Los Angeles

LA Teachers’ Strike: Dispatch #1

January 9, 2019 Glenn Sacks, Counterpunch.org Resist! Class Struggle, Education, Labor, Los Angeles, Strikes, Teachers

Absent a dramatic change in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s bargaining position, over 30,000 Los Angeles teachers will strike on Thursday, January 10. With nearly half a million students at over 1,000 schools, LAUSD is America’s second largest school district. LAUSD and United Teachers of Los Angeles have been negotiating since April, 2017 and are still far apart, and teachers have been working without a contract for 18 months. California’s Public Employment Relations Board issued its factfinding report in mid-December—the last step before UTLA could legally strike—and the neutral factfinder affirmed many key UTLA positions. On December 15 over 50,000 parents, students, and teachers rallied in downtown LA in support of UTLA.

Why I’m Standing With LA Teachers

November 28, 2018 By Roxana Tynan, Medium.com Strategize! Education, Los Angeles, Teachers

2018 has been a pivotal year for teachers. In West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Kentucky, Colorado, and North Carolina, teachers walked out of their classrooms and into the streets, demanding their grievances be addressed. This fall, fifteen school districts across Washington state started the school year on strike. Here in Los Angeles, the teachers’ union is engaged in tense negotiations and teachers have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike if no resolution is reached. We’re finally having a national conversation about the value of educators — and public opinion is on the teachers’ side. According to recent polling, 78% of Americans would support teachers who go on strike over pay issues.

Striking XPO Port Truck Drivers Rally In Los Angeles, San Diego

October 4, 2018 Staff, Teamster.org Resist! Abuse, Los Angeles, San Diego, Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

(CALIFORNIA) – Port truck drivers for XPO Logistics Inc. who are on strike held rallies in Los Angeles and San Diego and demanded the company end the rampant day-to-day abuse of drivers. The actions come on the heels of a breaking victory as the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement recognized a striking driver as in fact employed by XPO and determined the company owes him $123,074.43 in back pay. Hundreds of port truck drivers from XPO, as well as NFI Industries, walked off the job on Monday. XPO Logistics is a $15 billion company which moves products for Amazon.com Inc., Toyota Motor Corp., Puma and other major brands around the world. The drivers say that they are improperly labeled “independent contractors” since they cannot drive for any other company but XPO.

4 Reasons Why Los Angeles’ Upcoming Public Banking Ballot Initiative Is A Huge Deal

September 14, 2018 Phoenix Goodman, Laprogressive.com Create! Electoral Politics, Los Angeles, New Economy, Public Banking

On November 6th, the citizens of Los Angeles will have a chance to decide if their city should pave the path towards creating the first municipal public bank in the country. No doubt, a ‘yes’ vote for Charter Amendment B will be significant for the city, as it will put the immense power of banking in the hands of accountable officials bound by a mission of social good—a radical shift from the status quo of giving that business to Wall St. Today, the privilege of financing city services is reserved for private speculators. Last year, the City of Los Angeles paid $170 million in banking fees and $1.1 billion in interest to big banks and investors—money that would be recycled into public coffers for reinvestment if Los Angeles had a Public Bank instead.

Campaign For Los Angeles’s Public Bank Gets Into Full Swing

August 17, 2018 Staff, Publicbankinginstitute.org Create! Los Angeles, New Economy, Public Banks

November's Public Banking ballot initiative will allow the citizens of Los Angeles to vote on the first step to creating a city-owned bank. Public Bank LA, along with an overflowing room of community groups and advocates, launched their action campaign July 28 for creating public support for the ballot measure. Chair Ellen Brown and Suzanne O’Keeffe from Public Banking Institute were there in support. ...Advocates were presented with a detailed plan that includes community outreach, political outreach, street art, field strategy into neighborhoods, and media. The campaign is designed to communicate the benefits of public banking, answer questions, and generate excitement around freeing the City from Wall Street and using the power of a bank to benefit the people of Los Angeles.

L.A. Program Targets Muslims Under Guise Of National Security

August 9, 2018 By Sophia DenUyl, Brennancenter.org Resist! Los Angeles, Muslims, National Security, Repression

The city’s Countering Violent Extremism program is drawing fire from many quarters. Exactly one week after the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s Muslim Ban, dozens of Los Angeles residents descended upon City Hall to urge lawmakers to reject nearly $500,000 for a Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program that would target Muslims under the guise of national security. Just days before, a coalition of civil rights and community groups filed a lawsuit against the city for failing to release documents about its CVE programs in response to a California Public Records Act request (similar to the federal Freedom of Information Act).

