to go for the special election, in which case it would have provided a lot more bargaining power. And it seems as though a real clean money law, for instance this one by Assemblymember Loni Hancock that died this year, is the true solution to the problem of big corporations buying elected leaders and influence.

Still, this analysis from the California Chamber of Commerce is enough to make anyone's blood boil:

Allan Zaremberg, president and chief executive of the California Chamber of Commerce, said it would stifle corporations trying to fight ballot measures that could "put them out of business."

"It would be inappropriate to deny them the ability to participate in the political process," he said.

Right. But groups representing working families shouldn't be able to participate in the political process in order to ensure they can PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE. Two words: unmitigated gall.

Meanwhile, in other election news, Randy Riddle over at California Election Law points to this story about Secretary of State Bruce McPherson rejecting Diebold's flagship touch-screen voting machine.

The news leaves many counties scrambling for alternatives to meet at January 2006 requirement, but also allows fair election advocates to breathe a sigh of relief - in California, anyway. The good folks in Ohio, home of Diebold corporate headquarters, say their machines are going to be just fine.

After all, they helped deliver another term for George W. Bush!

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (0)

Where California needs to go

July 13, 2005

I saw this on the street the other day while walking to lunch. It might be implying secession, but I am interpreting it as an illustration of our current struggle to renew the progressive dream in California!

Posted by Jenifer Fernandez Ancona - Comments (0)

Read my lips

July 12, 2005

The big story today is the state budget, which was signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger yesterday amid much fanfare. Apparently even wife Maria was on hand to bask in the glow of...the budget. I know, I know, it's a big deal. It's just hard to get too excited about a budget that is being heralded not because it is a moral document that truly reflects how we take care of one another in this state, but primarily because it was only three weeks late instead of three months late!

So getting right to it, here's what you really need to know about this lovely spending plan:

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