Newest articles and comments on The Sacramento Press written by Seth Sandronsky

Seth Sandronsky on "Union Busting: Opinion"

2011-03-05T14:27:00Z

Social Darwinism lives!

Seth Sandronsky on "Black History Month forum examines Democracy, Islam, and Hip Hop culture"

2011-02-09T19:58:29Z

Date of event?

Dan Walters’ Deficits

2010-05-03T13:29:41Z

Pondering the state’s cash crunch, Bee columnist Dan Walters writes: “In fact, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's current budget is based on a wishful assumption that the feds will give the state an extra $7 billion – highly unlikely since the federal budget is in even worse shape than California's” http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/02/v-print/2720568/dan-walters-state-fiscal-plan.html

The last part of this sentence is doubly wrong. The federal budget deficit was higher as a percent of gross domestic product in 1946 than it was in 2009. And the federal government can legally run budget deficits. The constitution of California requires a balanced budget.

Mr. Walters is entitled to his own opinion, not his own facts

New jobs in California

2010-04-17T18:10:52Z

“California added 4,200 jobs in March,” reported a front-page article in The Sacramento Bee today: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/17/2685238/california-jobless-rate-rises.html
What does that job figure mean without a context?
That is the total number of non-farm jobs in California, 13,842,000 in March, and unstated in The Bee article:
http://www.edd.ca.gov/About_EDD/pdf/urate201004.pdf?
You be the judge.

Bee probes local government pensions, forgets role of health-care system

2010-04-11T18:35:23Z

A front-page story in The Sacramento Bee today provides impressive data on the economics and politics involving California’s system of local government pensions, focusing on payments and liabilities: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/11/2670020/pension-promises-threaten-california.html.
However, the reporters’ analyses of the data failed to include a driving force of rising pension costs. I mean, of course, our broken health-care system in the U.S. How broke is it?
“Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($8,160 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates. Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 46.3 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered.” More at: http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources
How can this inefficiency of U.S health-care delivery be? Consider two factors.
One factor is the government’s granting of patent monopolies for prescription medications to pharmaceutical companies. This policy increases the prices of drugs far above the actual cost to produce them, and effectively eliminates market competition for big pharmaceutical firms. More at: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/promoting_good_ideas_on_drugs.htm
A second factor is the multiple-private insurance firms that finance medical care by siphoning premium dollars away from consumers and providers and to CEOs and shareholders. This is the business model that commercial insurers use to spend fewer premium dollars than collected on patients and the doctors who treat them. More at:
serviceshttp://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=print/7646

Seth Sandronsky on "Has The Sacramento Bee heard of the housing bubble?"

2010-04-03T19:44:09Z

What in part accounts for the trend of stagnating wages is employer-friendly labor law. This paved the way for private-sector employers to weaken unions and organizing campaigns. The outcome was predictable. Nonunion workers earn lower pay and fewer benefits than those in unions.

Seth Sandronsky on "Has The Sacramento Bee heard of the housing bubble?"

2010-04-03T17:36:27Z

Stagnant wages for tens of millions of U.S. workers over decades helped to create the home bubble’s growth.

Has The Sacramento Bee heard of the housing bubble?

2010-04-03T15:37:01Z

A story in The Sacramento Bee on job creation in the U.S. and in California sidestepped the main cause of the recession and unemployment: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/03/2652552/stronger-us-job-numbers-dont-carry.html
That is the $8 trillion national housing bubble. In California, this bubble inflated higher than it did in most other states. Thus the loss of housing wealth in California’s economy has led to a sharp drop-off in residents’ wealth. This means that these consumers have less money in their pockets to buy goods and services. That, in turn, has dampened the bottom lines of businesses, big and small. This loss of consumption has also slashed tax revenue flowing to the state and local governments. Furloughs and layoffs of workers on state and local government payrolls further undermine consumption. That trend depresses private businesses, which employ the vast majority of the labor force. The bursting of the housing bubble caused the recession, the driving force of job losses in California and across the U.S. Maybe The Sacramento Bee can cover that news in the future.

Seth Sandronsky on "Vigil light for Marque Johnson"

2010-03-18T13:49:38Z

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.

Seth Sandronsky on "A Letter To Meg Whitman"

2010-02-14T20:55:35Z

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?

