Effort Fails To Shut Down Teamsters Nat Black Caucus Convention In NOL: Report By Dr. Robin Cooper
The Fight Against Warmongers & Supporters Of Genocide: Kshama Sawant On Lessons Of The Election
Atmosphere Intensifies at Delaney Hall after Death of Detainee
https://www.insidernj.com/watch-atmosphere-intensifies-at-delaney-hall-after-death-of-detainee/
Atmosphere Intensifies at Delaney Hall after Death of Detainee
By Max Pizarro | August 8, 2026, 4:44 pm | in City …Confidential
delaney.png
NEWARK – An anti-ICE rally by a coalition of activists seeking justice for detainees at Delaney Hall resulted in a security guard spraying a group of individuals outside the front gate and calling for backup.
"Go back in your hole, troll," a demonstrator shouted each time the guard opened and closed the front gate as vans came and went.
The guard responded verbally, drowned by jeers.
At one point, when he attempted to close the front gate, a demonstrator prevented the gate from closing. Moments later, when the demonstrator again inhibited the gate, the guard produced a cannister and sprayed in the direction of him and other forward demonstrators. The guard then called for more security.
More guards appeared at the front gate and a verbal spat ensued.
The incident occurred a week to the day after the death of Edwin Lopez‑Cornejo, who perished last Saturday while in ICE custody, the third person in the past nine months to die while or immediately after being detained at Delaney Hall.
“Three people have now died at Delaney Hall, and unless Congress acts, there will be more. I have inspected this facility myself and seen the dangerous conditions with my own eyes. No one should die because the government failed to provide basic care to those in custody. Delaney Hall has become a symbol of neglect, abuse, and a failed detention system, and every day it remains open puts more lives at risk,” said Senator Cory Booker.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport yesterday launched a civil rights investigation into Delaney Hall.
“New Jersey has both a legal and a moral duty to stand up for the civil rights of people within our state,” said Attorney General Davenport. “For people who are held involuntarily, including by a private corporation like GEO Group, those rights include the right to humane treatment and adequate medical care. We will take every action available under law to safeguard these core legal principles. We ask individuals to share their personal experiences with us so that we can take action to ensure that rights are protected.”
Today's coalition of New Jersey/New York activists joined their voices to a nationwide National Day of Action.
The coalition’s specific demands are as follows:
Free Martin Soto, Free Them All, Close the Camps, Now!
Equal Citizenship Rights for All Who Live Here!
Abolish ICE and Stop Deportations!
Stop Attacks on TPS, No Human is Illegal!
Free Political Prisoners, Drop Charges Against the Prairieland Defendants and Minneapolis 15!
Hands Off the Amazon Labor Union!
General Strike to Shut Down ICE and the Concertation Camps!
One of the event’s organizers, Alec Courtney of Staten Island, New York, summed up the purpose for this event, as follows: “An injury to one is an injury to all. The way we are going to beat back Trump’s attack on immigrants and activists is by uniting our forces across the country. This is the important step we are taking on August 8.”
Courtney also said only a bottom-up, democratic movement can build the power we need to win our demands.
“The August 8 National Day of Action has been the result of grassroots organizing bytroll-300×214.jpg activists across the country meeting to democratically decide our demands and plan our actions," he added. "We all must be leaders to defeat the Trump regime’s murderous agenda at home and aboard, and win the world we want and need.”
“The recent death of Edwin Lopez-Cornejo at Trump’s Delaney Hall ICE dungeon underscores why we need to abolish ICE, shut down their dungeons, and guarantee equal rights for all who live here”, said Carol Lang of the Bronx, New York, who notred that “it will take shutting down the country, that is organizing a general strike, which will be the key to successfully winning our demands."
NEWARK – An anti-ICE rally by a coalition of activists seeking justice for detainees at Delaney Hall resulted in a security guard spraying.
www.insidernj.comRally To Stop ICE And Shut Down Detention Centers With General Strike, BlackRock Profiting From ICE
https://youtu.be/5ivaXjKMuA8
As part of a national day of action to Stop ICE, Shutdown the Detention Centers and free political prisoners
a rally was held in San Francisco at Blackrock …Investments. BlackRock is profiting from the companies like
GeoCorp. General Dynamics and Palantir which are companies that making profits from the ICE round-ups,
for profit prisons and massive spying on immigrants workers in the US and around the world. There were
also actions that took place in San Diego, New Orleans, New Jersey and other cities.
