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Editorial: Shut down PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

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 The six-unit Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant was designed to withstand the strongest earthquake that geologists said could reasonably be predicted for the region near northern Japan. It was designed to withstand the largest tsunami that the experts expected. It had triple backups to keep the reactor cores cool in the event of a natural disaster.

But, as is often the case with spectacular catastrophes, nothing went according to plan. The earthquake was far stronger than anyone figured was possible. The combination of the flooding and the shaking overwhelmed all of the emergency systems. The radiation releases are already severe enough to cause significant causalities — in the best case scenario, the danger already far exceeds that of the Three Mile Island fiasco. In a wide array of worst outcomes, large geographical areas could be uninhabitable for hundreds of years — and 39 million people living in and around Tokyo could be at risk

The news comes just as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has been asking state and federal regulators for permission to renew its operating licenses for the two reactors at the Diablo Canyon plant. The licenses expire in 2024 and 2025, but the utility wants to front-load the process and get approval quickly to operate the plant for another 20 years.

That’s a bad idea on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start.

The plant sits almost on top of the Hosgri Fault, which has the same dangerous characteristics as the fault outside of Sendai, Japan. And geologists just discovered another fault running 300 yards from the plant gates. PG&E says the plant is designed to handle a 7.5-level earthquake, which is the greatest tremor anyone can foresee for those faults. Remember: nobody thought the 9.0 Japan quake was possible either. The truth is, even the best experts are only making guesses.

Then there’s the fact that Diablo continues to generate, and accumulate, highly radioactive waste — and there’s no place to put it. So spent fuel rods containing plutonium (among the most toxic substances on earth) sit in the bottom of a glorified swimming pool — which, the utility’s experts tell us, is perfectly safe. (Remember: executives at the Tokyo Electric Power Company said the same thing about the waste material at Fukushima Dai-ichi.)

The reactors were designed to last 30 years; the relicense would push their lifespan far beyond that, increasing the likelihood of an accident. And the company has a long history of safety problems, human error, and outright lies. (Remember: these are the same folks who said the pipelines under San Bruno were safe.)

Let’s face it: there’s no possible way for anyone to be certain that the plant isn’t vulnerable to an unexpectedly strong earthquake. And the damage that of a serious accident to a nuclear plant 150 miles north of Los Angeles could cause is incalculable.

PG&E has asked the California Public Utilities Commission to allow it to charge ratepayers $85 million for relicensing studies. State Sen. Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), a research geophysicist with a doctorate in earthquake studies, wants PG&E to conduct extensive tests on the new fault before applying for new licenses. That’s a start, but it’s nowhere near enough.

This plant should never have been built, and California is lucky that it’s survived so far. The quake in Japan is a harsh reminder of how inherently dangerous nuclear power is — particularly in densely populated areas. The CPUC should refuse to allocate a penny for anything except a study on how quickly the plant can be shut down, for good.

 

Jaded activist attends rally in Madison

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Jess Brownell is a freelance writer living in Milwaukee.

So here you are, 75 years old, tired, bitter, after many years of political semi-activism deeply cynical about that process (and most others as well), in a car on a blustery March morning on the way to Madison, Wisconsin, a town you’ve never much liked, to participate in a goddamn protest rally. Why are you doing this?

Could be that the celebratory “Walker Wins” headline in what passes locally for a daily newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (your Bay Guardian publisher once worked in those precincts, but that was long, long ago) had something to do with it. “Packers Win” is fine any time it happens. Everybody loves the Packers. Everybody does not love Scott Walker. On the other hand, the paper actually endorsed Walker, so what could you have expected?

Your wife, with you today, has been here several times before to protest Walker’s budget, as have many friends and neighbors. You could say that you owe them this one. But then, you owe a lot of people a lot of things, and it doesn’t often get you off the couch.

Maybe you’re just looking for a chance to call a Republican legislator an ass-licking whore; there would be some satisfaction in that. But it’s the weekend and the ass-licking whores will all be in some safe place where crazy old men can’t call them names. And that’s probably for the best. You have always tried to be a mannerly person and a phrase like “ass-licking whore” is hard to work into polite conversation.

Or maybe it’s the involvement in Wisconsin of the Koch brothers, those strange and malevolent creatures who have burst in a most unseemly way into the national spotlight. Time enough on the ride to consider the eagerly gobbled-up myths they have spread about themselves. They are Libertarians, they claim, and global warming skeptics. If they are Libertarians, why are they spending millions of dollars in the hope that government will restrict the freedom of people in Wisconsin? As Libertarians, shouldn’t they just leave us alone? And if they are global warming skeptics, why are they so anxious to destroy whatever vestiges of the labor movement are left in the Great Lakes states? Have they not in fact realized that as the south and southwest become less and less habitable the real money will have to be made in places with ample water? Sure they have. They’re evil, not stupid. They are not here, though, to vocally accost, and are not likely ever to be.

Hey, it’s tractorcade day. Are you by any chance here to see the tractors? There’s a long parade of them. Haven’t seen this many tractors since the Centennial in your hometown in Nebraska. Some of them are huge, today’s models, designed as much for combat as agriculture, it seems, and thus in the right place today — or would be if there were any ass-licking whores here to run over. Others are vintage and have names you had all but forgotten – Case and Oliver and Massey-Ferguson. A little twinge of nostalgia there, yes, but hardly enough to justify your presence.

All of them seem to be driven by real farmers, too, and it’s nice to think so many farmers took the time and effort to show support for the rights of teachers and public employees. But you grew up on a farm. You’ve seen a lot of farmers. Not here for that.

Tony Shalhoub is at the rally today. He’s the actor best known for starring in “Monk,” though his career would be substantial without that. He’s from Green Bay and has a sister who’s a teacher there. Apparently he doesn’t like the way Scott Walker and the Republicans are fucking over his sister. Not that they care about anybody’s sister. Dalai Lama got a sister? Bring her on. (Have they thought ahead on this? Scott Walker has promised to create 250,000 jobs. What if the teachers take 59,000 of them? What then, Scott?)

Good for Tony Shalhoub, but you have worked in the theater and met a lot of actors and liked most of them. You’re not here to see another one.

Is it the Capitol itself, that beautiful and venerable building? On the whole you think not. Your most vivid recollection of the Capitol is of a day spent years ago as part of a group lobbying for money for the arts, a laughable notion in today’s political climate but not unthinkable at the time. You had a sore back, spent hours walking those marble floors, and as far as you can remember the only tangible result was the worst case of sciatica you have ever had. Don’t want to go back in. Might not want to go in even if there were ass-licking whores in there to yell at.

If it’s not actors or tractors, buildings or buddies, what is it? Might as well face the facts. It’s the people. You’ve always had a taste for low-life, for cheap saloons and marginal characters. You’re really here to mingle with the thugs and slobs who have turned out in full force – some 70,000 or more – to march and protest and chant. These greedy parasites are your kind. You are one with the venal and self-serving pair carrying that Solidarity banner around Capitol Square, one with the misfits in the firemen’s uniforms and the drop-outs pretending to be retirees. Don’t let the friendly smiles fool you, all this “excuse me” and “thank you” business. These are the dregs of society, unproductive at best, vicious when aroused, in need of a firm hand. Why, if there were still a Welfare program you could all be Welfare cheats together. You have found your place, you fall into step, you stride out purposefully . . .

Damn. Felt that in the back, didn’t you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editorial: The Willie Brown loophole

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As the stories in this issue show, open government laws are critical to democracy. Without the city’s sunshine law, we wouldn’t know how the proposal to give Twitter a tax break ballooned into a major giveaway. Without the sunshine laws, Tim Crews, the embattled publisher of the Sacramento Valley Mirror, wouldn’t have been able to use his small paper to hold public officials accountable.

That’s why the laws on the books need to be enforced — and sometimes strengthened. One example in San Francisco is the lobbyist registration requirement.

Here’s the problem: Former Mayor Willie Brown, who now works for at least two major outfits with business before City Hall. As Tim Redmond reports on page 10, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. paid Brown some $480,000 in 2007 and 2008. And although Brown is a lawyer, nobody can honestly believe that was for legal work. He was clearly paid to give the embattled utility political advice and to pull political strings. And PG&E has major interests at City Hall — San Francisco is trying to set up a community choice aggregation system that PG&E opposes, and (of course) the utility has spent almost 90 years trying to block public power in this town. There are dozens of other city issues, from facility safety to the franchise fee, that affect PG&E’s bottom line.

Has Brown tried to influence city officials on behalf of the utility? The public has no way to know. By law, any individual who lobbies for a private client (and earns more than $3,000 a quarter doing so) has to register with the Ethics Commission, reveal his or her clients, and report on all contacts with city officials. Brown has never done that.

Brown also works for the owners of the Fairmont Hotel, who want the right to convert hotel rooms to condos. Mayor Ed Lee just submitted legislation giving the hoteliers what they want, and Brown is Lee’s political mentor. Connection?

