Posts Tagged: workers
Opinion
OPINION: My wife and I are union members working for a union employer in the Sacramento area. As full-time employees, we make a fair living, but not nearly enough for us to be able to live the life we want. In order to supplement our wages, we have chosen to work as independent contractors driving for app-based delivery and rideshare companies that service Sacramento.
News
California faces an increasing demand for affordable higher education and a need for adequate facilities suited to a rapidly evolving economy. PPIC estimates that by 2030 the supply of college graduates will fall 1.1 million short of workforce demand. All three public systems—UC, CSU, and CCC—are working to bridge that gap.
Opinion
OPINION: Around 25 years ago, Patricia immigrated to the U.S., settling in Santa Barbara with dreams of a better life. She cleans homes for a living in communities like Montecito and San Ysidro. During the Thomas Fire, she couldn’t go to work because many of the homes she cleaned were at risk. As mudslides came after the blaze, Patricia couldn’t go back to work for almost three months.
Opinion
OPINION: It is sadly ironic that portions of the construction industry have been fighting for years to reduce wages on these important but dangerous jobs are now claiming they face a skilled labor shortage. Just last year, California’s housing industry spent millions of dollars lobbying against minimum labor standards in any part of the residential construction sector.
Opinion
OPINION: Our nation has procrastinated far too long on fixing our broken immigration system. What is needed is a solution that has support from the large and diverse political middle of America, represented by most members of the congress.
Opinion
OPINION: It’s taken an army of firefighters to battle California’s historic infernos. It will take an even larger army to rebuild the Golden State from the devastation. Even with all of the current skilled construction workers, California will need to train more to achieve our goals of getting families back in their homes and communities.
Opinion
If passion for children were enough to pay the rent, classified education workers would be some of the wealthiest people in the Golden State. Instead, the hard-working teaching assistants, janitors, special education aides and cafeteria workers who keep our K-12 schools running barely scrape by during the school year, only to face hunger in the summer months when their paychecks stop.
Opinion
California will soon have a population of 40 million. It is a huge, diverse, complex state — really more of a nation-state made of distinct regions. And California’s economy is equally complex. In fact, it’s not a state economy at all, but a series of regional economies. Californians know that the time to fix our state’s economy is now. People from every region are standing up and demanding change.
News
Gov. Brown has signed historic legislation to set up California’s first state-run pension plan for private-sector workers, allowing millions of employees to continuously build a retirement nest egg regardless of where they work. The governor’s decision means California joins seven other states that offer similar programs, although California’s plan, called Secure Choice, will automatically enroll about 6.8 million workers.
Opinion
OPINION: Last week, politicians congratulated themselves on passing SB 32 – the climate change bill that aggressively extends and expands greenhouse gas emission reductions for the next 13 years—until 2030. Unfortunately, for Californians like you and me, this bill will result in ever-increasing cost burdens on businesses and employees throughout the state.
A California freeway at rush hour, with traffic that includes commuters and rideshare drivers. (Photo: EGD, via Shutterstock)
