By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

As I wrote the other day, the California Chamber of Commerce has come out with their annual list of “job-killer” bills.  The list only targets bills by Democrats, and the bills are all acts that would help the people of California by improving the environment, worker wage and safety, public health, etc.

The California Chamber of commerce is a lobbying association.  They represent their members: businesses, many of which are large corporations.  This is about private greed vs. the public good.  The Chamber’s job is to convince the legislature to pass laws that enrich the owners of the corporations that fund them.  Nothing more, nothing less.  

If that involves convincing the public of something, then they do that.  Hence the label “job killer.”

But the companies represented by the Chamber are the real job killers.  They outsource jobs to other countries.  They lay people off when they calculate it will maximize their profits.  They employ as many people as needed to maximize the income to and wealth of their owners.  Nothing more, nothing less.

The very idea that the Chamber of Commerce would care if something is a “job killer” is ludicrous when you understand their function.  They are a lobbying association that represents the interests of companies that eliminate as many jobs as they want to, at their discretion, and then use some of the money that would have been paid in salaries to pay the Chamber to convince us to support their interests — and the rest of it to enrich themselves, which is their primary interest.  

That is how corporations work in the modern, “free-market” world that we find ourselves in since the Reagan era.  Not for the public benefit, not necessarily even for the company’s benefit, but for the financial benefit of the executives and (some of) the owners of the company.

Private greed vs. public good.  Nothing more, nothing less.

So there isn’t really an argument about whether the “job-killer” bills on this year’s list really do or do not “kill jobs.”  That is not the point of the label.  Instead it is up to us to understand who we are hearing from.  If we get caught up in arguing about whether these bills create more jobs than they might cost, we’re missing the point.  Their arguments are propaganda with no basis in reality, designed to do nothing more than sway opinion.  The point of the “job-killer” label is to make people afraid for their jobs, not to actually argue that these bills will or will not actually “kill” any jobs.

For example, a bill to require energy efficiency in new housing construction obviously creates many new jobs in the new, innovative “green” industries.  But such a bill might lower the profits that go into the pockets of the executives and owners of some of the companies that the California Chamber of Commerce represents.  (The LA Times on Wednesday said the Chamber’s agenda “seems dominated by development and energy interests”.)  And, again, it is irrelevant whether the bill might or might not really cost jobs in some of those companies.  The Chamber doesn’t care.  That is not their function.

The use of the label “job killers” is about scaring the public.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It is about fear.  It is about creating a climate in which people who are afraid for their jobs will go along with measures designed to enrich the owners of the companies that the Chamber — a lobbying association — represents.

So please don’t be fooled.  Don’t be swayed by propaganda designed to make you afraid.  As I wrote above, it is up to us to understand who we are hearing from.

Click through to Speak Out California

(Congratulations to Asm. Dave Jones for winning the annual “Job Killer” Sweepstakes. Jones leads the pack with 4 bills on the list of bills that protect workers and Californians. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

The California Chamber of Commerce has released its annual list of what it calls “job-killer bills.”  

Why is it that the Chamber’s job-killer bills hit-list seems to only target Democrats? Not a single targeted bill belongs to a Republican. “Bad bills”, like those designed to protect public health, climate concerns or consumer rights legislation, are all authored by Democrats.  The chamber has always been a lobbying organization, but it has gotten so bad that the Chamber seems to have devolved into little more than just one more fear-mongering Republican Party front group.

The “job killers” on this list are any laws that protect consumers, reduce energy use, require worker protections or anything else that might hinder a very few corporate executives from reeling in another several-hundred-million dollars a year.  The jobs that are “killed” are those of lobbyists for the energy industry.  

The first group on the “job killer” list is bills that ask for any kind of energy or water conservation or environmental standards for new housing construction.  For example, AB 1085.  The bill describes itself as undating,

“building design and construction standards and energy conservation standards for new residential and nonresidential buildings to reduce wasteful, uneconomic, inefficient, or unnecessary consumption of energy.”

