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Sheriff, Supervisors, and LA County’s Most Vulnerable

3/16/2014

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March 15, 2014

My article in today’s LA Progressive:

There have been more Popes elected than LA sheriffs in the last 80 years.

This year, progressives need to choose carefully in the LA County June election. Not only will we be voting for sheriff but will also fill the supervisory seats currently held by Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavky in the First and Third Districts. There may be low turnout and low interest for these contests but at the March 13 general meeting of the LA Regional Reentry Partnership–”LARRP”– I learned why these offices matter to anyone concerned with social justice, public safety, or the rational expenditure of taxpayer money.

But first, here’s what else I learned.

LARRP brings together service providers, government agencies, advocates, and clients all concerned with the reintegration into the community of the formerly incarcerated in ways that are humane and consonant with public safety.

The first time I attended a LARRP meeting, back in July, executive director Peggy Edwards pointed out, “Our reentry providers haven’t looked at themselves as homeless providers and our homeless providers haven’t looked at themselves as reentry providers.”

That has changed and collaboration is now the order of the day with open communication and computerized and filtered lists of clients and services.

Hazel Lopez of the Lamp Community, which provides services on Skid Row, said, “Reentry and homelessness are not separate issues. People coming out of prison are without housing and that is the definition of homeless.”

Danielle Wildkress of the Corporation for Supportive Housing explained, “The Skid Row Housing Trust didn’t think of themselves as reentry providers, but it turned out 60% of the people in their housing were on probation.”

Lopez described a new initiative, the Coordinated Entry Systems-Access to Housing, which has been funded in part by the United Way, while Wildkress explained the workings of the new Jail In-Reach 2.0 program which seeks to end recidivism and the cycle of homelessness.

Both initiatives follow similar models:

“Housing First“

Don’t expect clients to be stabilized physically, mentally, and free of substance abuse before offering them housing. Experience now shows that once people are actually living in permanent supportive housing, it becomes possible for them to get stabilized.

But where is such housing to come from? LA has nowhere near enough to meet the need. Troy Vaughn, also of Lamp, acknowledged, “There’s limited capacity to do development projects” for permanent supportive housing and even when a project can be funded and approved, “it doesn’t get up fast enough.” In the past, he explained, people assumed there had to be a single facility where residents and wraparound services could be housed together. Now Lamp is trying a new approach. Through negotiation, the owner of the Alexandria Hotel agreed to set aside 60
units for chronically homeless people coming out of the hospital. Ten have already moved in. Lamp agreed to find all the supportive services the residents need. Service providers will travel to the client. Vaughn hopes if the program is a success and the residents in the Alexandria remain stabilized, other property owners and landlords will join the effort.

Foster collaboration and streamline services

In LA County, as in many urban areas, people in great need often go without help as they find themselves unable to find their way through a landscape of scattered services and no unified effort. Both of these programs identify clients through street outreach or in-reach into hospitals and jails where they can begin work with a vulnerable person before discharge. Each client is paired with a “Navigator” who helps with documents and ID and makes connections to all appropriate and available supportive services. The Navigator makes sure there’s a bed available–even a temporary one–while actively working toward the goal of permanent supportive housing. When people leave jail, their own Navigator is waiting at the gate to greet them and remains a familiar, friendly presence in the client’s life until new relationships are built with the post-release team.

Put decision-making in the clients’ hands

Navigators offer options but clients are never coerced and are free to accept or reject housing offers. Every step of the way, clients explain what kinds of help they want and need. For example, Kelli Poole, an employment specialist with Chrysalis, who works with Jail in-Reach 2.0, recognizes that many people would write off her clients as unemployable. She said the clients themselves, however–far from wanting to rely on handouts–consider it a priority to prepare themselves for getting and holding down a job.

Prioritize the most vulnerable.

“Usually when a new building comes online in Skid Row,” Lopez explained, “people start lining up 2-3 days in advance to get an application.” Obviously–and as a survey confirmed–it’s almost exclusively the younger and healthier Skid Row residents who get the applications and housing.

People who are chronically homeless, repeatedly incarcerated, and disabled with physical, mental health, or substance abuse issues tend to be excluded. With the new programs, they are the priority. Not only is their need the greatest but, as constant users of ambulances, emergency rooms, hospital stays, jail and law enforcement resources, they are the greatest drain on public funds. Providing the most vulnerable with intensive and extensive services can save lives while saving money. A study of a similar program outside LA found that a chronically homeless person cost $67,376 in public taxpayer monies in a year while housing that person and providing full wraparound services cost only $19,399.

Which brings us to one of the reasons why we need to vote carefully for County Supervisors: What will the Supes do with such considerable savings? Put the money back into housing and reentry services or stash it elsewhere, continuing a tradition of neglect?

Lynne Lyman, the California state director for the Drug Policy Allianceand LAARP co-chair, Policy and Advocacy, cited other reasons for dissatisfaction with the current board.

Thousands of people in LA County jails have not been convicted of any crime and languish (at considerable taxpayer expense) behind bars only because they can’t afford bail. While the sheriff has stated his willingness to release some under supervision after a careful risk assessment, he does not have the authority to do so without approval from the county supervisors. It has not so far been possible to get a majority vote granting this authority.

While the supervisors were given $750 million by Sacramento to cover some of the realignment costs involved in sending prisoners back to the county from the state prison system, only a small percent was allocated for reentry services. Much of that small amount doesn’t even make it to the service providers and goes unspent.

