What’s the deal with the Gav’s new girlfriend? From Steve Jones’ post at the Guardian’s blog:

Mayor Gavin Newsom is the culprit. He’s the elected official, the boss, the guardian of the public treasury, the guy asking for our continued trust, the only reason why anyone cares who Ruby Rippey-Tourk fucked. 

Amid all the chatter about Newsom girlfriend Jennifer Siebel’s nasty comments about Rippey-Tourk, few people have keyed in to what strikes me as the most important revelation in all of this: Newsom appears to have lied when, upon admitting the affair, he proclaimed, “I am accountable for what has occurred.”

Indeed. It’s like Gavin thinks he’s in W’s DC, and saying you did something makes it all good. Saying you are accuntable doesn’t mean you are in the clear.  It means you need to answer the questions, not about the sex, that doesn’t matter, but about the questions of ethics that linger to this day.  And if Gavin has an alcohol problem, doesn’t the city, on the eve of his reelection campaign, get to talk about that?

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has been, for the most part, refusing to talk about the Ruby Tourk sex scandal, but his current girlfriend, Jennifer Siebel, has been blabbing away, giving the mayor’s advisors a gigantic fit.

But here’s the real question, which Steve Jones asks in the Bay Guardian: Did Siebel get her tawdry account of the affair directly from her boyfriend? Is that what Newsom is privately saying? If so, he’s a worse cad than anyone thought.

I’ll be in Dana Point on Friday to track down Mitt Romney as he hits up the big Orange County Republican donors for money. So how about you? It would be great if we had a Southern California group that tracks down these Presidential hopefuls as they visit the super-rich donors and spend time with them, and it would be even BETTER if this group were to ask these candidates why they don’t talk to all the rest of us about their plan to get out of Iraq, or about their plan to provide health care coverage to the 47 MILLION PEOPLE in this nation who have none, or simply why they spend all this time with a select few when ALL OF US plan to be voting next February as well…

(More after the flip)

So why don’t we start one ourselves? Can you join me in sending a message to ALL THE CANDIDATES that they need to pay attention to ALL THE VOTERS in California? And can we especially send a message to these GOP candidates visiting our fine state that we won’t support ANYONE next year who plans to continue this war in Iraq? We the people need to step up and make our voices heard, and I hope you can join me on Friday when we try to do precisely that.

I’d like for all of us to meet earlier in the afternoon to prepare to confront Romney. Do any of you in the Dana Point/Laguna Niguel area have any suggestions of nearby areas to meet up? I’d love for us to meet up beforehand, and finalize our plan of attack as we specifically confront Romney about his “kaleidoscopic view” of the war that he supports when it suits his purpose, yet refuses to send his own family members to fight in. I look forward to meeting up with many of you on Friday as we send a “very special message” to Mitt.

So can I count on you progressive activists in Southern California to join me at the St. Regis Resort on Friday to give this message to Mitt?

The 2003-2004 Southern California UFCW grocery worker’s strike and lockout was a low point in the history of the labor movement in America.  Grocery employees picketed the three major chain stores for 140 days, and despite public support, in the end they got almost nothing that they wanted, were forced to take on a burdensome two-tiered wage system (one for new employees and one for old ones), and scarcely impacted the bottom line of these huge conglomerates, who consequently turned the grocery worker job from a stable middle-class profession to the equivalent of flipping burgers.  It was disgraceful and deeply troubling that the lives of tens of thousands of workers in California were turned upside down.

Now there’s a chance to rectify it.  And you can help.

First, a little history.  In October of 2003, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) voted to strike at Von’s, a major Southern California supermarket chain owned by Safeway, Inc.  The other two big chains, Albertson’s (aka Supervalu) and Ralph’s (aka Kroger) locked out their workers within hours.  It was an example of the collusion by the big chains that characterized the whole strike.

The main issue was the health benefits of the workers, paid entirely by the company; Von’s wanted the workers to pay 50% of health costs under a new contract. They also wanted to introduce a two-tier wage system… Beginning in early October, 70,000 members of the UFCW were on strike in the region.