But the Chamber’s job-killer list says this

Substantially increases the cost of housing and development in California by implementing significant energy efficiency measures

Now, think about this — if it costs less to heat and cool your house, this saves you money.  If you want to add energy-saving technology like solar electric or water-heating on your house this creates good jobs.  Maybe Exxon won’t benefit as much from this as the new, upcoming solar industry, but heck, the solar companies aren’t coughing up the big bucks and providing the good jobs to the Chamber of Commerce’s lobbyists!

The next group of “job killers” is “workplace mandates” like paid sick leave for employees, disability pay for on-the-job injuries or providing California’s citizens with health insurance.

Ah yes, the money businesses pay out to provide sick leave and disability pay for those pesky employees “kills jobs.”  They could hire so many more people if they didn’t have to actually pay them and keep them from getting injured!  This is one of the oldest arguments in the books.  Slaves are always cheaper.  But why do we have an economy if not to provide US with good jobs and other benefits?  Do we have an economy so a very few corporate CEOs get all the money and benefits, or do we have an economy so the people can also get good pay and benefits and safe working conditions?  The evidence (this, for example) is clear that good wages and benefits do not hurt jobs or the economy.

Then there are “economic development barriers” like asking online retailers to collect the same sales taxes that you local business owner collects, asking the wealthy to help pay for our schools, raising fire standards in high-risk fire areas and protecting our environment.  I guess the online retailers must be paying the Chamber more this year than the retailers who have to actually rent storefronts and pay wages in your town.  I can’t think of any other reason why SOME retailers should collect sales taxes and others should be exempt.  Doesn’t this change the playing field waaayyy in favor of online retailers and harm the prospects of businesses that actually set up in our local communities?  God forbid we ask them to help pay for our schools and police and fire protection!

This “job killer” list is nothing more than the use of fear to scare us into allowing a few rich corporations to have their way.  By saying that protecting workers or the environment might “cost jobs” they are trying to make us afraid to ask these big corporations to live up to their responsibilities to our communities.  How long will we let these lobbyists make us afraid?

Click through to Speak Out California

By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

The headline article in Sunday’s San Jose Mercury News: A winning bet on lottery money for Schwarzenegger?

FOR GOVERNOR’S BUDGET PLAN TO WORK, TICKET PROFITS MUST DOUBLE

The article discusses ways to increase lottery sales so the Governor can borrow from future revenue to pay today’s bills.  (And we get to pay huge investment bank fees for the privilege of borrowing our money from our future.)  

The article does not discuss the consequences of the possible failure of this wild plan to base the state’s financial future on gambling revenue.  If it fails we will still owe a huge amount of money to the big Wall Street firms, but will have even less revenue coming in to pay the additional interest and principal.  We’re talking about the possibility of bankruptcy here, folks.

The article does not discuss the consequences of using marketing methods to push gambling to California’s low income citizens.  We already know there is a gambling problem just from the amount of advertising that is being done today.  Now lottery-pushers are talking about online betting, allowing use of credit cards so people can go into debt, and increased advertising.  This can only lead to terrible victimization of people who are susceptible to gambling addiction.

Mostly, though, this Sunday headline article does not discuss realistic ideas for raising revenue to pay for the state’s schools, roads, police, firefighters, courts, health care facilities, DMV workers, environmental oversight and the rest of the absolutely necessary things that our state government does for us.  These ideas include asking the wealthy to pay the same sales taxes when they buy yachts and jets that the rest of us pay when we buy clothing and cars and necessities, or asking the big corporations to pay realistic property taxes on commercial real estate, or asking the oil companies to pay something when they pump our oil out of the ground and sell it back to us, or closing some of the loopholes that allow big corporations and wealthy to escape paying their share of taxes.

Nope, instead of looking at realistic revenue ideas we’re all being distracted by this silly lottery scheme.

Click through to Speak Out California

By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

A news story on Monday, McCain urges free-market principles to reduce global warming.  Which”free-market principles” does McCain mean?

McCain’s major solution is to implement a cap-and-trade program on carbon-fuel emissions, like a similar program in the Clean Air Act that was used to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions that triggered acid rain.

Summary: the government sets a limit on how much CO2 companies will be allowed to emit.  The government sets a fee for any emissions above that level.  The government allows companies with emissions below that limit to sell “credits” to companies above the limit.