Then there’s the plight of LA county’s Three-Strikers. In November 2012, California voters recognized the unjust and unintended consequences of life sentences handed down to nonviolent offenders. With Prop 36, they approved a measure that would offer the possibility of release. A year and four months later, 700 Los Angeles county Three-Strikers who are eligible for release remain incarcerated because they have not yet been afforded a day in court to show they have a place to go and a reentry plan. For men and women with chronic medical or psychiatric conditions–which have often been exacerbated during a decade or more in prison–or who have special needs such as wheelchair-accessible housing, a feasible reentry plan can remain out-of-reach, especially because the board of supervisors (unlike their counterparts in other counties) have refused to allocate any funding for Prop 36ers.

As for the race to fill the sheriff’s office, as voters consider the large field of candidates, it’s important to note that while the department has cooperated enthusiastically with the In-Reach program, here, too, there is a struggle over funds and an underutilization of community-based diversion programs.

Lyman notes that 40 women were released under an alternatives to incarceration program but though community placement is considerably less expensive than jail housing, the sheriff’s department money retained the savings and refused to pay anything for the beds. The alternatives program can reach only a limited number of appropriate individuals as long as nonprofits, already operating on austerity budgets, have to offer their full services for free, relying on fundraising and grant writing while the sheriff’s department holds onto all funding.

Lyman and co-chair Peter Laarman of Justice not Jails, suspecting that county officials really had no clue as to the level of professionalism and effectiveness of community-based residential programs, have led people from the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office on eye-opening tours of the Amity Foundation , the Tarzana Treatment Centers, and other programs that should be trusted and funded by LA County. A bed with full wraparound services at the Amity Foundation would cost the taxpayer one-tenth of the what the
sheriff would currently prefer to pay in sending prisoners to Kern County.

The sheriff and the supervisors continue to favor a $2 billion jail construction and expansion plan over the fiscally sound use of split sentencing and community-based programs that offer offenders realistic opportunities to turn their lives around.

There are two chances coming up to hear all the candidates vying for your vote for the office of sheriff.

The meeting concluded with a presentation by Pamela Jordan of A New Way of Life about her work as Housing Coordinator for the Reentry Family Reunification pilot program which now serves 25 formerly incarcerated individuals. The goal is to make it possible for the soon-to-be-released to move in with willing family members in Section 8 housing under the program of the Los Angeles City (not County) Housing Authority.

In the past, even families that very much wanted to welcome a member back home were held back by fear. Could they manage the person’s behavior? Would they be risking eviction if their loved one relapsed or committed a new offense?

The pilot program makes sure that their family member gets all necessary supportive services. The system will also sever culpability, so a law-abiding family will not be penalized if the person they’ve offered a home to should happen to reoffend.

What all three innovative programs–CES, Jail In-Reach 2.0, and Reentry Family Reunification–have in common (besides changing lives and neighborhoods for the better) is that they are small scale and underfunded with no guarantees they can continue.

This is why progressives need to ask direct questions of the countywide candidates well before the June 3rd election. When we simply let an offender out the gate with no place to go and no resources, we are often guaranteeing that he or she will reoffend. Continuing an emphasis on punishing people after the fact of crime instead of devoting resources to preventing crime and reducing recidivism serves no one. Good reentry programs benefit all of us. We need to know which candidates are ready to take an ethical and rational approach to homelessness and reentry and which are determined to continue a system that’s proved itself to be inequitable, ineffective, and unsustainable.


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How Progressives Can (and Must) Lobby for Social Change

7/28/2012

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Abbe Land
Abbe Land
In today's LA Progressive:

Abbe Land, West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem, doesn't want activists to think of "lobbying" as a dirty word. "In the purest form, it's about educating and helping elected officials understand the issue," she told more than 100 community members attending the July 25th workshop, "Your Voice: Learning to Lobby for Social Change," organized by the Advocacy Committee of the National Council of Jewish Women/Los Angeles.  "Paid lobbyists can keep knocking on your door till you let them in, keep  telling you their side, their side, their side--till it's possible forget about the other side." Progressive organizations lobby, too, "to move our agenda forward," she said in her keynote address, but don't have the resources to keep up that kind of constant pressure without the help of the individual activist. The role of citizen lobbyist is crucial.

In the breakout sessions that followed, community members got tips about individual activism while much of the discussion focused
on the role of organized nonprofits as well as informal ad hoc advocacy groups. 
 
(While 501(c)(3) nonprofits can lose their tax-exempt status if lobbying takes more than 5% of their time and resources, they are not
banned entirely from approaching officials on behalf of specific legislation. Good information on how to navigate rules and restrictions and maximize lobbying to the full extent of the law is available at the website of the organization Alliance for Justice.)

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Legislate? Or Educate?

 There's no limit on 501(c)(3) organizations (or anyone else) when it comes to campaigns to educate officials about issues.

 Emily Austin, who facilitated the workshop on "Policy Process 101: Transforming Ideas into Policy," explained that education must sometimes precede any attempt to make policy given the many obstacles to
  getting a bill into law. Even if you can get legislation introduced, it's
  likely to die in committee unless the ground has been fully
prepared.


To illustrate how this might work in real life, Austin
shared her experience addressing teen dating violence in her role as Director of
Policy & Evaluation for Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit dedicated to intervention and prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault. Through its work with survivors, POV was aware that many teens were victimized but when staff went to the broader community, they found parents insisting their kids didn't even date so couldn't possibly be affected.
 POV collected statistics and reports to show the prevalence of the violence and began to collect powerful personal stories as well. 
 
"Think about who your allies might be," she said. "Unlikely allies, too." Progressives sometimes overlook the support a cause
might get from groups--in this case, law enforcement and prosecutors--that aren't always in agreement with our values. 
 
You also need to identify the opposition and what their arguments might be. An Orange County politician, for example, was opposed to any discussion of dating violence because dating implied sexual activity. In today's economy, you can expect arguments about funding, so think about possible resources and be ready to make the argument--with specific figures--that
spending money now will prevent higher costs later.

