Justin Slaughter Archives — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Walmart fires Bay Area workers after strike

Michael Redmond

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August 13, 2013

Walmart fires Bay Area workers after strike

After working for nearly two years at Walmart in San Leandro, Dominic Ware said he’d witnessed too many co-workers struggle to make ends meet, and had felt disrespected for long enough. A co-worker recruited him to join Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OURWalmart, a national group of Walmart associates organizing for better workplace conditions and pay.

“She couldn’t even pass the pen fast enough,” said Ware. Last October, he participated in the first mass-strike of American workers in Walmart’s history.

In May, Ware joined a hundred others in the longest Walmart workers’ strike yet, lasting from May 29 through June 8, to demand protection for strikes, livable wages, the option for full-time shifts, and respect in the workplace. After two weeks of striking, a legally protected activity for all workers, Ware went back to work. Things were normal at first. But in mid-July, he was fired.

Raymond Bravo, a maintenance associate at the Richmond Walmart, also joined Ware and other OURWalmart members on a caravan of striking workers to demonstrate outside Walmart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas in May.

“I saw the lack of respect and favoritism,” said Bravo. “I wanted to join because I had no voice at Walmart, and I believe we should stand together.” Like Ware, Bravo returned to the job after Arkansas with little fuss.

“My next scheduled day was June 12, and nothing happened,” said Bravo. But two weeks down the line, Walmart began coaching associates for absences, and changing his schedule.

“I knew my days were numbered,” said Bravo. “I had already been disciplined for striking last year, and I’d heard from other associates that their hours were cut. That was kind of fishy.”

Roughly two weeks after returning, Bravo was fired. It appears that Ware and Bravo’s terminations weren’t isolated incidents. Around 60 Walmart associates across the country were disciplined or terminated after participating in the strike, according to OURWalmart. Since termination in retaliation for striking activity is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, both Ware and Bravo plan to embark in legal battles to get their jobs back.

Walmart may rightfully fire an individual employee after he violates the company’s absence policy by missing work, Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman told the Guardian. In Bravo’s case, “the decision has nothing to do with a specific protest or activity of that nature,” said Fogleman. “We have a strict policy against retaliation.”

Fogelman claims the OURWalmart demonstrations were not legitimate strikes, but “made for TV” publicity stunts for the union that has leant support for OURWalmart, the United Food and Commercial Workers. Walmart made a similar claim in response to the October 2012 strikes. The nation’s largest private employer, Walmart employs roughly 1.4 million American workers, all non-unionized.

“Walmart didn’t want to recognize a strike as a strike,” said Ware. “But they are playing with people’s lives. Those who are working 45 hours a week, that’s not a lot, but that’s all they have, and if you take that away, they’ll lose everything they have.”

Petition to name Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton gains 1,000 signatures

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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August 13, 2013

12

San Francisco freelance writer John Lumea disagrees with California state legislators who want to name the western span of the Bay Bridge after former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

Nothing personal against Brown, says Lumea. He just believes that honor belongs instead to 19th century San Francisco eccentric Joshua Abraham Norton (1819-1880), the Scotsman who proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States in 1859 and printed his own currency.

Lumea has drafted and launched a Change.org petition asking the California Legislature to rename the iconic thoroughfare “The Emperor Norton Bay Bridge.” The petition cleared its initial goal of 1,000 signatures on Aug. 12. The Bay Bridge, the petition argues, fulfills Emperor Norton’s “140-year-old vision” of a bridge from San Francisco to Oakland “that has shaped the lives of generations.”

In 1872 Emperor Norton famously proclaimed the need for a suspension bridge between San Francisco, Goat Island (now Yerba Buena), and Oakland. While the Bay Bridge matches the literal proclamation, it also matches Emperor Norton’s social vision for the area, according to Lumea.

“Emperor Norton was an early visionary of a regional economy,” said Lumea, “and a herald of the whole idea of a Bay Area as a region that shares ideas and relationships beyond economics.” A harbinger of Bay Area progressivism, Emperor Norton also used his local notoriety to advocate on behalf of women’s suffrage and the rights of marginalized populations.