McCain describes this as a “free market” approach.  

Conservatives always come up with nice-sounding ways to describe their ideas.  They talk about “free markets.”  “Free” sounds so good. Has a nice ring to it.  But is there really such a thing?  

In McCain’s example every single component of this market is defined, set up and regulated by government.  But conservatives always say that government is the enemy of freedom and of markets.  Do they not see the contradiction?

In fact, is there a market that is not defined, set up and regulated by government?  Would markets even exist if there were no government?  First, there is the money that is exchanged in a market.  Unless we revert to a pure barter system where goods are exchanged money is entirely a creation of government.  And it is entirely regulated by government.  Next are the laws that, excuse the word, “govern” the market system.  These laws are entirely a creation of government and it is government that enforces them and government that runs the courts that resolve disputes.  And yes, these laws are “regulations.”

So when conservatives complain about “government” and “regulation” and advocate “free markets” what is it they are really saying?  The best way to understand what they want is to look at what they do, not what they say.  If we look closely at the results of those times when conservatives gain power we can see that they really seem to mean they will use the power of government to protect the wealthiest people and biggest corporations.  

For example, conservatives in government have always defended the big energy companies against threats to use of their products.  They oppose mass transit, alternative energy research, even requiring cars to get better gas mileage.  

A closer look reveals that what they really stand for is a protection of the status quo, defending the rich and powerful against the rest of us.

Click through to Speak Out California

This week I wrote about the Kaiser Permanente / Inter-Con Security Security Guard strike.

The post Security Guards Striking for the Right to Have Our Laws Enforced discussed why the guards are striking.  They are employees of Inter-Con Security, Inc., which contracts services to Kaiser Permanente facilities in California.  This company (not Kaiser) is trying to stop the guards from forming a union and the guards are striking to ask that laws allowing union organizing be enforced.

In Why They (And You) Need A Union a comparison with unionized security guards at Kaiser facilities in other states demonstrated the difference that forming a union can make to workers everywhere.

The post Unions: Sticking Together to Fight Corporate Power discussed how individuals are unable to stand up against the immense power and wealth that corporations are able to accumulate.  Over time workers learned that by organizing into unions they were able to also build enough power to fight back and demand fair compensation and benefits for their work.

Outside of the blogs there was remarkably little coverage of this strike.  Here is a roundup of some of the other coverage:

This is a good story online at Urban Mecca, Three-Day Strike by Hundreds of Security Officers at Kaiser Hospitals,

“The public needs to know that the security officers responsible for making Kaiser hospitals safe and protecting vulnerable patients are being denied our fundamental civil rights. Inter-Con freely uses intimidation, spying and retaliation to harass its workers,” said Shauna Carnero, a security officer in Hayward.

The strike, which began May 6 and included major rallies outside Kaiser medical centers in Oakland, Sacramento and Los Angeles, followed numerous federal complaints that workers have filed with the National Labor Relations Board in recent weeks charging Inter-Con with unfair labor practices over the past two years.

The Pasadena Star-News had Kaiser guards strike,

Hospital security guards went on strike statewide Thursday, citing poor working conditions and lack of health coverage.

About 200 Southern California employees of Inter-Con Security, which is contracted by Kaiser Permanente to provide security guards, joined their Northern California counterparts who have been on strike since Tuesday, Service Employees International Union officials said.

[. . .] Security guards have little legal recourse when they are denied the right to organize, an SEIU attorney said. A loophole in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gives security guards only one method of forming a union.

While most employees have the option of holding an election to bring in a union, security guards can only organize if their employers agree to recognize the union, said attorney Orrin Baird.

“It’s sort of out-dated,” Baird said. “If they were not guards they could file a petition with the (National Labor Relations Board) and then they would have to have an election.”

While a few local TV stations carried news about the strike, there was a near-blackout of coverage in the corporate media.  Why do you think that is?

Please visit StandForSecurity.org.

I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike.  

(Proud to be working on this. Solidarity! – promoted by Bob Brigham)

I have been writing about the strike by California Kaiser Permanente security guards working for contractor Inter-Con Security, who are demanding that laws be enforced and their rights be honored.