 Determine your venue, Austin said. Do you think the issue is best addressed on a federal, state, local, or organizational level?
Once you know your venue, find a champion there. Whether a bill needs to be shepherded into law or a regulation or policy needs to change in a bureaucracy, someone has to work toward this goal with almost single-minded focus and push hard for it in a knowledgeable and articulate way. 

POV connected early on with Steve Zimmer, a Los Angeles teacher and counselor for 17 years, who knew firsthand that students
were suffering abuse. When he was later elected to the school board, he became an ideal champion--committed, able to speak at a press conference in an entirely credible way. He didn't need to have talking point provided to him and was able to answer any questions with ease. (As Abbe Land pointed out, a paid lobbyist has to be prepared because they get fired if they don't know the issue very well. We have to be sure we are every bit as knowledgeable when we speak to people in power.) In October 2011, Zimmer got the school board to pass a unanimous resolution in favor of a prevention program for the city's public schools. Though no funds have been identified yet to implement such a program or the curriculum prepared by POV, the problem--after years of educating the community--is at last officially recognized. As Austin said, "It's on the map." Even this limited progress to the goal took years while POV did the research, developed and nurtured relationships, and prepared the ground with public awareness.

For now, the organization continues to educate peer leaders who can talk to other teens. And while you're figuring out how to
 influence others, Austin said, look at your own organization. Is it living up to its stated goals? For example, when people think of teen dating violence, the common assumption is this refers to girls who are victims of boys. Austin said POV looked to be sure its own board and policies were friendly to LGBT teens and youth who were questioning their sexuality and/or gender.

Whatever your cause, remember you need to raise community awareness and support before trying to promote a bill. Sometimes,
Austin warned, the community may  get passionately behind a cause after a particularly terrible event. These laws sometimes go through quickly--too quickly. "Legislation created after one specific set of facts--such as laws that tend to be named after a survivor or victim" are often poorly drafted "without thinking of unintended consequences." Think through any proposed bills or recommendations with care.


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Everyone Has a Role

Serena Josel, Director of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, spoke on "Mobilizing Your Base: Grassroots and Grasstops Lobbying"

 For legislative advocacy, she said, you need three ongoing components that work together: a policy analysis team to study a bill and consider what real-life impact it would have; a media team to communicate these impacts to the public; a lobbying team of paid lobbyists if possible, plus the grassroots and the grasstops, the latter being members or allies of your group who are prominent in the community or have special relationships or access to decision makers because they are big donors or as colleagues or former staffers or through, for example, family, friendship, business.

 "Last spring when Congress tried to defund Planned Parenthood," she said, "what did we do?" First, the policy team warned the organization to take the threat seriously. Though the same amendment had been offered in Congress every year for six years, it never before had a chance of passing. This time, the policy team put out the alert that "it had legs." The media team got to work with radio and television interviews and social media to make the buzz louder and get people engaged.

 As for the grassroots lobbyists, how much could they accomplish here in LA where Planned Parenthood enjoys strong longterm
support from our elected representatives? First, whatever your cause, if you've got a compelling personal story, an official who's already on your side can use it in working to convince others. Then, Los Angeles grassroots activists turned to technology. They phoned sympathetic voters in targeted states, told them what was happening in DC and said "Your senator will be one of the deciding votes. Will you let me patch you into their office right now?" In this way, people power in Los Angeles generated calls to senators all around the country. "We won on the federal level," Josel said, though Planned Parenthood is still under attack in eight states.

Grassroots volunteers have also fanned out with cell phones on college campuses and at farmers markets, talking to people and
inviting supporters to make calls on-the-spot to elected officials.

As for the grasstops, Josel passed around copies of a sample chart set up to list all the decision makers relevant to an issue. After you poll the organization's board and active members, you fill in the blanks on the chart: who has a personal connection to each decision maker; who is a professional contact; who knows someone who is an indirect contact and in those cases, fill in that person's name and the nature of the relationship. You can then identify who is best suited to make the approach. 
 
Don't ask your grasstops to call everyone they know, Josel advised. Choose targets with care. Track what happens. Some  grasstops turn out to be have more clout than they expected; some less. 
 
Before any contact is made, the grasstops spokeperson should be carefully prepared. Their relationship means they are likely to have a real back-and-forth conversation with the decision maker so they'll need to know their stuff. The organization can follow up later with additional information if needed and, of course, with thank you notes.

 Decision makers who support you need to be thanked whenever they do the right thing with their vote, Josel said. Just because a person's belief system matches up with yours, doesn't mean they'll always want to go out on a limb for you, especially in an election year. Let them know that constituents have their back by sending a note or a even a photo of a large group of people holding up a big thank you sign.

Keep your grassroots people engaged with updates and reports of progress. 

Tips for Individuals

 Citizen lobbying is most effective when the decision maker can see you face-to-face (in their district or Capitol office or at a town hall meeting) or at least hear your voice on the phone. Meeting with an official's staff members is just as valuable.

Personal letters get more attention than petitions or mass emails. Snail mail shows a higher level of commitment than email. But keep in mind: Physical letters sent to local district offices will rarely be subject to delay but in DC, mail goes through security screening and can take several weeks to reach the recipient. For an urgent matter or when a vote is imminent, phone calls and personally composed emails are necessary. 
 
Use personal language, Josel said, not political jargon or bumper sticker language, e.g., talk about pregnancy and families, not
the opposing camps of pro-choice and pro-life.

On-line petitions may have some effect if the numbers are huge and come from appropriate zip codes.

Think about visual impact. If you're part of a pre-printed postcard campaign, save the cards and deliver them all at once. A  thousand cards dumped in a legislator's office can't be ignored. The same number trickling in over the course of a year or two can be overlooked.