Since the U.S. has no national health care system, health benefits are often one of the most important parts of employee compensation. The average wage of a southern California UFCW worker is less than $12 per hour, and most workers are guaranteed only 24 hours of work per week. Many workers hold the job mainly for the health benefits.

I remember most the expressions of public support during the strike and lockout.  The chain stores were almost completely empty.  Trader Joe’s was a mob scene, walking in there was like walking into some postwar zone.  The shelves were ransacked, people were breaking open boxes faster than the stockboys could take everything out.  Indigenous people were selling crafts in the aisles, an attempted coup broke out in produce, people were spray-painting “Viva La Revolucion” on the organic broccoli. (OK, the rest of that didn’t happen.)

The point was that Southern Californians were by and large not crossing the picket line and respecting the right of the workers to bargain for fair wages.  This is especially salient because the employees were mostly bargaining for future workers, so that they could get better pay and benefits.  I remember dressing my dog up for Halloween as a striking grocery worker (and if the picture was on this computer, you’d be seeing it right now).  People really understood the issue and went out of their way to honor the strike.  Supermarkets lost roughly $2.5 billion in revenue.

And that’s when the chains started to play dirty.

On October 31, they pulled the pickets from Ralphs as a gesture of “good faith” to focus them on Von’s; the employers immediately announced that they would be sharing profits and losses during the strike – thus showing at least that the capitalists have class solidarity. The union went so far as to urge people to shop at Ralphs, where their own members were locked out. Even though the chains are all national, with total sales of $30 billion a year, the unions shyed away from any national strategy, sending a few “informational pickets” to outlets in northern California and elsewhere.

This ended up being a bad strategy because Ralph’s traffic picked up and then they SHARED THE PROFITS with the other two chain stores, keeping all three afloat and able to sustain the revenue loss.  Furthermore, Ralph’s started illegally rehiring union workers under phony Social Security numbers to keep the business going.  The company eventually had to pay a SEVENTY MILLION DOLLAR FINE for “conspiracy, using a false Social Security number, identity fraud, falsifying information sent to the SSA and IRS, and failing to make proper payments to employee welfare benefits plans.”  Criminal charges for the executives are still pending.

The strike wore on and finally was settled in February 2004, as public support waned and the union ran out of money for strike pay.  It was a combination of factors that led to the awful contract they were forced to accept.  They instituted a two-tiered system that offers lower pay and benefits to new workers coming into the system.  And the health care benefits that the old workers retained were trimmed, which led to increased turnover in the business.  This blog post offers a great summation of why this strike just didn’t work as well as it could have.

A generation ago, this strike would have been a complete victory for the employees. They were able to close down their stores for several months. When those stores were regional, the employers would not have been able to sustain those kind of losses.

But the grocery industry is increasingly a national and multinational industry. The companies decided it was worth taking huge losses in one regional market if they were able to break the back of the union.

In fact, it’s paid off handsomely.

The chain stores’ main complaint was that Wal-Mart and other discounters were moving into the region, and they could not compete with stores that offer no benefits.  Three years later, Wal-Mart and other non-union grocery stores are not a factor in the Southern California market at all. 

The employers always point to Wal-Mart and Costco as major reasons they need to cut costs (and pay their grocery workers less), but Wal-Mart and Costco control less than 8% of the Southern California market, even less than they had in 2003 when the employers claimed that this competition was forcing them to reduce wages and benefits for their grocery workers.

Indeed, the three major chains have retained all of the market share they lost during the strike and then some, propelling them to record profits.  Ralph’s, Von’s and Albertson’s and their parent companies made between 2 and 3 billion dollars in profits last year.  Their CEOs took home up to $9 million in compensation.

