Labor

The state budget deal

-
0

By Tim Redmond

The state Legislature is scheduled to vote Friday on a budget deal that nobody likes.. I’m told that labor groups will urge Democratic legislators to oppose the deal; it’s not even clear that Republicans — whose leaders helped negotiate it — will vote for the proposal.

The GOP members still insist, for the most part, that they won’t accept new taxes, and this plan has $14.3 billion in new taxes, some of which are pretty good. It calls for a 12-cent increase in the gas tax, which is a great way to raise money and should be higher, and a slight increase in the car tax (ditto). I don’t like the 1-cent sales tax hike, and while I’m all for raising income taxes on the rich, a 2.5-percent across-the-board surtax isn’t even remotely fair (esp. since the higher earners, who tend to itemize deductions, will wind up deducting the higher tax from the federal income taxes, while the average person won’t get that benefit.) Still: at least some of the budget gap will be addressed with new revenues (which the mayor of San Francisco can’t seem to accept as a solution back home.)

The cuts are awful. The schools will get hammered . According to the Sacramento Bee

Welfare recipients and low-income disabled, blind and elderly individuals would not receive cost-of-living increases

which is awfully harsh.

And it goes downhill from there — among other things, the budget would eliminate state support for local transit systems, which is going to be a brutal hit for San Francisco.

So the more liberal Dems are going to get pressure to say no, and even the Republican leaders who worked on the deal won’t promise to vote for it. But as state Sen. Mark Leno told me:

“Given the nature of the $42 billion deficit, our budget resolution is by definition painful all around. And we have to move forward to get the state off life support.”

Newsom still MIA

-
1

By Tim Redmond

You know the mayor is in serious trouble when his business allies say he’s missing in action. From the Chron this morning:

Scott Hauge, a San Francisco business owner who is president of the advocacy group Small Business California, said the meetings that Chiu organized this week were the first occasions small business has been brought into City Hall talks since budget negotiations started heating up several weeks ago.

“The mayor has not brought us to the table, which is very frustrating because we are the major employers in San Francisco and we are really hurting right now,” said Hague, adding that he’s worked with every mayor since Dianne Feinstein and that it is unprecedented to have a board president, not the mayor, convene these types of discussions.

While nobody who has been attending Board President David Chiu’s meetings will talk about the details, I’m getting the clear impression that business (including the Chamber of Commerce and the Committee on JOBS) and labor (particularly SEIU Local 1021) are actually making progress toward a July special election that could help prevent a total meltdown in city services.

And Newsom didn’t even send a representative to the meetings.

My favorite comment from the mayor:

“But I guess the question is, what more can I do? I can make things up to do today in order not to go down there (to San Jose)

Newsom has to “make things up to do today?” How about talking to the key stakeholders and trying to arrange a deal on a budget that everyone can live with?

Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s press flak, told us that

The mayor has been meeting with labor, business and the supervisors to work together on solutions.

But nobody in business or labor or on the board of supervisors seems aware of that.

SEIU preaches unity while trying to divide and conquer CNA

-
5

By Steven T. Jones

Service Employees International Union is caught in the position of decrying efforts by breakaway leaders of the new National Union of Healthcare Workers to steal away SEIU members during a critical moment for the labor movement, while at the same time SEIU is meddling in the internal affairs of another union, California Nurses Association.

On Thursday, CNA blasted SEIU for “impersonating nurses in a multimillion dollar campaign” to topple current CNA leaders and replace them with candidates closer to SEIU and its incremental approach to health care reform. The charges echoed those by Sal Rosselli and other NUHW leaders, who say SEIU under President Andy Stern has sacrificed member interests and rights in its drive become a national powerhouse that works closely with elected officials and large corporate employers.

SEIU spokesperson Michelle Ringuette responded dismissively: “CNA has made wild and untrue charges against SEIU members before. This release is more of the same…It is true that there are CNA members that are unhappy with the direction their union is taking. We have spoken with a number of them, and we support the CNA nurses who want to hold their union’s leaders accountable.”

But the next day, after the Guardian identified SEIU members from other states who have been contacting CNA members in an aggressive campaign to unseat CNA leadership, Ringuette admitted to the campaign, defiantly saying SEIU would do everything in its power to protect its interests.

CNA’s leaders say SEIU’s campaign is illegal. And it certainly belies claims that SEIU leaders have made about the NUHW situation, in which Ringuette and others have repeatedly said union infighting now is major distraction from efforts to pass the landmark Employee Free Choice Act and stave off deep cuts threatened by the dire budget situation in California and its cities and counties.

American Apparel denied store on Valencia

-
5

american_apparel_ad_solares_hill_290808.jpg
American Apparel, which is known for sexy ads and fairly progressive labor practices, failed to convince San Franciscans to let them open a fourth store here.
By Ben Terrall

Yesterday, after a long afternoon of statements from a few supporters and many opponents of American Apparel opening a new store at 988 Valencia Street, the San Francisco Planning Commission voted 7-0 to deny the Los Angeles-based chain the permit they needed to open.

The Commission Chambers at City Hall were packed to capacity as the Planning Commission began its regular meeting. The extra attendees, many of them organized by the hastily-formed “Stop American Apparel” campaign, were moved to two rooms with video monitors which broadcast the meeting.

It was strong show of force by grassroots organizers, one that forced a vote that few thought would be so decisive.

Labor war widens

-
1

By Steven T. Jones

On a day when the labor movement rallied in cities across the country in support of the federal Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for employees to form a union, bitter infighting involving the nation’s largest union, Service Employees International Union, also escalated today.
The California Nurses Association today charged SEIU with launching an illegal, multi-million-dollar campaign to take over their organization using what that they call a phony nurses group called RNs for Change to take over the leadership of CNA and affiliate it with SEIU, which calls the accusations “wild and untrue.”
CNA spokesperson Chuck Idelson called SEIU head Andy Stern corrupt and power hungry, echoing criticisms from Stern-ousted United Healthcare Workers leaders who last week formed the new union National Healthcare Workers Union. NUHW spokesperson John Borsos said the new union has now gathered petitions from about 25,000 workers in 101 facilities who want to leave SEIU and join NUHW.
I’ve been doing interviews and research on these related issues all day, so check back here tomorrow for a more complete report.

Meister: A porter who dared to protest

-
0

How C. L. Dellums of Oakland organized the first union founded by black workers

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for more than half a century.)

Affluent white train passengers snapping out orders. Broadly smiling black porters rushing to carry them out, fetching drinks, shining shoes, making beds, emptying cuspidors, rarely daring to protest.

That’s how it was aboard the Pullman sleeping coaches that were the height of luxurious travel for more than a quarter- century. Nothing better epitomized the huge distance between black and white in this society. And nothing better epitomized the struggle that has finally narrowed the
distance than the long life of C.L. Dellums, a porter who did dare to protest, and who continued to do so as a major labor and civil rights leader for six decades.

Ken Garcia’s cuts

-
3

By Tim Redmond

Okay, this is the sort of thing that really, really annoys me. Ken Garcia is against a June election, which is fine if he thinks no tax measures will pass and thus it’s a waste of money.

But then he says this:

The City doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. It spends wildly on public health programs and hospitals that most cities long ago curbed, and its health care costs and pension benefits spike around 25 percent each year.

So what the board must do, which it hasn’t to any formidable degree, is start cutting into the bloated bureaucracy our fearless leaders have created during the past 20 years, while the mayor tries to renegotiate labor contracts that always seem to sail through during election years.

And then cut. And then cut some more.

When people bloviate about bureacracy and cuts like this, I think they have a responsibility to tell us all, specifically, what they want to cut. It’s easy to talk about spending “wildly and public health programs,” but it’s another thing to say which programs, serving which people, ought to be eliminated.

I asked Garcia what his proposals were and he said he had no comment but would make some suggestions soon.

Frankly, this is horseshit. Half a billion dollars is a lot of money, and while I agree there’s waste at City Hall, there’s not anywhere near half a billion dollars worth of waste. If you don’t want to raise taxes, fine — tell us what you’ll cut instead. Or shut up.

