San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/2009/11/)
Dozens of former military people recently lined up outside St. Anthony Foundation for survival gear — ponchos, water bottles and hygiene kits. But they won’t use these materials to survive overseas as they might have during their days in the service. » Read more
More than 500 low-wage city workers threatened with job and pay cuts this fall received a holiday-themed reprieve Tuesday, as the Board of Supervisors delayed layoffs in the hopes of finding federal and state funds to prevent cutbacks.
The delay pushes off layoffs and salary reductions for two months — in what members of the Board of Supervisors called the spirit of the holiday season. » Read more
The Board of Supervisors voted this afternoon to reallocate $1.2 million in the Health Department’s budget to keep about 100 unionized nurse assistants and support staff from being laid off until after the holidays. But Mayor Gavin Newsom reiterated that he would order the department to not spend the money and that the workers would be unemployed sometime after Thanksgiving. As the SF Appeal reports, Newsom’s staff needs to talk with the personnel department to determine exactly when — not if — the workers will be sacked. The Service Employees International Union, Local 1021, sees the vote as a temporary victory, hoping that federal stimulus funds will come through in January to save the jobs. SF Weekly has background on the layoff battle.
Interview with CAROLYN DIAMOND, Market Street Association
Voters rejected Proposition D because the idea of permitting large, flashing billboards on Mid-Market Street scared many San Franciscans into thinking it would have led to the idea of hanging such billboards from every architectural icon in San Francisco, according to Carolyn Diamond, executive director of the Market Street Association. » Read more
There are tens of thousands of women in the military who are single mothers, and one local woman who refused to leave her child suffered the consequences for doing so.
Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother from Oakland who had her 10-month-old taken into child welfare services after refusing to be deployed to Afghanistan last week, is one 40 percent of women in the military who must balance child-rearing and service to the country.
According to a report by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization, "more than 30,000 single mothers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as of March 2009."
But Hutchinson is not alone in facing the difficult decision of creating what the military calls a “family care plan” or face discharge. In an article in Forbes, Sgt. Andrea Chandler, translator and single parent, took an assignment that required her to leave her 2-month-old and husband, whom she later divorced, or risk being discharged.
Despite the child care offered at the military base where she is stationed, she must pay for civilian care offsite because after returning from deployment overseas, the center was full.
Q.&A. with MILO HANKE, San Francisco Beautiful
Last week’s electoral defeat of the Market Street billboard plan, Proposition D, was such a close one because proponents hid the details of who would handle the funds coming from large, flashing ads in a “trust me” contract, said the opposition’s key organizer. » Read more
Hotel workers are returning to their jobs Friday morning at the Palace Hotel, but negotiations are still stalled between the union and hotel management across San Francisco.
While the companies that own San Francisco’s luxury hotels call for the union to take into account the economic downturn, union members assert that hotel management is using the economy as an excuse to cut living standards for employees, who make an average salary of $30,000 a year.
Unite Here! Local 2 has been bargaining with dozens of hotels in an attempt to renegotiate contracts that expired in August. In October, more than 2,000 union members voted to authorize strikes against 31 San Francisco hotels.
A three-day strike at the Grand Hyatt in the first week of November sent a signal of escalating unrest.
The California State University system is seeking $885 million in state general funds for the 23-campus system and the CSU Board of Trustees is expected to vote on the request at its Nov. 17 meeting and forward it to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature. The request for more funding, announced Tuesday, comes just after an announcement that 12 campuses, including San Francisco State University, will not be accepting a freshman class in the 2010 spring semester. Despite the record jump in applications to attend the 2010 school year — a 53 percent increase of 266,000 applications — bragging rights will soon belong to community colleges, whose application numbers have also spiked because of the closed admissions to many CSUs. San Francisco State University will also be capping the graduate applications it receives.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is not letting Mayor Gavin Newsom have his way on the problem of how to deal with undocumented immigrant youths detained on felony charges, the San Francisco Appeal and other news sources report.
The board, which approved the “Confidentiality of Juveniles’ Immigration Status” ordinance in October, planned to overturn the mayor’s veto of the legislation during a City Hall meeting Tuesday.
Introduced by Supervisor David Campos, the legislation requires authorities to wait until undocumented youths are convicted, before turning them over to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
While Campos argues that his legislation would ensure due process for immigrant youths, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Newsom says it goes against federal law and cannot be enforced.
The issue has stirred debate among legal experts who question whether current federal laws compel state and local officials to turn in those suspected of being in the country illegally, according to the Chronicle.
There is something about being unemployed — or underemployed, as it is cutely referred to these days — that puts a crimp in one’s life. It’s not just the loss of income and fear it brings that does it. And it’s not the insecurity that eats away at the psyche like a nagging toothache. » Read more