by Frying Pan Staff on
When you see a news story about Election Day in Los Angeles there's a good chance it’s not about any issues or personalities involved during any one campaign, but about the city’s poor voter turnout. Depending on who you read, L.A. is the city that is too lazy for democracy, or too cool, bored or indifferent. Watching our turnout numbers fall has become a spectator’s sport, like watching a … read more.
by Peter Dreier on
In recent weeks, Congress has been looking into last year's outbreak of meningitis, which killed 53 people and injured more than 700 Americans in 20 states. The cause was a tainted steroid distributed by the New England Compounding Center (NECC), which is part of an obscure $2 billion-a-year niche of the pharmaceutical industry called "compounding pharmacies." Recent reports document that this rogue industry is out of control, operating dangerously … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
On May 15, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa celebrated the launch of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s Small Business Direct Install (SBDI) energy efficiency program at Supermercado Latino, a neighborhood market near Memorial Coliseum in South Los Angeles. The market received free retrofits that will save it 44 percent on utility bills while helping reduce L.A.’s reliance on coal power. SBDI is one of the key initiatives … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
On May 15, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa celebrated the launch of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s Small Business Direct Install (SBDI) energy efficiency program at Supermercado Latino, a neighborhood market near Memorial Coliseum in South Los Angeles. The market received free retrofits that will save it 44 percent on utility bills while helping reduce L.A.’s reliance on coal power. SBDI is one of the key initiatives … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Danny Feingold on
The L.A. Times has not exactly been falling all over itself lately to curry favor with the city’s labor movement, with a seemingly endless stream of news stories, columns and editorials portraying unions in a less than sympathetic light. So the last thing one might have expected to see was a rally of workers and labor leaders coming to the defense of L.A.’s paper of record. But desperate times … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
Some 53 percent of Americans say that the second Iraq war was a mistake. A recent Los Angeles Times article asked if the war brought change for the better. But no one asks what that war cost this country. The first trillion dollars we spent on it was only a down payment on what experts have estimated to be probably two trillion or more that we will spend over … read more.
by Danny Feingold on
John Densmore has been famous for longer than many of us have been alive. The drummer with the seminal 1960s L.A. band The Doors, Densmore parlayed his early success into a long career – not just as a musician but as a writer, actor, dancer, producer and social activist. He’s a native Angeleno (his childhood home is now an onramp where the 405 meets the 10) who cares deeply … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Ed Padgett was driving in the rain to a union meeting when the L.A. Times called to tell him he was fired. The pressman, a third-generation Times employee, listened in shock last December to an HR woman’s voice explain he was being dismissed for “safety violations, dishonesty and suspicion of sabotage.” That last charge had a bittersweet irony. Padgett had been at the paper for more than 39 years … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
Things are seldom what they seem. Sometimes the distance between what we think we see and what is actually there is the result of personal prejudices. Sometimes it’s influenced by a kind of factual gerrymandering created by official sources and reinforced by the media. Most vacationers, for example would choose Carnival-happy Brazil in a moment over drug war-scarred Mexico. Unless they knew that Mexico has only 11 homicides per … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
On the heels of Walmart’s 50th birthday, several writers have examined the outsized wealth accumulated by six members of the Walton family, the clan that exercises controlling interest over the retail giant. The University of Californian, Berkeley’s Sylvia Allegretto, for example, has written that even as their fellow members of the Forbes 400 club lost wealth between 2007 and 2010, the Walton heirs actually accumulated more. Meanwhile, Josh Bivens … read more.
by Gary Cohn on
At first glance, it is one of the nation’s hottest new education-reform movements, a seemingly populist crusade to empower poor parents and fix failing public schools. But a closer examination reveals that the “parent-trigger” movement is being heavily financed by the conservative Walton Family Foundation, one of the nation’s largest and most strident anti-union organizations, a Frying Pan News investigation has shown. Since 2009, the foundation has poured more than … read more.
