#local 1

City of Antioch Public Works Employees Question Lack of Parity on Health Care Contributions

Antioch—Employees in the Public Works Department for the city of Antioch (all members of Public Employees Union, Local 1) attended the City Council meeting on Tuesday, July 28 to publicly address their concerns over disparate and poor treatment by the City. Central to these concerns are lack of parity on health care contributions by the City, harmful staffing shortages, lack of meaningful…

California State Senate Candidate Mark Meuser affirmed his support of union led referendum to allow voters to accept or reject a 33% raise by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors.

Meuser, who is running as the Republican Candidate against Democrats Susan Bonilla and Joan Buchanan for Mark DeSaulnniers seat, is finding himself standing with unions on this issue.

Following a vote by Contra…

A couple weeks ago, the New York Times posted this slightly condescending article about how stagehands that are doing "little more than" loading in shows are making more money than some of the singers. 

They posted some letters to the editor about the piece that made some great points (like one about how classist it is to assume that the backstage, craftsman members of the arts community aren't just as deserving as the performers - and trust me, I am not counting myself as a member of that group). 

I got curious and found a couple great story that totally nailed why I was feeling kind of uncomfortable with the tone of the NYT's original piece. 

The Village Voice posted this article which, in a move that basically made still my beating heart, posted the Hall's 990s, which are legally mandated IRS documents all non-profits are required to make public and pointed out that the Executive and Artistic Director is making over a million dollars. 

Why Mr. Gillinson thinks he deserves the cool mill but his most senior technicians don't is beyond me. As the 990s point out, they're all working 80 hour weeks. 

Surprisingly, at least to me, Forbes makes some similar points, but leads in with my favorite response to that question: "why shouldn't they?", pointing out that "The carpenters and electricians at Carnegie Hall do highly specialized work and log plenty of hours of overtime."