California

A Strike Is Coming To The Nation’s Largest Public University System

January 22, 2024 Matthew Ford, Jacobin. Resist! Budget Cuts, California, Higher Education, Public Good, Strikes

For over a decade, the administration at California State University (CSU) has been disinvesting in the United States’ largest public university system. The result has been the destruction of the institution’s academic integrity and the undermining of its basic goal: to serve the public good. Thankfully, a formidable opposition is growing among the faculty. This came to a head when, after a recent breakdown in negotiations with CSU management, the California Faculty Association (CFA) pledged to strike at all twenty-three campuses beginning this Monday, January 22. The twenty-nine thousand striking teachers are officially walking out over a bargaining impasse, but the conflict has roots far deeper than the recent breakdown in negotiations.

Reporting On California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Raise Comes With Fear

January 21, 2024 Conor Smyth, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! California, Fast Food, Finance and the Economy, Minimum Wage

What’s scarier than a shark attack? An increase in the minimum wage. At least that’s what many corporate media outlets seem to want you to believe, given the apocalyptic tone of much of the coverage of California’s recent decision to raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour, starting this April, a bump from the current level of $16. While outlets like the New York Times (10/23/23), the Associated Press (9/28/23), CalMatters (12/21/23, 9/28/23) and the Sacramento Bee (9/29/23, 9/15/23, 9/11/23) have responsibly covered the policy change, highlighting the large positive effects that it will likely have on workers, others are obsessively accentuating the negatives.

Hundreds Protest Gaza War At Oakland Port

January 16, 2024 Staff, KTVU FOX 2. Resist! Anti-War, California, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Ports

A large crowd of protesters who denounced Israel's military actions in Gaza were trying to shut down the Port of Oakland on Saturday morning. Hundreds of people blocked the entrance to the port, which they say is used to ship military equipment to Israel. The crowd gathered before dawn, trying to prevent port workers from getting to their jobs. "We need to stop U.S. aid to Israel," said Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center. "We absolutely will not allow our own port to be complicit in this genocide by allowing the transport of arms and military equipment to Israel." Protesters expect a ship carrying military technology to arrive at the port after delivering resources to Israel.

California Assembly Shut Down By Protest For Cease-Fire In Palestine

January 4, 2024 Laurel Rosenhall and Mackenzie Mays, Los Angeles Times. Resist! California, Ceasefire, Direct Action, Israel, Palestine, State legislature

Sacramento - On the day California lawmakers returned to Sacramento for the new year, hundreds of protesters convened at the state Capitol on Wednesday and shut down the Assembly with calls for Israel to stop its war against Hamas. Legislators filed out of the Assembly chamber as at least 250 demonstrators chanted, “Cease fire now.” Filling the Capitol rotunda, protesters unfurled a banner stating “No U.S. Funding for Israel’s Genocide in Palestine” and made paper flowers representing more than 22,000 Palestinians killed in the war that began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage.

Moms Against Fascism

December 30, 2023 Dayton Martindale, In These Times. Resist! California, Fascism, Journalism, LGBTQ, Media, Moms Against Fascism, Proud Boys, Transgender Rights, Zines

In Southern California’s inland empire, far-right activists associated with The Proud Boys have spent the past year hanging banners from overpasses to broadcast queerphobic messages across the region. “Parents of Trans Kids Promote Mental Illness,” they read. Or: “The Rainbow Belongs to God, Not to LGBTQ.” The banner battle is just one front in an ongoing conflict surrounding the region’s Redlands schools. A network of LGBTQ parents and allies, including several from the group Safe Redlands Schools (SRS), have a text line to receive alerts from community members warning when a new banner drops — to make sure it’s taken down.

78 Palestine Solidarity Activists Face Charges For Civil Disobedience

December 24, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resist! California, International Solidarity, Israel, Legal System, Palestine, San Franscisco, State Repression

78 Palestine solidarity activists are facing charges following a mass civil disobedience action staged on November 16, in which protesters shut down San Francisco’s Bay Bridge in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Over 150 demonstrators blocked the Bay Bridge on November 16, while US President Joe Biden was in San Francisco for the APEC Summit. Several activists blocked the bridge with cars, and, highlighting their commitment, proceeded to throw their keys into the San Francisco Bay. Protesters are facing charges ranging from unlawful public assembly, false imprisonment, refusing to comply with a peace officer, and refusing to disperse a riot and obstruction of a public street.

Protesters Outside Google Call For Immediate End To ‘Project Nimbus’

December 15, 2023 Rachael Myrow, KQED. Resist! California, Google, Israel, Palestine, Project Nimbus, San Francisco

Pro-Palestinian Google employees protested outside Google offices in San Francisco on Thursday to demand the tech giant cancel a $1.2 billion contract — called “Project Nimbus” — with the Israeli government and military. An estimated 500 protesters chanted “Google, Google you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” reflecting growing outrage over the contract during Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza. The Israeli Finance Ministry described the Project Nimbus contract as “intended to provide the government, the defense establishment and others with an all-encompassing cloud solution.”