by Vivian Rothstein on
I could be a hopeless optimist, but it seems that more people are thinking deeply about the kinds of lives they want to lead as life has become harder in our country. Recently I was invited to speak to students in a Nonprofit Leadership graduate program on “How to Build a Career Based on Social Justice Principles.” It gave me a chance to think about what has worked for … read more.
by Jim Lair Beard on
I thought for sure we were going to have to call a locksmith to get Rene released from the Porta-Potty. We didn’t hear his calls for help at first because we were screaming at the hotel at two in the morning. It was the second night of our union’s weeklong strike against the Hyatt Andaz Hotel on the Sunset Strip. Luckily, Rene just seems to have problems opening doors. … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Ed Padgett works as a pressman at the L.A. Times’ Olympic Boulevard printing plant – a third-generation employee who has been with the paper 39 years. He currently blogs at his site, Los Angeles Pressmens 20 Year Club. Padgett began posting messages in 1990, before the advent of the Internet, because, he says, “I was getting a bit bored.” His tedium vanished in 2008 when, after press operators voted … read more.
by Roxana Tynan on
I think I have about 19 minutes to gather my thoughts about stepping into the role of executive director of LAANE this week. Jack, my two-year-old, is napping, and Izzy, my almost-five-year-old (going to kindergarten this September, phew!), is happily giggling at Pingu, a towering work of claymation genius that is one of the few things we both love to watch. I’ve been at LAANE (Los Angeles Alliance for … read more.
by Aiha Nguyen on
The recent confirmation that Walmart will be setting up shop in Chinatown made my heart drop. This is a neighborhood that will always hold a special place in my heart. Having previously worked in the community for two years, I can tell you stories of eating pastries at Phoenix Bakery or the smells of ginseng and tea wafting from Wing Hop Fung or the sound of elders debating loudly … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
People in our apartment building don’t have to guess the shape of my and my wife’s politics. A weathered NO WAR sign stands in front of our doorway and on one wall there’s a flag with an image of planet Earth, taken from space, on a blue field that’s hung there since 9/11. Hard to miss. So I was taken aback when a three-page printout from an NPR interview … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
Wikimedia If absence makes the heart grow fonder, distance makes reality look rosier. From a long way off Santa Monica appears like a liberal’s fantasy of justice in paradise. After all, we have a tough rent control law and we’ve had a mostly enlightened city council, government and school board for more than three decades. But from up close, the picture’s not that sweet. A recent hotel approval exposed … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
My hometown just declared bankruptcy. No, not the town I was born in, and not the place I have lived most of my adult life, but where I grew up. Stockton, with a population of about 300,000 is the largest city in America to file for Chapter 9 protection. Conventional wisdom says it was the unfunded pension liability or mismanagement or too much debt, and under state guidelines for … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
We drove north out of Santa Fe, through Espanola and past Abiquiu, the village where the artist Georgia O’Keefe lived, until we reached a narrow road in the high country. Then we drove until we came to a dirt and gravel road that led another 10 miles to a small cluster of houses and buildings named Ganado, the Spanish word for “cattle.” My wife, Susan, would live for a … read more.
by Maria Bustillos on
"[T]he ruling elite [...] have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination." So claimed psychologist Bruce E. Levine in his article "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back," which appeared on AlterNet last July. The author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite cited a 2010 Gallup poll that asked American workers, … read more.