Seth Sandronsky on "Mayor lauds Goldman Sachs' work, Cohn sues the bank"

2010-02-12T19:45:21Z

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.

Seth Sandronsky on "NBA proposes Sacramento arena deal"

2010-01-17T19:42:41Z

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.

Seth Sandronsky on "NBA proposes Sacramento arena deal"

2010-01-16T19:19:57Z

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.

Seth Sandronsky on "2010--A transitional year upward for our economy "

2009-12-22T14:18:54Z

I support human beings, Jim. Is that clear? What causes people to leave home to search for paid work? Could part of the answer be so-called “free-trade” policies such as the NAFTA? Recall that the NAFTA passed, barely, under a Democratic president 15 years ago. The NAFTA increased U.S. agribusiness exports to Mexico. This has destroyed the livelihoods of its peasant farmers. They immigrate north to find paid work, mainly in agriculture and construction. Oh, and the stagnation of U.S. workers’ real wages? This trend precedes the NAFTA by over two decades. What triggered this wage trend? The answer is market competition that creates winners and losers. Corporations in Germany and Japan rose from their deathbeds after WW II. They began to compete with growing success against U.S. corporations for profits and market share. To try and restore profitability, U.S. corporations attacked labor unions and social programs. A leading thinker in this corporate campaign was Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. He, as a corporate lawyer, wrote a 1971 memo that urged business to ideologically and politically confront the popular movements (Civil Rights and Vietnam War) of the day. Later, Democrats and GOPsters did that via laws to deregulate, deunionize, etc. to satisfy their corporate donors. Jim, you, I and tens of millions of working people in the U.S. live in the present moment of this recent history. I end with a rough draft of a question that leaves behind description for prescription. Who benefits from groups of workers being at odds with each other over buyers for their labor services?

Seth Sandronsky on "2010--A transitional year upward for our economy "

2009-12-20T15:33:02Z

Real wages (what people can buy) with their pay has been stagnant for more than 30 years. At the same time, people’s productivity (output per-person each labor hour) has boomed. But workers have not reaped the benefits of their productivity gains. Guess who has? Sure, this trend is a bit hard to see. Yet it is the root of the economic crisis now. To sum up, the current recession is the result of inequity between the working majority and a sedentary minority since the early 1970s. Since then, U.S. households have coped with wage stagnation two main ways. One is to work longer hours. The other is to borrow more money. Together, both practices have helped them to maintain their living standards. I end with a brief word on financial bubbles, most recently in housing. This bubble and those before it boost consumer spending absent a rise in real wages. Financial bubbles are the effect, not the cause, of the widening gap between the upper class and everyone else.

Seth Sandronsky on "A Look Back: Mayor Johnson- Transparency and Accountability -- or Propaganda?"

2009-12-08T18:43:13Z

Rhonda Erwin is my friend. In our age of rising home entertainment and personal disappointment, she shows how to learn with and from others in pursuit of equity and justice. If that sounds old school, well, I guess it is. All that is decent and humane in our society is the result of people such as Rhonda working collectively besides like-minded folks. They rarely make it into the history books. No matter. It is people in motion, mass movements, that ended slavery, gave women the vote, smashed legal segregation, won the eight-hour workday, Social Security and Medicare, etc. Wealth and the political power it controls cede nothing without demands from below. When folks educate, organize and mobilize they can move mountains. Rhonda can’t do it alone. Nobody can. It’s time for more “I” people to become “we” people.

Sacramento County and Blue Diamond: Management tactics when employees organize

2009-11-09T07:19:55Z

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, among other agencies.

Sue Elliott, chief of administrative services for the Sacramento County district attorney’s office, is president of the association. What set the SCMA vote process into motion was a straw poll at a spring luncheon indicating that 46 percent of those attending were interested in forming a union, she said.

“This decision is predicated upon the fact that the county has called into question management benefits that were given in lieu of pay raises over the years,” she said. Those benefits range from cost-of-living-adjustments to sick and vacation days and 401(k) retirement plans.

Employees who belong to a union have collective-bargaining agreements requiring that any changes to their contracts be negotiated. So, in Sacramento County, nonunion managers are at higher risk of job, wage and benefit cuts than their union counterparts.

County executive Terry Schutten declined to comment on SCMA’s move. Steve Keil, the county’s director of labor relations, said Sacramento County has "no position on SCMA exercising its rights under the law.”

