Feature Archives

The California coast, from Davenport south through Santa Cruz, Watsonville and Castroville, is Brussels sprouts country. Most of this vegetable in North America comes from these fields, although a growing harvest now takes place in Baja California, in northern Mexico. In both California and Baja California, the vast majority of the people who harvest Brussels sprouts, like those who pick other crops, are Mexican.

Hundreds of UC students and workers from around the state joined together during the November 16th through 18th Regents meeting to protest proposals that they say will harm the public mission of the University of California. They are demanding no fee hikes for all students and no more cuts to staff, many of whom earn below a living wage. At the November 17th meeting, over three hundred protesters confronted a line of police at the Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, where the regents were meeting. Police used pepper spray and 13 protesters were arrested.

Marc Sapir writes, "The core paid staff (representing perhaps 30-50 staff people at KPFA) essentially seized control of KPFA this morning [November 9th] to rally their listener base to resist efforts that could restore KPFA to financial solvency for the first time in 2 years, and bring it back from the brink of collapse (KPFA does not now have cash income to pay the staff regularly). What goes unstated is that the majority of staff at KPFA—over 150 programmers and producers--the people who keep the station on air 24/7 are volunteers are not represented in these antics."

More than a hundred healthcare workers marched outside Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital on October 21st to draw attention to the potential impact of more than 100 layoffs and employee buyouts ordered by hospital management. Employees decided to hold the picket by a 97% vote. Last May, nearly 900 respiratory care practitioners, licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, clerical workers and others voted by a landslide to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and leave their old union, SEIU.

This year was the 15th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality. Throughout Northern California marches, rallies and vigils were held on October 22nd and 23rd to mark the days of action against police brutality. On October 23rd, the ILWU and other unions shut down Bay Area ports to join a Justice for Oscar Grant Rally in downtown Oakland. In Eureka, organizers announced two days of marches and rallies. Vigils and marches were held in Fresno and Modesto.

Nurses, teachers, and union members lined the Bayshore Freeway in front of the San Francisco Airport Hyatt-Regency on September 21st to protest a Meg Whitman fundraising event. Anti-war activists were also on hand to demonstrate against former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who endorsed Whitman for Governor in a speech at the hotel.

On September 15th, protesters gathered in front of Senator Feinstein's office in downtown San Francisco to demand full and fair employment. Federal economic stimulus funding passed by Congress last year created jobs in non-profit organizations to provide services to the community in the Jobs Now and Community Jobs Program. That funding ends September 30, 2010, and so do those jobs.