by Jim Lair Beard on
Assuming, of course that the world doesn’t end, I plan to make 2012 the year where I actually put more action into my words. It’s easy to sit behind a computer all day and muse about how one might change the world, but I did that last year and this year is going to be different. I’m going to try and convince people that a proper balance of action … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
Even before Santa Monica became infamous for the atheists taking over most of the holiday kiosks at Palisades Park, I thought the season was bigger than merely Christmas. After all, December 25 marked the turning of the sun for the Romans – what they called Saturnalia. The whole season of festivals hinges on Solstice, not a baby’s birth – although a pregnant girl giving birth in a stable makes … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
Not long after the Los Angeles social upheaval of 1992, Mayor Tom Bradley tapped Warren Christopher, former Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, and a long-time Angeleno, to lead a panel examining the issues surrounding what is still the most costly urban riot in American history. As part of his study, Christopher convened a group of clergy. He wanted to know what our parishioners may have told us about … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
It was a Wednesday night and my son was watching the news on TV in his room while I fixed dinner. “Dad,” he called from the bedroom, “Dad, you better get in here and see this.” “This” turned out to be the beginnings of the worst urban social upheaval in American history. Its early moments were caught on film by a news helicopter high over the intersection of Florence … read more.
by Bobbi Murray on
Maybe you will be one of the 10,000 people expected at a June 30th protest in L.A.’s Chinatown against a controversial plan to open a Walmart store there. The uber-retailer’s reputation for wrecking the atmosphere of historic districts like Chinatown, and posing a potential threat to local businesses, has generated strong resistance to plans for a 33,000 square-foot “express” Walmart at Cesar Chavez and Grand avenues. The fight isn’t … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
Los Angeles’ polls close at 8 p.m. tonight, so there’s plenty of time to vote – and brush up on who and what is on the ballot. Frying Pan News, which does not endorse candidates, has been providing election coverage throughout the spring -- offering in-depth interviews with mayoral hopefuls Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti, as well as asking political thinkers like Raphe Sonenshein and Jonathan Parfrey their opinions on … read more.
by Peter Dreier on
In recent weeks, Congress has been looking into last year's outbreak of meningitis, which killed 53 people and injured more than 700 Americans in 20 states. The cause was a tainted steroid distributed by the New England Compounding Center (NECC), which is part of an obscure $2 billion-a-year niche of the pharmaceutical industry called "compounding pharmacies." Recent reports document that this rogue industry is out of control, operating dangerously … read more.
by Tim Robertson on
Dozens of Stockton-area workers and seniors streamed into the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter [Thursday] morning to deliver an important message: Walmart must pay its fair share for health care. It was the second stop on the statewide "Close the Walmart Loophole" tour. Not even the grey sky or the rainy weather could dampen the spirits of the members of AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees], … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
On May 15, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa celebrated the launch of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s Small Business Direct Install (SBDI) energy efficiency program at Supermercado Latino, a neighborhood market near Memorial Coliseum in South Los Angeles. The market received free retrofits that will save it 44 percent on utility bills while helping reduce L.A.’s reliance on coal power. SBDI is one of the key initiatives … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview … read more.
by Michael Mello & Brad Wong on
Phoenix, Arizona — Amber Zenzak, an office manager at a small carpet-cleaning company, took a moment recently to consider what life would be like each week without state support for child care for her children ages 3, 4, and 9. “My day care costs would be $100 more than what I gross a week. My family would be out on the street,” she said, choking back tears and referring … read more.
by Steven Mikulan on
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo addressed several hundred thousand people, the march for immigration reform seemed unstoppable – an … read more.
by Robert Reich on
Many of you soon-to-be college graduates are determined to make the world a better place. Some of you are choosing careers in public service or joining nonprofits or volunteering in your communities. But many of you are cynical about politics. You see the system as inherently corrupt. You doubt real progress is possible. “What chance do we have against the Koch brothers and the other billionaires?” you’ve asked me. … read more.
by Danny Feingold on
The L.A. Times has not exactly been falling all over itself lately to curry favor with the city’s labor movement, with a seemingly endless stream of news stories, columns and editorials portraying unions in a less than sympathetic light. So the last thing one might have expected to see was a rally of workers and labor leaders coming to the defense of L.A.’s paper of record. But desperate times … read more.