The public has a right to know who’s trying to do what deals behind closed doors; that’s why the city has a lobbyist registration law. The voters have a right to know whether lobbyists are giving money to elected officials; that’s why the law requires registered lobbyists to itemize those contributions. But it’s not always honored — and as Brown shows, it can be openly defied. And nothing happens.

Part of the problem is that the Ethics Commission has been far too lax in pursuing enforcement of the laws. The agency lacks the resources to do serious investigations. As a result, its director John St. Croix told us, all the staff can do is respond to complaints. But even with the limited money it has, the commission can do a lot more. Public hearings on the failures of lobbyist registration and campaign contribution reporting would be a good first step. And how hard would it be to cross-check campaign filings with lobbyist filings to see which lobbyists don’t properly report their contributions? A simple computer program could do that in a few minutes.

The commission also needs to do a better job making its funding case to the supervisors. The utter lack of serious enforcement of laws involving powerful interests doesn’t instill confidence in the agency.

But the law is also vague in parts, and the supervisors need to fix it. A clearer definition of “lobbyist” is a clear mandate. And enforcement needs to be increased. Willful violation of the state’s Political Reform Act is a misdemeanor crime. Violating the city’s lobbyist law should be too.

 

The madness of nuclear power

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By Norman Solomon

Norman Solomon is president of the Institute for Public Accuracy and a senior fellow at RootsAction. His books include “Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation” (1982), co-authored with Harvey Wasserman.

Like every other president since the 1940s, Barack Obama has promoted nuclear power. Now, with reactors melting down in Japan, the official stance is more disconnected from reality than ever.

Political elites are still clinging to the oxymoron of “safe nuclear power.” It’s up to us — people around the world — to peacefully and insistently shut those plants down.

There is no more techno-advanced country in the world than Japan. Nuclear power is not safe there, and it is not safe anywhere.
As the New York Times reported on Monday, “most of the nuclear plants in the United States share some or all of the risk factors that played a role at Fukushima Daiichi: locations on tsunami-prone coastlines or near earthquake faults, aging plants and backup electrical systems that rely on diesel generators and batteries that could fail in extreme circumstances.”

Nuclear power — from uranium mining to fuel fabrication to reactor operations to nuclear waste that will remain deadly for hundreds of thousands of years — is, in fact, a moral crime against future generations.

But syrupy rhetoric has always marinated the nuclear age. From the outset — even as radioactive ashes were still hot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — top officials in Washington touted atomic energy as redemptive. The split atom, we were to believe, could be an elevating marvel.

President Dwight Eisenhower pledged “to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma” by showing that “the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”

Even after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 — and now this catastrophe in Japan — the corporate theologians of nuclear faith have continued to bless their own divine projects.

Thirty years ago, when I coordinated the National Citizens Hearings for Radiation Victims on the edge of Capitol Hill, we heard grim testimony from nuclear scientists, workers, downwinders and many others whose lives had been forever ravaged by the split atom. Routine in the process was tag-team deception from government agencies and nuclear-invested companies.

By 1980, generations had already suffered a vast array of terrible consequences — including cancer, leukemia and genetic injuries — from a nuclear fuel cycle shared by the “peaceful” and military atom. Today, we know a lot more about the abrupt and slow-moving horrors of the nuclear industry.

And we keep learning, by the minute, as nuclear catastrophe goes exponential in Japan. But government leaders don’t seem to be learning much of anything.

On Sunday, even while nuclear-power reactors were melting down, the White House issued this statement: “The president believes that meeting our energy needs means relying on a diverse set of energy sources that includes renewables like wind and solar, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear power. Information is still coming in about the events unfolding in Japan, but the administration is committed to learning from them and ensuring that nuclear energy is produced safely and responsibly here in the U.S.”

Yet another reflexive nuclear salute.

When this year’s State of the Union address proclaimed a goal of “clean energy sources” for 80 percent of U.S. electricity by 2035, Obama added: “Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.”

Bipartisan for nuclear power? You betcha. On Sunday morning TV shows, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell voiced support for nuclear power, while Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer offered this convoluted ode to atomic flackery: “We are going to have to see what happens here — obviously still things are happening — but the bottom line is we do have to free ourselves of independence from foreign oil in the other half of the globe. Libya showed that. Prices are up, our economy is being hurt by it, or could be hurt by it. So I’m still willing to look at nuclear. As I’ve always said it has to be done safely and carefully.”

Such behavior might just seem absurd or pathetic — if the consequences weren’t so grave.

Nuclear power madness is so entrenched that mainline pundits and top elected officials rarely murmur dissent. Acquiescence is equated with prudent sagacity.

In early 2010, President Obama announced federal loan guarantees — totaling more than $8 billion — to revive the construction of nuclear power plants in this country, where 110 nuclear-power reactors are already in operation.

“Investing in nuclear energy remains a necessary step,” he said. “What I hope is that, with this announcement, we’re underscoring both our seriousness in meeting the energy challenge and our willingness to look at this challenge, not as a partisan issue, but as a matter that’s far more important than politics because the choices we make will affect not just the next generation but many generations to come.”

Promising to push for bigger loan guarantees to build more nuclear power plants, the president said: “This is only the beginning.”

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Norman Solomon is president of the Institute for Public Accuracy and a senior fellow at RootsAction. His books include “Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation” (1982), co-authored with Harvey Wasserman.

Dick Meister: Teachers Need Strong Unions

Maria Poblet
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Like many people, I’m sure, Washington Post writer Matt Miller is confused about, “where to come down on the question of who should ‘win”” in the struggle of public employees against attempts to strip them of collective bargaining rights and otherwise weaken them.

I know which side I’m on – the public employees and their unions.  But though highly sympathetic to the public employees cause, Matt Miller is not against the employees and their unions losing some of their powers and benefits – with one major exception: Teachers.

Again, I make no exceptions. I think we should rally around the cause of all public employees. But though Miller doesn’t necessarily agree, he does make a strong argument for making special efforts in behalf of teachers. For “the  future of the country depends on the public-sector workers known as teachers.”

I guess I should make a full disclosure here:  I was formerly a member of the AFL-CIO’s American Federation of Teachers and my wife Gerry is a current member. So I’m probably prejudiced. And should be.

Anyway, Miller makes a very strong case for paying close attention to the needs and demands of teachers. As he says, “We’ll never attract the kind of talented young people we need to the teaching profession unless it pays more than it does today.”  With starting teachers pay averaging  $39,000 a year nationally and rising to a maximum of merely  $67,000, it’s no surprise to Miller that “we  draw teachers from the bottom two-thirds of the college class. For schools in poor neighborhoods, teachers come largely from the bottom third.”

Adds Miller: ” We’re the only leading nation that thinks it can stay a leading nation with a ‘strategy’ of recruiting mediocre students and praying that they’ll prove to be excellent teachers.”

Miller may not be an outright supporter of teacher unions, but he does point out that the highest performing school systems in the world all have strong teacher unions. He means the systems in countries such as Finland, Singapore and South Korea, where school administrators work closely with unions to continually improve their schools’ performances.

Stanford University’s Linda Darling-Hammond, a leading expert on the subject, says the highest performing countries have educational systems that are built around attracting, rigorously training and retraining top talent for teaching. The stress is on supporting good teachers – not on getting bad teachers out. That’s partly because there just aren’t that many bad teachers in those countries.

I agree with Matt Miller that what’s clearly needed is a national strategy to make teaching the career of choice for talented young people. Wisconsin’s math scores, for instance, put its students not only behind Korea, Finland and Taiwan, but behind Slovenia, Estonia and Lithuania. But, hey, they still outpace students in Latvia and Bulgaria . . . though barely.

As Miller notes, the only people who can change that, the only ones who can provide decent educations to Wisconsin’s children, are public employees , teachers  – teachers, furthermore, who must be given a strong voice, a unionized voice in setting their pay, benefits and working conditions.

Teachers need the firm right to collective bargaining no less than Wisconsin’s other public employees, no less than the public employees of every other state.


Dick Meister, former editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Editorial: Gascón’s conflict

Maria Poblet
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There’s a good reason that not too many police chiefs become district attorneys. Obviously, not a lot of cops have law degrees, but it goes beyond that. The district attorney is supposed to monitor the police, to investigate criminal behavior by cops, to make sure the people out on the streets aren’t doing anything that will screw up cases in court.

But that didn’t bother former Mayor Gavin Newsom (who apparently doesn’t think that conflict-of-interest statutes apply to him). Newsom appointed Gascón to the D.A.’s job despite some serious concerns about the operations of the Police Department — and problems at the SFPD have blown up yet again. Four times in the past two weeks, Public Defender Jeff Adachi has released videotapes showing undercover cops entering residential hotel rooms without a warrant. The videos appear to contradict the information that the officers presented in their written reports, and the pattern of conduct has caused interim Chief Jeff Godown to suspend the entire undercover narcotics unit at Southern Station.

