Beware the Invisible Hand
By Willie L. Pelote Sr.
AFSCME
In California, the state government currently spends more than $34 billion a year paying private contractors to do jobs that civil servants can perform for half the cost. Another $900 million of taxpayer funds is wasted annually propping up the state’s failed enterprise zone program. Common sense dictates that any proposal to balance the state budget begin here.
Instead, what is being implemented in state capitals across the country are plans to eradicate traditional retirement and health care benefits for civil servants and, in some cases, to return civil servants to 19th century working conditions by eliminating their First Amendment right to assemble, organize, and bargain collectively as free citizens.
Why Wisconsin Matters to ALL Workers
By Art Pulaski
California Labor Federation
I recall vividly my first union job. At the age of 16, I joined the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union as a supermarket clerk. I remember the good wages in my first paycheck and the sense of pride I felt when I received my first union card.
Back then, about a quarter of all private sector workers were union members. Collective bargaining allowed us a path to a better life. The standard of living rose, not just for those of us in a union, but even for those who weren’t.
But today, too few workers have the right to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Years of assaults by corporations on the freedom to join unions have taken a terrible toll.
Preservation or Degradation of State Services? Let the People Speak
By California State Senator Noreen Evans
The design of California’s commemorative state quarter and the ongoing budget debate in Sacramento might seem unrelated. However, when twenty Californians sat down to deliberate upon what image would best depict the spirit of the Golden State, they settled upon the now-familiar relief of California’s founding naturalist John Muir gazing towards Yosemite’s Half Dome with a soaring condor overhead.