A Public Bank For Los Angeles? City Council Puts It To The Voters

July 6, 2018 Ellen Brown, Ellenbrown.com Create! Los Angeles, Public Banks

Voters in Los Angeles will be the first in the country to weigh in on a public banking mandate, after the City Council agreed on June 29th to put a measure on the November ballot that would allow the city to form its own bank. The charter for the nation’s second-largest city currently prohibits the creation of industrial or commercial enterprises by the city without voter approval. The measure, introduced by City Council President Herb Wesson, would allow the city to create a public bank, although state and federal law hurdles would still need to be cleared. The bank is expected to save the city millions, if not billions, of dollars in Wall Street fees and interest paid to bondholders, while injecting new money into the local economy, generating jobs and expanding the tax base.

Legal Marijuana Propelling Public Banking

February 21, 2018 Staff, Publicbankinginstitute.org Create! Los Angeles, Marijuana, New Economy, Public Banking

Things are moving fast in California. A Los Angeles City Council committee approved a resolution February 16 to support the recently introduced state bill that would create a Public Bank that could take deposits from legal marijuana businesses. California Senate Bill 930, introduced at the end of January, would establish a state-chartered bank that would “allow a person licensed to engage in commercial cannabis activity to engage in banking activities in California”. The LA resolution to support SB 930 was proposed by Council President Herb Wesson and approved by the council’s Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee. Wesson proposed creating a Public Bank for the City of Los Angeles in July 2017.

Federal Court Finds ICE And L.A. Sheriff Collaborated To Unlawfully Detain Thousands Of Suspected Immigrants

February 14, 2018 Staff, Aclusocal.org Resist! ICE, Immigration, Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — On Thursday, a federal court in California ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) unlawfully detained thousands of suspected immigrants on the basis of unconstitutional requests from ICE known as immigration detainers. The landmark decision entitles class members to injunctive relief and monetary damages and is a result of two lawsuits brought by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the law firm of Kaye, McLane, Bednarski & Litt, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), and the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "The court's decision vindicates years of work by the Los Angeles immigrant community to challenge the Sheriff's Department's abuses and throws a major wrench in the Trump administration's deportation machine," said Jessica Bansal, litigation director at NDLON.

LA Brings Social Equity To Marijuana Sellers

December 13, 2017 Thandisizwe Chimurenga, mintpressnews.com Create! Equity, Los Angeles, Marijuana

LOS ANGELES – Beginning in January in Los Angeles, individuals who are low-income and/or have had a conviction for a marijuana-related offense will enjoy priority status when it comes to applying for a license to legally sell the herb. Cultivators or manufacturers will also have such status, thanks to the Los Angeles City Council. On Wednesday the council voted to repeal a four-year-old ban on such businesses in the city, and that repeal is accompanied by what supporters are saying is the most aggressive and progressive “social equity” clause in the nation. In the movement to decriminalize marijuana, attempts to apply “social equity” standards to cannabis have been talked about but have not made much progress.

LA Police Arresting People For Speaking 20 Seconds Over Allotted Time

October 27, 2017 Emily C. Bell, www.alternet.org Educate! ACLU, Los Angeles, Police, Repression

By Emily C. Bell for AlterNet - The tweet comes after Melanie Ochoa, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, who sent a letter Tuesday morning to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles city councilmembers. The letter calls on them to “reject the proposed ordinance," because “although styled as a public safety ordinance, it would do nothing to improve public safety.” The letter goes on to reference two specific cases in which residents were removed from meetings at the Board of Police Commissioners. The LAPD had the most “officer-involved killings” in 2015 and 2016, according to the Guardian. When the data is compared to cities with similar populations, the “rate of fatal encounters” was higher in LA than both Chicago and New York last year. The ACLU letter states: “Part of the duty of public officials is to bear the brunt of the public’s displeasure as well as expressions of gratitude and satisfaction. City Council’s irritation is not a public safety threat, and the serious consequences of criminal law should be limited to conduct that actually poses a risk to the safety of others.” The letter gives the example of 81-year-old Tut Hayes. A video posted by user PM Beers shows Hayes speaking at a meeting in 2016, before being forcibly removed from the room, while onlookers yell at the police to let him go.