Fallout from the union clash

-
0

› steve@sfbg.com

Fallout from the power struggle between Service Employees International Union and its Oakland-based local, United Healthcare Workers, has been felt particularly strongly in the Bay Area since SEIU took over UHW and ousted its leaders Jan. 27 (see "Union showdown," 1/28/09).

After SEIU replaced UHW head Sal Rosselli and more than 70 elected leaders of that union for defying SEIU demands, Rosselli and his team formally resigned from SEIU Jan. 29 and formed a new union, National Union of Healthcare Workers, hoping to draw thousands of current SEIU members disgruntled with the top-down management style of SEIU head Andy Stern.

It took a few days for SEIU to take physical control of UHW’s Oakland offices, where Oakland police officers were called Jan. 30 to mediate a final showdown between UHW loyalists and the new SEIU management team, which is under the direction of two SEIU executive vice presidents that Stern appointed as trustees: Eliseo Medina and David Regan (see "SEIU seizes last holdout: UHW’s Oakland headquarters," Guardian Politics blog).

"It’s not about the building, it’s about the members," Regan told the Guardian Jan. 30, later adding, "At the end of the day, the members of the union get to decide if they want to be in the union or not be in the union."

And after a weekend when Rosselli said SEIU was aggressively trying to close outstanding contracts with many employers, a move that would make it difficult for members to disaffiliate from SEIU and join NUHW, he filed petitions showing that many members do indeed want to leave SEIU.

"We don’t trust them with our contracts and we don’t trust them with our dues," Shayne Silba, a psychiatric technician with Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, told reporters during a Feb. 2 teleconference announcing that about 9,000 workers at 62 medical facilities have filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board asking to leave SEIU and join NUHW.

Rosselli said that more than 50 percent of workers at most of these facilities signed the petition, and he’s asking SEIU to honor the request and let them go.

The list of facilities includes some prominent Bay Area medical centers such as Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Alta Bates, and California Pacific Medical Center and other entities run by Sutter Health. Sutter has clashed with union members and community leaders over numerous issues, including the future of St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission District.

"The Sutter Healths of the world are colluding with SEIU just like they did before the trusteeship," Rosselli told reporters, echoing his persistent theme that SEIU is too cozy with employers and doesn’t negotiate good contracts.

SEIU spokesperson Michelle Ringuette disputed that characterization and the accusations that the union was trying to quickly sew up outstanding contracts with employers to forestall moves to NUHW. "There were an astonishing number of contracts left incomplete," she said. "It’s callous to leave contracts open for whatever purpose."

Regan said SEIU will challenge the NUHW petitions. "We are not going to let these discredited, deposed members weaken UHW," he said, adding that the petition drive "is incredibly cynical and reckless in this economic climate."

But the wheels are now set in motion for a protracted fight over who will lead UHW’s 150,000 members, as well as the question of whether Rosselli’s highly democratic management style might be attractive to members of other unions.

"We’re getting calls from other SEIU members from other locals about joining NUHW," Rosselli said, citing Alameda County Medical Center, whose employees are part of the San Francisco–based SEIU Local 1021, one of many locals that have been reformulated in recent years by Stern, who then appoints its leaders.

Rosselli plans to hold a founding convention for NUHW in March, when members would vote on bylaws and a constitution, and elect their leaders, while Regan said SEIU will work to win the confidence of its members: "We have to show people that we’re on their side and we care about the work we have to do together."

>>Read more union struggle coverage here.

Without a net

-
0

› news@sfbg.com

The Board of Supervisors heard more than four hours of public comment at its Jan. 27 meeting, as hundreds of labor representatives, public-health workers, homeless advocates, hospital staffers, and others crowded into the board chambers to sound off on the deep budget cuts that many charged would leave they city’s critical-services safety net in shreds.

The message was chilling.

On the ground, the budget cuts Mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing translate into staggering losses in services that segments of the city’s most disadvantaged populations rely on. Among those who will lose their jobs: some San Francisco General Hospital staffers who are trained to watch the cardiac monitors. "They are the first responders when someone goes into cardiac arrest," nurse Leslie Harrison told the board during public comment. "This is a life and death job — literally."

The Huckleberry House, which was established in 1967 and provides assistance to more than 7,000 homeless youth each year, may face closure.

Homeless shelters are already being forced to turn away two out of three clients seeking a bed due to lack of space, according to Coalition on Homelessness Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach.

Demand for hot meals from the St. James Infirmary, a clinic for uninsured sex workers, has tripled since the onset of the recession, Executive Director Naomi Akres told the Guardian. As a result of the cuts, the clinic will lose its ability to continue either the food program or an outreach program that aims to get people off the streets.

Other areas that face funding reductions, according to a tally of midyear reductions issued by the mayor’s office, include some programs that administer STD testing and HIV prevention services, the Adult Day Health programs at Laguna Honda Hospital, aid for foster care, and the Single Room Occupancy Collaborative (which assists low-income tenants living in dilapidated hotel rooms across the city). San Francisco’s Human Services Agency will lay off 67 staffers.

Of the $118 million in midyear cuts rolled out by the mayor’s office last December, some $46 million will be shed from health, human welfare, and neighborhood-development services.

The midyear reductions, which will begin to take effect Feb. 20, are aimed at addressing a steep drop-off in revenue for the 2008–09 fiscal year. Now, health and human services providers and others across the board are anxiously looking ahead to the next round of blows, which will be dealt to address a projected $576 million deficit for the 2009–10 fiscal year, which begins in July. That figure could be reduced to $461 million after budget cuts, according to Deputy Controller Monique Zmuda.

Newsom has known about the gravity of the current budget problem since late October, when City Controller Ben Rosenfield issued a memo projecting fiscal disaster. "Since the adoption of the budget in July, the City’s economic outlook has significantly worsened, particularly since the onset of the global financial market upheavals that began in September," the memo states. It goes on to predict a worst-case scenario of $125 million in tax-revenue shortfalls for the 2008–09 fiscal year.

Cuts in frontline services don’t have to be the only answer. Supervisor Chris Daly has introduced an alternative budget proposal, which includes reductions in funding for management positions, cuts in the city’s subsidy to the symphony, and a reduction in the size of the mayor’s press office in an effort to free up funds that could then be diverted back to critical services. "I don’t think any of the choices are good. There’s really only the lesser of the evil," Daly noted at the meeting.

The choices the city faces were described in clear terms. "I’m sorry to say it, but you have some tough decisions in front of you," Friedenbach told supervisors when it was her turn at the podium during public comment. "You have to choose between abused children, or the symphony. You have to choose whether you want to decimate the mental-health treatment system — or do you want to get rid of the newly hired managers since the hiring freeze? You have to decide whether you want to cut half of the substance-abuse treatment system — or do you want to create a new community justice center that will have nowhere to refer its defendants?" Rather than choose, however, supervisors voted 6–5 to send Daly’s alternative package back to the Budget and Finance Committee for further consideration. The swing vote was Board President David Chiu, who was elected president with the support of the progressive bloc.

Had Chiu voted for Daly’s alternative, it wouldn’t have mattered much — the mayor would almost certainly have vetoed it.

Eight supervisors — enough to override a veto — did demonstrate a willingness to move forward with a June special election. With Supervisors Sean Elsbernd, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Carmen Chu dissenting, the board voted to waive deadlines that would have prevented new tax measures from being placed on a June 2 ballot.

Several different tax ideas are under discussion. According to a list of preliminary estimates calculated by the Office of the Controller, slight increases over the current rates of taxes levied on business registration, payroll, sales, hotel-room stays, commercial utility users, parking, property transfers, and Access Line fees together could bring the city an estimated $121.6 million per year.

Other proposals include creating parcel taxes for both residential and industrial property, gross-receipts taxes on rental income for commercial and residential properties, a local vehicle license fee, and a residential utility users tax. If all of those proposed new taxes were voted into effect, the city would have the potential to raise an additional $112.9 million.

The problem: under state law, unless the mayor and supervisors unanimously declare an emergency, any tax increase would require a two-thirds vote to pass.

Supervisor John Avalos voiced strong support for the special election. "I think that the people of this city are still grappling with the meaning of the crisis that we’re in," Avalos told his colleagues.