by Harold Meyerson on
[Frying Pan News Note: A New York Times piece posted last night by Steven Greenhouse -- and referenced below -- revealed that “newly found documents indicate that apparel had been produced for Walmart at one of the operations in the factory building that collapsed last month.”] The most dangerous job in the world, outside war zones, isn’t that of an undercover police officer or a firefighter or a bullfighter … read more.
by Dick Price on
Driven by disgust for the way our democracy seems to be for sale to the highest bidder, several dozen activists from Los Angeles gathered in Mount Washington this past Saturday to rally support for Proposition C, a symbolic measure on the May 21 ballot that urges area legislators to push for renewed limits on political campaign spending. In late February, the Los Angeles City Council voted 10 to 1 to … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
Yesterday members of Warehouse Workers United and their supporters confronted Scot Rank, the CEO of scandal-plagued Walmart de Mexico, at UCLA's Anderson School of Business. The warehouse employees are fighting for improved working conditions at warehouse facilities operated by Walmart contractors. This raw video captures the protest. … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
Some 53 percent of Americans say that the second Iraq war was a mistake. A recent Los Angeles Times article asked if the war brought change for the better. But no one asks what that war cost this country. The first trillion dollars we spent on it was only a down payment on what experts have estimated to be probably two trillion or more that we will spend over … read more.
by Leighton Woodhouse on
Within about a month of the debut of Fwd.us, Mark Zuckerberg’s new DC lobby outfit aimed at promoting immigration reform, the group is already falling apart. If this week is any indication, the meltdown will be as spectacular and ignoble as every other ill-conceived, overfunded start-up in the Valley. Fwd.us’ political problems began the way they usually do: with a cynical, too-cute-by-half strategy adopted by his Beltway proxies. Fwd.us’ approach amounted … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
From time to time we may gripe about individual stories or columns that appear in the Los Angeles Times, but it remains our city’s paper of record and a powerful source of investigative journalism – at a time when such journalism has rapidly given way to rumor-sourced blogs written by dilettantes or pundits. That the Los Angeles Times may become the private toy of America’s most partisan conservative interests … read more.
by Frying Pan Staff on
On the most recent Moyers and Company, Bill Moyers turned his attention to the ways underdog communities have organized themselves to win economic victories – in often hostile political environments. Moyers first spoke with Marshall Ganz, the veteran civil rights and United Farm Workers organizer; he then interviewed Madeline Janis, co-founder of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and affordable-housing activist Rachel LaForest. Ganz, a professor at … read more.
by Arnella Sims on
L.A. Superior Court judges are doing the wrong thing. They decided to deal with a $53 million budget deficit by arbitrarily closing eight courthouses around L.A. County, which will send justice into chaos, inconvenience people and cause transportation and other problems. The courthouses scheduled to close as of June 28 or sooner are: Huntington Park, Whittier, Pomona North, Malibu, West Los Angeles, San Pedro, Beacon Street and the Kenyon … read more.
by Jessica Durrum on
What do big banks and L.A. port trucking companies have in common? Fine print in contracts that traps victims into signing bad deals. We’ve all signed our share of contracts. Rental agreements, cell phone contracts, car loans. You don’t need to be a legal scholar to understand the basic concept: Two parties enter into an agreement that lasts until a fixed date. And as frustrated as you may get … read more.
by Robert Reich on
The West, Texas chemical and fertilizer plant where at least 15 were killed and more than 200 injured a few weeks ago hadn’t been fully inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 1985. (A partial inspection in 2011 had resulted in $5,250 in fines.) OSHA and its state partners have a total of 2,200 inspectors charged with ensuring the safety of more than eight million workplaces employing … read more.
by Allison Mannos on
National Small Business Week is coming up in June, offering a good opportunity to contemplate what role small businesses play in both our cities and economy. While most small businesses have a small workforce, cumulatively they provide a large percentage of the nation’s jobs. Many of the workers they hire are harder to employ, particularly in disadvantaged and immigrant communities. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, “More than half … read more.