If your letter to the editor is published, send copies to relevant decision makers, or, a participant suggested, bcc (send blind
copies) to the people you want to influence. That way, they'll know your opinion and that you cared enough to write even if the letter isn't published.

Facebook and Twitter campaigns tend to work best with corporations concerned about their image and their brand and are less
 effective when targeting elected officials. It's worth tweeting a representative who's known to use Twitter a lot. If you catch him or her during a particularly boring committee meeting, you may have the chance for an extended exchange.

A Last  Word

 Matt Leighty, who has worked as a lobbyist and teaches a graduate-level course on "Lobbying and Policy Change" at Pepperdine
University offered a workshop on "The Art of Persuasion: Winning Them Over," focused on preparing and delivering oral arguments. As participants could only attend two of the three breakout sessions, I missed his presentation. Which leads to my own tip to fellow activists: Don't beat yourself up if you can't do everything. 

But here's something you can do. The meeting ended with:

 Action Alerts

 Contact Congress to support:

 1. The reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act (VAWA) as approved by the Senate (S. 1925) rather than the House version (H.R. 4970) which was designed to undermine or deny protection to immigrant women (including mail-order brides), Native women, students on college campuses, and LGBTQ victims. 

2. The Fair Minimum Wage Act which would raise the minimum wage in three gradual steps from $7.25 to $9.80/hour by 2014. Get
  your representative on board as a co-sponsor.

If you need help finding your members of Congress and their contact info, call the Capitol switchboard at (202)224-3121 or go
online:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and
         
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm/

 For California actions, contact your state senator to support these Assembly bills being considered by the Senate:

 1. AB 2348 which would allow RNs to dispense birth control to women who have no risk factors. Today thousands of women who
  want contraception are turned away at health centers as there aren't enough doctors to see them. (If you make this call, please let Planned Parenthood know how it went by emailing grassroots@pp-la.org/)

2. AB 593 and AB 1593 which would aid incarcerated battered women who were unable to present a domestic violence defense at the time of a petition for habeas corpus and would give them a chance to present this evidence effectively during the parole  process.

  To find a California state senator:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html


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Should Your Job Kill You?

6/24/2011

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After Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act forty years ago, Dad wrote an article about it--very excited that workers would finally be protected. So it's strange for me to writing about the status of OSHA today:

Should Your Job Kill You?

 LA Progressive June 23, 2011 By Diane Lefer 

“Regulation kills jobs.” We keep hearing that mantra from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. What became clear at the forum called on Tuesday evening by the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health is that we need to say loud and clear that “Lack of regulation kills people.”

According to “ Dying at Work in  California,” recently released by SoCalCOSH and Oakland-based Worksafe, 40 years after President Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), an estimated 6,500 workers in California die from chronic exposure to chemical, biological, or physical agents each year and in 2009 (the latest year for which data is available) there were over 300 confirmed worker deaths and 491,000 reported work-related injuries.( The report can be downloaded here)

The evening of June 21, SoCalCOSH coordinator Shirley Alvarado-del Aguila briefed workers and activists on the status of Cal/OSHA, the state enforcement agency which as been long plagued by poor training, slow (or nonexistent) responses to complaints of hazards, and understaffing. (According to “Dying at Work,”California has one of the lowest staffing levels per capita in the U.S. There are more Fish and Game Wardens than
there are Cal/OSHA inspectors.) “The system is broken,” said Alvarado, but “there’s new leadership. Ellen Widess won’t attack Cal/OSHA. She’ll hold people accountable.”

Prospects aren’t so rosy on the federal level, said Tom O’Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. Agencies including OSHA are indeed under attack. Even after Obama’s election when Democrats controlled both House and Senate and “the time seemed right to strengthen OSHA,” the proposed legislation “couldn’t even get a vote on the Senate floor.” And that was in the immediate aftermath of explosions at the Tesoro refinery in Washington State (which killed five workers and could have been prevented) and the Kleen Energy Systems power plant in Connecticut (where five died); the 30 miners killed in the worst US mine disaster in decades (at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine which had been cited by federal regulators for“substantial violations” of safety protocols no fewer than eight times during the previous 12 months); and the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, with the House taken over by Republicans, “there’s no chance for improved legislation.”

Of course Obama’s executive branch could write and implement new regulations. Safeguards now are often weak, enforcement is lax, and penalties for noncompliance are minimal. Many worksites and occupations fall outside the scope of the original law while since 1970, the American workplace has evolved. (In Nixon’s day, who’d ever heard of carpal tunnel or computer vision syndrome? Or solar panel installation? Or balers for
recycling?)

But instead of moving forward, said O’Connor, “We have to fight back against bad
ideas.”  Ideas like the REINS Act–the “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act” which was introduced in the House. If passed by House and Senate, it would prevent the implementation of any new“economically significant” regulatory proposal until approved by both House and Senate. The regulations could therefore be stopped by doing nothing, by not bringing them to a vote.

Obama’s OSHA has already backed off and withdrawn two proposals on health and safety standards–one of which merely restored the original standard that Reagan had weakened. In addition, O’Connor said, the OIRA–Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs which was created by Reagan to stop regulation–reviews every proposed new rule and even if it doesn’t stop it, can delay it indefinitely. OIRA delays are already having impact on OSHA.

O’Connor urged more work on the local level, citing a statewide campaign in Massachusetts to protect workers hired through temp agencies and a success in Austin, Texas where–after seven construction workers died of heat-related illness–the City Council mandated 10-minute rest breaks every four hours on construction sites.