It’s also caused the District Attorney’s Office to undertake an investigation. And no matter what comes out of that inquiry, it will be fatally tainted by the fact that Gascón is, in effect, investigating his own operation.

Gascón hired Godown, who came from Los Angeles. He was, until just three months ago, in charge of the department that’s apparently running amok. The problems that have surfaced didn’t just emerge the day Gascón left; for all practical purposes, they are his problems, coming from his department, growing and festering under his watch.

A serious investigation would not only look at the actions of this one handful of officers, but at the command structure and climate that allowed this sort of behavior to become routine. It would look at the chain of command all the way to the top — that is, to the chief. To Gascón.

The D.A.’s office can’t possibly get this right. If Gascón finds wrongdoing on the part of these particular officers, the officers will no doubt seek to have the investigation and any prosecution set aside on the grounds that the former chief was a conflict. If he finds no wrongdoing, it will look like a cover-up.

This is only the first of what could be a long series of conflict problems with Gascón’s office. Put simply: the former chief can’t effectively monitor the police department, particularly if there are allegations of misconduct that come from the era when he was in charge.

There’s no easy way around this. Gascón could (and probably should) recuse himself and his office, and ask the attorney general to conduct the investigation. But the A.G.’s office doesn’t have a great track record on taking over local cases like these. His only real alternative is to hire an independent outsider — the equivalent of a special prosecutor — to handle all cases involving the police department. That would be expensive, but it’s the result of the unfortunate, highly unusual situation that Newsom and Gascón created.<0x00A0><cs:5>2<cs

Malasadas: Today at Goat Hill pizza

Maria Poblet
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Phil Andrade, proprietor of Goat Hill Pizza on Potrero Hill, popped up this morning at the monthly meeting of the Potrero Hill Merchants Association with a special  treat for the august assembly: a plate of wondrous malasadas. He is offering the malasadas as a Goat Hill special at two for $l all day today (Tuesday, March 8) or until the supply runs out.  I had two this morning, hot and smothered with powdered sugar and Phil’s Portuguese blarney. They were wonderful and I am heading back for more.

When I arrived at Goat Hill, Phil was in his white chef’s outfit,  breaking eggs and ladling them into a big bowl as a crucial first step.He explained the marsalada came from a recipe of his mother, who waa Portugese and  came from the province that originated theconfection. The marsalada  was produced on the Tuesday before Lent, which is why the day is called Fat Tuesday.  After Tuesday and a fill of marsaladas, the idea was to fast during Lent, Phil said.

My recommendation: let’s lobby Phil to make the marsalada on a regular basis all the year round.  And thus contribute to the real “taste of Potrero Hill.”

Goat Hill Pizza, 300 Connecticut St, halfway up Potrero Hill. 

Phil sent along this info from Wikipedia:

A malasada (or malassada) is a Portuguese confection. They were first made by inhabitants of Madeira Island. Malasadas are made of egg-sized balls of yeast dough that are deep-fried in oil and coated with granulated sugar. A popular variation is where they are hand dropped into the oil and people have to guess what they look like. Traditional malasadas contain neither holes nor fillings, but some varieties of malasadas are filled with flavored cream or other fillings. Traditionally the reason for making malasadas has been to use up all the lard and sugar in the house, luxuries forbidden from consumption during Lent. Malasadas are eaten especially on Mardi Gras – the day before Ash Wednesday.

In Madeira they eat Malasadas mainly on Terça-feira Gorda (Fat Tuesday in English) which is also the last day of the Carnival of Madeira, the reason for making malasadas was to use up all the lard and sugar in the house, in preparation for Lent (much in the same way the tradition of Pancake Day in the UK originated on Shrove Tuesday), Malasadas are sold along side the Carnival of Madeira today. This tradition was taken to Hawaii, where Shrove Tuesday is known as Malasada Day, which dates back to the days of the sugar plantations of the 19th century, the resident Catholic Portuguese (mostly from Madeira and the Azores) workers used up butter and sugar prior to Lent by making large batches of malasadas.

In Wisconsin, it’s all about jobs–249,865 of them

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By Jess Brownell

(Jess Brownell is a freelance writer in Milwaukee who keeps a sharp eye on job-creating events in Madison, Wisconsin.)

  According to our new Governor, Scott Walker, his budget – which includes big tax breaks for the private sector and strips public employees and teachers of their collective bargaining rights – will engender a business climate that will soon produce 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin.  Right now the outcome remains uncertain.  The battle is on, and after the battle the war will continue.   Yet who can argue with the need for jobs?  And what state couldn’t use 250,000 new ones?  So in the interest of fairness, let us put aside our differences for a moment and peer into this rosy future . . .

(The Governor of Wisconsin and an aide are showing a prospective factory site to a manufacturer who is considering moving his production facility to Wisconsin.)

WisGov:  I’m sure you’ll like it here.  We are all very proud of our natural beauty.  Why, not far from here Frank Lloyd Wright built his dazzling Taliesin.  With no help from the state, I might add.  And with my new budget and laws governing bargaining and employment we’re attracting attention all over the world.  You could lose out on this prime location if you don’t move quickly.

Mfr:  Very nice, the beauty and the Frank-What’s-His-Name and all that, but what about the nitty-gritty?  What about taxes?

WisGov:  No taxes.

Mfr:  No taxes?

WisGov:  None at all.  We’ve eliminated all taxes on business.  I would point out that even Alabama and Mississippi still collect some taxes, or try to.   We’ve given that up. So there you go.  Moving to Wisconsin just makes economic sense.

Mfr:  It’s very tempting, I must admit.  Could you tell me a little about the public school system?

WisGov:  Don’t have one.

Mfr:  No public schools?

WisGov:  Nope.  We used to have them, but after I gave the teachers the ass-kicking they had coming our damn test scores kept going down.  So we closed the public schools and now we give every kid a voucher for a private school instead.

Mfr:  And the test scores are better? 

WisGov:  That’s the beauty part.  There’s no requirement for testing private school students.  We are totally off the hook on education.  Saves a ton of money.

Aide:  We’re pretty sure that a lot of those kids can read and write.

WisGov:  And do simple sums.

Mfr:  Well, our jobs aren’t terribly demanding in that way.  But it could cause some problems in assembling a competent work force.

WsGov:  We’ve got that covered, too.  Our new laws say that you don’t have to pay any employee until you are completely satisfied with his or her performance.  It’s part of what we call the Wisconsin Idea.

Mfr:  Wow.  How long does that provision last?

WisGov:  There’s no time limit.  (Laughs.)  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Mfr:  Got ya.  I have to hand it to you folks in state government here.  You really do have your people on the run.  Talk about desperation!

WisGov:  I said I was going to create a business-friendly climate, and with the help of the good Lord and a Republican majority, that’s what I’ve done.

Mfr:  You’ve convinced me.  I’m moving the business to Wisconsin.  Uh, you wouldn’t throw in a sign, would you?

WisGov:  You bet we would.  Neon, if you want.  I can see it now, right out on the highway.  The H. Allen Smith Putty Knife Factory.

Mfr:  Big letters?

WisGov:  As big as you want.  By the way, how many jobs are we talking about?

Mfr:  Oh, 25, maybe 30.

Aide:  That’s really great.  (To WisGov, looking at his clipboard.)  Only 249, 865 to go.  Or 249,870, as the case may be.  (To Mfr.)  That’s counting the 105 new state workers we hired to run the Business Development Department, of course.

Mfr:  (Glancing up at the sky.)  What was that?

WisGov:  That?  Just a snowflake.

Mfr.  You have snow?

Wisgov:  It’s Wisconsin.  You have to expect a little snow in the winter.

Mfr:  There wasn’t anything in your brochure about snow.  Or winter.

WisGov:  We didn’t really think it was necessary.

Mfr:  I’m not moving anyplace that’s got winter.

WisGov:  You don’t have to live here, for God’s sake.

Mfr:  Yeah, but what if I have to come here in the wintertime for a meeting or something.  I could get snowed in.  I could slip and fall on the ice and hurt myself.

WisGov:  We’ve got snowplows.  We’ve got salt.

Mfr:  That’s just it.  I don’t want anything to do with any place that needs snowplows and salt.

WisGov:  Look, we’re burning coal and oil as fast as we can.  We buy it at a discount from the Koch brothers.  At least they assured me over the phone it was a discount.  But climate change doesn’t happen overnight, you know.

Mfr:  But you do expect a winter this year?

WisGov:  Yes.

Mfr:  And next year?

Wisgov:  Probably.

Mfr:  Sorry, but that’s a deal-breaker for me.  I’m outa here.  (Shivers, puts up his collar and hurriedly departs.)

Aide:  Well, I guess we’re back to 249, 895.

WisGov:  Goddamn wimp.

Aide:  Don’t take it so hard, Governor.  We’ve got that delegation coming in from Fiji tomorrow.  They’re sure to love it here.