Meanwhile, under this two-tiered system, nearly half of all grocery workers at these three chains are making less than the people who work right next to them doing the same job every day.  And practically nobody is receiving quality benefits.  Rick Wartzman spelled it out in an article in the LA Times:

The reason: These are folks who joined the Pleasanton, Calif.-based supermarket giant after the 4 1/2 -month strike and lockout that ended in February 2004. And under the contract the United Food and Commercial Workers union signed with Safeway, Kroger Co.’s Ralphs chain and Albertsons (now owned by Supervalu Inc.), new employees can’t get any health benefits for 12 to 18 months. Their families aren’t eligible to be covered for 30 months.

Going without insurance for so long “is completely stressful,” says Suzanne Demers, who went to work at Safeway’s Vons market in Redondo Beach in July 2004 and earns $10.50 an hour training others, filling in at the Starbucks station and tackling a range of additional tasks. “You just hope and pray that you don’t get sick.” […]

Right now, figures from the trust fund overseeing the health plan show that a mere fraction of lower-tier workers have been in the job long enough to qualify for coverage: just 3,312 out of 12,520 at Vons; 3,771 out of 11,474 at Albertsons; and 2,044 out of 8,438 at Ralphs.

And how long will most of these workers last before they, too, head for the exits?

This two-tiered system is churning employees of what used to be a potential career out of the business; it’s become a low-wage service job.  And it’s getting worse with every upper-tier employee that leaves and every lower-tier employee that replaces them.

The last contract for UFCW employees in SoCal expired a week ago; they granted a two-week extension and negotiations continue.  Stater Bros. and Gelson’s, two regional chains in the area, have agreed to remove the two-tiered structure.  But the big stores (the ones that can afford it) have not budged yet.  In the meantime, there’s a lot you can do to help.

The UFCW has a website at RespectWorkers.com.  There’s a petition over there that I ask all of you to sign.

By signing this petition, you are indicating your support for compensating grocery workers fairly, ensuring that they enjoy a share of the supermarkets’ billions in profits, and ending the current two-tiered wage structure by endorsing equal treatment for equal work.

Full Petition Text:

I believe Southern California’s grocery workers deserve respect, and I therefore stand with them in support of the following contract goals:

–Fair benefits and pensions for all employees

–Equal treatment for equal work

–Elimination of the two tier contract

Another way you can support the employees is by patronizing those stores which have stepped up to their responsibilities.  There is a worker-friendly store finder on their site which you can use to find the stores in Southern California which have shown respect for their employees.  If you’re not in the area, I would suggest that Safeway/Von’s, Albertson’s/Supervalu, or Kroger/Ralph’s are NOT stores that you need to reward with your business at this time, until this gets ironed out.  This can only work as a national strategy, in my view, because a national corporation can sustain a regional strike, as they did the last time.

I would also suggest that any Democratic candidate looking to make some headway in California would do well to highlight this issue RIGHT NOW and make sure that these large grocery chains are being held to account.

Nobody wants another strike.  But there is an opportunity to rectify the deep injustice to working people that was perpetrated in 2004, and to ensure basic fairness in the workplace.  I hope all of you can help with this project.

Last month I attended a town hall forum put on by the Assembly Democrats covering the health care debate.  There was a lot said there, and you can see more video here. I apologize for the quality, but it seems the Assembly Democratic Caucus doesn’t archive their old town meetings.  However, I want to highlight one thing that the Speaker said that should be the critical element of every discussion involving health care.

Health Care is a Human Right.

Or, as Speaker Nunez said in the video, “Access to Health care is a right, not a privilige.” Ultimately, it goes back to how we view each other. Do we think people should be dying due to the fact that they can’t afford to go to the hospital.  Should people who can’t afford to have a colonoscopy, just be left to chance?  How do we measure the value of a life? We are the richest nation in the history of mankind, and still, to this day, we have people dying of preventable and treatable diseases. This is a question of morality.

That is not to say that economics don’t matter.  They most certainly do.  And it is now becoming perfectly clear that our economy is straining to afford the cost of health care.  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “As a share of the economy, health care has risen from 7.2% of GDP in 1965 to over 16% of GDP today, and it is projected to be 20% of GDP just 10 years from now.” Thus, we need real, balanced reform that reduces health care costs while expanding access to every man, woman, and child in the state.