The Blue Diamond Growers almond processing plant in Sacramento offers a glimpse of what can happen when private-sector workers seek representation.

According to Blue Diamond employee, Frank Garcia, after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 17 began to organize workers five years ago, Blue Diamond hired a firm to make employees fearful of voting to join the union. To date, the plant has no unions.

Professor Kate Bronfenbrenner is director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Her research shows that from 1999 and to 2003, private employers used nearly five times the number of anti-union tactics as public employers.

"In 48 percent of public-sector campaigns,” she notes in her 2009 report “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” the employer did not campaign at all —no letters, no leaflets, and no meetings." <http://epi.3cdn.net/edc3b3dc172dd1094f_0ym6ii96d.pdf>

The Blue Diamond campaign appears to match U.S. workplace trends. American employers more than doubled their use of anti-union tactics against employees attempting to form unions between 1999 and 2003, according to Bronfenbrenner. In “No Holds Barred,” she analyzed a random sample of 1,004 NLRB union election campaigns, and conducted in-depth surveys with head union organizers in 562 of the campaigns.

Sixty-three percent of employers were reported to use mandatory one-on-one, anti-union meetings with employees. Further, 57 percent of employers threatened to close the workplace, 47 percent of employers issued threats to slash benefits and wages, and 34 percent of employers fired workers during union organizing drives.

"Both the intensity and changing character of employer behavior, as well as the fundamental flaws in the NLRB process,” Bronfenbrenner writes, “have left us with a system where workers who want to organize cannot exercise that right without fear, threats, harassment, and/or retribution."

Under the NLRB election process, 276,353 workers organized in 1970. By 1999, the year that Bronfenbrenner's latest study begins, 106,699 workers had won union representation through elections. In 2003, 71,427 workers organized. According to her findings, the decline is because of employer behavior such as threats, interrogation, promises, surveillance and retaliation for union activity. Bronfenbrenner confirmed every unfair labor practice mentioned by survey respondents through Freedom of Information Act requests to the NLRB.

She questions how much freedom American workers have regarding unionization.

"[E]mployers have control of the communication process. In today's organizing climate they take full advantage of that opportunity to communicate with their employees through a steady stream of letters, leaflets, e-mails, digital electronic media, individual one-on-one meetings with supervisors, and mandatory captive-audience meetings with top management during work time."

In her view, private employers try to neutralize union campaigns, emphasizing "interrogation and surveillance to identify supporters." If that fails, Bronfenbrenner says, "threats and harassment" follow "to try to dissuade workers from supporting the unions." She found that the union election win-rate for public-sector employees is nearly double that of private-sector workers.

Sacramento County's Keil said that if a majority (50 percent plus one vote) of nonunion managers vote for representation, the county executive’s office would begin to meet with the SCMA. One item for discussion would be job titles, or classes, under a collective bargaining agreement between the new union and the county, he said.

Seth Sandronsky lives and writes in Sacramento. Contact ssandronsky@yahoo.com

Seth Sandronsky on "Not as Cute as Puppies"

2009-11-05T00:37:33Z

The LA Times reported on this hospital practice in Southern CA three years ago: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-dumping16nov16,0,2734413.story

Life After Layoff: Two Sacramento Reporters Speak Out

2009-10-29T00:55:56Z

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 compares with an economy-wide job-loss rate of 8 percent a month for the same 12 months. Further, according to the U.S. Labor Department, layoffs for news analysts, reporters and correspondents doubled between second-quarter 2008 and second-quarter 2009.

Christian, a former full-time reporter for 18 months at the weekly Sacramento News & Review, owned by Chico Community Publishing, Inc., was “not completely shocked” at her in-person firing by Editor Melinda Welsh in February.

“I knew that the paper like all papers was struggling,” Christian said.

Rapid technological change and a housing crash are driving down revenues for newspapers. The popularity of digital media is attracting paid readership from print media. At the same time, the bursting of the housing bubble has wiped out wealth and buying power for businesses and households, according to Dean Baker, author, economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.

Yost, a full-time Sacramento Bee reporter for 16 and a half years, got a phone call from the paper’s editor, Melanie Sill, about his March layoff.

