University of California Workers Organize For Salaries That Keep Pace With Cost Of Living
University of California workers aggressively push for cost-of-living salary adjustments through strikes, protests, and rallies on campuses.
California Domestic Workers Fight To End Exclusion From National Workplace Protections
The Health and Safety for All Workers Act would amend an Occupational and Safety Hazard Act in California so domestic workers were no longer excluded.
Sanders Encourages Struggle Against Establishment Politics To Continue
“The struggle continues,” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders declared in a speech, which capped off his statewide campaign in California. He described the struggle broadly as one for social, economic, racial, and environmental justice. Sanders also noted he has overwhelmingly won young people in the majority of the United States.
California Activists Target Nestlé, The ‘Grinch’ That Stole Water
“In 2014 alone an estimated 28 million gallons were … sold under Nestlé’s Arrowhead brand,” noted one environmental group that’s suing the company.
Despite Prop 47, California Continues to Invest In Incarceration
California fails to take advantage of opportunities to reduce their inmate population, according to an annual report published by prison reform group Californians United For A Responsible Budget (CURB). This trend occurs in spite of the fact that California voters passed Proposition 47 last year to reduce the number of people incarcerated
California Agrees To Restrict Use of Long-Term Solitary Confinement
California has agreed to restrict the use of long-term solitary confinement in a settlement agreement filed in federal court this week. Restrictions are expected to reduce the number of inmates in isolation, cap the number of continuous years an inmate can spend in solitary confinement to five, and establish measures by which inmates can more easily achieve release back to general population.
Inmate Claims Epilepsy Went Untreated At Santa Rita Jail
An inmate suffered a Grand Mal seizure after deputies at the Santa Rita jail in Alameda County, California denied his repeated requests for epilepsy medication, according to a federal lawsuit [PDF] filed against the county and various sheriff’s deputies at the end of July.
4,000 Prison Inmates Fighting California Wildfires For $2 Per Day
With wildfires blazing throughout the parched Western United States, the state of California has found a novel, though ethically questionable, way to save money on the state’s safety budget: Send state prisoners to work on the frontlines fighting forest fires for $2 per day. About 4,000 low-level felons from California’s state prisons are fighting the fires, operating out of so-called “conservation camps.”
New Report Finds Inmate Deaths on the Rise
Inmate deaths in local jails and state prisons are on the rise for the third year in a row, according to a new study by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. The report, released on August 4, found that the number of jailhouse deaths increased between 2012 and 2013 even though jail populations declined by 4% during that time.