by Joelle Gamble on
“Work hard. Get good grades. Go to a good school and you will be successful.” Our generation has been told time and again that through hard work and dedication, we will be able to live happy lives, have secure jobs, and start families built on comfortable finances. But on the day of action around student debt, it [was] clear we need more than these easy answers to help Millennials … read more.
by Jon Zerolnick on
Last Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case that had the potential to impact millions of people in Southern California – people who have been breathing cleaner air thanks to the Port of L.A.’s Clean Truck Program. The Clean Truck Program is an innovative policy that has been successful in reducing port-related truck emissions by as much as 90 percent. But it has enemies, most notably the … read more.
by Jon Zerolnick on
Last Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case that had the potential to impact millions of people in Southern California – people who have been breathing cleaner air thanks to the Port of L.A.’s Clean Truck Program. The Clean Truck Program is an innovative policy that has been successful in reducing port-related truck emissions by as much as 90 percent. But it has enemies, most notably the … read more.
by Jon Zerolnick on
Last Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case that had the potential to impact millions of people in Southern California – people who have been breathing cleaner air thanks to the Port of L.A.’s Clean Truck Program. The Clean Truck Program is an innovative policy that has been successful in reducing port-related truck emissions by as much as 90 percent. But it has enemies, most notably the … read more.
by Jon Zerolnick on
Last Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case that had the potential to impact millions of people in Southern California – people who have been breathing cleaner air thanks to the Port of L.A.’s Clean Truck Program. The Clean Truck Program is an innovative policy that has been successful in reducing port-related truck emissions by as much as 90 percent. But it has enemies, most notably the … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
A friendly and regular reader of this blog wrote me that she recently spent a week sitting in on the trial of a teenaged girl in Compton who was tried for murder and will likely spend the rest of her life in prison. She regularly responds to my essays and often asks me to explain exactly what we can do to change the circumstances of injustice that I write … read more.
by Denny Zane & Gloria Ohland on
The success of Measure R, passed by voters in 2008, the “30-10” plan to accelerate implementation of our transit revolution, and the 66 percent “yes” vote on Measure J each demonstrates that Los Angeles voters are ready to invest in a transportation transformation. There is an opportunity now and a coalition partnership available that’s too good to waste. Together with Mayor Eric Garcetti we must continue cultivating this voter … read more.
by Lalo Alcaraz on
Illustration by Lalo Alcaraz. (Click image twice for full size.) See Gary Cohn's reports on California's enterprise zone program and the tax credits received by one two Sacramento strip clubs. … read more.
by Christian Torres on
(Note to Our Readers: About a month ago, a multi-year struggle by food service workers at Pomona College finally culminated in victory. The college had resisted their efforts mightily, even firing many workers under the pretext of their immigration statuses. On May 22, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice Los Angeles, whose members did much to help win this campaign, honored those workers and their struggle by giving … read more.
by Adrian Martinez on
Now that the L.A. mayoral race is over, its winner, Eric Garcetti, has much to do to help advance an environmental agenda for Los Angeles. He has a strong record of environmental protection and I’m confident that as mayor he can lead the City to a big and bold vision of environmental sustainability. There are several major issues L.A. will need to address during the next four years. A … read more.
by Gary Cohn on
California's controversial $700 million enterprise zone program has long been shrouded in secrecy. But now Frying Pan News has obtained documents showing that the Rancho Cordova strip club Gold Club Centerfolds has been approved for enterprise zone tax credits. The documents show that the gentlemen's club has received credits worth up to $37,440 apiece for nine employees -- sales associates, door hosts and security officers -- who are paid … read more.
by Gary Cohn on
California's controversial $700 million enterprise zone program has long been shrouded in secrecy. But now Frying Pan News has obtained documents showing that the Rancho Cordova strip club Gold Club Centerfolds has been approved for enterprise zone tax credits. The documents show that the gentlemen's club has received credits worth up to $37,440 apiece for nine employees -- sales associates, door hosts and security officers -- who are paid … read more.
by Gary Cohn on
California's controversial $700 million enterprise zone program has long been shrouded in secrecy. But now Frying Pan News has obtained documents showing that the Rancho Cordova strip club Gold Club Centerfolds has been approved for enterprise zone tax credits. The documents show that the gentlemen's club has received credits worth up to $37,440 apiece for nine employees -- sales associates, door hosts and security officers -- who are paid … read more.
by Erin Aubry Kaplan on
South L.A. is the neediest and most politically challenging part of the city that gets in the news chiefly for the story of its shifting demographics -- from mostly black to mostly Latino. Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti’s background fits nicely into that story. He is being touted as the first Jewish mayor, although the heritage he touted openly and often during campaign season was Latino. That’s identity politics, technically, but … read more.
by Gary Cohn on
John Thomas and Hans Burkhardt have a lot in common. For more than 17 years each man had a good paying union job, with health and pension benefits, near San Francisco Bay. Thomas worked as a warehouseman for VWR International, a medical supply company with a warehouse in Brisbane, south of Candlestick Park. Burkhardt also worked as a warehouseman, for BlueLinx, a building products company with a facility across … read more.