Avalos amended out the possible new parcel tax, increased parking tax, and utility-users taxes, and instead proposed two new revenue measures that could be added to the ballot: a vehicle-impact fee, and "a possible new tax to discourage the consumption of energy that produces a large carbon footprint."

It won’t be easy to pass any of these proposals. Business interests are mobilizing against the very idea of a special election. In an e-mail newsletter distributed by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, a "call to action" urged supporters to contact Supervisors and voice opposition to the emergency election.

The language in the Chamber of Commerce message closely resembled that of Small Business California, which put out a message to the small-business community warning that higher taxes "would be the straw that breaks the already strained back of our local businesses, resulting in more layoffs and acceleration of our downward spiral."

Labor organizer Robert Haaland asked supervisors why they would be afraid of allowing voters to decide on the tax-revenue measures. A poll commissioned by his union, SEIU Local 1021, demonstrated that a significant portion of voters would rather raise revenues than allow vital services to disintegrate.

Even if new revenue is raised, Haaland told us, no one is under the illusion that there won’t be painful cuts. "Everyone’s going to feel some pain," he said. "It’s a question of how much pain."

American Apparel battle heads for Planning Commission

-
0

Early Saturday morning, Jan. 31, about 40 protesters stood on the sidewalk near the corner of Valencia and 21st streets — the site of a proposed American Apparel store — holding up signs that read, "Your Mission — Not Theirs." An endless stream of honks — even one from a cop car — echoed support for the anti–American Apparel cause. The next day, protesters met at Ritual Roasters for a letter-writing party and on Feb. 2, they rallied and wrote letters at an anti–A.A. event hosted at Amnesia. The movement to block the chain store is gaining momentum in advance of a Feb. 5 Planning Commission hearing.

The overwhelming majority of independent businesses in the neighborhood — including Ritual Roasters, Modern Times Bookstore, Borderlands Books, and Aquarius Records — have taken a stand against the chain, which boasts 200 outlets in 19 countries worldwide. There are three AA stores in San Francisco, including one on nearby Haight Street.

A.A. spokesperson Ryan Holiday says the sentiment is misplaced. "People think we’re a big-box retailer, but that’s not true," he told the Guardian.

The company has been pushing a different image: "We don’t like the mall-ification of America any more than you," reads a sign on the empty storefront. "But that has never been what American Apparel is about."

Many store opponents claim the campaign is not a crusade against American Apparel, a Los Angeles company that has a progressive record on labor and immigration issues. It’s about formula retail, which is already banned in several San Francisco commercial districts.

"I’m wearing American apparel underwear right now," said Kent Howie, a longtime staffer for Artists’ Television Access, which is housed in the storefront next to the proposed clothing outlet. "Our street just doesn’t want chain stores. It’s about survival."

Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the district where A.A. would be located, has not taken a public position. But several months back, he met with American Apparel representatives and suggested a number of ways to do outreach in the neighborhood.

"I have seen no such evidence," Dufty told us. "Major retailers often don’t make an active contribution to the neighborhood."

Holiday insists that it’s the community’s decision, although A.A. has signed a multiyear lease for the space. "We don’t need to dictate the conversation and we don’t need to trick the people into thinking they want an American Apparel."

>>View more of our American Apparel controversy coverage here.

Bad budget ideas

-
0

EDITORIAL There’s nothing easy about solving a half-billion-dollar budget shortfall, and most of the people involved in the grisly process of making the numbers add up at San Francisco City Hall know there will be blood on the floor. Labor unions representing city workers know there will be layoffs, salary concessions, or both. Community-based organizations handling critical front-line services know they’ll have to reduce staff and curtail their mission-driven operations. The supervisors know that a lot of good projects and great ideas won’t get funded this year.

The mayor, unfortunately, isn’t acting as if this were a crisis at all — he’s been out of town more than he’s been around the past few weeks. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and, sadly, some small business leaders, are refusing to accept the idea that taxes — some taxes, not enough to stave off deep cuts, but enough to prevent disaster — ought to be part of any budget package.

And along with the cuts — which, as Rebecca Bowe reports on page 11, will have far-reaching implications for San Franciscans — a number of really bad ideas have been floated, most of them quick fixes that would generate cash for now, but lead to serious problems later.

Among the worst ideas the mayor has put forward — in fact, it’s one of the worst budget ideas we’ve ever heard — is the notion of increasing the number of condominium conversion permits from 200 per year to 1,500 per year, and possibly allowing every property owner waiting for a conversion permit to get one, now, for a price.

It’s true that selling off condo conversion permits would bring in revenue. Raffling off building permits and planning code variances would bring in money, and so would selling development rights in city parks, and so would auctioning off appointments to boards and commissions. There are lots of stupid ways to generate cash, and the fact that a proposal would be lucrative is not by itself an argument in favor of it — even in times like these.

There’s a good reason the city limits condo conversions. Nearly every piece of property that becomes a condominium was once a rental unit, and the speculative pressure to take rent-controlled apartments and turn them into market-rate condos is immense. It’s bad enough that tenants — particularly those with relatively low rent — face eviction every day because of the state’s Ellis Act and the push by real-estate interests to create tenancies in common. Without conversion limits, the number of those evictions would soar; rent control would be eviscerated, the cost of housing would rise, and the economic cleansing of San Francisco would roll forward another few giant steps.

Newsom and his real-estate industry allies like to say that this sort of proposal is painless, since nobody has to pay higher taxes. Only people who want to convert their units, and are willing to pay a high fee for the right, would wind up paying. But that’s silly — the tenants of San Francisco would pay the cost — an immense cost — while the wealthier property owners made profits.

Selling off the taxi medallions (see "Don’t privatize the cab medallions, 1/21/09), another Newsom idea, fits in the same category. In the short term, it could bring millions into the city coffers. Long term, it would turn control of the taxi industry back to speculators and big companies, hurting the drivers and the public.

The mayor (and Sup. Sean Elsbernd) also like to talk about eliminating set-asides — those parts of the budget that voters have earmarked for particular purposes. But most of that money (the Children’s Fund, for example) goes to worthy programs: eliminating the "set-aside" protecting doesn’t save any money unless you cut those programs.

There are plenty of good budget ideas out there (see "Beyond the bloody cuts, 12/17/08). But the supervisors ought to make it clear that the bad ones are off the table.

PS: Where were all these anti-tax folks in the Chamber and the small business community, and supervisors like Elsbernd, when the city had a chance to bring in millions without any new taxes — by creating a public power system or raising utility franchise fees? They were siding with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. That’s part of the reason we’re in this fix.

Dick Meister: Bolsheviks? In Seattle?

-
0

Dick Meister is a distinguished labor reporter who has spent more than 50 years covering labor and issues of workers on their jobs. There are very few real labor reporters in the mainstream press these days, so I asked Meister to put his regular Guardian column in context. B3

Dick Meister explains his labor coverage:

There’s a vibrant labor movement in this country, a source of important information that is ­ or should be ­ of great interest to most people. Most people, after all, spend at least half their lives working and, in fact, define themselves by their jobs. Yet the labor movement that has so much to do with their working lives, be they union members or not, is largely ignored by the mainstream media.

I’ve spent most of my professional life covering the labor movement as a reporter and commentator, for the Chronicle, KQED-TV and other mainstream outlets as well as a wide variety of non-mainstream outlets, including the Bay Guardian. I’ve recently begun a series of columns for the Guardian that deal with labor issues that have received but slight attention, if any, in the mainstream media.

Among other matters, they covered the extraordinary qualifications of Hilda Solis, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of labor, the extraordinary anti-labor acts of Bush’s secretary, Elaine Chao, and the legendary career of Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary, Frances Perkins.

The columns also concerned labor’s forceful anti-war demonstrations last May Day, labor’s major role in Obama’s election and its eight-year struggle with Bush, the most virulently anti-labor president in history. As another column noted, Bush was particularly harsh on the long-suffering air traffic controllers who Obama promised to help.

Other columns detailed the blatant job discrimination suffered by gay workers in Harvey Milk’s time ­ and now, the significant but ignored 40th anniversary of the faculty strike that was waged at San Francisco State at the same time as the widely celebrated student strike, and the 84-hour workweeks and 30-hour workdays that hospitals impose on young doctors-in-training.