Past attempts to commemorate Emperor Norton’s special relationship to the Bay Bridge never got off the ground. In 2004, former San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution to name the entire Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton, but the Board of Supervisors passed a modified version to dedicate just the new additions to the bridge. To date, Oakland and Alameda haven’t obliged.

This June, California State Assembly members had a completely different public figure in mind for the bridge’s name, and introduced a resolution to name the western span of the Bay Bridge after the former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. In answer to that proposal, an online petition surfaced in July calling for state legislators to name that span of the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton instead.

Less than two weeks ago, Lumea’s petition took things a step further, calling on the Legislature and the Governor to name the entire bridge after Emperor Norton.

“As for Willie Brown,” said Lumea, “surely any number of buildings in California could be used for his honor.”

Bay Area Walmart employees say they were fired in retaliation for striking

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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August 9, 2013

41

After working for nearly two years at Walmart in San Leandro, Dominic Ware said he’d witnessed too many co-workers struggle to make ends meet, and had felt disrespected for long enough. A co-worker recruited him to join Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OURWalmart, a national group of Walmart associates organizing for better workplace conditions and pay.

“She couldn’t even pass the pen fast enough,” said Ware. Last October, he participated in the first mass-strike of American workers in Walmart’s history.

In May, Ware joined a hundred others in the longest Walmart workers’ strike yet, lasting from May 29 through June 8, to demand protection for strikes, livable wages, the option for full-time shifts, and respect in the workplace. After two weeks of striking, a legally protected activity for all workers, Ware went back to work. Things were normal at first. But in mid-July, he was fired.

Raymond Bravo, a maintenance associate at the Richmond Walmart, also joined Ware and other OURWalmart members on a caravan of striking workers to demonstrate outside Walmart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas in May.

“I saw the lack of respect and favoritism,” said Bravo. “I wanted to join because I had no voice at Walmart, and I believe we should stand together.”

Like Ware, Bravo returned to the job after Arkansas with little fuss. “My next scheduled day was June 12, and nothing happened,” said Bravo. But two weeks down the line, Walmart began coaching associates for absences, and changing his schedule.

“I knew my days were numbered,” said Bravo. “I had already been disciplined for striking last year, and I’d heard from other associates that their hours were cut. That was kind of fishy.” Roughly two weeks after returning, Bravo was fired.

It appears that Ware and Bravo’s terminations weren’t isolated incidents. Around 60 Walmart associates across the country were disciplined or terminated after participating in the strike, according to OURWalmart. Since termination in retaliation for striking activity is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, both Ware and Bravo plan to embark in legal battles to get their jobs back.

Walmart may rightfully fire an individual employee after he violates the company’s absence policy by missing work, Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman told the Guardian. In Bravo’s case, “the decision has nothing to do with a specific protest or activity of that nature,” said Fogleman. “We have a strict policy against retaliation.”

Fogelman claims the OURWalmart demonstrations were not legitimate strikes, but “made for TV” publicity stunts for the union that has leant support for OURWalmart, the United Food and Commercial Workers. Walmart made a similar claim in response to the October 2012 strikes. The nation’s largest private employer, Walmart employs roughly 1.4 million American workers, all non-unionized.

“Walmart didn’t want to recognize a strike as strike,” said Ware. “But they are playing with people’s lives. Those who are working 45 hours a week, that’s not a lot, but that’s all they have, and if you take that away, they’ll lose everything they have.”

According to a report issued by American Rights at Work, a nonprofit that advocates for democracy in the workplace, OURWalmart received more than 150 accounts of individual incidents of harassment, threats, changes to shifts and hours, and retaliatory discipline, including termination, from workers who participated in the wave of work stoppages and demonstrations that began last October.

Bravo has filed a wrongful termination affidavit with the National Labor Relations Board. “Walmart is pushing the envelope right now,” said Bravo, “but I know that I’ll get my job back.”

But according to John Logan, professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, the law may protect work stoppage and protests but does not necessarily protect low-wage workers like Ware and Bravo from the damages of retaliation.

“In a very large employer like Walmart, in a non-union environment, protections are very weak and penalties for violations are very ineffectual,” said Logan. “In reality, you are only slightly better off than if you have no legal protections at all.”

