Santa Cruz Indymedia — Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay

On November 13, over one thousand union baristas launched a “Red Cup Rebellion” unfair labor practice strike protesting Starbucks’ union busting and failure to finalize a fair union contract. The open-ended strike begins with 65 stores across 40+ cities and comes after six months of Starbucks refusing to offer new proposals to address workers’ demands for better staffing, higher pay, and resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges.

In February 1975, construction work on Lee Road in Watsonville desecrated an Ohlone burial site, and bones and artifacts were removed by archeologists. When initial efforts failed to protect the sacred site, the cemetery was occupied by a group of armed local Native families, activists, and members of the American Indian Movement. John Malkin speaks with Patrick Yana-Hea Orozco, who played a critical role in the direct action at Wounded Lee.

Pesticides continue to be pervasive in the air throughout California’s agricultural regions, according to the 2023 Air Monitoring Network Report released in September by the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR). Weekly samples collected at DPR’s four air monitors detected 19 different pesticides at trace or quantifiable levels and 8 pesticides at quantifiable levels, with 80% of samples including at least one pesticide detection.

The Amah Mutsun Land Trust has announced that by the end of 2025 they will acquire a 50-acre property near the intersection of Highways 129 and 101 in San Juan Bautista, marking the first time the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band has regained full access rights to land in its traditional territory since their forced removal over 225 years ago. The property has been renamed tooromakma hinse nii, which means “bobcats wander here”.

On August 19, Santa Cruz County Supervisors introduced an ordinance that would streamline the destruction of RVs and other vehicles that are deemed illegally parked or abandoned on public streets, even if they are inhabited. Santa Cruz Homeless Union President Alicia Kuhl and other advocates warned the Board that the ordinance could increase street-level homelessness. The proposal was continued to a future date.

A new study published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry documents a mass mortality event of monarch butterflies near one of California’s most iconic overwintering sites and links the deaths to pesticide contamination. In late January 2024, hundreds of monarchs were found dead or dying on a private property near the trees of Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary, where they typically cluster during the winter.

John Malkin speaks with Heather Edney, co-founder in 1990 of the Santa Cruz Needle Exchange Program. Despite lack of funding and support for syringe distribution, the program pioneered a model of harm reduction that centered the voices of drug users. Operated by young women volunteers who used drugs, SCNEP was one of the first risk reduction models that included holistic healthcare practices.

The Never Again Moss Landing (NAML) stakeholder group has released a new report detailing the findings of their 120-day investigation into how and why the Vistra Energy lithium-ion battery facility at the Moss Landing Power Plant caught fire and destroyed itself during the period of January 16-22. The report is highly critical of Vistra's design of the facility, as well as the California PUC's role in regulating the plant.

Activists in Northern California are not waiting for court challenges to stop Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Protests are ongoing and have cropped up outside Tesla showrooms in Berkeley, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Corte Madera and Seaside, amongst other locations. The earliest of these happened on a national day of action on February 15. The action at the Van Ness Tesla location in SF grew to about a thousand people.