My current column deals with a subject most mainstream outlets probably will also ignore, or at best treat very lightly. The column deals with one of the most important events in U.S. labor history, the Seattle general strike that began 90 years ago this month.

BOLSHEVIKS IN SEATTLE?

A bit of labor history the mainstream media will likely ignore: the general strike in Seattle 90 years ago this month

By Dick Meister

It’s the 90th anniversary this month of the general strike that brought the city of Seattle to a virtual standstill — one of the very few general strikes in U.S. history and certainly one of the most dramatic and disruptive.

Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson described it this way: “Street car gongs ceased their clamor. Newsboys cast their unsold papers into the streets. From the doors of mill and factory, store and workshop, streamed 65,000 working men. School children with fear in their hearts hurried homeward. The life stream of a great city stopped.”

Eco-Boutique of the Week: Wildlife Works gets it all the way

-
0

SFBG’s Juliette Tang peeps the best eco-friendly products and boutiques.

It seems that the biggest trend in fashion these days isn’t the ankle boot, the harem pant, or the high-waisted jean, but the color green. Everything is being dyed green lately, no? And by green I don’t mean the color of that pretty John Galliano dress. I mean green as in producing goods in a socially conscious manner, inflicting as little harm as possible on the environment, and considering the sustainability of the planet as a meaningful paradigm in the relationship between labor, assembly, and production. Green as in the type of clothing one might find in boutiques like Wildlife Works, a green fashion label headquartered in San Francisco whose mission is to save endangered wildlife in Kenya.

Unlike much of the clothing on the market that is labeled ‘green,’ the products at Wildlife Works are actually green. Sadly, ‘green’ is often a misnomer used to mislead consumers. It seems everyday we’re hearing news of fraudulent eco-friendly products that aren’t nearly as green as they claim to be. Says Mike Korchinsky, founder and CEO of Wildlife Works, “Is everything that claims to be eco-friendly really eco-friendly? No, absolutely not. The marketing world has caught onto the green buzz and has been making a lot of hay out of the green movement.” From poor quality goods to deceitful advertising, spurious greenwashing is everywhere.

American Apparel battle heats up

-
15

editors note: updated information at the end

By Andrea de Brito

When local author Stephen Elliot saw a sign reading “American Apparel: Coming Soon” in a vacant storefront window near 21st and Valencia two weeks ago, he told himself: “What? No way!”

Within 24 hours, he had whipped up a Stop American Apparel website and spent $750 – money that he didn’t really have — to print thousands of posters reading “Your Mission—Not Theirs” (though that side of Valencia Street technically belongs to the Castro).

You can see the simply designed posters in many storefront windows along Valencia Street, where the overwhelming majority of independent businesses—including Ritual Roasters, Modern Times Bookstore, Dog-Eared Books, Aquarius Records, and Borderlands Books— have taken a strong stand against the mega-chain, which boasts 200 outlets in 19 countries worldwide and is known for its ads featuring skinny teenage girls in skimpy cotton rags.

The issue has generated considerable discussion on the neighborhood blog MissionMission and in our past coverage.

“I do not want to live in a shopping mall,” said Elliot, claiming residents he’s interviewed were largely unaware of the imminent prospect of the chain’s grand opening. Though the company’s progressive position on fair labor practices and immigrant rights may blur the lines between good and evil, most opponents claim the campaign is not a crusade against American Apparel. It’s a crusade against formula retail, already completely banned in several affluent commercial districts of San Francisco.

Budget woes show new political calculus

-
1

By Rebecca Bowe

About 150 labor representatives and health-service providers turned out at last night’s Board of Supervisors meeting to sound off on drastic budget cuts that many said would weaken an already-strained safety net for populations who are most in need. For more than four hours, representatives from homeless-advocacy groups; clinics serving the uninsured, sex workers or other disenfranchised populations; youth organizations that strive to keep kids off the street; labor-union representatives; stressed-out hospital staffers and many others gave the board an earful. The overwhelming majority urged the Board of Supervisors to approve a special election for June 2, which would give voters an opportunity to decide whether to establish new taxes as a way of generating revenue, rather than relying solely on deep cuts to solve the city’s budget woes.

The city is facing a budgetary crisis of unprecedented scale, with a daunting $576 million deficit. When Mayor Gavin Newsom appeared before the supervisors last December to ask for their cooperation in tackling the budget shortfall, he described it as arguably the most daunting crisis the city has seen since the Great Depression. (Newsom was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland yesterday.)

While the members of the board put off the decision as to whether or not to actually hold a special election, they did pass a measure allowing for the option to stay open. With Supervisors Alioto-Pier, Chu and Elsbernd voting no, the board approved an emergency measure to waive regular election procedures that would have prevented the tax measure from being placed on a June 2 ballot.

Nor did the board vote on an amended budget package, which was introduced by Supervisor Chris Daly to counter Mayor Gavin Newsom’s mid-year budget cuts. Daly’s list of alternative cuts targeted management-level positions, mayoral communications staff and funding for the opera, ballet and symphony in an effort to free up funds that could then be diverted to sectors such as public health.

Instead of adopting Daly’s amended list of cuts, supervisors voted 6-5 on a motion — called by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd — to send the whole thing back to the Budget & Finance Committee for a closer look. “All of this needs to be analyzed,” Elsbernd said after questioning a few management-level cuts included in the list. “To push this forward today without total understanding of the impact of each and every one of these — and these are just the ones I’ve caught while sitting here! — God knows what else is in there. I’m just saying, let’s have this fully vetted.” Supervisors Alioto-Pier, Chiu, Chu, Dufty, Elsburnd and Maxwell supported the motion.

That left an interesting and somewhat mixed message about the politics of the new board. Supervisors Dufty and Maxwell, who will be the swing votes on anything that requires a supermajority (to override a mayoral veto) stayed with the progressives on the vote for a June election. But Chiu – elected board president entirely with progressive support – sided with the mayor’s allies and the moderates on the budget re-allocation vote.

We’ll have to see how this new calculus plays out in the next few weeks.

Union showdown

-
0

› steve@sfbg.com

The Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers is bracing for an imminent takeover by its parent, Service Employees International Union, after defying an SEIU ultimatum to support the transfer of 65,000 UHW nursing home and homecare workers to a new local — without a member vote and with leadership appointed by SEIU.

The power struggle between SEIU President Andy Stern and UHW head Sal Rosselli and their respective boards, which has been escautf8g for the last year (see "A less perfect union," 4/9/08), came to a head Jan. 22 when SEIU’s International Executive Board approved findings of fiscal shenanigans and insubordination by UHW leaders and threatened to oust them and institute a trusteeship if six conditions were not met within five days.

To determine its response over the weekend, UHW organized meetings with about 5,000 of its members in San Francisco and four other cities, announcing the response during a raucous press conference at the Oakland headquarters the morning of Jan. 26, a day before the SEIU deadline.

"You ready everybody?" began Rosselli, flanked by a rainbow of 30 members and signs like "Hands off our UHW" and "Don’t Silence our Voices." The energized crowd of about 100 supporters answered with an enthusiastic, "Yeah!"

At that 11 a.m. rally, and in a teleconference an hour later with reporters from across the country, including from the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, Rosselli began by describing the UHW (which began with San Francisco General Hospital workers about 75 years ago) as perhaps the most effective, democratic, politicized, and oldest health care union in the country.

"We have an ideology that there’s no limit to empowering workers," Rosselli told reporters, announcing that UHW has unanimously approved a response letter to Stern that he characterized as "a compromise to avoid a civil war and get to the path of reconciliation."

But SEIU spokesperson Michelle Ringuette, while noting that her union’s leadership had not yet decided how to respond by Guardian press time, said the findings and conditions by special hearing officer Ray Marshall (who was the labor secretary under President Jimmy Carter) "was not a negotiation."

Marshall’s 105-page report concluded that "Leaders of the UHW did engage in financial malpractice and undermined democratic procedures when they transferred UHW funds to a nonprofit organization to be used in contests with the International Union." It set out conditions to avoid trusteeship that included supporting the transfer of long-term care workers, greater fiscal oversight by SEIU, purging the UHW database of names pilfered from SEIU, and publicizing the Marshall report to its members.