by Ashley K. Thomas on
Since 2011, the Construction Careers Coalition has secured agreements with public agencies to bring good jobs and benefits to local community members through public construction projects. These agreements are bearing fruit: At each of the six public agencies, we have exceeded our hiring goals for local residents, which means that more families can support themselves and more money flows back into our local economy. The coalition has used a … read more.
by Ashley K. Thomas on
Since 2011, the Construction Careers Coalition has secured agreements with public agencies to bring good jobs and benefits to local community members through public construction projects. These agreements are bearing fruit: At each of the six public agencies, we have exceeded our hiring goals for local residents, which means that more families can support themselves and more money flows back into our local economy. The coalition has used a … read more.
by Ashley K. Thomas on
Since 2011, the Construction Careers Coalition has secured agreements with public agencies to bring good jobs and benefits to local community members through public construction projects. These agreements are bearing fruit: At each of the six public agencies, we have exceeded our hiring goals for local residents, which means that more families can support themselves and more money flows back into our local economy. The coalition has used a … read more.
by Ashley K. Thomas on
Since 2011, the Construction Careers Coalition has secured agreements with public agencies to bring good jobs and benefits to local community members through public construction projects. These agreements are bearing fruit: At each of the six public agencies, we have exceeded our hiring goals for local residents, which means that more families can support themselves and more money flows back into our local economy. The coalition has used a … read more.
by Jon Zerolnick on
Is it too soon to hope that the snickering will end? One theme of our coverage of the marijuana industry has been to make it clear that dispensaries are an industry and should exist. They employ L.A. residents, they have suppliers and customers, they pay rents and taxes. Like it or not, this industry is here to stay; it is not a sideshow, and it deserves some respect. With … read more.
by Jon Zerolnick on
Is it too soon to hope that the snickering will end? One theme of our coverage of the marijuana industry has been to make it clear that dispensaries are an industry and should exist. They employ L.A. residents, they have suppliers and customers, they pay rents and taxes. Like it or not, this industry is here to stay; it is not a sideshow, and it deserves some respect. With … 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 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 Gary Cohn on
John Thomas and Hans Burkhardt have a lot in common. For more than 17 years each man had a good paying union job, with health and pension benefits, near San Francisco Bay. Thomas worked as a warehouseman for VWR International, a medical supply company with a warehouse in Brisbane, south of Candlestick Park. Burkhardt also worked as a warehouseman, for BlueLinx, a building products company with a facility across … 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 Rebecca Band on
There’s power in the picket line. And employers know it. That’s why, in 2008, Ralphs Grocery Company sued to have union picketers removed from the front of one of its non-union stores. But California has explicit laws to protect labor-related speech, and the court denied the request by Ralphs. But that hasn’t stopped the grocery chain from continuing its courtroom battle to silence workers – even though they’ve lost … read more.
by Jon Zerolnick on
Last Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case that had the potential to impact millions of people in Southern California – people who have been breathing cleaner air thanks to the Port of L.A.’s Clean Truck Program. The Clean Truck Program is an innovative policy that has been successful in reducing port-related truck emissions by as much as 90 percent. But it has enemies, most notably the … read more.
by Brad Wong on
A group of nuns began their 6,500-mile bus journey late last month in New Jersey with a view of Ellis Island. Since then, their brightly-decorated blue bus with images of hands raised — to show support for families and immigration reform — has rolled for more than 5,000 miles down Eastern Seaboard roads and into the South. This week marks the California leg of the “Nuns on the Bus” tour … read more.
by Steve Smith on
In How Enterprise Zones Are Killing the California Dream, Frying Pan investigative reporter Gary Cohn looked at the impact of the controversial program, including workers who lost their jobs while their former employers received tax breaks for hiring lower-paid replacements. He also reported on two strip clubs revealed to have benefited from the secretive program. Other media have picked up the story as well, building momentum for an overhaul. A more detailed overview of … read more.
by Staff on
Words of Fire, the Frying Pan's new poetry section debuted this week with a series poems the new mayor should read. These five poems by some of L.A.’s finest poets are intended to help Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti look closely at our city and listen with care to its diverse voices, from janitors to sidewalk fruit sellers to donut shop insomniacs. They are also an antidote to the platitudes of the campaign … read more.
by B.H. Fairchild on
It’s a bright, guilty world. --Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai But there is no water. --T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland The oldest Mercedes in California adorns the crowded foyer of the L.A. County Museum of Natural History, and babies shriek like bats in the elevator that lowers my daughter and me to the basement. There, among the faint, intermingled drifts of ammonia and urine from the … read more.
by Erika Ayón on
As dawn breaks through the crimson curtains, you rise, kiss Amá goodbye, the only time I see you do this, drive away, circles of dust and tire marks remain. You return four months later with the trunk full of crates of strawberries peaches, apricots, grapes, and plums. The nectar seduces our lips, seeps through our fingers. Our nights fill with dreams of this Garden hidden in the center of … read more.