“It didn’t totally surprise me,” he said, noting his job loss was one of 128 Bee-wide. The paper’s newsroom accounted for 29 job cuts.

“These layoffs followed-up our labor contract negotiations with the McClatchy Company (which owns The Bee and 29 other daily newspapers),” said Yost. "I had sat at the bargaining table as vice chair of the Newspaper Guild, Local 39521, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO. We had been forewarned that there would be serious cutbacks. Frankly, all of us were startled at how big it was.”

Labor union rights and wrongs at the workplace were not factors in Christian’s layoff. SN&R is a non-union employer. The work force, company employees and freelance contributors, labors at-will.

This means employment is for no defined length of time. Further, the employer and employee are legally free to end their labor arrangement at any time for any reason.

Currently, Christian and Yost receive state unemployment insurance. Christian gets a $700 UI check every two weeks and is on her first six-month extension of jobless benefits.

Yost receives every two-week UI checks of $750. The beginning of his first six-month extension of UI benefits draws near.

Currently, Christian is pursuing journalism as a freelancer for the SN&R and other news outlets. It’s a challenge to make ends meet, she said. Her pay is about 80 percent less as an SN&R freelancer than as a full-time reporter, with no employer-provided health-care insurance. She pays for that coverage now.

“That’s a little hard to swallow,” Christian said. “What I’m making is not enough to pay even half of my rent now.”

She freelanced for 6 months at the paper before landing a full-time slot.

Out of necessity, she has branched out as a freelance journalist. Her work appeared in the Missoula Independent and Monterey County Weekly recently.

Yost has not been reporting since his layoff from The Bee. It’s not for a lack of trying. He has been looking for new journalism employment.

However, “those jobs are just not out there” Yost said. “A representative at a major newspaper laughed in my face when I asked about openings for reporter jobs now or in the future.”

Meanwhile, Yost is active with the Northern California Media Workers Guild of The Sacramento Bee. He is a non-voting staff person involved in bargaining talks with the McClatchy Co. for a new labor contract. “It might be the most important contract for Guild members at The Bee since the 1970s,” Yost said. The union’s negotiations with the company begin Nov. 2.

Speaking of important things for reporters and readers, Christian is concerned about the effects of a worsening economy on the profession of journalism.

“Publications are getting more desperate to survive, and that might lead to the break-down of the wall between editorial and sales," she said. "This is a conflict of interest that really disturbs me.”

In theory, this “wall” separates a news outlet’s main sources of revenue (such as advertisers) from shaping editorial output, or what reporters write. Therefore, a journalist is free, say, to cover a company’s business practices even if it buys ad space in the same publication.

What actually happens in practice in newsrooms? The answers are subject to debate.

In their 1988 book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media," Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman present case studies of news reporting and develop an alternate theory of press censorship.

They argue that there are filters that news must pass through to be newsworthy. One filter is a publication’s advertisers. Crucially, ad revenues fund a news firm’s daily operations, i.e., salaries, supplies, etc.

For Yost, Bee journalist layoffs bode ill for the paper’s role as a daily watchdog in the public’s interest.

“The loss to the Sacramento community and beyond is that there are fewer reporters covering corruption in state and local governments," Yost said. "This is not a left or right thing.”

According to a spring essay by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney in The Nation on the crisis in U.S. journalism, if a press watchful of power and wealth is neither a conservative or liberal issue, perhaps it is time to view journalism as a public utility.

That viewpoint assumes, of course, that a political democracy such as the U.S. requires a free press to inform its citizens for reasons of open government. Therefore, with journalism in a kind of death-spiral today, the role of the press is too vital to American democracy to remain a private asset, the essay states.

Back in Sacramento, Christian and Yost, down but not out, are surviving a severe print media shake-out. As the owners of the industry strive to create profitable ways to produce, distribute and consume news, nothing suggests that this process is nearing an end. Christian and Yost’s lives after their newspaper layoffs are proof of that.

One thing is clear. They are not alone.

Seth Sandronsky on "Locals join national "Stop Lou Dobbs" campaign"

2009-10-22T15:19:23Z

Did Christopher Columbus and his crew have their citizenship papers in order?