"Given that Sal Rosselli and his leadership team were just found guilty by Secretary Marshall of financial wrongdoing and trying to subvert the democratic processes of this union, there’s nothing surprising about this letter," Ringuette told the Guardian.

Yet an insistence on democratic processes was at the heart of the UHW stance against SEIU, which UHW leaders accuse of sacrificing the autonomy of locals in its drive for more national power, appointing leadership based on loyalty to Stern, colluding with large corporate employers, and turning a blind eye to corruption by Stern loyalists that was far more serious than any accusations against UHW.

UHW agreed to some of SEIU’s conditions, but insisted that its members be allowed to vote on the merger and elect their own leaders, and that SEIU work with UHW to craft a union that best represents member interests. In addition, it called for a mediated reconciliation process with SEIU that could culminate in a vote to create a single union representing all health care workers in California.

UHW members are fiercely loyal to that organization. To illustrate UHW’s effectiveness, Rosselli noted that SEIU locals representing nursing home workers recently negotiated contracts with wages $4 per hour less than UHW contracts and without UHW’s strong patient advocacy provisions. He also said that while UHW represents about 20 percent of statewide SEIU workers, the union filled 55 percent of the volunteer shifts in state and local elections.

"We’re a very democratic organization, and that’s what we believe is the key to our success," Rosselli said. "Workers want a strong voice in dealing with their employers, not just another boss in Washington, D.C."

All sides of the conflict express a desire to move forward. As Marshall wrote, "The UHW-SEIU conflict is hurting both organizations at a critical time in the development of the labor movement and progressive policies in the country." But it could be that the two sides have staked out intractable positions.

Rosselli was realistic about whether SEIU will accept the UHW counteroffer, telling reporters, "I don’t think it’s likely, but we hope that they will."

And what if they don’t?

Rosselli was careful to avoid threatening to lead an effort to disaffiliate UHW from SEIU if the trusteeship happens, noting that such advocacy is against SEIU rules and refusing to answer questions from reporters pushing the issue. But he made that possibility clear with statements such as "Our members have instructed us to resist this undemocratic transfer."

As to how UHW leaders will respond if and when SEIU takes over UHW and ousts them, Rosselli read from a prepared statement that said, "We would convene a meeting of our currently elected leaders and decide what to do next."

During the Oakland rally, Rosselli went a little further, reminding UHW members that they always retain the right to form a new union. The crowd applauded for 40 seconds and chanted, "Can we? Yes we can! Will we? Yes we will!"

As the conference concluded and attendees trickled away, homecare worker Tena Robinson grabbed a Guardian reporter and said she had a message to convey: "Andy Stern, we will never surrender!"

As she said it, Rosselli came over to hug her, as if embracing a family member. And then she told Rosselli that if he goes, "I’m going with you!"

Joe Sciarrillo contributed to this report.

Mom and pop lose their voice

-
0

› rebeccab@sfbg.com

Bank of America and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. are quite the opposite of mom-and-pop operations, yet two of the seven members appointed to San Francisco’s Small Business Commission hail from these corporations, much to the chagrin of true small business leaders.

In a heated e-mail fired off to an assortment of City Hall staffers Jan. 13, Small Business Commissioner Michael O’Connor criticized the Mayor’s Office for diluting the commission — which was set up to go to bat for the little guy — with big business appointees.

Meanwhile, funding for the Small Business Assistance Center was almost eliminated last month by the Board of Supervisors. And a report that was supposed to streamline the unwieldy permitting process for small businesses, which the administration was required to complete under the 2007 measure Proposition I, never materialized.

At a time when small businesses are struggling in the face of a dour economic landscape, strong advocacy on their behalf is needed now more than ever. But even as former Small Business Commissioner David Chiu ascends to the presidency of the Board of Supervisors, small business leaders are decrying their lack of support in City Hall.

The Small Business Commission is a seven-member body composed of three members appointed by the Board of Supervisors and four appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom. Set up to serve as an advocate for the small business community, the commission was also chartered to oversee the Office of Small Business, a branch of the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

Last May, the office opened its Small Business Assistance Center, created to lend startups a helping hand with navigating the bureaucratic maze of permits, fees, licenses, and other hoops to be jumped through to legitimately set up shop in the city.

Regina Dick-Endrezzi, acting director of the Office of Small Business and one of four people staffing the center, says there’s a real need for the service. She said that about 99 percent of all San Francisco businesses fall into the category of "small," which she defines as having fewer than 100 employees, making it one of the most important sectors of the city’s economy.

Since the center opened, more than 1,300 small business clients have received assistance there, according to Dick-Endrezzi. Many lack the resources and capital that larger enterprises might have at their disposal, so SBAC case managers act as counselors for people who are trying to get a new business off the ground.

Entrepreneurs have sought help with things like obtaining a permit to open a vegan taco truck, acquiring a license to start a cleaning business, or filing for tax credits for an organic baby food business, to name a few examples. "This is something we really need," Dick-Endrezzi told the Guardian, "and this is something politics shouldn’t get in the way of."

Nonetheless, the center and the commission haven’t been spared from controversy. In December, the Board of Supervisors considered slashing SBAC funding. The $800,000 annual budget was ultimately granted, but it weathered midyear budget cuts of around 10 percent.

Now a new issue of contention has emerged: O’Connor has sounded the alarm that the SBC is becoming weakened by mayoral appointees who represent the large corporate interests that are often quite different from those of small businesses.

The conflict went public at the Jan. 12 SBC meeting when it came time to elect a new vice president. Richard Ventura, who heads a consulting firm and serves as executive director of the downtown-based Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, had just won commissioners’ approval to serve as president. Before a second round of votes were cast, O’Connor — who served as president for two years but declined to try for the post again — voiced his fervent opinion that "an actual small business owner" should be chosen for the other leadership slot.

"I think we need the balance of a small business owner in either the presidency or the vice-presidency position," said O’Connor, who owns the Independent music venue in the Western Addition. "If we have a president and a vice president that both come from downtown, and if three out of the four mayoral appointees on this commission are from downtown, I will be incredibly embarrassed to be on this commission. And I’m sorry, this is nothing personal — I like everybody on this commission — but small business is in a fight for its life, in this building and in City Hall."

Despite his plea, Commissioner Irene Yee Riley — a retired Bank of America executive — was elected. Although not a small business owner, Yee Riley told commissioners that she was qualified to serve as vice president thanks to her "many years of experience working with small business owners as a banker."

"I’m retired, and I have time, so I want to use this opportunity to give back to the community," she added.

Yee Riley won after receiving one vote more than Commissioner Janet Clyde, a bartender and general managing partner of Vesuvio Cafe in North Beach. "I live in the Mission District in a solid working-class neighborhood that is rapidly changing," Clyde told the other commission members during her pitch. "I know the challenges of small businesses operating far from the power and economic center of San Francisco, and I intend to work to recommend their interests … even in this difficult budgetary time."

The following morning, a dismayed O’Connor vented his frustration in an e-mail to mayoral staffers, typing "Small Business Commission … or … Big Business Commission" into the subject line. Installing commissioners with ties to large corporations rather than direct small business experience constitutes "a neutralization of the only real voice small businesses have in San Francisco," he charged.

The most recent mayoral appointee to the SBC was Darlene Chiu (no relation to David Chiu), a spokesperson for PG&E who formerly served as deputy director of communications for the Mayor’s Office. When the Guardian queried the Mayor’s Office last March on what qualifications a PG&E spokesperson brought to the Small Business Commission, Press Secretary Nathan Ballard responded with this statement: "Darlene has first hand knowledge of the challenges facing small businesses in San Francisco. She grew up working in her family’s … retail businesses in Chinatown, managing nine to l5 employees. She will also bring her knowledge of city government and communications to the commission, which will be important to the successful operations and promotion of the assistance center." (See "Newsom to small business: drop dead!" March 18, 2008 Bruce Blog.)