Additional Info:
8/8/26 National Action Committee
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1368009102142000
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
As part of a national day of action to Stop ICE, Shutdown the Deten…
youtu.beRally To Stop ICE And Shut Down Detention Centers With General Strike, BlackRock Profiting From ICE
https://www.educationprogress.org/p/were-suing-the-makers-of-i-ready?fbclid=IwY2xjawTmBItwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMW95RjRYNFRHU1ZrWmJ0UUxzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe1jBbBil4qxnnRWQ4Y6KDPZggvFSzZUhB7sNKvv9SdNb8K0qaBLFmg5CXD_Q_aem_in0By9ys1cJ_2vIlM9jKgQ
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www.educationprogress.orgUber and Lyft drivers could be 30 days away from having a statewide union
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/california-uber-and-lyft-drivers-could-soon-be-unionized/article_5d60c7b5-1669-4af3-b4e8-5abe71eaefa6.html
By Troy Wolverton | Examiner staff writer Aug 7, 2026
…California Gig Workers Union for Uber and Lyft drivers SFE 08072026
From left, ride-hail drivers John Mejia, Hector Castellanos and Nick Cabalar are seen in September 2025 at SFO, where they were speaking to other drivers about unionization — “something we’ve been long fighting for,” Cabalar said.
Craig Lee/The Examiner
California’s Uber and Lyft drivers are one step closer to forming a statewide union.
The state agency overseeing driver organizing announced Friday that the California Gig Workers Union has shown that it has the support of 30% of active drivers.
That’s a crucial threshold — under state law, the organization will be certified as drivers’ collective-bargaining organization in 30 days unless a group of drivers officially challenges it within that period.
“I’m so excited,” said Hector Castellanos, one of the organizers of the union drive. “I’ve been fighting for this for so long.”
Drivers like Castellanos who work via ride-hailing apps have been complaining for years about substandard pay, a lack of benefits, and an opaque and unfair process through which Uber and Lyft can deactivate them, blocking them from earning a living. Many such as Castellanos have been pushing to form a union to bargain for better pay and working conditions.
Hector Castellanos of California Gig Workers SEIU speaking at a rally against Waymo.png
Hector Castellanos of California Gig Workers SEIU speaks at a rally expressing opposition to robotaxi operator Waymo at San Francisco City Hall in March.
Craig Lee/The Examiner
Passed and signed into law last year, Assembly Bill 1340 provided a path for drivers to form such a unit that could negotiate for a statewide contract with both of the two leading ride-hailing companies at the same time.
The law set up a multistep process for a union to get official recognition from the Public Employment Relations Board, the state agency overseeing the process.
First, a prospective union has to get recognition from PERB as an official drivers organization. Next, it has to show it has the support of 10% of active drivers — those that have driven at least the median number of rides given by all drivers statewide in the last six months.
Once it has the support of 10% of active drivers, a prospective union can get from PERB the names and contact information of all active drivers in order to recruit them to its organizing effort.
If it then shows it has the support of 30% of active drivers, PERB will designate it the official union 30 days later unless that designation is challenged.
The only groups that can challenge such a designation — and force a vote on unionization — are another officially recognized drivers organization that represents 30% of active drivers, or a group representing 30% of active drivers who oppose the formation of a union.
Although there were at least three drivers organizations in California before the law passed, only the Gig Workers Union — which is backed by the large and politically powerful Service Employees International Union — has sought PERB’s recognition as an official drivers organization. It is also the only group that has shown it has the support of 10% of drivers, much less 30%.
“We don’t expect any challenges at this point,” said David Green, president of SEIU Local 721, a Los Angeles-based union that was helping to lead the effort to organize drivers.
Another prospective union, Rideshare Drivers United, had been attempting to garner the support of 10% of drivers. Nicole Moore, its president, told The Examiner it got close to reaching that threshold.
But RDU was hobbled by not having a large group of paid organizers and not being able to work with an established union to organize drivers, she said.
EX // TOP STORIES
Secretary of State Shirley Weber talks re-election and voter ID.png
Secretary of State Shirley Weber talks re-election and voter ID
California already verifies voters, says incumbent Shirley Weber, and the popular vote-by-mail system slows counting
Scott Wiener takes down AI chatbot mimicking Connie Chan after criticism.png
Scott Wiener takes down AI chatbot mimicking Connie Chan after criticism
The state senator said the chatbot was intended to show his electoral rival as obstructionist, but Rep. Nancy Pelosi and others said it showed ‘willingness to erase wo…
School set to begin in a continuously changing infectious-disease landscape.png
School set to begin in a continuously changing infectious-disease landscape
Experts express caution amid changing vaccine policies from the federal government and ongoing outbreaks across the country
In terms of trying to form a statewide union, “we will be stepping aside,” Moore said.
In separate emailed statements, officials at San Francisco-based Uber and Lyft indicated their companies planned to work with the Gig Workers Union.
"As this new process moves forward, we’re committed to engaging in good faith,” Lyft spokesman C.J. Macklin said.