California Is Showing The Potential Of Strip Mall-To-Housing Conversions

December 11, 2023 Ahmad Abu-Khalaf, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, California, Development, Housing

State and local jurisdictions are desperately looking for new ways to speed up affordable housing development as the supply of homes falls short of demand nearly everywhere in the U.S. This fall, the Biden-Harris administration announced new resources to support commercial conversions to create affordable housing. While much of the focus is on office conversions, an idea that swept the nation as millions of Americans transitioned to remote work, relatively few office buildings are physically suitable for conversion. The costs can be incredibly high and the surrounding neighborhoods, often in business districts, are not necessarily conducive to new housing and the needs of residents.

San Jose Residents Pack City Council Meeting, Demand Palestine Resolution

December 10, 2023 Fight Back News!. Resist! California, City Council, Democracy, Israel, Palestine

San Jose, CA – On Tuesday, December 5, hundreds of Palestine supporters attended the San Jose City Council meeting in person and online to demand that the council pass a resolution in support of Palestine. Community members waved Palestinian flags, wore keffiyehs, and brought signs with messages such as “End the genocide.” City staff intentionally blocked off half of the available public seats in the council chambers and diverted community members to overflow rooms. Many attendees were taken aback by this blatant restriction on their right to civic engagement.

Faculty Of Largest US Public University System Strikes, Demanding 12% Raise

December 4, 2023 Dani Anguiano, The Guardian. Resist! California, Higher Education, Income disparity, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

California State University faculty at four campuses went on strike on Monday to demand higher pay and expanded parental leave for thousands of workers at the largest public university system in the US. The California Faculty Association, which represents 29,000 workers, is staging one-day work stoppages at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; San Francisco State University; California State University, Los Angeles and California State University, Sacramento. The union is seeking a 12% salary raise and an increase in parental leave from six weeks to a full semester for professors, librarians and other workers. They also want more manageable workloads for faculty, better access to breastfeeding stations and more gender-inclusive restrooms.

California Faculty Prepare For First Strike In 12 Years

November 22, 2023 Owen Lavine, Labor Notes. Resist! California, Higher Education, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Faculty at 23 California State University campuses are preparing to strike. They teach nearly half a million students. After 95 percent of voting members authorized a strike on October 30, the 29,000-member California Faculty Association plans to roll out strikes at Cal Poly Pomona December 4, San Francisco State University December 5, Cal State Los Angeles December 6 and Sacramento State University December 7. The CFA reopened four broad sections of their contract in May, demanding a 12 percent salary increase, more manageable workloads, more counselors for students, the right to counsel when approached by campus police, more paid leave, and more lactation rooms and gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms on campuses.

The Next Target For Protests Against Israel: Ports

November 9, 2023 Kim Kelly, In These Times. Resist! California, Israel, Palestine, Ports, Spain, Washington

About 100 protesters arrived at the Port of Tacoma at 5 a.m. on Monday determined to block any efforts to load cargo onto the Cape Orlando, a ship the activists thought could be transporting weapons to Israel. They chanted “Free, free Palestine!” and by 6 a.m. the group had grown by hundreds more. “We are here today because we are blocking a military vessel that has come from the Oakland dock up to Tacoma,” said Bissan Barghouti of the group Samidoun Seattle, according to The Seattle Times. Guy Oron, a reporter with Real Change News, tweeted that “Protesters split up into four pickets in an effort to prevent longshoremen from starting their shift.” “Heavy police presence; U.S. Coast Guard has reportedly planned for the protest.

Amid Discouraging New Inequality Stats, Some Rays Of Hope

October 24, 2023 Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org. Educate! California, Class Struggle, Finance and the Economy, wealth inequality

Back in the early 20th century, earnest middle-class reformers out to overturn America’s plutocratic order gravitated to the pages of The Public, a weekly magazine whose editor, Louis Post, would become the U.S. assistant secretary of labor in 1913. One year later, the associate editor of The Public would offer a cutting critique of the legal system that so protected our nation’s plutocratic powers-that-be. That system, Stoughton Cooley of The Public avowed, rendered judgments “so far from justice and common sense” that average citizens believe “absolutely that the poor have no redress against the rich.”

How A California Child Care Workers’ Union Fought For Living Wages

October 18, 2023 Daisy Nguyen, KQED. Resist! California, Child Care, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Organizing isn’t easy for home-based workers because they work independently, but Harvey said she felt a duty to speak up for her industry because many providers were in the same situation she was in, but were too busy to effect change. It took two decades of organizing — a lot of it done during nap time — before Child Care Providers United won the right in 2019 to collectively bargain. The union represents 40,000 home-based child care providers. It is a partnership between two chapters of the Service Employees International Union locals and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Kaiser’s Massive Mental Health Care Settlement Sends Strong Message

October 15, 2023 Mark Kreidler, Scheer Post. Resist! California, Health Care, Kaiser Permanente, mental health, Worker Rights and Jobs

Kaiser Permanente’s $200 million settlement with the State of California for its repeated failures to provide patients with adequate and timely mental health care was a long while coming. The deficiencies themselves? Kaiser’s own employees say they’ve been hiding in plain sight. “Years and years of banging our heads against the wall have finally paid off,” said Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a therapist at Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland Medical Center. “This has the potential to make Kaiser a leader in mental health care, rather than a serial violator of mental health care laws.” The settlement, announced late Thursday by the state’s Department of Managed Health Care, includes a $50 million fine.

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