But since her appointment last March, public records show that Chiu has missed four of the monthly meetings. Excessive absenteeism at city commission meetings briefly emerged as an issue in September 2006, prompting Newsom to introduce a new standard with a working goal of 100 percent attendance for commissioners.

Meanwhile, not everyone agrees with O’Connor’s assertion that "San Francisco’s Office of Economic Development seems to believe small business is just an annoying little rock in its shoe."

"The Office of Economic Development is incredibly committed to keeping this commission strong," counters Jennifer Matz, managing deputy director of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, who played a role in starting the Small Business Assistance Center. "Michael is very disappointed about what happened, but I don’t think it reflects a lack of commitment to small business on the part of the city or the Mayor’s Office."

Matz said the challenge to the SBAC came from the Board of Supervisors — not the Mayor’s Office — when they considered revoking the center’s funding. She also contends that the Small Business Commission’s voting record doesn’t demonstrate a downtown vs. small business split.

From January 2008 to this January, commissioners voted unanimously 34 out of 38 times, the record shows. But it’s on the divisive issues where small and big businesses differ that can have the most impact.

Sup. Chiu served on the Small Business Commission before being elected to the Board of Supervisors. He said commission members usually saw eye-to-eye on most items that came before the commission regardless of whether they were board or mayoral appointees. But for him, the frustration was that "it didn’t feel that either the mayor or the Board of Supervisors were focused on small business."

In his new capacity as board president, he said measures that aid small businesses will be moving up on the list of priorities. For example, he has asked for a hearing on why the report on streamlining small business regulations, which Prop. I required the Office of Small Business to complete by 2007, was never done.

Although doubts about the commitment to small business seemed to be cast on all sides, everyone we spoke with seemed to agree on one point: in these stormy economic times, San Francisco’s small businesses need all the help they can get.

Two reports released in December by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Automatic Data Processing (ADP) provide some insight into the challenges facing small businesses nationally. BLS reported that 524,000 jobs were lost during December, bringing the 2008 total to 2.6 million lost jobs — the highest since 1993.

The ADP report showed that 281,000 jobs had been shed from companies with fewer than 50 employees. This signifies a drastic increase in job losses from this sector: between October and November, small businesses cut just 79,000 employees, according to ADP, and between September and October, they let go of 25,000 employees.

"That was the first time since 2002 that small businesses had net job losses," says Scott Hauge, president of Small Business California. What’s frightening, he says, is that the small business sector traditionally acts as an economic stabilizer.

During the battles it the mid-1980s over accelerating downtown office building construction, the Guardian commissioned a study from noted MIT economist David Birch that found that small business accounted for most net job creation in San Francisco, and that catering to corporate demands downtown actually cost the city jobs.

Yet now, with the small business community sometimes serving as a political football tossed between downtown and City Hall, the city’s economic base is in trouble and hoping for help from political leaders who are now contemputf8g deep budget cuts.

————

Here’s a list of all the small business commissioners:

Commissioner Darlene Chiu
Occupation: Communications, PG&E
Appointed by: mayor

Commissioner Janet Clyde
Occupation: General managing partner / bartender, Vesuvio Cafe
Appointed by: Board of Supervisors

Commissioner Kathleen Dooley
Occupation: Florist / owner, Columbine Design
Appointed by: Board of Supervisors

Commissioner Gus Murad
Occupation: Owner, Medjool (restaurant) and Elements (hotel)
Appointed by: mayor

Commissioner Michael O’Connor
Occupation: Co-owner, The Independent (music venue)
Appointed by: Board of Supervisors

Commissioner Irene Yee Riley
Occupation: Retired senior vice president and market executive, Bank of America
Appointed by: mayor

Commissioner Richard Ventura
Occumpation: Executive director, San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Appointed by: mayor

————-

Previous Guardian coverage:

>>Volume 20.02 (PDF) An exclusive Bay Guardian study in 1985 challenges the convention wisdom that downtown development creates jobs. Instead, our study by an MIT economist shows that small business have created virtually all the new jobs in San Francisco since l980.

>>Volume 21.02 (PDF) Our updated study in l986 shows that as highrises have gone up, downtown San Francisco has lost jobs. In fact, all the net new jobs in the city have come from new and small businesses in light industrial areas and the neighborhoods

>>October 1, 2003 (PDF) The Guardian’s small business agenda for San Francisco

So what are Newsom’s budget plans?

-
0

EDITORIAL In Washington, Rep. Nancy Pelosi — who has never been known as a radical leftist — is proposing that Congress repeal the Bush tax cuts, now, two years before they expire. That would bring $226 billion into the federal till, enough to fund a good part of the stimulus package.

In Sacramento, Democrats are moving toward a special election this spring to allow the voters to approve a tax increase — a move that would prevent disastrous service cuts in this horrible economic climate. Even the Republicans in the state Legislature — about as intransigent a group of people as you’re going to find in public service in America — are actually discussing the possibility that they might accept a tax increase as part of a budget deal.

Political writer David Sirota, blogging on Open Left, argues that a tectonic shift is taking place, that budget fights are "tilting the terms of debate away from Reaganism and toward progressive policy goals."

But not in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom refuses to support any sort of new revenue measures this spring. In fact, while the supervisors, labor, and others are working to try to figure out a solution to the budget crisis, Newsom has been out of town, campaigning for governor or galavanting off to Paris and Davos.

We can’t quite figure out what the mayor plans to do about a budget deficit that could reach $500 million. So far we know he thinks the city can get some money by privatizing cab medallions (a dumb idea). We also hear he’s talking about vastly increasing the number of condo conversion permits (an even worse idea that will lead to massive evictions and the end of rent control). Beyond that, he hasn’t offered anything.

We recognize the problems with a spring special election. Passing a tax measure would require a two-thirds majority, a tough threshold under the best of circumstances. The state may call its own special election in May, preempting the city’s chances. The deadlines are tight, and city officials would need to move very quickly to come up with a workable plan in time.

But there are also serious problems with abandoning the idea, or even waiting until November. We’re talking cataclysmic budget cuts here — maybe as many as 1,500 layoffs, massive cutbacks in public health, parks and recreation centers closed, fire stations shut down, police cut back, Muni backsliding into dysfunction, programs for the homeless and needy vanishing as more and more desperate people fill the streets … it won’t be pretty.

We’ve consistently argued that a June special election to raise new tax money is a reasonable option, and the supervisors need to keep it on the table. That means voting on several technical issues Jan. 27 and then moving at full speed to draft the ballot proposals. If circumstances change, the city can always back off and cancel the election.

But the mayor needs to come back to town and start getting engaged with this problem. Before he simply dismisses the June election, he needs to tell us his plan. What alternatives is he offering? What is he proposing to cut? What jobs, what services, will be eliminated?

The same goes for downtown, small business leaders, and the supervisors who oppose tax increases. Tell us — now, in public — what you propose to do about this once-in-a-lifetime crisis. The progressives are at least putting forward plans, imperfect as they may be. Anyone who refuses to support those plans should be required to offer something else.

Protesting budget cuts at City Hall

-
0

By Steven T. Jones

San Francisco City Hall is packed with people waiting to testify about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s midyear budget cuts and the need for a special election in June for new revenue measures. The Board of Supervisors chamber is filled to capacity, with another few hundred people filling the overflow room in the North Light Court.
Usually, public testimony is taken at the committee level rather than at the full board, but Sup. Chris Daly, who gathered the mayor’s unilateral cuts into his own legislative package, opted to skip the committee and convene the full board as a Committee of the Whole to give the cuts a full public airing.
Labor leaders and community-based groups took the opportunity to turn out their supporters in the hundreds, many wearing the purple shirts of the public employee union SEIU Local 1021, with slogans that include, “Got Public Health?”
Testimony should last for hours. The supervisors should earn their pay today while Newsom does Paris. On the special election proposal, they’ll need eight votes today to move it forward to next week, when the board will discuss what specific measures to place on the ballot.

Editorials: So what are Newsom’s budget plans?

-
0

While the supervisors, labor, and citizens have been working on the unprecedented budget crisis, Newsom has been out of town campaigning for governor or gallivanting off to Paris and Davos, Switzerland. What’s his plan to handle the budget deficit?