Seth Sandronsky on "Sac State Tuition Increasing, Classes and Professors Decreasing"

2009-10-15T16:23:34Z

The governor just vetoed SB 218, a bill introduced by State Senator Leland Yee, D-SF, after questions raised about the business practices of foundations on California State University campuses from Fresno to San Francisco, Sonoma to Sacramento. As Kimberly writes, students are paying more for less education at Sacramento State. For the current budget year, Sac State is sending $5.12 million to University Enterprises, Inc., $4.8 million of which is for its CalSTRS building on Folsom Blvd., in part to plug the gap of lease revenue from nonexistent tenants. CSU Chancellor Charles Reed’s office has added $1.5 million for the UEI building this year. The property, which UEI bought in July 2007 as the home bubble burst, has an annual mortgage payment of $3 million in 2009-10. That rises to $3.86 million per year through 2038-39. SB 218 would have increased the transparency of Sac State’s long-term financial liability to UIE by compelling it and other higher education foundations to conform to the protocol for information requests that state and local agencies must comply with under the California Public Records Act now.

Seth Sandronsky on "Proponents of Health Care Reform Gather for Change"

2009-09-23T23:22:46Z

The deficit as a percent of the economy is the key thing to watch. President Clinton left the White House with the federal budget in surplus. President George W. Bush turned that surplus into a deficit. The spike in the federal deficit over the past year is in the main a result of Main St., taxpayers on the left, center and right, bailing out Wall St. These big firms contribute about equally to Democrats and Republicans.

Budget priorities hit home at Sac State

2009-09-03T04:44:45Z

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 director Jim Reinhart, the taxpayer-supported state general fund is not allowed to provide the auxiliary services that UEI does.

In 2004, UEI established "Destination 2010," a business and development agenda for on and off campus. One of these projects was the American River Courtyard, student housing near the J Street entry, which opened Aug. 28. UEI also leases off-campus apartments at a student housing complex, the Upper EastSide Lofts, near the light rail station on Folsom Boulevard and 65th Street.

Additionally, UEI buys commercial property off campus. The non-profit spent $35 million to buy the former California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) building on 7667 Folsom Blvd. by Hornet Drive in the summer of 2007. UEI’s plan was straightforward, to lease office space and use the rent to help pay for the loan to buy the building. Half of the rent would come from Sac State academic divisions such as nursing and speech pathology -- part of a “mini campus” plan in motion for next fall, Reinhart said -- and the other half from the rent that non-campus tenants paid.

The housing market crash struck in the summer of 2007, just as UEI bought the CalSTRS building. UEI partly dodged that residential crash market which spread to commercial real estate activity. CalSTRS leased back its former building from UEI for $3.5 million annually, until CalSTRS moved into its new West Sacramento headquarters in July.

Currently, there is one tenant in the CalSTRS building, the University Transportation & Parking Services. A prospective non-campus tenant, which Reinhart would not name, is negotiating with UEI to lease space in this off-campus site.

Meanwhile, the 23-campus California State University system faces a $564 million shortfall as a result of the Legislature’s actions in the face of $24 billion budget deficit, the gap between spending and sales and tax revenue. In response to the state Legislature’s spending cuts for the CSU campuses, the California State University Board of Trustees has increased student fees twice for a total of 32 percent this year.

Patricia Mata is a senior and sociology major from Watsonville, slated to graduate from Sac State next May. She is paying $2,400 for classes this semester, double the price since arriving three years ago. Mata is part of Students for Quality Education, a statewide organization. She wants CSU chancellor Charles Reed, and Sac State president Alexander Gonzalez, to improve their support of CSU students in the current budget climate of fee hikes and fewer classes.

“They are not doing much for us,” Mata said. “Students are not getting back what we paid for.”

In terms of financial support for UEI, however, Sac State is stepping up its support of the non-profit. In fact, $5.12 million is flowing from the school to UEI in the 2009-2010 fiscal year, according to an Aug. 10 report by the University Budget Advisory Committee. It makes budget recommendations (the sources and uses of funds) to Gonzalez.

The UBAC budget report details how Sac State is providing $4.8 million to UEI for its CalSTRS building. That figure is 91 percent of the $5.12 million streaming from the school to the non-profit for the current fiscal year. Further, Reed’s office is providing $1.5 million to UEI for the CalSTRS building for the same year.

Additionally, the UBAC report outlines Sac State’s $9.5 million budget hole in 2009-2010, a reduction of 6.31 percent in spending campus-wide. More such cuts are on tap for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Much hangs in the balance for many Sac State students, given current budget priorities.