When asked about the effectiveness of filing a complaint with the labor board, Logan said that process is long and painful, and may accomplish little for the worker in the end. “These cases often move at a glacial speed at the labor board,” said Logan. “Even if they were to get the original position they are legally entitled, in a lot of instances, workers who go back stay for a very short period of time because the working conditions are intolerable, or made to be intolerable.”

“The obvious point is that clearly, the effect on the worker is the same whether or not they were fired for strike or absentee policy,” said Logan. “They lost their job.”

Mime Troupe debuts its usual political satire in stripped down fashion

Sasha Cuttler

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July 5, 2013

2

The San Francisco Mime Troupe overcame its recent financial troubles and debuted the SFMT’s latest season of free, socially-relevant theater in Dolores Park yesterday (Thu/4), a rollicking send-up on the political culture and Chevron’s greedy plunder of Ecuador, delivered by a smaller than usual cast.

“We all felt really great just to have the opportunity to do the show because of the financial issues,” Pat Moran, one of the SFMT’s head writers, told the Guardian.

“It came very close to not happening this year,” Moran said. “There was a period of about a month or a month and a half when the show wasn’t going to happen, but we had to keep writing as if there were going to be one.”

After a “successful grassroots fundraising effort,” according to the SFMT website, the Troupe knew for sure there would be a show, and was able to resume rehearsal in April. But it was a show marked by austerity measures that slashed the number of actors and musicians involved in the performance. There were just four actors who hurried through various costume changes to fill all the parts.

Moran helped write the SFMT’s two-part “Oil and Water” that debuted Thursday. The first part “Deal with the Devil” begins in the White House Oval Office, set in the future, where a secret service agent finds the President dead on the day of an important speech on environmental issues. The second part “Crude Intentions” focuses on Chevron, whose headquarters is now in San Ramon, CA, but was previously in San Francisco.

The performance “continues in a noir style with some slapstick comedy,” according to Moran. And as it has done since its beginning in 1959, the SFMT hits strongly on the political in “Oil and Water,” focusing on Chevron’s mounting counter-suits and millions of dollars spent in order to fend off the settlement requirements that an Ecuadorian judge awarded to its people for damages Chevron committed.

“We focus on Chevron as a specific and local entity, but also as a way to focus on the larger issue of how oil companies use tactics to control their image in public, from National Public Radio donations and advertisements,” Moran said.

These SFMT shows rely on foundational grants and on-the-spot cash donations from audiences. And earlier this year, the SFMT’s financial situation worsened due to the loss of foundation money, including its long-held National Endowment for the Arts grant and others. In addition, cash donations have gone down since, as Moran observed, “people carry less money around now” when they come to SFMT shows in the park.

“But at this point, we are optimistic. We have a show up, and that’s our focus,” Moran added. Although up and running now until its last show September 2nd, come the end of the season the SFMT may have to rethink doing its performances in public space for free, Moran said.
“In September we might have to re-imagine the show. We may not be able to make shows happen in park, or at least free with donations; it may not work out. We might have to figure out something new, rather than strip away the elements of the current show so we can afford it.”

City budget boosts homelessness spending, but not enough to meet demand

Sasha Cuttler

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July 2, 2013

6

The city budget that is now awaiting approval by the Board of Supervisors includes new funding for individuals and families facing homelessness, but community advocates say it doesn’t devote enough of the city’s rebounding revenues to addressing this growing problem.

Last Thursday, the Board of Supervisor’s Budget and Finance Committee approved $2.4 million in “add-backs” to homeless services, on top of the $2.3 million that Mayor Ed Lee pledged to supplement the city’s initiatives to curb the burgeoning number of San Francisco’s individuals and families becoming homeless.

The committee’s proposed budget will go before the full Board of Supervisors’ for a vote this month, devoting at least $2 million for this fiscal year and $1 million the next in to continue the successful Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing (HPRP) program that provides eviction defense and rent and utility vouchers to residents at-risk of homelessness.