Okay, the above is admittedly fanciful.  Given its current poisonous political climate, not even a putty knife manufacturer would consider moving to Wisconsin.   Also, I know the reference to H. Allen Smith is pretty obscure.  Anyone who recalls H. Allen Smith reveals a lot about both his age and his taste in literature, but I always thought that his Life in a Putty Knife Factory was one of the great American book titles.  I never thought that as a concept it would be preferable to life in Wisconsin, though.

 

Editorial: The mayor’s race: beyond compromise

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The litmus test issue: Either you’re for public power and against Pacific Gas and Electric Co., or you’re opposed, weak, or ducking — all of which put you in PG&E’s camp.

The race for mayor is now fully underway, with eight candidates declared — and at least four are fighting for the progressive vote. It’s a remarkably open field — and the fact that there’s no clear frontrunner, no candidate whose money is dominating the election, no Willie Brown or Gavin Newsom, is the result of two critical progressive reforms: public financing and ranked-choice voting.

In fact, those two measures — promoted by the progressive, district-elected supervisors — have transformed the electoral process in San Francisco and undermined, if only somewhat, downtown’s control.

As Steven T. Jones points out on page 11, the leading candidates are all sounding similar, vague themes. They all say the city can work better when we all work together. That’s a nice platitude, but it reminds us too much of President Obama’s promise to seek bipartisan consensus, and it’s likely to lead to the same result.

On the big issues, the Republicans don’t want to work with the president, and big downtown businesses, developers, and landlords don’t want to work with the progressives. In the end, on some key issues, there’s going to be a battle, and candidates for mayor need to let us know, soon, which side they’re going to be on.

Sup. David Chiu, who entered the race Feb. 28, may have the hardest job: he actually has to help balance the city budget. As board president, he’ll be involved in the negotiations with the Mayor’s Office and the final product will almost certainly carry his imprimatur. It’s unlikely the progressives on the board will agree with the mayor on cuts; it’s much more likely that some will seek revenue enhancements as an alternative. Whatever Chiu does, he’ll be on the record with a visible statement of his budget priorities.

We’d like to hear those priorities now, instead of waiting until June. But either way, the remaining candidates, particularly those who want progressive and neighborhood support, need to start taking positions, now. What in the city budget should be cut? What new revenue should be part of the solution? What, specifically, do you support in terms of pension reform? How would you, as mayor, deal with the budget crisis?

Every major candidate in the race has enough familiarity with city finance to answer those questions. None should be allowed to duck or resort to empty rhetoric about everyone working together.

The same goes for community choice aggregation and public power. There is no consensus here, and will never be. Either you’re for public power and against Pacific Gas and Electric Co., or you’re opposed, weak, or ducking — all of which put you in PG&E’s camp.

There are many more issues (condo conversions, tax breaks for big corporations, housing development, help for small business, etc.) on which there has never been, and likely never will be, agreement. The people who make money building new condos will never accept a law mandating that 50 percent of all new housing be affordable (although the city’s own Master Plan sets that as a goal). The landlords will never accept more limits on evictions and condo conversions.

We’re all for working together and seeking shared solutions, but the next mayor needs to be able to go beyond that. When the powerful interests refuse to bend, are you ready to fight them?

 

Dick Meister: Shades of the Thirties

Maria Poblet
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Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.

By now, there’s can be no doubting it: What’s happening in Wisconsin is one
of the most important labor developments in decades. It’s of major
importance to unions and their members, of major importance to working
people generally ­ of major importance to us all.

In  many ways, it’s the 1930s again. Just as then, workers and their
political allies and other  supporters are demonstrating, picketing,
marching, striking and otherwise forcefully demanding the basic civil right
of collective bargaining ­ the unfettered right for workers’ representatives
to negotiate with employers on setting their wages, hours and working
conditions.

Eventually, workers and their millions of supporters won the 1930s struggle.
Congress, acting closely with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, granted the
legal right of collective bargaining to most workers. Farm workers,
domestics and a few other groups were excluded from the law, but all others
finally had that vital right.

The 1930s struggle arose primarily because of the economic pressures of the
Great Depression that led to massive protests, just as today’s struggle can
be traced to the pressures of the Great Recession that also have led to
massive protests.

There are key differences between then and now, however. In the thirties,
the struggle was to win union rights for workers in the face of strong
opposition from large financial interests, powerful conservative politicians
and other anti-labor forces. Today, the struggle is to keep union rights
from being taken away from workers by today’s anti-union forces. Their main
targets are public employees and the pensions and other benefits they won in
past bargaining with their government employers.

The governments’ aim, of course, is to use the savings from that to make up
for budget shortfalls resulting from the recession and, in many cases, from
poor government management.

But there’s another important reason: Public employees have become the
vanguard of the labor movement. Their numbers and the percentage of them
belonging to unions have been growing steadily, while the number and
percentage of unionized workers in private employment have been shrinking.
That’s caused anti-union forces to shift their major efforts into attempting
to curb the escalating spread of unionization among public employees.

Which explains what’s happening in Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott
Walker has moved to all but eliminate the bargaining rights of most state
employees.
Walker is pushing bills through the GOP-controlled Legislature that would
bar state employees from bargaining on anything except their pay, and limit
any pay increases to the level of Consumer Price Index increases.

Employees would have no say in determining  their benefits or working
conditions, although most would have to increase their contributions to
pension and health care funds by up to 50 percent. What’s more, their
contracts would have to be re-negotiated yearly, and union dues could no
longer be deducted from employee paychecks.  It’s hard to imagine a union
surviving under such restraints.

The pay and benefits of Wisconsin state workers may be too high, or too low,
depending on who’s measuring. But that could be addressed through
negotiations between Gov. Walker and union representatives. But like some
petty dictator, Walker insists, “I don’t have anything to negotiate.”

Peaceful negotiations are how it’s done in civil societies, but that’s not
the style of union-busting Walker and his cohorts.  And if anyone doesn’t
like Walker’s approach, look out! He’s alerted the National Guard to be
armed and ready should Wisconsin state workers strike, disrupt state
services or otherwise rise in protest.

Shades, again, of the 1930s. In fact, the last time the Guard was called out
to quell a labor dispute in Wisconsin was during a United Auto Workers
strike in 1934.

Workers eventually won that and many other struggles of the thirties, thanks
to their courage and fierce determination and the broad public support they
inspired. And that’s precisely what it will take to overcome today’s
anti-worker onslaught by Walker and others like him.

The good news ­ and it’s very good news ­ is that such help is here and
growing fast. Crowds of as many as 70,000 labor supporters have been
gathering daily outside the Wisconsin State Capital in Madison to demand
that Walker and his fellow reactionaries return to the 21st century.

But give Walker this: Like the anti-labor politicians of the 1930s, he has
aroused public outrage that has brought important new strength and
solidarity to the cause of working people and their unions nationwide.

Certainly they’ll need all the strength they can muster, with major efforts
similar to Walker’s in Wisconsin underway in at least 17 other states.  In
more than a dozen. , Republican anger over labor’s strong support for
Democrats in last year’s elections have led directly to measures curbing
union political activities.

President Obama is correct. There is indeed a nationwide “assault on
unions.” But as the assaults increase, so will the public outrage that’s
winning unions the broad support they so badly need ­ and so richly deserve.

Dick Meister is a San Francisco-based columnist who has covered labor and
politics for a half-century as a reporter, editor, author and commentator.
Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com

No more San Brunos!

Maria Poblet
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For decades, the Guardian has done story after story on PG&E’s deteriorating service, terrible maintenance record, continuous stonewalling and coverups, emphasis — not on safety — but on jacking up executive salaries and putting tens of millions into fighting community choice aggregation in San Francisco and Marin, and on the granddaddy of monopoly moves (last year’s Prop 16). The San Francisco Chronicle, to its immense credit, has come through with a series of stories laying out PG&E’s virtually criminal behavior in the San Bruno pipeline explosion.

Now TURN, the consumer watchdog over utilities, is putting forth an excellent way to fight back with a  tough petition and spreading the word. TURN says, “PG&E charged its customers $5 million to fix a gas pipeline under San Bruno in 2009, but delayed the work citing other priorities. The company then spent $5 million on executive bonuses.”

Take action to demand PG&E make customer safety its top priority, and pay for the costs of this tragedy with its own profits, not our pockets.

Sign the petition here, and tell the PUC, “No more San Brunos.”

Editorial: Better options for garbage

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One of the biggest, most important municipal contracts in San Francisco is never put out to bid. It’s awarded to the same company, automatically, and has been since 1932. Recology Inc. (formerly known as Sunset Scavenger, Envirocal, and Norcal Solid Waste Systems) is the only outfit licensed to pick up trash in the city. It’s also the only company that has a monopoly guaranteed in the City Charter.

Its residential rates are set every five years by an agency almost nobody’s ever heard of, the Refuse Collection and Disposal Rate Board, which consists of the city administrator, the controller, and the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Commercial rates are set by Recology alone; there’s no appeal or oversight.