“We look forward to our work ahead with the California Gig Workers Union and the state,” said Ramona Prieto, Uber’s head of public policy and communications for the western United States.
According to PERB, California has 100,307 active drivers, meaning the Gig Workers Union had to show it had the support of around 30,000 drivers. During the first half of the year, the median number of rides given by all drivers was 475, or about 2.6 per day, according to the agency.
Although union support is gauged by looking at active drivers, a statewide union would represent all Uber and Lyft drivers.
Gig Workers Union reached the 30% support threshold just two months after hitting the 10% mark and getting access to the list of active drivers. Most drivers the union contacted reacted positively, both Green and Castellanos said.
Castellanos, who said he spends about 40 hours a week driving for Uber and Lyft, estimated that 90% of the drivers he spoke with were pro-union.
“They really want to see a change,” he said.
Despite being outpaced by the Gig Workers Union, RDU doesn’t plan to go away, Moore said.
Nicole Moore, center, an organizer with Rideshare Drivers United, meets with the group's organizing committee in Los Angeles in August 2019.
Allison Zaucha © 2019 The New York Times Company
While she said she’s hopeful that the establishment of an official union and the contract negotiations will lead to better conditions for drivers, she said she thinks the companies need to be pressured in multiple ways to achieve that end.
RDU is currently involved in a lawsuit seeking to weaken or overturn Proposition 22, a 2020 state measure that designated drivers as contractors not employees of the ride-hail companies and set certain pay and reimbursement rates.
It’s also involved in another lawsuit that argues Uber and Lyft owe back pay to state drivers who should have been treated as employees prior to Prop. 22.
“We going to continue to do the work we’ve been doing and we think is essential to drivers’ rights,” Moore said.
SEIU-back organizing group reaches key support mark.
www.sfexaminer.comHelp Wanted / Leave Now: “Operation Wetback” & The Revolving Door of Mass Deportation
¡Se Solicita Personal! / ¡Fuera! “Operación Wetback” & La Puerta Giratoria De Deportaciones Masivas
https://californiamuseum.org/help-wanted-leave-now/
On view August 13, 2026 …– January 10, 2027 | En vista 13 de agosto de 2026 – 10 de enero de 2027
For over a century, the story of labor in the United States has been a recurring cycle of “Help Wanted” and “Leave Now.” This first-of-its-kind exhibition explores how generations of Mexican farmworkers, miners, and others were recruited to sustain U.S. industry, only to face mass expulsion during times of economic anxiety and political scapegoating.
Through firsthand accounts, rare photographs, historical artifacts, and interactive elements, the exhibit confronts difficult truths while honoring the individuals whose labor has underpinned American economic growth.
“Help Wanted/Leave Now” will be a fully bilingual display, presented in both English and Spanish.
LEARN MORE
Durante más de un siglo, la historia del trabajo en Estados Unidos ha sido un ciclo recurrente de “¡Se solicita personal!” y “¡Fuera!”. Esta exposición, la primera de su tipo, explora cómo generaciones de campesinos, mineros y otros trabajadores mexicanos fueron contratados para sostener la industria estadounidense, solo para enfrentar expulsiones masivas en tiempos de ansiedad económica y señalamientos políticos.
A través de testimonios de primera mano, fotografías inéditas, artefactos históricos y elementos interactivos, la exhibición confronta realidades difíciles al tiempo que rinde homenaje a las personas cuyo trabajo ha sustentado el crecimiento económico estadounidense.
“¡Se solicita personal! / ¡Fuera!” será una exhibición completamente bilingüe, presentada tanto en inglés como en español.
MÁS INFORMACIÓN
slide 2 of 2
This bilingual exhibition examines how generations of Mexican farmworkers, miners, and others were recruited to sustain U.S. industry, only to face…
californiamuseum.orgHomecare Worker Speaks Out At SF SEIU 2015 HQ To Demand No Neutrality On Billionaires Tax CA Prop 40
A small rally was held at the offices of SEIU 2015 in San Francisco to call on the SEIU to support the billionaires tax proposition 40. SEIU 2015 has more than 400,000 mostly homecare …worker members and the leadership as well as California SEIU president David Huerta are refusing to support proposition 40 which would put a one time 5% capital tax on California's billionaires. The California SEIU has over 750,000 members.
SEIU 2015 Bradley Weidmaier talked about the need to make up the massive cuts coming because of Trump and the Republican big tax cut bill.
Weidmaier also talked about the bureaucratic control of the largest local in the country to prevent the members have any democratic control over what the local does. San Francisco members have been trying to have a vote of the members to support the proposition but according to Weidmaier have been thwarted by the bureaucracy.
This event was held on August 7, 2027.
