Apr 30, 2015
Following up on our Worker Memorial Day post, new statistics show workplace deaths for Latinos are on the rise. According to the AFL-CIO annual report “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” workplace deaths among Latinos in America rose from 748 in 2012, to 817 in 2013. The majority were men, and the overwhelming majority were immigrants: 542. Tweet
Apr 29, 2015
Palo Alto is the latest Silicon Valley town to approach raising the minimum wage above the state standard. The City Council’s 4-member Policy and Services Committee voted unanimously to recommend raising the wage to $11 an hour by next January with an annual increase by CPI, with a goal of $15 an hour by 2018. Tweet
Apr 29, 2015
The NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) contingent of Sunnyvale has a new cheerleader in perennial unsuccessful congressional candidate Ro Khanna. The Sunnyvale Public Lands for Public Use Act lists Khanna as an endorser of the initiative that would require a public vote on routine land use decisions. Tweet
Apr 28, 2015
Workers Memorial Day is an observance most notably given attention within the labor movement. But everyone who works should care about it. Everyday, 12 workers in America will not go home at the end of the day. They will die on the job. That’s more than 4,000 workers every year, and it doesn’t include the 50,000 workers who die each…
Apr 27, 2015
The San Jose Police Officers Association may have had a rocky relationship with much of the SJ City Council, but the cops are throwing their support behind Councilmember Ash Kalra in his race for State Assembly. Tweet
Apr 27, 2015
San Jose General Plan 4-year review and updates on Urban Village development Public entity: San Jose Community & Economic Development Cmte Date/time/location item will be heard: April 27, 2015, 1:30 pm Recommendation: Accept the status report on General Plan and Urban Village Implementation and provide comments on the proposed approach to the Four-Year Review of the General Plan. Refer this item to…
Apr 24, 2015
This week marks the five year anniversary of Arizona’s notorious SB-1070 law, which codified a set of anti-immigrant regulations designed to promote self-deportation of local residents or “attrition through enforcement” in the explicit language of the bill. Among the most disturbing aspects of the law is the provision that mandates racial profiling by requiring law enforcement agents to determine the…
Apr 23, 2015
Congratulatory messages and calls were have been rolling in to County District 4 Chief of Staff Megan Doyle who’s been hired as the County’s new Clerk of the Board. Tweet
Apr 23, 2015
With a goal of preventing and ending homelessness among U.S. military veterans by the end of 2015, Santa Clara County Board President Dave Cortese and mayors of Bay Area cities met with U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald on Wednesday, April 22, 2015, and pledged to step up efforts in their own communities. Tweet
Apr 22, 2015
Across the country, fair trade activists like the Sierra Club are raising our voices against putting harmful trade deals on the fast track to completion. At the same time, negotiators and corporate executives are meeting behind closed doors to write the rules of a massive new trade deal, the TransPacific Partnership or TPP, that would affect nearly every aspect of our lives: our jobs,…