San Francisco is the only major city in the United States that contracts out solid waste collection to a private company. And it may be the only city of any size that does it without competitive bidding.

Now that city officials are discussing where the garbage should go — that is, what landfill should hold it — there’s a perfect opportunity to open up the 1932 deal, amend the charter, and fix this.

Sups. David Campos and Ross Mirkarimi are working on a measure that would mandate competitive bidding for the contract to pick up commercial and residential trash. “It’s not in the interest of the ratepayers to have a monopoly,” Campos told us.

It’s true that Recology has worked with the city on reducing the waste stream and developing a curbside compost and recycling plan. And Recology is an employee-owned company.

But that doesn’t mean the city or its residents and businesses are getting the best possible deal. Could another company do the same job better — and for less? Maybe. Would the prospect of a competitive bid drive Recology to improve service and cut rates? Absolutely. That why most municipal contracts are put out to bid on a regular basis.

But there’s a larger question here, one that the supervisors also should consider. Why does San Francisco have private garbage collection anyway? All over the country, cities handle that task as a part of the function of government.

There are several distinct advantages to evaluating a public option for refuse. For starters, the city is in desperate need of money — and Recology is making a nice profit off its local gig. It’s entirely possible, even likely, that the city could take over garbage collection, keep the rates at the same level, and bring in millions to the general fund. It’s also possible that city officials would decide to forego some of that income and cut rates to make life easier for residents and businesses.

Since the 1932 charter provision is getting a new look anyway, the supervisors at least ought to look at the possibility of ending private garbage collection. A fairly basic study should be able to establish how much revenue Recology takes in, what expenses are involved, and whether it’s worth pursuing municipalization.

 

Dick Meister: Scapegoating Public Empoyees

Maria Poblet
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Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.

Let’s pause for a moment to recognize some of our most important, yet most maligned workers. They are teachers and librarians. Police officers and firefighters. Bus drivers, doctors and nurses. Judges, lawyers, gardeners. They’re laborers and other maintenance and construction workers, and many others who provide us vital services.

They are public employees. There are millions of them, who every day do the essential work that keeps our country going.

It is they who keep our streets and highways, our parks and playgrounds safe and clean, who collect our trash. It is they who help educate our children, who provide emergency health care, who convey us to our jobs and back home after our day’s work, who sometimes risk their very lives to protect us from harm.

Yet despite all that – and more – public employees have come under heavy bipartisan attack by politicians who find them easy targets to blame for the budget shortfalls that have beset government at all levels.  Labor costs, after all, make up the bulk of government spending everywhere.

There’s no way around that basic fact. So if we want all those vital services public employees provide – and we do – that’s the price we must pay, and should be happy to pay. Certainly no group of workers has done more for us, none who are more important to our welfare, none more deserving of their wages.

Yet we seriously shortchange many of those workers. And some people, including political leaders who obviously know better, ludicrously cite public employees as a major cause of the economic recession that just won’t go away.

The blame, of course, clearly rests elsewhere. The culprits, as the Portside Labor website noted, include “the super-rich who will continue to enjoy immensely lucrative tax breaks enacted during the Bush administration,” and the Defense Department officials who want “a budget blowing $78 billion over the next year to fund the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and maintain a military machine that spends more than all its rivals combined.”

No, it’s not obscenely wealthy tax-dodging greedheads or the war-happy folks at the so-called Defense Department who’ve caused  record budget deficits. Oh, no. It’s that “greedy public employee who pulls in an outrageous $19,000-a-year pension.” You know, one of those public employees Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana actually characterized as members of  “a new privileged class.”

Public employee unions are striking back at such foolishness. For instance, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is waging a nationwide “Stop the Lies” campaign. Union President Gerald McEntee has been arguing that “hundreds of thousands of public employees, just like private sector employees, have been laid off, and taken pay and benefit cuts – even as Wall Street executives lined their pockets with taxpayer money and took home huge bonuses.”

The union’s retirees, meanwhile, are getting rich on pensions of, indeed, $19,000 a year.

There’s this, too: Government workers generally get less in pay and benefits than workers holding similar jobs in the private sector. As Portside Labor and others have pointed out, public sector workers don’t seem to resent the fact that their pay lags behind pay in private employment, “because most choose public service for other reasons than pay.” That’s obvious, and another reason to quit scapegoating the under-compensated workers who are among our most valuable.

The latest and perhaps best defense of the scapegoated public employees has come from President Harold Schaltberger of International Alliance of Firefighters .

Schaltberger notes the attacks on public employees are “like a tsunami rolling across the country.” He says the attacks have never been greater, more serious or as vicious.”  As he says, “Wall Street’s recklessness, not public employee pensions, caused our nation’s financial collapse. Scapegoating workers won’t solve anything.”

In a full-page newspaper ad, Schaltberger noted that “Firefighters and paramedics are dedicated to the lives of our neighbors. Whether it’s a natural disaster, terrorist attack or another tragedy, we answer the call. We understand that many Americans are hurting because of the recession, but we will not apologize for putting our lives on the line, the dangerous work we do, or the pensions we’ve earned.”

Part of the reason for the strong attacks on public employee unions is that they have become the vanguard of the labor movement. They’ve been growing as unions in private employment have declined. Union membership overall dropped by about 600,000 last year, lowering the percentage of union members in private and public employment combined from just above12 percent to slightly below that figure.  The percentage of public employees belonging to unions also shrunk slightly, but still stood at about 36 percent.

So, more than one-third of the country’s public employees now belong to unions, but only about 7 percent of workers in private employment are unionized.  Which explains why the country’s anti-union forces are concentrating so heavily on public employees, and seeking to enlist broad public support for their anti-unionism by blaming public employees for our serious economic troubles.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Dick Meister: Black Porters Led the Way

Maria Poblet
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Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.


February is Black History Month, a good time to honor the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the most important yet too often overlooked leaders in the long struggle for racial equality.

The union, the first to be founded by African Americans, was involved deeply in political as well as economic activity. It joined with the NAACP to serve as the major political vehicle of African Americans from the late 1930s through the 1950s.

Together, the two organizations led the drives in those years against racial discrimination in employment, housing, education and other areas, and in doing so, laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The need for a porters’ union was painfully obvious. Porters commonly worked 12 or more hours a day on the Pullman Company’s sleeping car coaches for less than $100 a month. And out of that, they had to pay for their meals, uniforms, even the polish they used to shine passengers’ shoes. They got no fringe benefits, although they could ride the trains for half-fare on their days off – providing they were among the very few with the time and money to do so. And providing they didn’t ride a Pullman coach.

In order to meet their basic living expenses, porters had to draw on the equally meager earnings of their wives, who were almost invariably employed as domestics.
 
It was a marginal and humiliating experience for porters. They were rightly proud of their work, a pride that showed in their smiling, dignified bearing. But porters knew that no matter how well they performed, they would never be promoted to higher-paying conductors’ jobs. Those jobs were reserved for white men.

Porters knew most of all that their white passengers and white employers controlled everything. It was they alone who decided what the porters must do and what they’d get for doing it.

When a passenger pulled the bell cord, porters were to answer swiftly and cheerfully. Just do what the passengers asked – or demanded. Shine their shoes, fetch them drinks, make their beds, empty their cuspidors. And more. No questions, no complaints, no protests. No rights. Nothing better epitomized the vast distance between black and white in American society.

Hundreds of porters who challenged the status quo by daring to engage in union activity or other concerted action were fired. But finally, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted workers, black and white, the legal right to unionize. And finally, in 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters won a union contract from Pullman.

The contract was signed exactly 12 years after union president and founder A. Philip Randolph had called the union’s first organizing meeting in New York City. It was a long arduous struggle, but it brought the porters out of poverty. It won them pay at least equal to that of unionized workers in many other fields , a standard workweek, and full range of fringe benefits. Most important, porters won the right to continue to bargain collectively with Pullman on those and other vital matters.

Union President Randolph and Vice President C.L. Dellums, who succeeded Randolph in 1968, led the drive that pressured President Roosevelt into several important actions against discrimination, including the creation of a Fair Employment Practices Commission in housing as well as employment. FDR agreed to set up the commission – a model for several state commissions – and take other anti-discrimination steps only after Randolph and Dellums threatened to lead a march on Washington by more than 100,000 black workers  and others who were demanding federal action against discrimination.

Dellums and Randolph struggled as hard against discrimination inside the labor movement, particularly against the practice of unions setting up segregated locals, one for white members, one for black members.

Randolph, elected in 1957 as the AFL-CIO’s first African-American vice president, long was known as the civil rights conscience of the labor movement, often prodding federation President George Meany and other conservative AFL-CIO leaders to take stands against racial discrimination.