Additional Media:
Senator Laphonza Butler & SEIU 2015: The Ex-Union Bureaucrat Helping UBER & The Union Busters
https://youtu.be/k-B5TV0SZtQ
SEIU CA Homecare Workers Speak Out About Corruption By Tyrone Freeman & SEIU Andy Stern
https://youtu.be/rgS16THF4Kk
Top SEIU Official Butler to Leave at End of Month
http://sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com/2018/
Another Former SEIU Official Is on Uber’s Payroll
https://sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com/2019/08/another-former-seiu-official-is-on.html
"Stealth Election" Issues Facing Dave Regan's SEIU UHW in The Rigging Of The 2014 Election
https://youtu.be/11wo3plRb9I
SEIU 2012 Convention SMART Report-Real Issues Covered Up By "Henry Team”
https://youtu.be/NIwe2qNovrg
SEIU Mergers, Labor Power, Union Democracy & the Future of The SEIU
https://youtu.be/CnP-UKH7EXc
SEIU Mergers, Labor Power, Union Democracy And The Future of the SEIU #3 LA
https://youtu.be/vzar6jAEdxw
Labor Imperialism, Corporate Unionism, Privatization & The SEIU Convention In Puerto Rico
https://youtu.be/z9Lri7YD2N4
The Victory Of The FMPR Puerto Rican Teachers, The SEIU And Business Unionism
https://youtu.be/c1a6Z5lOcAI
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
CA SEIU Neutral On Taxing Billionaires? Homecare Worker Speaks At SF SEIU 2015 HQ To Back Prop 40
The Role Of Israel's Lobby In The US With Author Ian Lustick
https://youtu.be/sTGlvWGL6JM
The role of Israel's supporters has been critical to US foreign policy and particularly in the Middle East. A new book by University Of Pennsylvania professor emeritus Ian Lustick and …journalist Elis Clifton have co-authored "Israel's Lobby, America In The Grip Of A Foreign Power". He is interviewed about the book, the history and role of the United States and its relationship with Israel.
This interview was done on 8/5/26.
WorkWeek
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio
Production Of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
The Rise of Fascism, Racism & General Strikes https://laborfest.net/2026/event/the-rise-of-fascism-racism-general-strikes/ July 12 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00…
www.labormedia.netThe Role Of Israel's Lobby In The US With Author & Professor Ian Lustick
Navy contractor doesn’t have to pay Hunters Point residents in toxic cleanup suit, judge rules
By Laura Waxmann, Bob Egelko,
Staff Writers
Aug 4, 2026
Hunters Point shipyard in San Francisco in November 2025. A judge on Tuesday ruled in a Navy contractor's favor, …ending a yearslong legal battle over radiation cleanup.
Hunters Point shipyard in San Francisco in November 2025. A judge on Tuesday ruled in a Navy contractor's favor, ending a yearslong legal battle over radiation cleanup.
Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle
Despite years of allegations that fraudulent radiation cleanup work left hundreds of Hunters Point Shipyard residents with devalued properties, Tetra Tech EC will pay the homeowners nothing after a judge ruled that the former Navy contractor is shielded by a federal law.
U.S. District Judge James Donato ruled in Tetra Tech EC’s favor on Tuesday, finding that the homeowners’ claims fall under the Price-Anderson Act — a federal law that governs who can be sued over accidents or contamination involving radioactive materials. Donato granted a summary judgment motion, effectively ending the case.
That law has been rarely used, according to Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP, the firm representing the homeowners. And yet, the decades-old statute became the decisive factor in an eight-year legal battle, allowing Tetra Tech EC —the contractor accused of performing a flawed radiological cleanup at the Shipyard and producing unreliable cleanup data — to avoid paying damages to the homeowners.
A spokesperson for Tetra Tech EC declined to comment when contacted about Donato’s ruling on Tuesday.
“Our argument is that this obscure statute can’t possibly apply to this situation, where Tetra Tech has been accused of doing a fraudulent cleanup,” said Anne Marie Murphy, who for years has represented the homeowners in the case, adding that “there’s very little case law attached to it.”
“It’s tragic — there are 300-plus families that have been injured very concretely by the Tetra Tech fraud as alleged in the complaint,” Murphy said.
The Price Anderson Act was signed by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 and amended by Congress in 1988. It allows suits against the government and private parties for deaths and bodily harm caused by nuclear radiation — but, Donato said, it precludes broader claims for damages under state law.
The Hunters Point lawsuit was filed in 2018 but Tetra Tech did not invoke the Price Anderson Act for several years. Lawyers for the Shipyard homeowners argued that the company had forfeited any right to rely on the federal law, but Donato, while critical of Tetra Tech, refused to bar use of the law.