Los Angeles Public Bank Effort Gains More Steam

October 11, 2017 Staff, www.publicbankinginstitute.org Create! Los Angeles, New Economy, Public Banks

By Staff of Public Banking Institution - Strong steps taken by LA City Council toward a Public Bank for Los Angeles have drawn a good deal of media attention, including coverage by the local CBS affiliate. The Ad Hock Committee on Comprehensive Job Creation Plan began to debate the issue last Wednesday, Oct 4. Following the successful Sept 29 meeting that took place between interested Councilmembers, legislative directors and Public Banking experts, Ellen Brown was invited to attend the Ad Hoc Committee and explain how a Bank of Los Angeles can be feasible, profitable and beneficial for the city's residents. The Ad Hock Committee panel included the City’s Attorney Office, City Administrative Officer, Chief Legislative Officer, and PBI's Ellen Brown. As a result of the discussion, Chairman Krekorian moved to instruct the City Attorney’s Office and the CLA to report back on

Here’s What Real Tax Reform Looks Like

September 26, 2017 Paddy Quick, www.indypendent.org Create! Los Angeles, Protests, Reform, Taxes, Trump Administration

By Paddy Quick for Indypendent - President Donald Trump will not succeed in carrying out any significant tax “reform,” but it is likely that he and the Republican majority in Congress will further skew the existing tax structure to benefit the rich, the top 1 percert, at the expense of everyone else. This will continue the policies that have made the federal tax system significantly less progressive over the past several decades and thus contributed to increasing income inequality. The fundamental cause of that growing inequality is that the income created by the increase in productivity that has taken place over the past 40 years has gone almost exclusively to capital, while wages have remained stagnant. In contrast, the growth in productivity between 1945 and 1975 led to increases in both wages and profits. The main cause of this is the globalization of production, as multinational corporations transfer work to countries with much lower wages. Workers in the United States, however, have suffered more than those of many other “developed” countries such as Canada. The assault on the working class has worked systematically at both federal and state levels to undermine working-class organizations, in particular, trade unions. It has defeated hard-won restrictions on the power of money to influence elections, such as in the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that granted “free speech” rights to corporations and thus abolished limits on their financing of electoral campaigns.

The Fight To End Oil Drilling In Los Angeles

June 30, 2017 Erick Huerta, www.scopela.org Resist! Drilling, Los Angeles

By Erick Huerta for SCOPE - Throughout its history, the fossil fuel industry has played a major role in the development of the City of Los Angeles. The massive oil fields and high production rates have branded L.A. as the largest urban oil field in the country. While the development of these fields didn’t pose a problem to the city’s 50,000 residents in the 1890’s━in 2017, more than 580,000 residents live within a quarter mile of a drilling site. Due to over-development and a history of poor, often racialized, land use decisions, many drilling sites are located in communities with a higher percentage of residents of color, and high rates of poverty, unemployment, and linguistic isolation. South Los Angeles is one of these communities. While residents may be unaware that they live above oil reserves deep underground, the direct health impacts on surrounding residents is clear. Local residents report high rates of heart disease and respiratory illness, such as asthma, conditions that are exacerbated by air pollutants produced by oil drilling and extraction. SCOPE Organizer, Tracey Beltran meets with residents that live near active drilling sites and talks with them about the negative health impacts they and their families are seeing. Beltran has also been working with them to develop their leadership skills and to better understand and speak about the impacts of urban oil drilling in their community.

Los Angeles Forum On Venezuela Proceeds Despite Right Wing Protests

June 10, 2017 Mike Wang, www.liberationnews.org Resist! Los Angeles, Venezuela

By Mike Wang for PSL - On June 2 the Party for Socialism and Liberation held a forum in Los Angeles featuring PSL member Mike Prysner who gave an eye-witness report on his recent trip to Venezuela. The event was a solidarity event supporting the Bolivarian Revolution against the attacks by the Venezuelan right wing—attacks which have included racist self-proclaimed lynchings carried out by ultra-rightist elements of the Venezuelan opposition. Prysner and Abby Martin of TeleSur’s The Empire Files recently visited Venezuela to gather research and interviews for the show, which Prysner produces. Since that trip, both have been receiving death threats from the rightwing opposition, which has composed a whole saga of rumors, slanders and outright lies about Martin and Prysner. Despite a complete lack of evidence of any sort, the main slander is that Martin and Prysner are paid employees of the Venezuelan National Guard (GNB) tasked with infiltrating and reporting on the opposition to the Venezuelan authorities. Jose Vicente Carrasquero Aumaitre, a professor of political science in Venezuela and a prominent rightist, was the first to make the accusation, claiming on Twitter that Martin and Prysner “infiltrate opposition protests in order to collect intelligence for the GNB.”

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