This week’s editorial. Scroll down to read Editor’s notes.

EDITORIAL In Washington, Rep. Nancy Pelosi – who has never been known as a radical leftist – is proposing that Congress repeal the Bush tax cuts, now, two years before they expire. That would bring $226 billion into the federal till, enough to fund a good part of the stimulus package.

In Sacramento, Democrats are moving toward a special election this spring to allow the voters to approve a tax increase – a move that would prevent disastrous service cuts in this horrible economic climate. Even the Republicans in the state Legislature – about as intransigent a group of people as you’re going to find in public service in America – are actually discussing the possibility that they might accept a tax increase as part of a budget deal.

Meister: Labor to Bush: Good Riddance!

-
0

Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com.

Labor to Bush: Good Riddance!

By Dick Meister

With the departure of George Bush from the White House, working people and their unions have finally ended one of their toughest fights ever ­ an eight-year struggle with the most virulently anti-labor president in American history.

Of all those bidding Bush good riddance, none have more reason than organized labor and the workers it champions. The record of Bush’s antipathy to them is truly staggering.

Consider, for starters, Bush’s appointment of a notoriously anti-union secretary of labor , Elaine Chao, and an anti-union majority to control the National Labor Relations Board.

The Bush appointees have played a major role in stripping union and civil service rights from more than a million federal employees, cutting back raises that had been due them and most others on the government payroll, and shifting thousands of unionized federal jobs to private non-union contractors.

They’ve increased the staff and budgets for investigating and auditing unions, while decreasing those for enforcing employer violations of labor standards, including those covering child labor and pay discrimination and violence against women.

Ask not what SF can do for you …

-
0

› molly@sfbg.com

It’s been a depressing decade for progressives. In fact, it seems our inability to fight the Bush administration and its misadventures in Iraq and elsewhere left us with the symptoms of a kind of collective Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: disillusioned, disappointed, and tired. That is, until Barack Obama’s election woke us up with a little thing called Hope™.

Now that we have all this energy, though, where should we direct it? How, on an individual level, can we support the Obama administration in making real change? Michelle Obama started to answer this question when she announced the Call to Service, asking Americans to devote time to neighborhood organizations and causes on Jan. 19 and beyond, via www.usaservice.org.

We’d like to add to the discussion by highlighting some local groups, causes, and nonprofits who could use year-round help.

ADVOCACY

Perhaps the best way to use your renewed political energy is putting it toward a cause you care about. For example, if you’re worried about how this year’s massive budget deficit might devastate healthcare in San Francisco, you might want to get involved with Coalition to Save Public Health (415-848-3611 ext. 3628, home.comcast.net/~mylon01/publichealth). Also check out nonprofits and grassroots groups working towards marriage equality, energy reform, or whatever pet issue you’re passionate about.

CITY GOVERNMENT

An even more direct way to be involved in local government is to volunteer inside City Hall, particularly with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (1 Carlton B. Goodlett, SF. 415-554-5184, www.sfgov.org). Every supervisor has two aides, who in turn rely on donated labor to maintain the busy officials’ schedules and duties. To get involved, visit the Web site and fill out an application specifying your skills, availability, and preferred supervisors. Keep in mind four current supervisors once worked as staff or interns in these same offices, so this is a great way to get into politics while helping our government run more efficiently. It’s win-win.

BIKES


Though SF might seem like a bicycle-friendly city, we’ve still got a lot of work to do, from promoting the bike as primary transportation to representing bicycle interests in local government and city planning. If you’re a fellow velo-fanatic, give your time to the Bicycle Coalition (995 Market, SF. 415-431-BIKE, www.sfbike.org). Check the Web site to volunteer in the office, at Volunteer Nights, with bike valet parking, or with outreach.

PARKS

It’s easy to forget how important beautiful, open spaces are to a community until you don’t have them. But just imagine how different the Mission would be without Dolores Park, or the Lower Haight without Duboce. Support the maintenance, beautification, and continued improvement of these and other green spaces by volunteering with the Neighborhood Parks Council (451 Hayes, F. 415-621-3260, www.sfnpc.org). The Council welcomes everything from one-time feedback or participation in a scheduled work day to longer-term internships for youth 16-23 years old, and everything in between.

… AND MORE

One of our favorite recent-ish developments on the Interwebs is the proliferation of Web sites connecting philanthropic types to specific causes — especially two SF-based organizations who work specifically with volunteers. Check out Chinatown-based Volunteermatch.org for a list of specific opportunities and a chance to upload your volunteer résumé — great for medium- to long-term volunteering — or former Best of the Bay winner One Brick (www.onebrick.org), which hosts an event calendar of upcoming volunteer events — great for one-time, short-term, and short-notice involvement.

Most important, we’d like to point out that community service, though incredibly important, is only one way to address our society’s ills. "It can be a Band-Aid approach to systemic problems," said Sup. Chris Daly. What we really need, he said, is "to demand more from elected leaders, for people to put themselves forward and take control of political institutions. There’s no greater service than keeping elected leaders accountable to the people they serve."

True dat.

Profiles of change

-
0

› amanda@sfbg.com
Photos by Pat Mazzera

"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," President Barack Obama told US citizens on his Inauguration Day. "For everywhere we look, there is work to be done."

He’s not just cheering himself on — he’s asking his constituents to embrace what’s to come and to consider what more we can be as the individual moving parts of this incredibly complex country.

Even as far back as the Democratic National Convention, Obama turned his campaign slogan into a call to action. "All across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is this isn’t about me — it’s about you."

That rang in the ears of people profiled below, who changed their lives in response to his call. That inspired other changes, suggesting that the effort to elect Obama is having a spillover effect on organizing at other levels — which may become a part of how US citizens respond to his actions in office.

Expectations are high for the changes he will order and already there’s indications of what’s to come, such as the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, the end of the military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy on homosexuality, and a commitment to action on climate change.

Many are eager to see more fundamental change in areas such as war, jobs, housing, energy, and transportation — areas we explore in this issue — as well as greater engagement between the White House and the grassroots groups that helped elect Obama.

In the profiles and stories that follow, the Guardian asks questions about what and who will change and how to move past a pithy slogan to trigger the transformation this country desperately needs.

————

179-maria.web.jpg

MARIA GOMES

Maria Gomes was committed to Obama from the beginning. "I signed up right after he announced," said this Menlo Park resident, who joined Silicon Valley for Obama and volunteered on the campaign.

Her first big assignment was in Iowa, where she spent 10 days campaigning before the caucus along with her husband and two teenage children. For Gomes, Obama’s Iowa win was a particularly powerful and pivotal moment. "I just realized the power of the volunteers and how awesome it was," she said. "It was clear to me after Iowa that he was going to win, so I just dove in."

Gomes, a 60-year-old lawyer, took an eight-month unpaid leave from her work as an immigration and dependency attorney for San Mateo County to devote herself fulltime to Obama’s campaign. It was the first time she devoted her life to get a politician elected.

"In fact, I [had] steered away from politics because I don’t really like politics," she said. "This was different. I really strongly felt the people carried this campaign. I canvassed with CEOs, doctors, young people … nobody took a back seat in this campaign. We did not take it lightly."

She and her husband served as precinct captains in California. After the primary, she coordinated volunteers and voter registration efforts for the general election. Gomes traveled to seven states in the months leading up to Nov. 4, spending Election Day working on voter protection in Las Vegas.

"I felt that the only way he was going to get elected was if people got in there. It wasn’t just going to happen," said Gomes, an immigrant from Cabo Verde, off the western coast of Africa.

And it’s not over for Gomes. Her whole family went to Washington DC for the inauguration, where she answered Michelle Obama’s call to volunteer on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Gomes has also signed up to work on Kamala Harris’ run for attorney general and she’s still active with her fellow workers at Silicon Valley for Obama.

"About a week after the election I went to a meeting for our field office. Five hundred people were there. We brainstormed how to stay involved in his campaign," she said. They ranked issues they’d like to see addressed by Obama and organized themselves into teams to work on messaging them to the new administration. "We received a survey from the national team…. The [Silicon Valley] team took the national survey and made it local, community by community. That’s the kind of movement that’s happening now. I’m sure it’s going on everywhere because the campaign wanted every state and every county involved." Her husband is now on the tech team and she’s doing fundraising work for the inauguration.