“Why Tetra Tech was asleep at the switch for so long is not explained in its papers,” the judge wrote, but added the case should be judged under federal law and not the more expansive laws of California.
The ruling effectively ends the last remaining claims by the homeowners on what is known as Parcel A, a hilltop stretch of land that was the only portion of the Shipyard redevelopment project that was completed before revelations that radiological cleanup data had been falsified brought the redevelopment effort to a halt in 2018.
It comes four years after the shipyard’s developers, Five Point Holdings and Lennar Corp. agreed to pay the homeowners a $6.3 million settlement to exit the case. Both entities were named as defendants in the homeowners’ lawsuit.
Unlike the claims against the developers — which centered around alleged failures to fully disclose the extent of the contamination at the property and the problems surrounding its cleanup before selling over 300 homes on Parcel A — the case against Tetra Tech EC focused on the company’s role in the Shipyard’s botched remediation.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined in 2018 that much of Tetra Tech EC’s cleanup data at several parcels of the Shipyard was unreliable, prompting the Navy to order additional testing and triggering a wave of lawsuits.
The contractor has consistently denied that fraud alleged in the area’s remediation was widespread, and blamed a group of “rogue” employees for falsifying soil samples, among other issues. Two former Tetra Tech supervisors were sentenced to federal prison in 2018, after pleading guilty to charges stemming from a scheme that involved swapping contaminated soil samples with clean ones.
For Parcel A homeowner Linda Pennington Parker, the ruling is a reflection of a larger pattern of environmental harms affecting Black and brown communities going unaddressed. For decades, those communities have made up much of the population living near the shipyard.
While a newer resident at the Shipyard, Parker said she believes the decision allows Tetra Tech EC to escape responsibility for the Shipyard’s stalled redevelopment and the fallout from a cleanup scandal that she says left homeowners with diminished property values and lasting uncertainty.
The Navy’s role in contaminating the former shipyard through decades of industrial and military operations is well documented, but Parker said that does not excuse what she alleges was misconduct during the cleanup process.
“It’s not about whether the Navy is protected,” said Parker, a lead plaintiff in the case. “It’s about a contractor committing fraud.”
“The fact that the (developers) settled with us … means they understand that it was fraud as well,” she added.
The homeowners argued that Tetra Tech should be held responsible for loss of property value and other economic harm. They cited a 2015 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that allowed homeowners to seek a broad range of compensation under Colorado law for damage caused by mishandling of nuclear waste at the Rocky Flats weapons plant.
That ruling was written by Judge Neil Gorsuch, who gained prominence in 2017 when he was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump.
But Donato, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court by President Barack Obama, said in Tuesday’s ruling that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has refused to allow suits under state laws for “lesser nuclear occurrences” like the one in this case. That court’s rulings are binding on federal judges in California and eight other Western states.
Donato cited a 9th Circuit ruling in 2008 that said federal law in such cases allows damages only for radiation that has caused “bodily injury, sickness, disease, or death,” and not for economic losses. The homeowners’ lawsuit did cite injuries such as fear of cancer and emotional distress, which they alleged were caused by the reports of fraud.
“We have dedicated years to fighting for justice, for my own family and for every family that put their trust in purchasing a home they believed was safe,” said Theo Ellington, a Parcel A homeowner, plaintiff in the lawsuit and candidate for District 10 Supervisor. “This decision feels like a profound miscarriage of justice. It sends a troubling message that powerful corporations can commit fraud, evade accountability, and further marginalize communities.”
Murphy, the homeowners’ attorney, disagreed with Donato’s application of the law. The Price Anderson Act, she said by email after the ruling, “is designed for a Three Mile Island incident or Chernobyl — not a fraudulent cleanup.”
‘Like if John Sayles directed Forrest Gump’: the incredible life of historian Howard Zinn
The life of the hugely influential ‘people’s historian’ is explored in a wide-ranging new book that brings in everything from wars to civil rights to Matt Damon
…https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/aug/06/howard-zinn-the-peoples-historian-book
Martin Pengelly
Thu 6 Aug 2026 05.00 EDT
Matt Damon may play a great hero in The Odyssey, but one of the star’s own heroes is also set for his time in the spotlight. In Massachusetts in the 1970s and 80s, Damon grew up close to Howard Zinn, now the subject of The People’s Historian, a biography by Dave Zirin.
“Frankly,” Zirin said, “the fact that he’s Matt Damon and oh by the way is now in the biggest movie perhaps since Titanic, it makes it a nice little bauble for the book that I got to interview him.
“But honestly, I would have interviewed anybody who had Matt Damon’s perspective of being young and knowing Howard Zinn as this kind of elder, because the dynamics of their relationship to me really say something about Zinn, from him being willing to go to little Mattie’s public high school to do a talk, as a favor to the family, to being a friend and a sounding board, not behaving like some unapproachable elder, but at the same time it being pretty clear that other adults really respected this guy.”