Here in California, many people are aware of the danger high temperatures pose to farmworkers. The heat-related death in 2008 of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez after nine hours of work in the blazing sun spurred demands for water, shade, and rest. Chloe Osmer, California Labor Federation campaign coordinator working on behalf of carwash employees know it’s an issue for these workers as well who may work 8-10 hours in the hot sun. (Standing in the sun in-between customers does not constitute rest!) The
CLEAN Carwash Campaign has taken water bottles and information about heat stress
to 100 carwashes around Los Angeles and has helped workers file OSHA complaints
about other problems as well, including the lack of protective gear when they
use sulfuric acid to clean rims.

At first, she said, Cal/OSHA didn’t respond to complaints or return phone calls. With advice and support from SoCalCOSH, she led a group of workers right into the Cal/OSHA district office and finally got some attention.

“OSHA is a tool for workers to make their workplaces better and also use it as an organizing tool,” she said “If one man says ‘my hands are burning and cracking,’ you find how to get him to take action with his coworkers. Health and safety is not a side issue, it’s part of an organizing campaign, getting workers to take collective action, to become experts and do trainings for other workers.”

Attendees shared problems and recommendations. Lisa Fu of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative pointed out that workers are exposed to dangerous chemicals but because they are considered independent contractors, the salons are not inspected. Domestic workers and day laborers aren’t covered either. And day laborers aren’t just
picked up at Home Depot to work for a few hours at a private household. They may
be contracted to a single construction site for weeks or even months. Angela
Alvarez, a lead organizer with the Workers Health Program of IDEPSCA (Instituto
de Educación Popular del Sur de California) and new member of the SoCalCOSH
advisory board, just heard from a worker whose thumb was almost sliced off on
the job. He was immediately let go. After treatment at the emergency room, he
was told he would need surgery to regain use of his hand. He’s left without work
and without money to pay for the surgery. The boss told him if there was an
accident, it was his own fault.

(The blame game gets played a lot. The Injury Illness Protection Program requires safety training for workers in a language they understand. But many employers reportedly just hand out a sign-in sheet and then use the signatures to tell injured workers this means you knew not to act unsafely and are responsible for the accident.)

A day laborer named Fernando said when he worked on a construction project for the US Navy in San Diego, they made sure he wore a safety harness and goggles. Here in LA, he said, no one cares about him. He works on sites where there’s no protective gear.

The difficulty of regulating anything in an environment of multiple contractors, and subcontractors came up again and again on construction sites and elsewhere. In a single warehouse, for example, the logistics workers may come from as many as six different staffing agencies. If there’s an safety violation or an injury, it is often difficult to
unravel who exactly is the employer of record.

Participants came up with recommendations for Alvarado del-Aguila to take to Ellen Widess, most often citing:

Coordinated enforcement with other agencies.
Employers who violate OSHA regulations are often in violation of Wage and Hour
rules and Workmens Comp rules as well. A more comprehensive look should also be
taken at specific industries where abuses are widespread.
    
Better training for OSHA staff.
  
           
Targeted hiring of culturally competent inspectors. The hiring freeze should be lifted so that  complaints can be investigated in a timely manner. Cases now take so long,
workers don't see the point in filing. More bilingual inspectors are needed as
immigrants predominate in the most hazardous jobs. Written materials about OSHA
and workers rights as well as safety training must be available in the language
the workers understand. (Participants reported cases in which managers served as
interpreters during safety inspections by OSHA--hardly the best way to get
workers to speak openly about working conditions.) And Mark McGrath from
the  Adult Film Industry Subcommittee, UCLA School of Public Health, added that
cultural competency includes respect for all marginalized groups, including
workers in the adult film industry, "a very at-risk and transient population"
who need better health protection, such as mandatory condom use. "If they use
their bodies in labor, Cal/OSHA should protect them without moral judgments."
        
Off-site interviews.
Workers should have a way of arranging meetings with inspectors away from the
jobsite where they may not feel it's safe to air their complaints.
           
Protection against retaliation.

Workers who file OSHA complaints now risk being fired, reported to immigration
authorities, or having their hours cut or schedule changed to a less desirable
shift or location. According to "Dying at Work," workers who've file complaints
about retaliation have waited as long as seven years for a decision.
         
Expanding who is covered. 
           
Stiffer fines and sanctions. When nothing is done to correct problems or punish violators, workers stop reporting. "Fines are ridiculously low," said Jessica Martinez of
the national Council, and so corporations pay them as an ordinary cost of doing
business. Under Cal/OSHA, the minimum fine for violations is $5,000--very little
for a big corporation and certainly inadequate when a known hazard leads to a
fatality. "It's nothing to a corporation." In practice, on appeal, even the $5,000 is often reduced.

Given our economic woes and high unemployment, the importance of advocacy groups and community organizations becomes very clear. Without support and backup, workers are less likely to demand their rights and risk retaliation at the very time when employers are tempted to cut corners. 
 
Sometimes we prevail: Before the meeting ended, Chloe Osmer reported that carwash workers who'd been cheated of money had won an $80,000 wage and hour settlement. 

The next morning, at the rail car loading facility at the BP Refinery in Carson, an
employee was fatally injured on the job. His name was not released.
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
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Mining in Colombia - article by Natalia Fajardo

6/19/2011

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I want to share this excellent article by the always knowledgeable, committed, wonderful Natalia Fajardo.

Water Inspires Strange Bedfellows
How a Colombian city united against gold greed
by Natalia Fajardo

 BUCARAMANGA, COLOMBIA—Spirits were high last month among students,
environmentalists, businesspeople, and politicians as the news came in that
Greystar Resources had revoked its application for a large-scale open-pit gold
mine in the mountains of northeastern Colombia.


But just twelve hours later, Greystar’s intentions became clear—it was
withdrawing that application to bring in a new one for a redesigned, underground
mine.