Source: University Budget Advisory Committee

Seth Sandronsky lives and writes in Sacramento. He can be reached at ssandronsky@yahoo.com.

Video by Adam Christy

Seth Sandronsky on "Mayor Johnson Camps With The Homeless People Of Safe Ground"

2009-08-15T16:19:22Z

Your source(s), Jim?

Seth Sandronsky on "Mayor Johnson Camps With The Homeless People Of Safe Ground"

2009-08-15T13:29:48Z

What is the source of your fact on homelessness and substance abuse, Jim?

Seth Sandronsky on "Relocating Downtown Greyhound "

2009-07-28T13:04:56Z

Long live the grey dog!

Seth Sandronsky on "McClatchy profits grow"

2009-07-22T13:26:57Z

Before buying the daily newspaper chain of Knight Ridder Inc., I presume that the board of the McClatchy Co. employed financial advisors. They probably did not labor for the federal minimum wage, which rises 70 cents to $7.25 per hour on July 24th. These advisors did, however, miss the largest housing bubble in U.S. history. If the advisors on the Knight Ridder acquisition could have been more incompetent, it is a stretch to see how. Has there been any accountability for this failure? If so, what has it been? If there has been none, why not? Good journalists would dig this out.

Seth Sandronsky on "Commentary: The Budgetary Elephant in the Room"

2009-07-20T23:36:00Z

The housing bubble hid flat wages, as personal debt rose and savings fell. The housing crash has boosted savings, depressed wages and expanded under- and unemployment. The outcomes are gluts of workers, goods and services. Tax revenues fall in downturns. Government spending can bridge the gap in production and consumption. However, President Obama’s stimulus spending is a fraction of what we need to do that.

Seth Sandronsky on "Police: Security cameras on Del Paso used infrequently"

2009-07-14T14:05:32Z

California can rebrand itself as Goldman Sachs to get unlimited taxpayer bailouts.

Seth Sandronsky on "Strong mayor progresses, questions remain"

2009-07-11T13:54:33Z

The financial experts in Sacramento and across the U.S. missed the multi-trillion dollar housing bubble that crashed. Their so-called expertise led to bankruptcies, job losses and home foreclosures. The same financial experts include the credit rating agencies. They still sell advice on investing to local and state governments. Talk about rewards for failure.

Seth Sandronsky on "Weapon wielding transient threatens kind hosts"

2009-07-07T14:50:34Z

No, demonize the poor who are politcally powerless. Who benefits?

Seth Sandronsky on "Finding homes for the homeless"

2009-07-07T14:20:15Z

Low-wage jobs are a root cause of people's struggle to afford shelter. To be sure, charity has its place, religious and secular. However, the role of public policy is key to bringing rents in line with wages. Shelter, like health care and education, is a human right.

Seth Sandronsky on "Balancing the budget topples hopes"

2009-07-05T15:38:57Z

There was over-investment in U.S. real estate, commercial and residential. In sum, we saw too much production chasing too little consumption. This imbalance is nothing new. Investors have partial information about future demand and supply. The rise and fall of too many U.S. industries is proof of that.

Seth Sandronsky on "Balancing the budget topples hopes"

2009-07-03T16:43:08Z

Have you heard of the housing crash? That is what caused the current recession.

Seth Sandronsky on "Balancing the budget topples hopes"

2009-07-02T21:13:18Z

The recession comes from the private sector. That is where the vast bulk of Americans labor. Cutting government spending will weaken the private sector.

Seth Sandronsky on "SEIU Rally Brings Thousands to Capitol"

2009-07-02T21:00:47Z

Oracle, Have you read the recent Sacramento Grand Jury report? Do you know that SEIU is not the only union that represents homecare providers? Do you know that tens of thousands of SEIU homecare workers in CA are sour on the leadership of Andy Stern?

Seth Sandronsky on "SEIU Rally Brings Thousands to Capitol"

2009-07-02T18:34:12Z

Disconnects exist between the rank-and-file and the international SEIU under President Andy Stern. Do you want workers to lack the time to protest?

Seth Sandronsky on "SEIU Rally Brings Thousands to Capitol"

2009-07-02T15:52:32Z

Are you blaming the SEIU for home care worker fraud? What is your source for the public's opinion of SEIU?