Many did, worldwide. After an epic career in academia and progressive politics, Zinn died in 2010, aged 87. Damon has carried lessons from him through his own career. Good Will Hunting, his breakthrough hit from 1997, contains mention of Zinn’s seminal work, A People’s History of the United States: “That book’ll fuckin’ knock you on your ass.” Damon has sought to bring Zinn to the screen, including via the documentary The People Speak, from 2009.
But despite such adult endeavors, Zirin said the star’s “child’s perspective on Howard Zinn” was most useful when it came to writing his book. After all, plenty of American schoolchildren continue to come to know Zinn through A People’s History, first published in 1980, often updated, now with more than 4m copies sold. The story of America from “1492-Present”, it is explicitly notthe story of the great white men of tradition, from Christopher Columbus to the founders and on through the civil war, the Gilded Age and the long 20th century. Inevitably, it has long been a target for angry rightwingers.
“Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history,” Donald Trump said at the National Archives in September 2020, laying the ground for the present assault on revisionist history.
When asking historians or biographers what their subject might have made of Trump, it often pays to be circumspect. Not when talking to Zirin, who is sports editor of the Nation, the progressive magazine founded in 1865. In his introduction, Zirin considers what Zinn would have thought about the politics of the 2020s, including the pursuit of racial justice and its rightwing backlash. Furthermore, Zirin knew Zinn well, having written his own A People’s History of Sports in the United States, and having moderated events with Zinn towards the end of his life.
“He wrote so much and he lectured so much to the end of his life, that we have more than breadcrumbs” about what Zinn would think, Zirin said. “We have full loaves of bread. When you read what he was writing about the Bush administration and the endless wars and the growth of the surveillance state, he could very much be talking about Donald Trump, in terms of his acidic humor about having this dullard in the White House, to the growth of tyranny … he had a perspective on history and how one weathered the ups and downs of history, and in those statements you get a kind of broad view that I think is universal and can apply to 2026 as much as to 1949.”
Zinn was born in 1922, in Brooklyn, New York, to poor Jewish immigrants from Russia and Austria-Hungary. At 17, he went to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Swiftly, he became a union organizer, beginning a political journey that would land him in the sights of the FBI in the red scare and after. In 1944, he met Roslyn Shechter, another leftwing firebrand who became his wife. Joining the US Army Air Corps to fight fascism, Zinn became a bombardier. In April 1945, he took part in a raid over the French coast, an early use of napalm. His horrified realization of what he helped do to the town of Royan would shape his decades of activism and protest.
Zinn was a leading voice against the Vietnam war, where napalm was heavily used. In an extraordinary chapter, Zirin retells the story of the arduous, hazardous journeyZinn and the priest and peace activist Daniel Berrigantook to Hanoi in 1968, to secure the release of three US airmen, battling absurd army bureaucracy and Washington machinations. Another key passage of The People’s Historian concerns the early to mid-60s, years when Howard and Roz Zinn worked on the ground in the American south, in the thick of the civil rights struggle. Academic politics intrudes too, including stories of how Zinn ran afoul of conservative authorities at Spelman College in Atlanta and at Boston University, where he taught for decades. Given such rich subject matter, Zirin’s book sometimes reads less like a biography of a historian than as the basis for a novel or screenplay, written (in fantasyland) by Joseph Heller or Philip Roth.
Zirin found himself thinking cinematically, sometimes “of the Woody Allen character Zelig or or even the Tom Hanks character of Forrest Gump: people who find themselves unintentionally at these incredible pivot points in history. And yet the difference between Howard Zinn and Zelig or Forrest Gump is that Zinn is also a working-class, Ivy League-trained historian [he studied at NYU and Columbia after the war], so he finds himself at these incredible pivots and yet also has this incredible history and perspective and leadership ability through his years as an organizer. It’s incredible. It would be like if John Sayles directed Forrest Gump.”
Zirin clearly looked up to Zinn, much as Damon did before. Nonetheless, the portrait in Zirin’s pages is unsparing.
“There’s a sign over my desk that says ‘hagiography’ with a line through it,” Zirin said. “I looked for the warts, hard, because the fear going in was given my respect for the work and the fact I got to know him at the end of his life,” a need to celebrate the man and his work might take over.
Zinn’s commitment to protest and rise to national fame was hard on Roz and their children, Jeff and Myla. When times got tough for Zinn, Zirin said: “What I found was that if you want to call it his drug of choice, he was able to live through these times when he was also able to lecture in the classroom, about all sorts of topics from the history of civil liberties to the Gilded Age. He taught social sciences at different points, and then saw his students be able to go out and apply it, then come back to the classroom. He lived through times when people were living history. He was able to teach that history, and then see history being made.”