The short-lived but significant victory for those against the mine was
possible thanks to the tireless efforts of the broadest, most diverse coalition
in Colombia’s recent history. This coalition brought together an engineer’s
association, committed student activists, the head of the local business
federation, NGOs, teachers, environmentalists, and water utility employees.


Foreign investments in Colombia’s mining sector grew slowly in the 1990s, but
in the eight years of former President Alvaro Uribe’s regime it skyrocketed in
part due to a perception of safer exploration conditions. Even the Canadian
government showed interest in making Colombia prime for investment needs by
having the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
draft Colombia’s mining law of 2001, granting generous privileges to foreign companies. Uribe’s disciple, current President Juan Manuel Santos, has made resource extraction a centerpiece of his economic plan, deeming it the main “motor” of development and plans to follow the lead of Chile and Peru, two truly mining-oriented countries.

 Santos’ strategy includes generous tax breaks to mining companies and
modifying laws to be more “investor friendly.” It also involves persecuting
traditional small miners—some who lack a mining title—aligning them with the
neo-paramilitaries and guerrillas who mine illegally to fund their “dirty” work.
Mainstream media plays into this dynamic by focusing on illegal mining
but remaining silent about the large-scale corporate takeover of Colombia’s
resources. Currently, 40 per cent of Colombia´s entire area is under mining
permits, some of it on environmentally protected land or Indigenous and
Afro-Colombian communal territories.

 Into this mining binge came Greystar Resources, a Vancouver-based junior
exploration company. (Junior exploration companies typically explore potential
mining sites, deal with permit processes, and then sell their acquisition to an
actual mining company, making financial speculation their real business.) Among
Greystar’s investors are the International Financing Corporation—the World Bank’s
private financing arm, and JP Morgan.

 The company has mineral rights over 74,000 acres of land in the mountains of
California and Vetas, two small and remote towns forgotten by the government,
where Greystar has invested in infrastructure and had brought promises of
employment and progress. Many locals in that area badly want the mine. 

The project is just 40 kilometers northeast of Bucaramanga, Colombia’s
fifth-largest city. Greystar plans to dig out an estimated nine million ounces
of gold, making its mine one of the largest gold deposits in South America.

But that gold sits under the Santurban paramo, a tropical version of high moorlands. This unique ecosystem supplies water for Bucaramanga and 21 towns. The proposed use of cyanide at the Greystar mine caught the attention of the region’s citizens, who see it as a major threat to their  “liquid of life” source: water. In fact, mineral extraction was legally banned  in paramos in the amendment  to article 34 of the Colombian Mining Law in 2010.

 Besides the national effort to render all paramos mine-free zones, various
environmental organizations in the Bucaramanga area worked for years to have
Santurban declared a protected area, which would exclude mining, logging and
cattle grazing from its grounds. More recently, opposition to the mining project
gained ground when university students and other environmentalists joined the
cause, concerned not only about the threat to their local water supply, but also
about the sovereignty and long-term economic implications this mine represented
within the national mining policy. They realized that the need for water was
shared by everyone, regardless of their political views, and they framed their
anti-mining campaign through water’s unifying lens.


The coalition started growing and taking a new shape when the municipal water
utility workers union joined. Then they sought support from the state assembly
leadership, where their calls landed on receptive ears; the assembly’s
president, a member the leftist Democratic Alternative Pole (Polo) party,
publicly denounced the mine.


Following this victory, the economic federations of Bucaramanga, which,
besides understanding the intrinsic environmental value of the Santurban paramo,
came to the conclusion that damaging the city’s water source would have a more
negative financial impact in the long term than the ephemeral gains of mining.
The state engineers association also opposed the project. At this point, it
became clear the general public sentiment in the region was that water was worth
more than gold.


“Take to the streets in support of your treasure, the Santurban paramo,”
called out members of the coalition during a public demonstration on February
24, 2011. Previous protests had seen low turnouts, but the issue became so
well-known and the opposition so diverse, that over 30,000 Bucaramangans marched
in their streets, petitioning the Environment Ministry to deny Greystar’s
license application. Around this time other segments of the government,
including the Attorney General, publicly denounced the mine.


With all eyes on Bucaramanga, the ministry held a public hearing on
Greystar’s case. There was a clear division between the small crowd from
California and Vetas that was bused there by the company to support the project,
and the large, mostly urban majority opposing the mine.


The majority of politicians, most prominently the state’s governor,
explicitly called to shut down the project for its technical flaws and risks it
posed to the community. Tensions ran high as the hearing progressed. Two
attendees started a fight, and the ministry ended the hearing early. Media coverage focused on the fight rather than on
the near unanimous resistance to the gold mine.


The hearing was a public disgrace to the company, whose stock value dropped
30 per cent. To top it all off, Colombia’s energy minister and even Serafino
Locono, a prominent oil-and-mining CEO, highlighted Greystar project’s flaws at a miner’s conference in
Toronto.


Greystar decided to preempt the environment ministry’s decision on the
company’s license application, and withdraw its request for the mining
operation, only to announce later that Greystar was reconfiguring its
project to “address the concerns of the community.”


This company is just one of a group of businesses after Santurban’s gold. Its
counterparts include Galway Resources and Ventana Gold
Corp,
recently purchased by energy billionaire Eike Batista. The
success of these companies will likely be impacted by Greystar’s fate.


Laura Galvis, a student member of the anti-mining coalition, says that the
group’s lack of hierarchy, its clarity in its position on the issue, and its
ability to take an angle that resonated with everyone were essential to the
recent success. “It’s not just about the environment, it’s about our very
survival,” she explained.