Seth Sandronsky on "Balancing the budget topples hopes"

2009-07-02T15:36:58Z

Ben and Trapper, There is no need for CA to default on its bonds. Instead, the state could raise taxes on upper-income bondholders. I doubt that investors will avoid CA bonds as a result of higher taxes on the well-heeled. In the current crisis of financial fragility, investment safety trumps risk. In terms of federal bankruptcy law, private companies use it to void labor union agreements on pensions and wages. U.S. air carriers have done just that to their union workers. Currently, the governor is using the state budget crisis similarly to cut pay via furlough days for (most of the) state work force. His recent proposal to reduce retirement pensions for new state worker extends this aping of private sector trends.

Seth Sandronsky on "Balancing the budget topples hopes"

2009-07-01T23:03:34Z

Some bondholders of General Motors lost money when it filed for bankruptcy protection and got a taxpayer bailout. Why can’t the state negotiate with its bondholders to bear some pain to help balance the budget?

Seth Sandronsky on "Balancing the budget topples hopes"

2009-07-01T22:39:25Z

When do state bondholders get to bear some pain from budget cuts? Oh, I know. State budget cuts are for low- and middle-income Californians only. They are better able to live with less to balance the state budget.

Seth Sandronsky on "Foreclosures staying off the Grid"

2009-06-30T15:27:40Z

The real estate industry is a special interest group. It funds politicians, political campaigns and generates ad revenue for news media. I wonder what real estate agents have to say now about their part in pumping up the housing bubble? Crucially, its crash is driving the deep and deepening slowdown.

Seth Sandronsky on "Will the Construction Market Continue to Slide in Sac?"

2009-06-20T18:03:06Z

There has been stagnation of growth and profits in the "real" economy of production and consumption, nationally and globally, since the post-WW2 prosperity ended in the early 1970s. Since then, capital seeking return on investment has migrated to financial markets.

Seth Sandronsky on "Will the Construction Market Continue to Slide in Sac?"

2009-06-20T15:13:13Z

Financial bubbles are emerging as a rule rather than an exception. What explains this trend?

Seth Sandronsky on "Sac State expert explains county's budget woes"

2009-06-18T14:24:53Z

In business competition, credit rating agencies such as Moody’s helped to inflate the recent housing bubble. The story is straightforward. The bubble grew in part due to Moody's minimizing the risk of subprime mortgage lending. Apparently, the firm’s failure to do its job then qualifies it now to advise Sacramento County on future spending. Has Mr. Wassmer heard of the role Moody’s had in the housing bubble and crash?

Seth Sandronsky on "Local Iranian-Americans face aftermath from Iranian elections"

2009-06-16T23:39:03Z

Rashad, does Iran have a multiple-insurer health-care system such as the U.S.'s? Or does Iran have a single-insurer health-care system like the rest of the industrialized world?

Seth Sandronsky on "Local Iranian-Americans face aftermath from Iranian elections"

2009-06-16T15:52:12Z

Thanks for your posting, Rashad.

Seth Sandronsky on "SCUSD Board of Education approves drastic reduction of summer school"

2009-06-14T18:03:33Z

Where is the SCTA's analysis of the Obama stimulus?

Seth Sandronsky on "SCUSD Board of Education approves drastic reduction of summer school"

2009-06-13T16:44:59Z

Is funding from the Obama stimulus package available to offset the SCUSD spending cuts?

Seth Sandronsky on "SCUSD Board of Education approves drastic reduction of summer school"

2009-06-12T16:54:27Z

Below is a recent report on parents and teachers resisting education spending cuts in LA: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/10/la_schools

Seth Sandronsky on "Budget cuts puts summer school programs at risk"

2009-06-12T00:34:55Z

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation helped to fund the chartering of the once public Sacramento High School in 2003.

Seth Sandronsky on "County officials address sour economy, "structural deficit" "

2009-06-10T16:51:27Z

Moody's was one of the credit rating agencies that failed to do its job in the run-up to the recent real estate bubble, according to journalist Robert Weismann. Here is the thing. Moody’s incompetent rating of subprime (risky) mortgages helped to inflate a multi-trillion dollar bubble. Its bursting has in turn led to the fiscal crises of local and state governments here and across the U.S. Therefore, we should question the credibility of Moody’s outlook on Sacramento County or any other public or private entities. For more see: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/23/recession

Seth Sandronsky on "County officials address sour economy, "structural deficit" "

2009-06-10T14:06:51Z

What are the names of the credit rating agencies involved with the credit ratings of Sacramento County?