SEIU sent out a press release on the situation, titled, Workers With No Healthcare Protecting Kaiser Facilities, Security Contractor May Be Misleading California’s Largest Healthcare Provider.  In summary, the security guards at Kaiser are supposed to be provided with individual healthcare after working for 90 days, but it turns out that many are not.  The security contractor Inter-Con Security has found a way around the promise: they classify workers as “on-call” instead of permanent.

As more and more workers report that Inter-Con is keeping workers on temporary or “on-call” status for months or years, it’s still unclear whether Inter-Con is misleading Kaiser or if Kaiser is simply turning a blind eye to these tactics which short-change workers.

And their families are not provided with health insurance at all.  The security guards — paid as little as $10.40 an hour — are supposed to buy it.  The result is that 41% of the officers who responded to a survey cannot.  And without paid sick days they cannot afford to take the time off to see a doctor anyway.

So here we are with a company finding ways around a promise by changing the classification of the workers to “on-call.”  This points out yet one more problem of workplaces that do not have unions.  How many people are classified as “temporary” or “contractors”?  This is one of the bigger scams that is going on these days.  One reason companies do this is because if someone is not an employee the employer doesn’t have to pay their share of the Social Security payroll tax.  (There are other reasons as well, including avoiding paying promised benefits.)

How do you know if you should be called an employee or an independent contractor?  For a quick guideline, let’s go to the IRS.  They say that by-and-large you are an employee,

if the organization can control what will be done and how it will be done. This is so even if the organization gives the employee freedom of action. What matters is that the organization has the right to control the details of how the services are performed.

Yet most of us see examples of people in this situation who are called “temporary workers” or “contractors” all the time.

Companies are not supposed to do this to us, but here’s the thing: What can you do about it? You and I are individuals, alone.  But corporations have the ability to amass immense power and wealth and influence.  You and I as individuals must stand alone against this power and wealth.  What can you or I or anyone else do on our own?  The average person in our society has very little ability to stand up against this kind of power and wealth.

Over time people discovered that there are some things they can do that will work.  One of these has been to form unions.  By joining together the workers in a company can amass some power of their own.  The company needs the workers in order to function so the workers — if they stick together — have the ability to make the corporation obey employee/employer laws, provide decent pay, and all the other benefits that the unions have brought us.  This is why they are also call “organized labor.”  By organizing into a union and sticking together people have the ability to demand respect and compensation for their work.

This is what the security guards at Kaiser are trying to do.  This is what you should do.

I encourage you to visit StandForSecurity.org.

I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike.  

(I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike. – promoted by Bob Brigham)

Yesterday I wrote about the security guards who are striking at Kaiser Permanente because their contractor-employer is engaging in illegal tactics while trying to block them from forming a union.  The guards work for Inter-Con Security Inc., which is contracted by Kaiser to provide security services.

You can read articles with details about what happened with the strike yesterday here and here.  (There is close to zero coverage of this strike in newspapers.  But you wouldn’t expect a corporate-owned media to provide information about labor, now would you?)

Please visit the site Stand for Security for background and details about the security guards’ fight to form a union.

While this strike is about violations of workers’ rights, there are very good reasons for their three-year effort to form a union.

In Oregon, the state just north of California, Kaiser Permanente security guards are employed by Kaiser, not by a contractor.  They are unionized and here is a short chart of just some of the difference this makes.

This chart is an example of the difference that a union makes.  The column on the left — the one with better pay, health care, sick days, pension and other benefits — is the workers who are in a union.  The column on the right is these security guards.  So this is why these security guards have been fighting for three years to join a union.  The employer, Inter-Con Security won’t even give sick days!  For people working in hospitals!  What are these workers supposed to do?  And they won’t even pay when the workers have jury duty!  (Shouldn’t a company be concerned about the greater public good, like a court system that works?)

But this chart is also representative of other workplaces, showing the difference that forming a union can make for other workers.  How else are workers going to get back their rights, get health care, get pensions, and get paid?  If you see a better idea out there, please let us all know because this strike and the things happening to these security guards shows that it is very very difficult to form a union.  In today’s environment where workers are afraid of employers moving their jobs overseas – or even just laying them off and telling everyone else to work harder – and then giving their pay out as raises to the executives and multi-million-dollar bonuses to the CEO, this is a very brave action to take.  