Coalition founders worked hard to bring everyone to the table, and found a
common point of interest with their traditional political opponents in the
belief that the public’s right to clean water takes precedence over private
interests. Through educational campaigns and public demonstrations, they slowly
gained ground.


This broad alliance against the mining project is not quite a movement, for
it rose to meet a temporary need, and its members have little in common beyond
their rejection of the mining operations. The coalition is a something of an
interim union aided by current elections, with politicians seeking supporters.
Whatever its nature, this grassroots experience opened the door to a multi-party
dialogue rarely seen in Colombia.


The most committed segment of the coalition—the students and
environmentalists who oppose large-scale multinational mining in general—want to
move the argument beyond the threat to Bucaramanga’s water supply. They see a
need to adapt to the reconfiguration proposed by Greystar, and to deepen the
debate to include other harmful effects the mine would bring, such as a
deterioration of the area’s agricultural web and the loss of a local supply of
gold for Bucaramanga’s thriving jewelry industry.


Publicly, the coalition’s success in bringing the Santurban case into the eye
of the media hurricane has forced Greystar to change its strategy. Whether the
coalition is able to stop the mining project compltely and protect its beloved
paramo remains to be seen.


Natalia Fajardo is a mining consultant for Cedetrabajo, a political
analysis institute in Colombia. Cedetrabajo is a member of Reclame, Colombia’s national network of organizations
facing large-scale mining.


This article was originally published by Toward Freedom.

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Report on Second Annual South LA Health and Human Rights Conference

12/16/2010

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Health Care as a Human Right — in South LA and Nationwide

by Diane Lefer posted on Thursday, 16 December 2010No Comment

[go to the version at LAProgressive.com if you w


On Monday, Judge Henry Hudson of the federal district court in Richmond ruled unconstitutional the provision of Affordable Health Care Act that would require all Americans to carry health insurance. A few days earlier, almost as though he expected such a setback, Jim Mangia, President and CEO of St John’s Well Child & Family Center, said “There couldn’t be a more challenging time to do this work,” as he welcomed almost 1,000 community members and service providers to the LA Convention Center on Friday, December 10–International Human Rights Day–for the second South LA Health and Human Rights Conference.

As reported here last year,  the first conference in June 2009 reframed access to health care, including behavioral health services, as a human right and recognized that access to housing, education, employment, fresh food, environmental and public safety are integral to good health. The Declaration that emerged from that event was released publicly one year ago and this year’s conference was intended to move signatories “from declaration to action.”

Before I go on to the many challenges, I should follow the lead of Second District County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas who reminded us, “Given where we were a year ago, there has been significant progress. We should not allow people to drown out our successes.” Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital reopens in 2012. This June, South LA will see the opening of a public health clinic, and of a new emergency room suite at Harbor-UCLA — an ER where, incidentally, a woman recently waited 24 hours to be seen while other patients fought for a place to sit as there weren’t enough chairs to go around. These new facilities are at least a step in the right direction for a neighborhood that has been designated by the federal government as MUA/MUP, i.e., a Medically Underserved Area/Medically Underserved Population.

Now, the challenges:

Dave Regan, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who also serves on the Health Care Division Steering Committee, said he hopes to train and deploy 5,000 health care workers to do outreach and defend reform against attacks from the incoming Republican Congress.

But defending Affordable Care is not enough. We can’t leave implementation up to others but have to start planning now, said Robert Ross, president and chief executive officer of the California Endowment, a foundation focused on the health needs of underserved Californians and one of the sponsors of the conference. “Get folks enrolled,” he said, aiming for 100% enrollment in California. “We need to educate the public.” In doing public opinion polls, the foundation learned the extent to which people had been deceived or confused.



Wendell Potter

Several days later, on Tuesday, the California Endowment as part of its Center Scene public programming, exposed how deception happens by hosting Wendell Potter, former insurance company executive and PR man, whose new book, Deadly Spin, gives an insider’s view of how insurance companies influence opinion and policy.

Potter sees himself now “making amends,” and has publicly apologized to Michael Moore for trying to discredit him and his health care documentary Sicko. One example of spin: Insurers now get generous subsidies from the federal government for participating in Medicare Advantage plans. Under the Affordable Health Care legislation, these subsidies are reduced, but, Potter explained, the insurance companies mounted a campaign telling seniors that it was their own personal benefits that would be cut.

Potter has an interesting take on Judge Hudson’s decision. He thinks the mandate for individual coverage, in the absence of a competing public option, amounts to a “profit protection and enhancement plan” for insurance companies. He wondered if Republicans will realize they are pushing an agenda that cuts into the profits of the companies that spent millions putting them in office.

During two decades in the health care field, Potter saw nonprofit hospitals overtaken by the proliferation of for-profit businesses. Insurance companies divested themselves of other divisions and focused on health insurance as the most profitable area. Patient care got a smaller share of resources, not only because of astronomical salaries to top executives and the costs of advertising and public relations, but the “relentless pressure from Wall Street.” When you’re for profit “you have to meet Wall Street’s expectations and profit expectations of your investors and you have to report every three months.” It means health insurance corporations focus on the short-term stock prices and profits instead of health care.

This distorted emphasis leads to the transfer of more costs to consumers. At Friday’s conference, Dave Regan reported that some of his union members now face a contract battle at Centinela Hospital which is owned by Prime Health Care–a family business and the second largest hospital system in California. The company wants to increase the employee share of premiums for family coverage by an additional $600/month. Workers can’t afford so substantial an increase and are now looking to a situation where they, as health care workers, won’t be able to afford health care coverage for their own kids.



Orthopaedic Hospital site.