The sleeping car coaches that once were the height of travel luxury have long since disappeared, and there are very few sleeping car porters in this era of less-than-luxurious train travel. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is gone, too. But before the union disappeared, it had reached goals as important as any ever sought by an American union – or by any other organization anywhere.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Editorial: A timely test for new Mayor Ed Lee and four new supervisors

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B3 Impertinent Question:  And so we have a timely test for the new mayor and the four new supervisors.  Will they support good consumer and environmental legislation, setting a major national precedent, or will they do a Newsom and go with the Chamber of Commerce  and Big Pharma lobbyists from Washington, D.C., dispatched to City Hall to kill this bill?


Mayor Lee and Big Pharma

EDITORIAL A piece of simple, logical legislation that would protect San Francisco consumers, public safety, and the environment appears headed for the desk of Mayor Ed Lee — and his signature would be the first clear sign that he’s not going to let powerful lobbyists (or the legacy of Gavin Newsom) guide his decisions.

The bill, by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, would establish several secure places where people can drop off unused, unwanted, or expired pharmaceuticals for safe disposal. It seems so simple: every year, huge amounts of prescription meds are flushed down toilets or left around in medicine cabinets or drawers in the city. As much as one-third of all medicine purchased in the country is never used. The stuff that goes down the drain already has had a proven impact on aquatic life; the pills that never get thrown away are a hazard, particularly in households with small children.

But under current law, the only safe way to get rid of old meds is to return them to a pharmacy — and pay a fee. The cost of returning old drugs is enough of a deterrent that most consumers don’t bother.

If you have used motor oil in California, you can drop off and recycle it free. Many hardware stores recycle old batteries, light bulbs, and paint. Computer makers have to pay for recycling their products. Why can’t the city mandate the same rules for medication?

The easy answer: because it would cost about $200,000 a year to set up drop-off sites in drug stores and police stations — and the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want to pay.

It’s a trivial amount of money, a fraction of what the industry spends on lobbying. In fact, with Big Pharma lobbyists from Washington and Sacramento crawling all over City Hall to block the Mirkarimi bill, it’s possible that the drug companies have already spent more fighting the legislation than it would cost to implement it.

The bill would charge companies that sell pharmaceuticals in the city a very modest fee to pay for the drop-off program. Similar programs in other places (San Mateo County, Washington State) have been highly successful — but nobody yet has asked the companies that make billions of dollars selling these products to underwrite the cost. San Francisco would be the first.

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has been fighting hard against the measure, claiming it would discourage biotech firms from investing in the city. That’s a huge stretch, but the chamber’s lobbying had an impact. When the measure came up at the end of 2010, four supervisors — Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Bevan Dufty — voted with the Chamber and Big Pharma. So the bill would not have survived a Newsom veto.

But thanks to the oddities of scheduling, the legislation comes up for second reading Jan. 25, giving the new board a chance to weigh in. That will be a test for the new supervisors, but Mirkarimi is confident he’s got the six votes to give the measure final approval.

Then it goes to Lee. And if he can stand up to the chamber and the misinformation campaign from Big Pharma and sign the measure, he’ll not only help San Francisco take a national stand on an important consumer and environmental issue, he’ll also demonstrate that he’s not going to fall in line the way Newsom did every time downtown calls.

 


Dick Meister: Ronald Reagan’s Law of the Jungle

Maria Poblet
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Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.

The 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’ s birth is coming up in February, and before the inevitable gushing over what a wonderful leader he was begins, let me get in a few words about what sort of a leader he really was.

Ronald Reagan was, above all, one of the most viciously anti-labor presidents in American history, one of the worst enemies the country’s working people ever faced.

Republican presidents never have had much regard for unions. But until Reagan, no Republican president had dared challenge labor’s firm legal standing, gained through Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the mid-1930s.

Reagan’s Republican predecessors treated union leaders much as they treated Democratic members of Congress – as adversaries to be fought with at times, but also as people to be bargained with at other times. Reagan, however, engaged in precious little bargaining. He waged almost continuous war against organized labor and the country’s workers from the time he assumed office in 1980 until leaving the presidency in 1988.

Reagan had little apparent reason to fear labor politically. Opinion polls at the time showed that unions were opposed by nearly half of all Americans, and that nearly half of those who belonged to unions had voted for Reagan in both his presidential campaigns.

Reagan, at any rate, was a true ideologue of the anti-labor political right. Yes, he had been president of the Screen Actors Guild, but he was notoriously pro-management in that position. He led the way to a strike-ending agreement in 1959 that greatly weakened the union and finally resigned as union president under heavy membership pressure before his term ended.

Reagan’s war on labor as U.S. president began in the summer of 1981, when he fired 13,000 striking air traffic controllers and destroyed their union.

As Washington post columnist Harold Meyerson noted, that was “an unambiguous signal that employers need feel little or no obligation to their workers. Employers got that message loud and clear, illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing  permanent employees  who could collect benefits with temps who could not, and shipping factories and jobs abroad.”

Reagan gave dedicated union foes direct control of the federal agencies that were originally designed to protect and further the rights of workers and their unions. Most important was Reagan’s appointment of three management representatives to the five- member National Labor Relations Board.

The appointees included NLRB Chairman Donald Dotson, who declared that “unionized labor relations have been the major contributors to the decline and failure of once healthy industries” and have caused “destruction of individual freedom.”

A House committee found that under Dotson, the NLRB abandoned its legal obligation to promote collective bargaining, in what amounted to “a betrayal of American workers.”

The NLRB settled only about half as many complaints about employers’ illegal actions as did the board during the previous administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter. Most of the complaints were against employers who responded to organizing drives by illegally firing union supporters. The employers were well aware that, under Reagan, the NLRB was taking an average of three years to rule on complaints, and the board did no more than order that the discharged unionists be reinstated with back pay – which was much cheaper than if the employers had been operating under a union contract.

The board stalled as long before acting on petitions from workers seeking union representation elections, and generally stalled for another year or two after such votes before certifying winning unions as the workers’ bargaining agents. Also under Reagan, employers were allowed to permanently replace workers who dared exercise their legal right to strike.

Reagan’s Labor Department was as one-sided as the NLRB. It became an anti-Labor Department, virtually ignoring, for example, the union-busting consultants that many employers hired to help them fend off unionization.

Very few consultants and very few of those who hired them were asked for the financial disclosure statements that the law demands, Yet all unions were required to file the statements that the law required of them – and that could be used to the advantage of their opponents. Although the department cut its overall budget by more than 10 percent, it increased the budget for such union-busting activities by almost 40 percent.

Among Reagan’s many other outrages, there were his attempts to lower the minimum wage for younger workers, weaken the child labor and anti-sweatshop laws, tax fringe benefits, and cut back programs to train unemployed workers for available jobs. He also tried to replace thousands of federal employees with temporary workers who would not have civil service or union protection.

Reagan all but dismantled programs that required affirmative action and other steps against discrimination by federal contractors. And he seriously undermined job safety programs.  He closed one-third of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s field offices, trimmed the agency’s staff by more than one-fourth and decreased the number of penalties assessed against offending employers by almost three-fourths.

Rather than enforce the laws, Reagan appointees sought “voluntary compliance” from employers on safety matters – and generally didn’t get or expect it. Reagan had so tilted the safety laws in favor of employers that safety experts declared them virtually useless.

The same could have been said of all other labor laws in the Reagan era. A statement issued at the time by the leaders of several major unions concluded that it would have been more advantageous for those who worked for a living to ignore the laws and return to “the law of the jungle” that prevailed a half-century before.

The suggestion came a little late. Ronald Reagan had already plunged the nation’s labor-management relations deep into the jungle.

Yet Reagan will nevertheless be honored in centennial celebrations throughout the United States, in Europe and elsewhere in coming days.  He’s become a much beloved mythical figure, and nothing will change that, certainly not the unheard or unacknowledged facts of his presidency and its disastrous effects on America’s working people, many of whom ironically will be among the celebrants.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

Editorial: New Mayor Ed Lee should stop the recycling eviction

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Mayor Ed Lee needs to demonstrate, as we noted in last week’s editorial, that he’s making a clean break from the politics and policies of the Newsom administration — and there are things he can do immediately to reassure San Franciscans that he’s going to offer more than another 11 months of a failed administration.

He can start by calling off the eviction of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Recycling Center.

The move by Newsom to evict the recycling center, on the edge of Golden Gate Park, was part of his administration’s war on the poor. It made no sense from a financial or environmental perspective. The center, which pays rent to the city, would be replaced by a community garden, which would pay nothing. The center creates green jobs that pay a living wage; all the workers would be laid off under Newsom’s plan. The center also operates a native plant nursery and provides a drop-off recycling site for local businesses.

A community garden makes only limited sense in a shady area that gets fog most of the year.

The only reason Newsom was determined to get rid of the place is that low-income people who collect bottles and cans around the city (an environmentally positive activity, by the way) come by the center to drop them off and pick up a little cash. Some of the wealthier residents of the Haight don’t like poor people wandering through their neighborhood. It’s class warfare, declared by the Newsom administration — and Lee, who got his start as a poverty lawyer, doesn’t have to tolerate it.

Lee should direct the Recreation and Parks Department to cease the eviction proceedings and negotiate a long-term lease for the Frederick Street site.