I’ll leave specifics to another day, but just knowing how important the status of health care is a right is the first major battle.  And it’s a battle we are slowly, but surely, winning.

UPDATE III:Our friends from Color of Change stopped by to say, “Big news — James, our director, talked with a credible reporter who talked with Carolyn Kilpatrick, who, after being pressed, said that there is a Fox debate in the works, it just hasn’t been announced.” Is Barbara Lee going to let this happen?

UPDATE II: ColorofChange worries that the CBC Institute is still in talks with Fox and says, “This is no time to let up the pressure. They could be waiting for it to blow over so they can announce next week.”

UPDATE: No need to call, the CBC Institute made a smart move, Fox lost out to CNN. Huge victory for Color of Change and a great day for the Democratic Party

Can a couple of Californians — armed with little more than internet connections and the truth — change the Congressional Black Caucus?

The Politico’s Ben Smith is reporting we will soon find out. James Rucker and Van Jones are set to use their organization Color of Change to challenge the boneheaded exploration by the CBC Institute of hosting a debate for Fox “News”. The opening salvo is going out via email and links to a Robert Greenwald video Fox Attacks: Black America. The email says in part:

Fox News has a horrible record of attacking Black people, leaders, and cultural institutions. But at this very moment, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute is negotiating to partner with Fox to host presidential debates prior to the 2008 elections.

For the CBC Institute to partner with an organization like Fox News-given its hostility to Black political interests-would be shameful. You can help prevent them from making this serious mistake by calling on them to drop negotiations with Fox […]

Given its record, Fox News shouldn’t enjoy the support of Black political or cultural institutions connected to the Congressional Black Caucus. We believe the CBC Institute will change course once it realizes that Black America, if not all of America, is watching. Please join us in making sure they hear us, loud and clear:

http://www.colorofchange.org/cbci/

It should be expected that this video will be seen widely, in just three weeks his video Fox Attacks Barack Obama has been viewed 349,341 times.

Following the massive backlash and victory against the Nevada Democratic Party’s attempt to get in bed with Fox, Matt Stoller explained:

Over the past three weeks or so, the progressive movement – bloggers, Moveon.org, grassroots activists, filmmakers – pressured the Nevada Democratic Party to drop Fox News as the host of a presidential debate in August. In pursuing this short campaign, we made two basic arguments that were eventually accepted by party leaders.

First, we argued that Fox News is not a news channel, but a propaganda outlet that regularly distorts, spins, and falsifies information. Second, Fox News is heavily influenced or even controlled by the Republican Party itself. As such, we believe that Fox News on the whole functions as a surrogate operation for the GOP. Treating Fox as a legitimate news channel extends the Republican Party’s ability to swift-boat and discredit our candidates. In other words, Fox News is a direct pipeline of misinformation from the GOP leadership into the traditional press.

The current trend in the Party to hold leaders accountable for counter-productive decisions will now be waged in the Congressional Black Caucus and against the CBC Institute. Where do California members stand? Who knows, but you can ask them:

CA-09: CBC 1st Vice Chair Barbara Lee – (510) 763-0370

CA-37: Juanita Millender-McDonald – (310) 538-1190

CA-35: Maxine Waters – (323) 757-8900

CA-33: Diane Watson – (323) 965-1422

You can also sign the petition and call the Congressional Black Caucus Institute at (202) 785-3634. But first, check out the video.

The Assembly Republicans would love to just sit on their hands, Nero-style, as our healthcare delivery system burns.

“We don’t want to buy into a plan that’s going to fix everything, because we don’t think there is a plan that fixes everything,” Villines said. “We feel like we’re the last line of defense.”(LA Times 3/14/07)

And, why should the government, you know, actually do something to help the people of the state? Or fix a broken health care system? Or ensure that every citizen of this state has access to affordable health care.  (I would argue that it should be free or darn close to free, but that’s not even the point here.) No, Villines trusts the insurance companies, trusts the HMOs, and other corporate shills to protect our citizenry.  Because, you know, the market heals all.