Howard Kahn, instrumental behind the Children’s Health Initiative of Greater Los Angeles and CEO of LA Care Health Plan which serves 800,000 low-income county residents, points out that health care itself only accounts for only about 20% of health outcomes. Genetics are important. But so are environmental factors and individual behavior which underlines again the interrelatedness of all human needs. Housing, education, employment, reliable buses (especially at night), child care, stoplights at dangerous intersections, safe parks where kids can exercise and play–without these, there’s a negative impact on health.

To take Mark Ridley-Thomas’s advice and focus on some success stories, think about conference panelist Robert Smith, an ex-felon who beat his substance-abuse problem and the odds after going through a program at the Midnight Mission. Smith landed a job with Regal Theaters because community organizations including SAJE (Strategic Action for a Just Economy) pressured the businesses at LA Live to hire local workers. Through his own efforts and work ethic, Smith was soon promoted to supervisor.



Violeta Menjivar

We learned that criminal records that so often stand in the way being hired can in some cases be expunged and advice and assistance is available from the Pepperdine Legal Aid Clinic at the Union Rescue Mission. Juvenile records can be sealed, but you must go through a process; it doesn’t happen automatically.

The Community Rights Campaign recently won a concession from LAUSD — a moratorium on truancy and tardiness tickets that led to expensive fines and often juvenile detention and even jail. (Though the school district’s new plan for Attendance Improvement Centers raises concern as parents must pick their children up at the end of the day and if working parents can’t get there in time, the kids are removed by the police.)

An example of hope and possibility came from special guest speaker, Violeta Menjívar, vice minister of public health and welfare of El Salvador, a former member of the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional ) rebel movement. During the civil war, she provided medical care both to the FMLN as well as to government soldiers because, as she said with a sly smile, “the FMLN observed the Geneva Conventions.” Describing her country as “small in territory but not in spirit,” she reported that in the year and half since Mauricio Funes — also formerly of the FMLN — took office after his election as president, the new administration has rebuilt two hospitals which had been left undone due to corruption and the siphoning off of public funds. She is working to reverse the privatization of health care that occurred when public health budgets were cut, leaving care only for those who could pay for it. Her department is now implementing plans for preventive care, expansion of primary care, and expansion of basic free medical services to the rural areas where up until today none were provided.



Sandra Matamoros and Genesis

The progressive administration is instituting price regulation on prescriptions medicines. El Salvador–one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere — has also had the highest prices for prescription drugs which I would say can be traced back to the Central American Free Trade Agreement — CAFTA — with protectionist provisions that benefit Big Pharma by delaying the introduction of generic drugs. (Similar, barely noticed provisions are written into the proposed Free Trade Agreement with Colombia that has fortunately been stalled in Congress for other reasons for several years.)

More international perspective came via Deborah Borden who ended up homeless on Skid Row seven years ago after losing her job and health insurance. Now she’s an organizer with LA CAN (Los Angeles Community Action Network). Deborah recently gave testimony about human rights abuses in Los Angeles to the United Nation’s Periodic Review in Geneva, Switzerland and was part of the team that coordinated the visit of Raquel Rolnick, Brazilian architect, urban planner, and professor, sent by the UN to investigate and report on adequate housing in the United States as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and on the right to non-discrimination.

Rolnick’s report, presented in March, found “significant cuts in federal funding for low-income housing, the persistent impact of discrimination in housing, substandard conditions such as overcrowding and health risks, as well as the consequences of the foreclosure crisis.” Specifically, she noted that over the past decade there has been a net loss of approximately 170,000 public housing units while “Each year, the federal government spends more than three times as much on tax breaks for homeowners–with a large share of the resulting tax benefits going to upper-income households–as it spends on low-income housing assistance.”

And “housing is not simply about bricks and mortar,” she wrote, “nor is it simply a financial asset. Housing includes a sense of community, trust and bonds built between neighbors over time; the schools which educate the children; and the businesses which support the local economy and provide needed goods and services. Government policy has sometimes resulted in tearing apart this important sense of community, removing a source of stability for subsidized housing residents, and engendering a sense of mistrust of Government regard for their interests.”

Indeed, at the end of the conference, about 200 participants traveled to Flower and 23rd to demand that community interests be taken seriously by the City Council. A young woman named Genesis sat in her wheelchair in front of the parking lot where the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital used to stand and where she saw her doctors until the facility was demolished. Now, explained her mother, Sandra Matamoros, they must take three buses and travel three hours for the specialized care her daughter needs. The site is still zoned exclusively for medical and educational use, however real estate developer Geoff Palmer is asking the City Council to rezone it so he can move forward with the Lorenzo project and build luxury housing on the site. (Palmer is known for suing the city so he could get out of providing any affordable housing in his other faux-Italian developments: the Medici, the Orsini, and Pieri I and II.)

“No to luxury housing!” chanted the crowd. In South LA, the pressures of gentrification and loss of income now have two and three families sharing apartments that would be a tight squeeze for one. Even so-called “affordable housing,” is beyond the reach of most when you consider that Los Angeles considers a living wage to be $12/hour. Though it beats the minimum wage, it still means a monthly income for a fulltime worker that, after taxes, won’t go much further than market rent on a one-bedroom apartment leaving open the question of how to cover transportation to and from the job, food, clothing, utilities, school supplies, medical care for a family and all the other necessities for a normal, healthy life.



Diane Lefer

The challenges for the people of South LA are immense so it’s essential to be, with a nod to Violeta Mendívar, big in spirit. At the contested site, many of the demonstrators were smiling. They had each other, after all, and the support of community organizations like SAJE, like LA CAN, like Esperanza Community Housing.

As Mark Ridley-Thomas told us, “if you want Movement to go forward, you have to celebrate it and not let anybody rob you of your joy.”

Diane Lefer

 

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    Diane Lefer at Rhapsodomancy

    Author, Playwright, Troublemaker

     

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