On top of that, the Republican government has stacked the labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board to side with the big corporations.  So it is even harder to form a union than ever.  Which is, of course, why wages are stagnating and CEO pay is off the charts.

This is why these workers are striking — to demand that their civil rights be honored and to demand that their right to form a union be honored.  These security guards are placing everything on the line — and doing this for all of us.  If they win this fight, all of us are a step further toward our rights being honored, and toward our own jobs paying more and giving benefits.

I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike.  

(I’m proud to be working on this for SEIU, there’s great energy here on the picket line! – promoted by Bob Brigham)

There is a three-day strike starting today at Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California.  1800 security guards are striking for three days in an “unfair labor practice” action.  This strike is not against Kaiser and is not to ask for money or benefits; it is not even to form a union in the first place.  This strike is just to ask that our laws please be enforced.  This may be a lot to ask for in today’s corporate-dominated system, but they’re asking for it anyway.

Here is some background:  

Rather than directly employ security guards Kaiser contracts with a company called Inter-Con Security Systems, Inc.  Inter-Con hires and manages the security guards for Kaiser, paying them very little and giving them few benefits – not even sick leave.  So these security guards, even though they work at Kaiser, (some for many years), are paid far less than other security guards at Kaiser facilities in other states, and receive few benefits.  Kaiser is one of the more responsible, unionized companies for its workers, which makes this situation even worse for these workers.

These security guards have been trying to form a union for three years and Inter-Con is trying to stop them.  It is legal to form a union but Inter-Con has violated civil rights by “threatening, intimidating, and spying on workers who were trying to form a union for better conditions” and that is illegal.  

“…They’re pulling us aside to ask us who is going to picket or strike, who’s a union supporter,” said Angelito Morales, an Inter-Con officer at Kaiser Union City Medical Center, near the Hayward facility.

That’s illegal.  Many other occurrences of i9llegal anti-union practices led the security guards to file a complaint with the (Bush) National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that Inter-Con managers have:

   * Ordered employees to inform management when individuals at the job site were engaging in union activities.

   * Interrogated employees, asking them to disclose the names of individuals who intend to engage in union activities.

   * Spied on employees, photographing and/or otherwise recording employees as they participated in union activities such as picketing.

   * Interrogated at least one worker about planned strike activities, asking whether or not the worker was planning on participating in the strike.

   * Promised workers improved benefits (healthcare), to deter them from engaging in further union activities.

All of these are against the rules, but the NLRB has not acted.  

Please visit Stand For Security, SEIU’s website covering this strike and the security guards’ fight to form a union.

Don’t get caught up in arguments about whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for employees to go on strike for money or benefits.  That is not what this strike is about.  This strike is about asking that laws be enforced, so the security guards can go about the legal business of forming a union to represent their interests.

These are the only workers at Kaiser — subcontracted or not — who do not have a union.  Janitors and others are subcontracted but have unions.  And being in a union makes a huge difference.  For example, these are the only Kaiser workers without paid family health care.  Inter-Con employees must be full time to get any health coverage, while other Kaiser workers get it for working part time.  (And of course Inter-Con has lots of ways to make sure employees don’t get classified as full-time, like having an “on-call” status that doesn’t count.)  

They don’t even have paid sick leave.  These security guards have to restrain patients, work in the psychiatric ward, etc., and some have been attacked, but they do not even get sick pay! And, of course, there is a dramatic pay difference between these Inter-Con contractors and the other Kaiser employees and contractors.

Rather than turn this into a comprehensive, 12-page essay I’m goign to write more over the next several days, as this strike unfolds.  For now, please visit Stand For Security, SEIU’s website about this situation.

I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike.

Update – Construction workers building a wing at the Oakland Kaiser site have shut down to honor the picket line there.

Pics from Oakland:

     

Update – Just got a report that an Alhambra truck with a Teamster driver is refusing to cross the Oakland picket line, and in Hayward the IBEW workers will not cross.