It seems like a small item in the long list of issues the new mayor will have to deal with — but the HANC recycling center has strong symbolic importance. Ending the eviction and allowing the center to stay would be a sign that Lee intends to be a mayor who is willing to work with the progressives and that he’s not going to try to solve all the city’s problems by blaming, harassing, and criminalizing people who are barely surviving in San Francisco.

The new mayor could take another simple step toward broad credibility by opening up his office — to the public and the press. Under Newsom, Room 200 was an unfriendly place to outsiders, and often the news media were treated as enemies. Lee should start holding regular press conferences — not just stage-managed events designed to showcase one issue, but broad-ranging, open sessions where reporters can ask questions about anything his administration is doing. And he ought to direct his press office to make compliance with the Sunshine Ordinance a priority.

For starters, he could release whatever proposed budget cuts Newsom left behind. It’s hard to believe the former mayor just turned them over to Lee without a list of things that were on the chopping block. The sooner the public sees where the previous administration was going, the sooner we can all determine what, if anything, Lee will do differently.  

EDITORIAL: The Agenda for Mayor Lee

Maria Poblet
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San Francisco has its first Chinese American mayor, and that’s a major, historic milestone. Let’s remember: Chinese immigrants were among the most abused and marginalized communities in the early days of San Francisco. In 1870, the city passed a series of laws limiting the rights of Chinese people to work and live in large parts of the city. Chinese workers built much of the Transcontinental Railroad — at slave wages and in desperately unsafe conditions that led to a large number of deaths. The United States didn’t even repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act (an anti-immigration law) until 1943, and for years, Chinatown was one of the poorest and most neglected city neighborhoods.

So there’s good reason for Asians to celebrate that the last door in San Francisco political power is now open. And Mayor Ed Lee comes from a civil rights background; he got his start in politics working as a poverty lawyer and tenant organizer.

Unfortunately, his path to Room 200 was badly marred by some ugly backroom dealing involving Willie Brown, the most corrupt mayor in modern San Francisco history. Even Lee’s supporters agree the process was a mess and that it undermines Lee’s credibility. So it’s important for Mayor Lee to immediately establish that he’s independent of Brown and his cronies, that his administration will not just be a Gavin Newsom rerun, and that progressives can and should support him.

He has a tough job ahead. We urge him to make a clean break with the past and set the city in a new direction. Here are a few ways to get started.

• Clear out the Newsom operatives and bring some new people with progressive credentials into the senior ranks. Newsom’s chief of staff, Steve Kawa, has been a shadow mayor for the past year while Newsom was on the campaign trail, and is the architect of much of what the outgoing administration has done to sow political division and cripple city government. Lee needs his own chief advisor.

• Show up for question time and work with the district-elected supervisors. Newsom was openly dismissive of the board and refused to take the supervisors seriously as partners in city government. Lee should appear once a month to answer questions from the board in public, should meet regularly with all the supervisors and appoint a liaison that the board can work with and trust. He needs to make his administration as transparent and open as possible and ensure that everyone at City Hall follows the letter and spirit of the Sunshine Ordinance.

• Make it clear that the next city budget includes substantial new revenue. Newsom offered nothing but Republican politics when it came to city finance; his only solutions to the massive structural deficit involved service cuts.

The deficit will be even worse than projected this year, since Gov. Jerry Brown wants to transfer much of the state’s responsibility for public safety and public health back to local government — and there won’t be enough state money attached to handle the new burden. Lee needs to publicly call on Brown and the Legislature to give cities more ability to raise taxes on the local levee. Then he should start planning for a June ballot package that will raise as much as $250 million in new revenue for the city.

A substantially higher vehicle license fee on expensive cars, a congestion management fee, a significant annual transit impact fee on downtown offices, a restructured business tax, and a progressive tax on income of more than $50,000 a year would more than eliminate the structural deficit.

There are plenty of other revenue ideas out there; not all can or would pass on a single ballot. But Lee needs to make it clear that revenue will be part of the solution — and that he will use all the political capital he can muster to convince the voters to go along.

• Get serious about community choice aggregation. Newsom loved to talk about his environmental agenda, but when it came to challenging the hegemony of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and its dirty power portfolio, he ran for cover. His hand-picked Public Utilities Commission director, Ed Harrington, has been an obstacle to implementing the city’s CCA plan. Lee needs to get rid of Harrington or direct him to cooperate with the supervisors and get San Francisco on the path to clean public power.

• Establish a real affordable housing program. The city plans to build housing for as many as 60,000 new residents in the southeast neighborhoods — but only a fraction of them will be affordable. This city is already well on its way to becoming a high-end bedroom community for Silicon Valley; only a clear policy that limits new market-rate condos until there’s a plan for adequate affordable housing will turn things around.

• Support Sanctuary City and quit helping federal immigration authorities break up families. Newsom was just awful on this issue; Lee needs to work with Sup. David Campos to implement more humane laws.

• End the demonization of homeless people and public employees. Newsom came to power attacking the homeless (with Care Not Cash) and went out attacking the homeless (with the sit-lie law). Lee ought to tell the Police Department not to aggressively enforce the ordinance.

• Take on the sacred cows of the Police and Fire departments. The biggest salary and pension problems in the city are in the two public safety departments. The Fire Department budget has been bloated for years. If everyone else is taking cuts, so should the highest-paid cops and the overstaffed fire stations.

Some of Lee’s supporters insist he’s a solid progressive and that we shouldn’t hold the details of his selection — or the fact that he was chosen by people who are openly hostile to the progressive agenda — against him. We’re open to that — but the progressive community will judge him on his record. And he has to start right away.

Elsbernd defends Lee (but ducks the Tapas)

Zelda Bronstein
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Elsbernd defends Lee (but ducks the Tapas)

Well, Sean didn’t stop by for tapas at Que Syrah last night, but he did take the time to send me a long letter answering my questions about why he “mysteriously”  nominated CAO Ed Lee for interim mayor in Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

I appreciate the letter and it’s to Sean’s credit that this is his modus operandi with the Guardian (and others) in answering questions, even pesky ones.

I am printing his letter in full below and offering him the opportunity to continue this illuminating conversation since his letter raises even more questions about his nomination of Lee.

For example, the Bay Citizen section of today’s New York Times, on the morning of the followup supervisors’ meeting this afternoon, laid out a detailed story by Gerry Shih  of how former Mayor Willie Brown, Rose Pak, a powerful Chinatown political operative, and Mayor Newsom orchestrated the Lee nomination to keep the mayor’s office safe for PG&E, the downtown gang, and Willie/Pak’s clients and allies.

The headline: “Behind-the-Scenes Power Politics: The Making of a Mayor,” with  pictures of Newsom, Willie, and Pak. The motivation for the orchestration, according to the story, was that on Sunday afternoon “Word had  trickled out that the main contenders for the job were Sheriff Michael Hennessey, former Mayor Art Agnos and former board chairman Aaron Peskin” and the three were “deemed too liberal” by Pak, Brown and Newsom.

Then, the story said that over the next 48 hours, Pak, Brown and the Newsom administration “engaged in an extraordinary political power play, forging a consensus” on the board, “outflanking the board’s progressive wing” and persuading Lee at the last moment  shortly before he boarded  a plane to  Taiwan to agree “to become San Francisco’s first Asian-American mayor, even though he had told officials for months that he had no interest in the job.”

The story noted that Pak was “in a boastful mood the next day, several hours before she planned to have celebratory drinks with Brown at the Chinese Hilton,” (Willie, last time I checked, was on an annual PG&E retainer of $200,000 plus.) The story ended with a telling quote from Pak: “Now you know why they say I play politics like a blood sport.”

So the new questions I have for Sean (and other supervisors who voted for Lee) is what did they know and when did they know it? Or were they even informed about the deal and how it came down? Is this the West Portal supervisor’s idea of how to choose a mayor?

P.S. Sean and his fellow Lee supporters may not think it’s important for the Guardian (or other media or citizens) to be able to ask questions of Lee or other candidates  before making him mayor.

Well, I think  it’s important and I have some basic questions: What is Lee’s position on rent control? On progressive taxation to help solve the crushing budget crisis? On rubberstamping Newsom/Pak/Brown policies as mayor? And on community choice aggregation and public power and kicking PG&E out of the mayor’s office?  The last question on PG&E  is critical, because this is the key litmus test in political San Francisco.  Any politician, elected or appointed or emerging,  who supports PG&E and opposes public power/CCA is not to be trusted.  Did anybody get to ask Lee any of these questions or any others? Let’s lay out the questions and Lee’s answers before making him the reluctant mayor.

Here’s Elsbernds letter to me:

Bruce,

Good to hear from you.  As always, I enjoy the conversation, particularly
with those District 7 constituents who so often and consistently advocate
positions contrary to the vast majority of residents in District 7 (e.g.
the Guardian’s endorsement against Proposition G, which received over 70%
of the vote in District 7), but every now and then, present a fresh
perspective worth analysis.

