By Rachel Johnson

On this date in 1965 President Johnson signed Medicare into law. Fun fact: at the signing ceremony, President Johnson enrolled President Truman as the first beneficiary of Medicare. Today this publicly funded health care system continues to lift millions out of poverty. 50 years since being signed into law and Medicare is the nation’s largest and most successful health insurance program, providing quality healthcare and financial security to over 55 million Americans.

Read More

A California educator is sharing what it was like to join hundreds in San Diego to protest the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC. ALEC is funded the infamous billionaire duo Charles and David Koch, also known as the Koch brothers, and has a track record of exploiting the rights of working Americans to make the rich even richer.

Read More

Howard Egerman

“Baseball can be described in one word –You never know,” former Oakland As pitcher Joaquin Andular once said.
As we approach Medicare’s 50th birthday on July 30th and Social Security’s 80th on August 14th, we should pause and reflect on what these programs mean to all of us.

Read More

Teamsters Local Union 853 announced yesterday that workers at Palo Alto-based Google Express Services filed for a representation election. The more than 140 warehouse and shipping workers sought out the Teamsters for help with improving working conditions, treatment on the job and compensation.

Read More

by Rachel Johnson

We couldn’t think of a better throwback than John Oliver’s hilarious take-down of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This group of corporate lackeys is hell-bent on pushing their anti-worker agenda on any elected official who takes them up on their offer for an all-expense-paid vacation to their annual meeting, this year in sunny San Diego.

Read More

Next week, corporate lobbyists, right-wing millionaires and a host of one-percenters will descend upon San Diego for American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting, a national gathering in which these special interests wine and dine conservative lawmakers and plot strategies to screw working people out of things like a decent wage, health care and retirement security.

Read More

by Rachel Johnson

Since 1975, millions of American workers have been scammed out of bringing home a salary that reflects the time they have dedicated to their job.  How have bosses managed to get away with this insidious form of wage theft? The title “assistant manager” and others like it paved the way.

Read More

6.5 million Californians have access to paid sick leave starting today

By Rachel Johnson

Today is game-changer for California. Thanks to the Healthy Workplace Healthy Family Act of 2014, which goes into effect today, millions of workers in the Golden State will now have access paid sick day protections at their workplace. After years of fighting to expand access to paid sick leave against business lobbyists who continue to insist that paid sick leave is a “job-killer”, the California Labor Movement earned a historic victory when a Labor sponsored bill, AB 1522 (authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez): Earned Sick Leave for All California Workers, was signed into law by Governor Brown in 2014. Today that law goes into effect, bringing a much needed benefit to millions of California workers.

Read More

Apps like AirBnB and Uber bad for workers

Don’t the let the term “sharing economy” fool you. There is no sharing. It’s really just the 1% making money by stripping workers of the rights for which the labor movement has fought so hard to secure. Just because the business transactions of these so-called “sharing economy” companies, such as Uber and AirBnB, are accomplished using smartphone apps, doesn’t mean they’re progressive or new. Instead, these companies are simply recycling old ideas and taking us backwards to a time when workers had no rights on the job.

Read More