Jan 31, 2014
California Attorney General Kamala Harris is drawing the ire of the San Jose Mayor. The title and summary of Reed’s proposed statewide pension initiative explains to voters how the measure would “eliminate constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree health benefits for current public employees.” Mayor Chuck Reed plans to sue the Attorney General over the wording. Tweet
Jan 28, 2014
The San Jose City Council will decide today whether to condone corporate greed and poverty-level wages for workers or apply city law to Starbucks and a large developer who want to lease property at the San Jose Convention Center. San Jose would normally require businesses leasing the property to pay employees a living wage, but the City Manager’s Office recommends an…
Jan 27, 2014
For many people not familiar with Silicon Valley policy and politics, this may seem less like a “Left Hook” and more like something out of “Left Field.” Brace yourself. In Silicon Valley, the business community and the labor community work together much more often than we work against each other. At a minimum, that is certainly the case when it…
Jan 21, 2014
San Jose Change to the Living Wage Policy Picking up right where they left off at the end of 2013, the San Jose City Council is bringing back a proposed change to the City’s Living Wage Policy. In a memo, City staff writes that clarifications to the City’s living wage policy would eliminate ambiguities or inconsistencies in the interpretation and…
Jan 21, 2014
“The news of my death is greatly exaggerated,” Mark Twain California High Speed Rail would already exist if we had listened to Governor Jerry Brown in his first term in the 1970s. Ever the visionary, Brown extolled Californians to look to the future. At the time he was ridiculed for his efforts. Now in his third term and in a…
Jan 17, 2014
Galactic Whopper During the 2012 elections, opponents of increasing San Jose’s minimum wage spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to spread distorted and false information. Although the voters decisively rejected their fear tactics, they’re still at it. This time they’ve published a phony report and bought advertising to show the negative effects of the minimum wage increase on “San Jose…
Jan 8, 2014
Accountability in any company has to start at the top – in the CEO’s office. Unfortunately, all too often chief executives are paid bloated salaries, which exacerbate the problem of income inequality and are bad for business. It’s time for a change. In 2012, according to BusinessWeek and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average large-company CEO in America…