Seth Sandronsky on "State may take local funds, Sacramento sounds alarm"

2009-06-02T18:49:03Z

All local and state governments facing a cash vise have to do is restructure as auto companies and banks.

Seth Sandronsky on "The art of pruning transit services"

2009-05-30T16:59:54Z

RT spending cuts are sure to lower local living standards for current riders.

Seth Sandronsky on "City predicts $30 million deficit for 2010/2011"

2009-05-22T17:34:47Z

Jim, share the evidence for your case, you know, something other than an opinion.

Seth Sandronsky on "City predicts $30 million deficit for 2010/2011"

2009-05-21T18:59:09Z

Can you provide one example based on your assumption, Jim?

Seth Sandronsky on "City predicts $30 million deficit for 2010/2011"

2009-05-21T17:33:39Z

According to Jim, too much local and state government spending is what ails us. Once they balance their budgets, the economy will grow, job losses will end and prosperity will return.

Seth Sandronsky on "City predicts $30 million deficit for 2010/2011"

2009-05-20T20:20:39Z

The last I checked, Dems and GOPsters in CA and DC had their hands in the $10 trillion loss from the crashes of the housing and stock markets. Borrowing taxpayer dollars to halt declines in our living standards helps those who are the least to blame for the slowdown. I call that good public policy.

Seth Sandronsky on "City predicts $30 million deficit for 2010/2011"

2009-05-20T18:57:31Z

The federal government is deficit spending for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while shoveling below-market loans to the AIGs of the world. These financial firms are too big to fail, according to the appointed and elected officials involved. What about taxpayers in harm's way? Are we the sized right to fail? Now is the time for a federal bailout of local and state governments. Otherwise, the current downturn will be deeper and longer. The triggers for that will be local and state government spending cuts. They will further destabilize the private economy. This is not rocket science.

Seth Sandronsky on "Don't Put the River in a Cage"

2009-05-18T18:48:50Z

Let us be clear about what to call the fencing proposal in MS’s report. The word for taking a public resource and making it private is privatization. It is that simple, folks.

New health care union grows in Sacramento

2009-04-12T14:36:51Z

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 current collective bargaining agreement with North American Health Care, Inc. Meanwhile, the NUHW’s elected bargaining team will negotiate a new agreement with the for-profit employer.

To choose NUHW, the previously SEIU-represented employees signed petitions in a majority sign-up, a National Labor Relations Board-approved process. Shirley Campbell of the State Mediation and Conciliation Service, a neutral third party, validated the signatures of the employees who have joined the new health care union.

NUHW formed on January 28, a day after SEIU placed its United Healthcare Workers-West local of 150,000 Northern California members into a trusteeship, a legal move to seize financial and political control of the affiliate. SEIU President Andy Stern, not the rank-and-file, propelled the maneuver. The trusteeship merged three California affiliates of caregivers into a single local statewide under Stern’s appointed leaders.

Because of the trusteeship, all UHW’s elected leaders, beginning with Sal Rosselli, its former president, were removed. Rosselli, in a drawn-out conflict with Stern over health-care reform and union growth in California, was accused of misusing members’ money. He disputes the charges of financial mismanagement.

Rosselli is the current president of NUHW. Other UHW officials such as John Borsos from Sacramento, also ousted in the SEIU trusteeship, join Rosselli in leading NUHW.

“NUHW is a splinter group led by the disgraced and ousted former leaders of UHW,” said Michelle Ringuette, SEIU spokeswoman. SEIU, with 2 million members, is the biggest union in the Change to Win partnership. CTW’s six million members in seven unions departed the AFL-CIO in 2005.

Over 95,000 SEIU workers in and out of health care statewide have petitioned the NLRB to join NUHW, according to Sadie Crabtree, spokeswoman for the fledgling union. The most recent SEIU-represented petitioners range from health care workers to childcare, public safety and sanitation employees in Monterey County (Salinas), she said.

Seth Sandronsky lives and writes in Sacramento ssandronsky@yahoo.com