Workers and shoppers at at the checkout area of a food store in the San Francisco Bay area. (Sundry Photography, via Shutterstock)OPINION: As much as we all might yearn for everything to go back to just the way it was before the novel coronavirus uprooted the world, we know that there are things that can never go back. Workplaces have forever been changed.
A woman with an afro using her computer. (Photo: CynthiaAquino, via Shutterstock)State Sen. Holly Mitchell was appalled. Video of New jersey high school wrestler Andrew Johnson having his dreadlocks chopped off as a condition of competing in a match was spreading around the country. Johnson had competed in a previous tournament without incident, but was now being told by a white referee with a previous history of making racist comments to a black colleague that his hair was “unnatural,” and he could either cut it off or forfeit the match. Johnson chose the former.
Employees in an open work space. (Photo: Monkey Business Images, via Shutterstock)OPINION: I recently signed a letter with state Sen. Connie Leyva, chair of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, and six other prominent women in California calling on J.J.Jelincic Jr. to drop out of the race for the CalPERS board after his history of harassing women was revealed by the Sacramento Bee. It matters that three women at CalPERS felt so uncomfortable working with Jelincic that they filed harassment charges against him, and that their allegations were upheld by the California State Personnel Board.
Assemblymember Melissa Melendez at a Capitol Park rally supporting her whistleblower protection bill. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law whistle blower protections Capitol staffers. Now, legislative employees in California will have the same protections as all other state employees. But a question arises: Will the new law, which passed both Democrat-controlled houses without a dissenting vote, really make much of a difference?