Efforts to form labor unions in Sacramento shed light on what public- and private-sector workers face in organizing across the United States. The Sacramento County Management Association is made up of more than one-third of all nonunion managers in the county. To gauge their interest in forming a union, the board of SCMA has given 1,172 managers the option to vote on forming a union by signing cards indicating their choice. The process began Sept. 26. Approximately 300 cards must be collected by mid-December to hold a vote to choose a union in early 2010. Unrepresented Sacramento County managers oversee employees who deliver services in airports, courts, health, parks and public works, a

Winter and spring of 2009 upended two Sacramento journalists. Just ask Sena Christian, 28, and Walter Yost, 61. The employers of both working reporters fired them this year. Christian covered the environment. Yost’s beat was education. Their unemployment is part of a newsroom trend across the country. Layoffs in journalism rose at a rate of 22 percent per month in the one-year period which ended this August, reports Unity: Journalists of Color, Inc., “a strategic alliance advocating fair and accurate news coverage about people of color, and aggressively challenging the industry to staff its organizations at all levels to reflect the nation’s diversity.” That downsizing of journalists co

As California’s deep budget cuts smash Sacramento State professors and students with furlough days, fee increases and terminated classes, money woes are also slamming a non-profit firm on campus. University Enterprises, Inc. reported an estimated $8.79 million shortfall in its projected and actual revenue for the fiscal year which ended June 30. This is UEI’s account of last year’s reductions: lease revenue, $3 million; investments, $4.1 million; retail sales, $1 million; copy and graphic, $.12 million and contracts, $.57 million. UEI operates the campus bookstore, copy and food services, administers contracts, provides grants and acquires and renovates properties. According to executive

April 12, 2009 New health care union grows in Sacramento By Seth Sandronsky Employees at nursing homes in Sacramento, Woodland and Pacifica, operated by North American Health Care, Inc., left the Service Employees International Union to join the new National Union of Healthcare Workers on March 17. “The new union tells us the truth about our contract negotiations with the employer,” said Ulette Bloomer, a cook and union steward on the night shift at Valley Skilled Nursing Home, by Sacramento’s UCD Medical Center. “SEIU was not honest about that and kept giving us the runaround.” The former SEIU employees, 350 in all, are the first-ever members of NUHW. They will remain covered by the cu

Rhonda is no more demonizing black males than I am the man in the moon. She is my friend, yes, and also a tireless advocate for those in pain of all backgrounds. Advocacy for them every day is what Rhonda does and who she is. We need more people like her.

Have you heard of the housing market crash? That brought down the private economy, on its deathbed now. Does cutting government spending help to revive the patient?

Goldman Sachs was an investment bank. Then the housing bubble burst. As a result of that, Goldman Sachs faced collapse. So the Federal Reserve Bank let Goldman Sachs become a financial holding company to get access to the Fed’s discount window and to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s insured loans.

A big question for the current decade concerns jobs. Where will the investment come from for new employment in the capital city of the nation's most populous state, and how does the jobs crisis connect with pro sports? California's jobless rate has doubled since Dec. 2007: http://www.economytrack.org/mainchart_3.php?_tab=unemployment Reducing state and local government spending can only deepen the jobs crisis. This is the current policy choice of our lawmakers. Note I assume that private investment is the key to economic recovery. That private investment is largely absent, and there appears to be little of it ahead. Therefore, I conclude that federal deficit spending to help the states is the key to recovery in the short-term. Oh, and one other minor thing. If our taxpaying dollars can flow to big banks to save them from bankruptcy, the same tax money can bail out the states to save and create jobs.

Bright students. Concerning number 2, there was an overbuilding of homes. That was a result of the rise in residential real estate prices. Note that the vast bulk of economists, column writers and reporters missed the home price bubble. They chose to be bubble cheerleaders, instead.