 

I believe Ed Lee will make an outstanding Interim Mayor. You asked me the
following questions to justify this.  Let me give it my best shot.

Why did I nominate Ed Lee for Interim Mayor when he was out of town?  His
presence was immaterial to me.  I had the opportunity to discuss his
interest in the position with him prior to the vote, and I have worked with
him for nearly 10 years, and know where he stands on various positions.  I
did not need him in the room on Tuesday evening to answer questions as I
had done my homework before showing up to class.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he was not publicly “out there” or “in
public discussion” as a candidate or even known by the Supervisors to be a
legitimate candidate?  Whether or not Ed Lee’s name was known to you, your
readers, or other Supervisors, is not a fact to which I can speak.  After
all, I do not fit any one of those 3 criteria.  Ed was always a candidate
to me, and, most importantly, the qualities of an Interim Mayor were “in
public discussion.”  These qualities, which I heard from residents in
district 7 and throughout the City, were that the individual be someone not
wanting to run for re-election, someone, who had a demonstrated ability to
appeal to all cross sections of the political spectrum, someone who knows
the City (both how it functions as a government as well as its many
neighborhoods), and, someone with demonstrated experience in a variety of
areas of public policy.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he has not publicly stated his views on any
of the major issues coming before the Mayor?  Yes, it’s true he has not
filled out a Bay Guardian questionnaire, or been grilled by your editorial
Board.  However, an astute observer of Ed’s career can decipher well his
positions.  Moreover, Ed was most recently confirmed unanimously to serve
as CAO of the City and County, for the second time.  During that
confirmation process, I had the opportunity, as did every other member of
the Board and the public to present issues to Ed for his analysis.  The
tough issues facing the Mayor, are the same tough issues facing the CAO,
the Supervisors, and everyone else charged with the duty of serving the
public.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he was not available for questioning by the
Board when the discussion and vote came down?  Yes, Ed was not present.
However, as I stated earlier, Ed had always been available to talk prior to
his departure.  I was able to ask my questions before he left.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he is not as qualified for this tough post
in these tough times as the other public candidates?  Well, this question
implies a bit of a comparison to the other candidates.  I respect the other
candidates too much to say anything negative about them.  Simply put, I
believe Ed is the lone candidate with the sufficient breadth, most
relevant, and most timely experience across City government, and the one
who had the greatest ability to bring all sides of the political spectrum
together.

 

Why did I nominate Ed Lee when he was obviously part of a backroom deal
orchestrated by Mayor Newsom and his downtown allies?  I love questions
based on evidence and fact.  This question, however, is merely a question
based on your opinion.  I disagree with that opinion.  Ed Lee was elected
Interim Mayor because he is the most qualified candidate.

 

Finally, thanks for the invitation to Que Syrah this evening.
Unfortunately, as a working parent, my weeknight evenings do not belong to
me – they belong to my son.  I’ll be with him tonight.  I hope you’re still
able to enjoy yourself without me.

 

All the best,
Sean

 

P.S.  It’s the “Village Grill,” not the “Village Inn .”  Perhaps you need
to get out on West Portal a bit more and learn the name of the
establishments along the street.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tapas with Sean: Some modest questions for a West Portal supervisor

Zelda Bronstein
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Tapas with Sean: Some modest questions for a West Portal supervisor

Ever since the Brugmann family moved into the West Portal area in 1964 (with the help of local realtor John Barbagelata), I have been annoyed with the fact that many of our West of Twin Peaks supervisors prance around in their neighborhoods as “neighborhood supervisors,” then go to City Hall and vote to protect PG&E and vote the downtown/bigdeveloper/real estate line without blushing.

Barbagelata and  Quentin Kopp were notable exceptions. Barbagelata, when he was elected supervisor, even refused to go downtown to the election night parties and staged his own party in his West Portal real estate office and made the statement that there was a big difference between neighborhood and downtown issues.

Sean Elsbernd, my current supervisor, is good on some issues, shows some independence on occasion, and comes to the phone and answers emails and comes to the Guardian for interviews. In fact, I was emailing back and forth with him on Tuesday afternoon over my annual holiday card (and my note to “fear the beard in 2011″) shortly before the historic board meeting on the interim mayor. I asked him why he wasn’t more visible in West Portal and that I didn’t see him in the Manor coffee shop (he replied he was a Village Inn type of guy) and that I didn’t see him at Que Syrah, our local Best Of wine tasting gem. (He said he and his wife had gone to Que Syrah over the holidays but they were closed.) I explained that proprietors Stephanie and Keith McCardell had taken a week off.)

Anyway, a few hours later, Sean “mysteriously” nominated Ed Lee, the CAO traveling in Hong Kong, to take on the key city post of interim mayor. How in the world did this happen?

Was Sean once again demonstrating he was a neighborhood guy out in West Portal, but at City Hall the mayor’s go-to -guy in the smelly deal to preserve the mayor’s office and take control of the Board of Supervisors for PG@E and the mayor’s downtown allies?

So I sent him an email with my questions as his constituent. And I invited him to come as guests of my wife Jean and I for the Thursday night special at Que Syrah (230 West Portal Ave), with flights of small production wines and tapas by Val, styled in wondrous Barcelona fashion. I gave him a deadline (noon today) to answer my questions and I invited him to comment on my Bruce blog or send me a letter or email that I would be happy to publish on my blog. Stay alert for news on what my West Portal supervisor is really up to at City Hall.

To Sup. Sean Elsbernd:

You baffle me once again.

I am curious, as a constituent,  why you nominated Ed Lee for interim mayor when he was (a) out of town in Hong Kong, (b) not publicly “out there” or “in public discussion” as a candidate or even known by the supervisors to be a legitimate candidate, (c) has not publicly stated his views on any of the major tough issues coming before the mayor, (d) was not available for questioning by the board when the discussion and vote came down, (e) is not as qualified for t his tough post in these tough times as the other public candidates, and (f) was obviously part of a backroom deal orchestrated by Mayor Newsom and his downtown allies?

I wait patiently  for  your reply.  And I hope you drop by Que Syrah Thursday night,  for tapas and wine flights, so you can explain personally  to the West Portal throngs what you are really  up to at City Hall these days. Jean and I will be there to host you.

Respectfully, Bruce B. Brugmann, 2262 14th Ave, West Portal

Editorial: How Brown can save California

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There are two things Gov. Jerry Brown has to do to get California back on track, and he needs to start right away. He has to restore at least a degree of public faith in state government — and he has to put a series of tax increases on the June ballot.

The first step ought to be right in the Brown playbook. The public is fed up with the secrecy, lies, machinations, and policy failures of the Schwarzenegger administration, and Brown can start off by telling people the truth. The budget situation is frightening; it can’t all be solved by cuts without destroying the state of California as we know it. But it also requires an understanding that the taxpayers don’t want to see their money wasted.

Brown has done the right thing by offering to cut his own staff by 25 percent and by denouncing the demands of the highest-paid University of California staffers who want even larger pensions. He might also take a look at some of the outmoded, expensive commissions in the state (do we really need a 21-member California Film Commission?) None of these are big money-savers, and none address the budget crisis in any meaningful way. But they’ll show that Brown’s cautious with a buck.

Then he needs to tell the voters that the state does, indeed, have a revenue problem, not just a spending problem. And he should start right away with a blue-ribbon panel of tax experts to look at what reforms ought to go on the June ballot.

It’s crazy to say that solving a $28 billion budget shortfall is easy, but a few basic changes could go a very long way to balancing the books. If the voters approve an oil severance tax (something every other oil-producing state in the nation has), an end to the commercial property loophole in Prop. 13, and the restoration of the vehicle license fee that Arnold Schwarzenegger abolished, the state would be about $10 billion richer. A modest increase in the income tax on the very richest Californians would add a few billion more. And suddenly the problem wouldn’t look so insurmountable.

Brown has an advantage: he’s taking over for a terribly unpopular governor. He will be able to work with a Legislature that now has the ability to pass a budget with a simple majority. And while his victory in November was hardly a landslide, it was substantial enough that he’s got a valid mandate for change.

He and the legislative leaders should adopt a budget that includes the expected revenue from a June tax package — and then offer an alternative budget that doesn’t. Give the voters a clear choice. Do they want to eliminate hundreds of public schools, raise elementary school class sizes to 40, shut down a couple of University of California campuses, shutter the state parks, and let 30,000 prisoners go free? Of do they want the oil companies and the richest Californians to pay a little bit more to keep the state functioning?

Brown can make history this spring. The passage of Prop. 13, during his last term as governor, set off a nationwide tax-cutting frenzy that’s damaged the entire country. By pushing back just a little bit, and demanding a little bit of tax fairness, he can demonstrate that California is still a leader in progressive public policy.

He’ll have to put his political capital, his credibility, and all the money he can raise behind the effort. If he doesn’t, his administration, and the state, will be a total failure.  

 


 

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