"It’s not over. Nothing has stopped," she said, adding that she believed this kind of organizing would be very present in the administration. "It’s going to be governed by the people. I plan to be involved for the next four years at whatever level I can. I still write e-mails to whoever I think can change something. I hope it will be transparent enough that we can still communicate to people higher up in the administration — all the way to Barack and Michelle Obama."

———-

179-aaron.web.jpg

AARON KNAPP

Aaron Knapp graduated from law school in 2002 and spent the subsequent six years working for big corporate law firms. By 2008, he began to feel that all of the major decisions in his life had been made based on money and materialism, an certain emptiness that changed suddenly at summer’s end.

"Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was a real turning point for me," he recalled. "The change that I needed in my life was to join in this campaign that transcended the individuals."

He said he did what he always wanted to do: "I quit a job I don’t enjoy." Knapp went to work instead on the Obama campaign, spending about four months in Nevada. Putting Obama in office became too important to not give it his all: "I just wanted to make sure on November 4, I could say to myself I did everything I could."

On election night, with the feeling of victory rushing through him, there was also a kind of malaise, a feeling of "now what?"

"Our roles in the campaign were predetermined — there are a finite amount of things you do in a campaign. Make phone calls, gather data, knock on doors…. After the election, after we won…. What do we do now? Those predetermined roles are no longer set up for us," he said.

Knapp said it required some soul searching to find the next important thing to do: "The task is to get real specific."

He’s now writing a book and working to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed by Congress. The act would amend existing labor laws to make it easier for workers to create unions that are recognized by employers. In 2007, it passed in the House and failed in the Senate, but it was part of Obama’s platform during the primary season, and one of the reasons he garnered support from organized labor.

But, said Knapp, "It’s one of those things that’s being put on the back burner as we transition in this administration…. While Obama was championing this cause during the campaign, there’s no sign of it now."

The waning of enthusiasm for it is indicative of how Obama’s administration may start to handle some of those crucial campaign promises that drew so many people into his fold. That piqued Knapp’s interest and reminded him of the goals of his grandfather, an auto worker for Chevrolet during the 1940s, who passed away during Knapp’s first year of law school: "My grandfather always would plead with me to do whatever I could to get the labor laws back in order. So that’s an issue that’s really important to me."

Knapp also said that it’s important to keep the grassroots Obama movement alive by continuing to push crucial legislation that was part of his platform for change.

"It goes right to the controversial pieces of law and policy that he’s addressing," Knapp said. "If he’s able to keep this mobilization together, that will help him significantly in getting policies through."

———–

179-pauli.web.jpg

PAULI OJEA

Pauli Ojea, who’s about to turn 30 years old, says that she’s spent her entire adult life "voting for the loser" and advocating for change that’s been slow to happen.

A New Jersey native, Ojea came to California to work for the San Francisco Conservation Corps on environmental education programs. That lead to a position with Breast Cancer Action as a community organizer, where she found that hopeful efforts were often frustrated by political pitfalls.

Then, Ojea attended a 2004 event where she heard Van Jones speak about how a new green wave was coming and it needed to lift all boats. When a position opened with Jones’ new organization, Green for All, she applied to be a policy analyst for the Oakland-based green-jobs advocacy group.

In between the two jobs, she spent a week campaigning for Obama with her mother, a Spanish immigrant who groused that if he lost, she’d be spending more time back in Spain.

Ojea now works on federal green-jobs policy and climate change equity, and has already been deeply affected by the Obama election. "For most of my career in advocacy, there’s been this sense that we probably don’t want to work on federal policy because we’re not going to get anywhere," she explained. "I started at Green For All with Barack Obama elected as president and we’re actually putting a lot of resources into federal policy, and there’s this whole feeling like we’re going to get somewhere. That’s shifted for me. I imagine that for a lot of other environmental and social justice advocates, there seems to be a door opening."

She’s even more enthused after meeting with members of the Obama transition team who were tasked with a review of the Department of Energy. About 30 to 40 people, representing organizations including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council as well as renewable energy business leaders and public officials doing energy work in different states, convened in Washington DC to discuss energy policy.

"I’ve been to a lot of public agency meetings and what usually happens is you have maybe an hour and a half of presentation from the agency and maybe a half hour for all the organizations and people trying to get in their piece," she said. "This was different. It was about a two-hour meeting and the whole time it was dedicated to hearing from the community, from businesses, from people with experience in energy efficiency. The transition team members were fully engaged, actually listening, asking questions, asking for clarifications if they didn’t understand something. They were really humble and they seemed really excited about what kinds of changes were possible. I’d never been part of a process like that."

Ojea sees more potential than ever for the activist community in the Obama administration. "It could provide more opportunity and open more doors for what your activism is about. There’s such a difference between being used to being on the outside of the fence, behind the barricade, screaming because it’s the only way to be heard. Is that going to change? Are we going to be inside the fence?"

She recalled Obama’s campaign observation that "change doesn’t come from Washington, change comes to Washington." She’s hoping the Obama team’s outreach will continue.

"We’re at a really strange and critical time," Ojea said. "As Van says, in America, in terms of the economy, the floor has dropped out from under us. But with the election of Obama, the ceiling has come off. There’s a lot of opportunity, and things could also go downhill. What are we going to do?"

Shock and awe

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

After 15 years of a labor of printmaking love in what has become the artistic heart of SoMa, Aurobora Press has to be out of its home at 147 Natoma Street by the end of the month. When the landlord came forward with a tenant able to pay three times what the press was shelling out for the historic back-alley building, built in 1907 with bricks from the rubble of the earthquake, Aurobora — no stranger to our languishing economy — was forced to pack its bags. Standing before a radiantly colored Jay Davis monotype in the press’s small office, director Michael Liener said that he was trying to stay positive and accept that "change is good." But he was clearly in shock, sounding somewhat otherworldly in his soothsaying. "We’re still figuring out where we’re going to land — maybe in a space, maybe not."

In order to lessen its moving load, the press is currently selling framed work at unframed prices, though Aurobora Projects, the press’s showroom in Menlo Park, will continue to operate. Sadly, Aurobora’s coveted residencies, which allow artists who don’t normally work in the medium to come in and make monotypes — paintings on paper, created by inking a flat surface and then pressing it in an intaglio press — are up in the air. In the tradition of early 20th-century artistic crossovers such as French Catalan sculptor Aristide Maillol’s exquisite woodblock illustrations, the residencies have helped artists discover hidden resonance within their own symbolic systems. For example, working in monotype without preconceived notions, painter Angela Dufrense captured the essence of Ivan the Terrible. Local sculptor Stephen DeStaebler saw his signature angel wings and rock-forms expand on paper.

Caught between dimensions and subject to the idiosyncrasies of a big, heavy press, the monotype medium is an ongoing experiment in temporality. Thus Liener is familiar with the unexpected. He stressed that he doesn’t harbor hard feelings toward the landlord, who helped Aurobora get the space in the first place. Liener had been on a month-to-month lease, but that doesn’t make it any easier to leave a space that he created from the ground up. "The question now is, do I have the will, the stomach, the bank account, to do this all over again?" he says. "It’s kind of the end of an era. When we first moved here, we spent four months ripping this place apart, exposing the bare bones, shaping a beautiful gallery." During Aurobora’s time at 147 Natoma, Liener and friends pulled down six rooms, took out the "cheesy carpet," and exposed and patched the site’s original floorboards.

"We were here before the [San Francisco Museum of Modern Art] opened, before the W [hotel], before all the development," Liener observes. "We were out here pioneering. This is just another example of what happens when an area becomes ‘discovered,’ ‘found,’ ‘populated’: the ‘pioneers’ can no longer afford their good work. I’m not unique. This happens everywhere in every city. When you create a really lovely space and you’re here for a period of time, it becomes a selling point for the next person to come in and kick you out." The tragedy is that it’s the quiet little places, the hidden spaces for meditation and contemplation, that always seem to disappear first. And what do we need most right now?

www.aurobora.com

1...555657...70Page 56 of 70

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org