The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn, published by Dutton, is out now.
The life of the hugely influential ‘people’s historian’ is explored in a wide-ranging new book that brings in everything from wars to civil…
www.theguardian.comVoices At California Labor Fed 2026 Convention In Oakland
Voices At California Labor Fed 2026 Convention In Oakland
https://youtu.be/lZ86DY2zMJ4
The California AFL-CIO held its 2026 convention in Oakland, California on August 4, 2026 and delegates talked about the issues that they are facing.
Speakers from the SEIU, ATU and CFT talked about …the issues that they are facing.
Also Jane Kim who is a leader of the Working Families Party and who is running for California Insurance Commission talked about her campaign. She was endorsed by the Cal Fed at their meeting.
The convention under the bylaws is closed to the media and it is not broadcast to the workers of California who are affiliated members of the Federation and pay for the convention with their dues.
They convention also vote to support the billionaire tax Prop 40 that will be on the November ballot.
Production Of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
The Rise of Fascism, Racism & General Strikes https://laborfest.net/2026/event/the-rise-of-fascism-racism-general-strikes/ July 12 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00…
www.labormedia.nethttps://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/results-in-common-core-bust-22367198.php
SUNY reports that many incoming students are not ready for college math or English. It’s the latest sign that New York’s learning standards need an…
www.timesunion.comJosh Helfgott
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BREAKING🚨 A special education teacher was drinking coffee on her couch when seven Homeland Security agents knocked on her door, entered her home and arrested her for conspiracy.
Still in her …pajamas, she was allowed to change and hug her partner goodbye.
Treasure Thoreson and 14 others are accused of conspiring to impede federal agents outside the Whipple Federal Building, which served as ICE's headquarters during the winter immigration surge in Minnesota.
Prosecutors cited meetings and conversations on the app Signal as evidence, as NPR's Meg Anderson first reported.
In Spokane, about 30 people were arrested after protesters linked arms to block a van carrying two detained immigrants. Nine were charged with conspiracy. Six pleaded guilty. Three went to trial and were convicted in May, including Bajun Mavalwalla II, a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan.
"Being charged with a federal felony, a conspiracy charge that holds the potential for six years in prison because I showed up to a protest, seems to me to be an attack on a fundamental right that all Americans hold," he said.
Richard Barker, the acting U.S. attorney there, resigned rather than sign that indictment.
He called the case "a civil war-era law dusted off to punish members of our community who stood up for two young men who were unlawfully detained by ICE."
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Inside the nearly five-month labor lockout at BP's Whiting refinery
The oil company has locked out about 800 refinery workers in Whiting without pay for 140 days.
…https://chicago.suntimes.com/environment/2026/08/06/bp-whiting-indiana-lockout-impact?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=080626+Morning+Edition&utm_content=080626+Morning+Edition+CID_2119bcb9e358c4860c4510628db32240&utm_source=cst_campaign_monitor&utm_term=Inside+the+nearly+5-month+labor+lockout+at+BPs+Whiting+refinery&tpcc=cst_cm&fbclid=IwY2xjawThm2hwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6VOepm2xQbhzUmDRuMYgbLTNvmoV7tLQleasSIjtiDLKEy45iWp0bLbKPJZw_aem_5ZD5s-lAMBDG-xYydflq9w
By Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco Aug 6, 2026, 3:30am PDT
United Steelworkers Local 7-1 members picket outside the British Petroleum oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana in July 2026.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Jessica Skalka, 37, rounded the corner of a homemade bar in her dad’s garage, passing a framed collage of cutout newspaper clips marking the end of the 99-day strike at BP’s Whiting, Indiana, refinery in 2015. A row of championship banners for the Chicago Cubs, Bears and White Sox hung high across one wall, while a light-up “Donnie’s Man Cave” sign glowed nearby.
She picked up an empty blue-and-orange Bears-themed bucket from the counter, shook it, and asked, “No candy today?”
“Yeah, well, I’m not working right now,” said Donald Skalka, 62, from across the garage.
Until mid-March, father and daughter worked at BP’s sprawling plant in Whiting, Indiana, the largest inland oil refinery in North America.
There, Donald had spent nearly two decades working his way up to a job in the control room, where he monitored the refinery’s operations from behind a bank of screens. The plant processed approximately 440,000 barrels of crude oil every day, and Donald kept the electricity and steam-generating machinery at the plant running. Donald’s son worked there, too, as did Jessica. Donald met his longtime girlfriend, Renee Pleitner, during his onboarding at the plant. She’s a third-generation refinery worker.
