Will California Students Get to Take "Labor Studies" as a Class Elective?
Will California Students Get to Take "Labor Studies" as a Class Elective?
Do you want your local high school to offer a Labor Studies class to prepare the next generation of union organizers? In California, students soon might have that opportunity, if the state’s Instructional Quality Commission adopts a recommendation from the California Federation of Teachers and the California Assembly Speaker’s Commission on Labor Education. California continues to be...
By Kevin Dayton
Oakland City Council Staff Reports Reveal True Impact of Minimum Wage Increases
Oakland City Council Staff Reports Reveal True Impact of Minimum Wage Increases
Controversy continues at the Los Angeles City Council about the selection of the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment (part of the University of California Miguel Contreras Labor Program) to produce a second taxpayer-funded study to prove again that adopting a city minimum wage ordinance would be a wonderful exercise in Progressive compassion....
By Kevin Dayton
An Insider Candidly Interprets the Divisiveness of a Local Union Initiative
An Insider Candidly Interprets the Divisiveness of a Local Union Initiative
Over the past 15 years, local elected officials in California have frequently claimed publicly and privately that union Project Labor Agreement mandates for taxpayer-funded construction contracts are the most intense, time-consuming, and divisive issues they’ve ever considered. When Project Labor Agreements are placed on local government meeting agendas, modern records are often broken for the...
By Kevin Dayton
Unions Still Selectively Finding Environmental Calamity in California Solar Projects
Unions Still Selectively Finding Environmental Calamity in California Solar Projects
Out of nowhere comes a new, well-funded champion of Mother Earth. A group called “Monterey County Residents for Responsible Development” has submitted two sets of letters and exhibits to Monterey County alleging serious deficiencies in its environmental review for the county’s first large solar photovoltaic power plant, the 280 megawatt California Flats. Obviously the Monterey...
By Kevin Dayton
More Taxpayer Money Spent Justifying Union Political Agenda in California
More Taxpayer Money Spent Justifying Union Political Agenda in California
About 95% of the public policy studies and reports circulating among California state and local governments reject a free market approach to societal challenges. Instead, these studies and reports advocate more government spending, more government programs, and more government intrusion into commerce and personal behavior. Obviously “Progressive” intellectual thought in California gets a disproportionate share of funding....
By Kevin Dayton
When Borrowing $142.4 Billion for School Construction Isn't Enough
When Borrowing $142.4 Billion for School Construction Isn't Enough
On January 12, 2015, the Sacramento Bee reported that “school-construction and home-building groups have launched an effort to qualify a $9 billion school bond for the November 2016 ballot…The last state school bond was in 2006, and the pot of new construction and modernization money is virtually empty.” See California School Builders, Others to Gather Signatures for...
By Kevin Dayton
Caught and Exposed: Secret Union Dealings of a College District
Caught and Exposed: Secret Union Dealings of a College District
The Rancho Santiago Community College District in Orange County (California) declared in a December 8, 2014 letter that it “unconditionally commits that it will cease, desist from, and not repeat the challenged past action…” That action involves secret dealings with unions. A construction trade association was willing to threaten litigation to make this happen. And to emphasize...
By Kevin Dayton
Unions Win First Victory to Control Projects Funded by Water Bond
Unions Win First Victory to Control Projects Funded by Water Bond
It was unlikely that a few isolated and marginalized critics would discourage California voters from approving a statewide ballot measure (Proposition 1) authorizing the state to borrow more than $7 billion for water projects. As Proposition 1 stated, “California has been experiencing more frequent and severe droughts and is currently enduring the worst drought in...
By Kevin Dayton
Latest November 2014 Election Results – 113 Bonds for 108 California Educational Districts
Latest November 2014 Election Results – 113 Bonds for 108 California Educational Districts
The California Policy Center has now posted updated November 4, 2014 election results for the state’s 113 bond measures for K-12 and community college districts. These revised results incorporate almost a month of ballots counted and reviewed by county elections offices. The most significant change is that the largest of the 113 bond measures considered...
By Kevin Dayton
Federal Money to Ivanpah Solar Power Plant Would Be Prize for Unions
Federal Money to Ivanpah Solar Power Plant Would Be Prize for Unions
Fairly or not, news media has recently brought negative public attention to the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, a $2.2 billion thermal solar power plant built under a union Project Labor Agreement in California’s Mojave Desert. Owners of Ivanpah (BrightSource Energy, NRG Energy, and Google) have applied for a $539 million tax credit to help...
By Kevin Dayton
California's 113 Educational Bond Measures – Preliminary Election Results
California's 113 Educational Bond Measures – Preliminary Election Results
Based on preliminary reports from county elections offices as of November 5, 2014, this list of the 113 proposed bond measures on the November 4 ballot is ranked based on the percentage of voters (in the yellow column) who approved borrowing the indicated amount of money for school construction (in the green column) through bond...
By Kevin Dayton
California Voters Asked for Approval to Borrow $156 Billion for School Construction Since 2002
California Voters Asked for Approval to Borrow $156 Billion for School Construction Since 2002
California voters are generally unaware of how much money K-12 school districts and community college districts have borrowed in recent years to fund construction projects. Nor are they aware of the amount of principal and interest (debt service) these districts now owe to municipal bond investors. But a compilation of all local educational construction bond...
By Kevin Dayton
Unions Try to Monopolize California's Global Warming Solutions
Unions Try to Monopolize California's Global Warming Solutions
California’s quest to end global climate change is inspiring many obscure, complicated, and costly regulations. And when state executive branch agencies propose new regulations to save the planet, unions are there with their own agendas. California Can’t Let Just Anyone Check Your Dimmer Switches The 2013 revisions to California’s Building Energy Efficiency Standards (in the...
By Kevin Dayton
Record Number of California School Districts Want to Borrow Up to $11.8 Billion
Record Number of California School Districts Want to Borrow Up to $11.8 Billion
A record number of K-12 school and community college districts in California want voters to approve bond measures for construction in the November 4, 2014 election (see chart below). Here are some preliminary findings from an ongoing California Policy Center study on construction bonds for educational districts in California. The complete study will be released...
By Kevin Dayton