Michael Villines of Clovis, the GOP leader in the Assembly, said in an interview Tuesday that many of the proposals from the governor, Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans were unfairly raising expectations of what government could do and would eventually backfire.

On to the low expectations of the Republicans over the flip.

Villines’ big proposal? HSAs for all, eliminate minimum coverage, and get in some great high deductible plans.  You know, because high deductible plans have worked so well in Massachusetts:

When Coleman’s doctor sent her for a colonoscopy, she came home with a $1,200 bill and a sinking feeling that she would have to avoid other trips to the doctor. Coleman, 53, who makes just under $30,000 a year as a residential counselor at a group home, struggled to pay off the bill over many months, even with some help from the state’s free care pool.

“It was horrible,” she said. “They were taking $36 a week out of your pay [for the premium] and just giving you large bills. It was like not having insurance. After that, I didn’t go to the doctor because I felt I wasn’t covered.”(Boston Globe 3/5/07)

Listen, I really, really like the concept of HSAs.  For healthy, affluent people, a savings account allows a modicum of self-insurance, encourages preventive care and staying healthy.  Those are all good things.  But HSAs do nothing to help the working poor.  If you are barely subsisting on the $7 Wal-Mart is paying, how are you going to pay your rent, buy food, and stash a few bucks away to self-insure? Well, it’s not bloody likely is it? 

The Republicans like repeating the “government isn’t here to help you” mantra and that “governmnent screws everything up”, yada, yada, yada… But, then Villines cites some countries with far better health care systems than ours as proof that…uhh…he needs to do some more research on the issue.

“If it hasn’t worked in the U.K., if it hasn’t worked in Europe, if it hasn’t worked in Canada … if it hasn’t worked in over a dozen states in the U.S. … maybe we should step back,” he said. “The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.” (LA Times 3/14/07)

Well, let’s start with Canada using Ezra Klein’s excellent Health of Nations series. 
1) Administrative costs: Canada has administrative costs that are 300% lower per capita than American admistrative costs.
2) Results: Well, Canada ain’t great, but they are 30th, better than our own 37th in the world.
3) The Canadian horde BS: Nope, not happening. The Canadians who come here are typically vacationing in the states, or are coming here to get elective procedures because they don’t want to wait behind the poorfolk.  More here.

I could do this again with the UK, and France (#1 in results).  But, I won’t rub it in anymore.  So, Mr. Villines, the definition of insanity is assuming the market will heal our wounds, when it clearly, has not done so in the past 50 years. That is insanity.

After all that nasty news yesterday, we finally get some GOOD NEWS out of OC to wake up to this morning! (From OC Register)

The city is drafting a law to expand its minimum pay standard to include contract workers along with city employees who already receive at least $10 an hour plus benefits.

Irvine is the only city in the county with a living wage law, and Tuesday night voted 3-2 (with Christina Shea and Steven Choi dissenting) to have staff add to the law to pay contract workers an hourly wage to raise their annual salaries above the national poverty line.

“We ought to set a standard that anybody paid by the city is paid at least $10 an hour,” said Councilman Larry Agran, who suggested the concept. “We need to join other United States cities that are not just satisfied with paying a minimum wage.”

Yep, you heard me right! The Democratic majority on the Irvine City Council (Beth Krom, Larry Agran, and Suhkee Kang) voted last night to expand the living wage ordinance in Irvine to city contractors. And yes, Irvine is not only THE FIRST CITY IN ORANGE COUNTY TO ENACT ANY LIVING WAGE LAW, but now they are also ensuring that city-contracted workers earn enough money to afford living in this very expensive area! Kudos to Irvine for leading the county again in treating its workers well, and I can hardly wait to see the final living wage law that will be enacted! : )