by Harold Meyerson on
How a union of Yale employees aligned itself with community activists and won control of a beleaguered city. This article and illustration originally appeared in The American Prospect. Major Ruth became a civic leader because he made a promise to his neighbor, Brian Wingate. Both had moved to the Beaver Hills section of New Haven, Connecticut, in 2003. A neighborhood of aging single--family homes that had seen better days, Beaver … read more.
by Lewis MacAdams on
“If politics were the science of humanity.” --W.C. Williams Dear American people, I’ve just got to talk to you about your government. You are the government, the way we are the earth and sky, the way we are the blood and the government the branches of the tree. You and I are the government and we need no more amateur presidents, please. Once again, if you and I are … read more.
by Rev. Jim Conn on
Last Friday, my wife, Susan, was out where Santa Monica meets Brentwood to tell the President not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. No one caught a glimpse of him, of course. What she did see were scores of expensive cars moving down San Vicente – black, big SUVs, as usual, and top-of-the-line Mercedes and BMWs but also Jaguars, Ferraris, a Rolls, even a Lamborghini, plus others she couldn’t … read more.
by Suzanne Lummis on
It’s late, so the late Karen Carpenter comes off the radio at 1 a.m. The diners complain; she’s passé, she’s so post-mortem. You see, it’s Night of the Living. Outside the sirens rise up and home in. Now I’m upstairs asleep, lost to this din, but downstairs the Usuals stake out a square of linoleum, sit down and fit in. Like the jailed I bet they get the same … read more.
by Steve Smith on
In How Enterprise Zones Are Killing the California Dream, Frying Pan investigative reporter Gary Cohn looked at the impact of the controversial program, including workers who lost their jobs while their former employers received tax breaks for hiring lower-paid replacements. He also reported on two strip clubs revealed to have benefited from the secretive program. The governor and legislators have now put forward proposals to reform the program or … read more.
by Wanda Coleman on
after the long day’s hustle, Papa returned home waving fistfuls of Tootsie Rolls, wolfed down his supper, changed from his suit into his long-sleeved gray coveralls or blue cotton smock and slid out of silky stockings and Italian leather loafers into white cotton socks and well-scuffed All-American work shoes for his night shift scrubbing and waxing corporation floors we missed his loud full laughter around the television and what … read more.
by Michael Sigman on
America's economy will suddenly grow by $400 billion -- roughly three percent --on July 31, when the Bureau of Economic Analysis begins to include in its GDP calculations the value of investments in such intellectual property products as songs, books and movies. The new numbers will reveal that Stephen Sondheim, Stephen King, Steven Spielberg and Ray "Even Stevens" Stevens have been far more important to the nation's financial well-being than government stats have … read more.
by Rosemary Jenkins on
There are many similarities between the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s and the union movement that preceded it in the early decades of the 20th century. Both met with hostility, opposition, and violence. Yet today we look back on the former with gratitude and admiration, while the latter is either forgotten or distorted in our collective memory. Hard-fought union gains have become part of the fabric … read more.
by Rebecca Band on
We all know that working for Walmart is no picnic. They pay low wages, they slash hours, they offer little or no job security, they exploit and intimidate workers and they use sweatshop labor. That’s why Walmart workers are on strike this week, to protest the corporation’s greedy behavior and shady business practices. Learn more about the strike here. Many of these striking workers earn so little that they’re … read more.
by Staff on
This week, Frying Pan News has been following stories as Walmart workers joined caravans coming from across the country, converging at the company's annual shareholders meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas. This post originally appeared on MakingChangeAtWalmart.org. Video of the action is here. What a week! After an action-packed journey, the six Ride for Respect caravans all arrived safely in Bentonville, Arkansas over the weekend. But the buses of #Walmartstrikers were not … read more.
by Julie Gutman Dickinson on
For several years, Walmart's annual shareholders meeting has been the staging ground for high-profile protests against the retail giant's treatment of its employees. As Walmart workers from across the country — many of whom are on strike — once again converge this week on the corporation's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, one startling fact stands out: none of them, or any of the retail giant's 1.4 million workers, are represented by a union. Walmart's … read more.
by John Medearis on
Former Obama official Cass Sunstein explains in a recent article what a “wing nut” is: anyone, right or left, with “a dogmatic commitment to an extreme political view” that is “false and at least a bit crazy.” Wing-nuts, he says, “impugn” the “motivations” or the “good faith” of people with whom they disagree, rather than confront their actual arguments. Sure, you may say, that’s fair: an equal- opportunity definition … read more.
by Peter Dreier on
Eric Garcetti has enormous potential to be one of L.A.’s great mayors. He is young (just 42), full of energy, experienced in politics and government, passionate about L.A., brimming with policy ideas, compassionate toward the disadvantaged and a great communicator and explainer. I saw many of these traits up-close when I co-taught a course with him at Occidental College in 2000, and have watched him blossom as he joined the … read more.