Other homelessness initiatives in the proposed budget include extending the Lower Haight First Friendship shelter for homeless families to a year-round schedule, permanent housing units at 5^th and Harrison streets for transitional age youth, 33 Local Operating Subsidy Program (or LOSP) subsidies for low-income homeless individuals and families, and funding to construct 24 shelter beds for the City’s first LGBTQ-focused homeless shelter at Dolores Street Community Center.

But for many residents and families, these initiatives may not be enough to stay in their homes, or re-house themselves after becoming homeless. And as the rent prices continue to drastically rise in San Francisco as the city’s economy heats up, the search for affordable housing or shelter beds has become more and more desperate.

January’s point-in-time homeless count identified 6,436 homeless persons on the streets and in the shelters in the city, a majority of which became homeless as San Franciscans. The current number on the city’s wait list is 220 families with an expected wait of seven to eight months, according to the Human Services Agency, which runs the city’s homeless shelter system. This is slightly down from 268 families earlier this year, then the largest in city history.

As the Guardian reported recently, the number of eviction notices in San Francisco hit a 12-year high this year, indicating an increase in displacement that may compound the number of families on the emergency shelter waiting list.

Bevan Dufty, the mayor’s point person on homelessness, told the Guardian that “the city definitely is not seeking to expand the shelter system,” despite the near-record waiting list.

“Yes, we have lost shelter beds in recent years, and the 24 we are adding at Dolores Street Community Services is a minimal number,” Dufty added. “But you have to have a toolbox to respond in different ways.” And Dufty claims that re-housing families through programs like HPRP services in the budget has been shown to be the best way to prevent homelessness.

In response, Jennifer Friedenbach of the Coalition on Homelessness told the Guardian that, although the $1 million of HPRP services did prevent 1,300 San Francisco households from becoming homeless last year, it only covered 15 percent of the city’s overall need based on the number of people seeking services through San Francisco’s Eviction Defense Collaborative.

When asked to respond to the Coalition’s estimate, Dufty replied that he could not comment on its accuracy, but he conceded that the HPRP funding is “certainly not going to satisfy all the need.”

Dufty stressed that the city has been able to reduce the number of homeless veterans and has responded to a noticeable outcry in the need for more transitional housing, especially from LGBTQ community activists. Although the version of the budget making it to the Board of Supervisor’s vote this month would not expand the homeless shelter system beyond the Dolores Street Community Services project, it would improve the city’s oft-criticized shelter reservation system for single adults.

Along with Dufty and the Mayor Lee’s support, Friedenbach advocated in the homeless community to change the current line-based system to a lotterized system run through the city’s 311 system.

“The current shelter waitlist system is really archaic,” Friedenbach told the Guardian. “People spend 17 hours a day trying to get a bed at night.” Mayor Lee proposed this change in his budget, especially so the indigent and elderly no longer have to stand for hours waiting in line for a bed.

Though Friedenbach acknowledges the positive in the budget initiatives, she pointed out that there is still only one shelter spot for every six homeless persons in San Francisco, and that she “doesn’t know what standard you can go by to say that is too much.”

The new revenue from November’s business tax reform measure, won through a ballot initiative pushed by on-the-ground community groups like the Coalition on Homelessness, should “go back to low-end communities who are hurt from years of reduced services in mental and public health,” Friedenbach said.

Last month, the Coalition on Homelessness and other advocates pushed the Budget and Finance Committee to double Mayor Lee’s proposed $1 million for HPRP for 2013-2014 and an additional 75 LOSP rental subsidies on top of the 25 the Mayor had already pledged. At its last meeting before the new fiscal year, the Budget and Finance Committee pledged an addition $1 million for HPRP, but only added eight new LOSP subsidies.

Friedenbach attributed the lower number to the city’s logistical problems of trying to find additional service providers for subsidies. The “add-backs” marked “a lot of progress for poor folks,” Friedenbach said, although the city will still have “a situation where a lot of money is coming in, but not trickling down.”

“San Francisco is at a critical juncture,” Friedenbach prefaced her public comment at a Budget and Finance hearing last month. “The influx of wealth is pushing the heart of the city—the working class and poor—out.”

The budget approved by the Budget and Finance Committee last Thursday will likely go to the full Board of Supervisors starting next week, July 9.