Donald Skalka is one of 800 unionized British Petroleum oil refinery workers that are currently locked out of their jobs.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
For the last four months, the Skalkas, Pleitner, and approximately 800 other workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 7-1, or USW, have been locked out of the refinery without pay and with no clear indication of when they’ll return to work.
During a lockout, management can prevent workers from returning to their jobs to withhold wages. Lockouts are generally seen as a hardline tactic during labor disputes and tend to be rare, especially in the refining business, which requires continuous production and a highly skilled workforce. Now, longtime refinery workers worry Big Oil is experimenting with a new playbook to break union power, undermine national collective bargaining, and remake its workforce.
BP began negotiating with the union in early January ahead of the previous contract’s expiration at the end of that month. But two months into discussions, after 98 percent of USW Local 7-1 members voted to reject what the fossil fuel company called its last, best, and final offer, the company issued a lockout order. The proposal would have held up wages, cut jobs, and expanded the use of artificial intelligence, according to the union.
In an emailed statement to WBEZ, BP objected to the union’s characterization of its demands. “Our proposals are not unique or novel,” wrote BP spokesperson Cesar Rodriguez. “Most of what we are seeking has already been tested and implemented elsewhere.”
Donald Skalka stands outside his home in Indiana.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
The lockout also “allowed for a safe and orderly transition of operations,” Cesar said. The union’s 24-hour notice requirement to strike and disrupt refinery operations “presented safety and operational risk,” BP wrote in an earlier statement, and necessitated a continuity plan.
For Skalka, the March email notifying him that he wouldn’t be returning to work until further notice was gutting.
“The gamut of emotions when I had to face my family, it was a lot,” he said.
Born and raised in the northwest corner of Indiana, most of Skalka’s family had worked at industrial facilities. His father worked at cement factories and later built parts for the nearby steel mills. An uncle was a shipbuilder on the East Side of Chicago.
Skalka was eventually entrusted with an important role at the refinery. From the control room, he was responsible for identifying broken pumps, mechanical hiccups, and mystery leaks.
“There’s a little bit of danger to it,” he said. “When you swipe in with your time card, you have to bring your A game.”
All the same, he loved the job — and his daughter noticed.
It was an exciting, breakneck-paced lifestyle, and the pay was good. She peppered her dad with questions, took a qualifying test, passed, and eventually earned a spot. Donald Skalka Jr., Skalka’s son, spent approximately a decade working at a nearby steel mill. When an opportunity at the refinery came up a year and a half ago, he took it. It was a decision his father encouraged.
“He’s one of the 800 like the rest of us, and he’s going, ‘Dad, I don’t know if I should’ve listened to you.’ Well, I didn’t know at the time that was going to happen,” Skalka said. “At the time, on paper, everything seemed better; you’re trying to have a better quality of life.”
United Steelworkers Local 7-1 member Jessica Skalka is one of 800 BP workers locked out of their jobs.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
The lockout has reshaped his home life in other ways too. Jessica found temporary work. Her brother returned to a job at the mill. Donald and Renee are holding out, living on a budget that keeps shrinking. They’ve swapped cable for streaming and are using rabbit-ear antennas for free local channels. They also paid their utility bills months in advance to avoid a power shutoff in the future.
“You get rid of the non-essentials right away,” Skalka said. “The thermostat stays higher, there’s less in the grocery cart, you don’t eat out obviously hardly at all anymore.”
They pass the time filling poster boards with pictures of good times on the picket line. And they aren’t done picketing. Skalka pilots the union’s second-hand minibus, a stout, cream-colored vehicle, shuttling picketing union members between four different entrances. Union members have been assigned shifts to protest — four shifts a day, four protesters a shift. The schedule has allowed workers to find other employment and extend their ability to hold out during the lockout.
Donald goes on his off days too, when Pleitner is on the schedule, and she does the same for him. “We just kind of make it a family event,” Skalka said.
By now, he’s used to the new routine. What he’s still wrapping his head around is a new, more aggressive tack from his employer — one that has pushed his family, friends, and coworkers to their limits.
“This time it seems they’re in a union-breaking mode,” he said, “They’re following a playbook.”
The origin story
Union leaders trace the origins of BP’s strategy to Texas. In 2021, Exxon, the nation’s largest oil and gas company, locked out approximately 650 unionized workers from its Beaumont, Texas, refinery when they rejected a “last, best, and final offer,” which would have frozen wages and ended some union seniority rights. At the time, the Beaumont workers were already operating outside the framework of the National Oil Bargaining Program, an effort dating back to the 1960s to negotiate industry-wide standards for wages, health care, and workplace safety.
The program exerts leverage by aligning approximately 200 refinery bargaining units around the same contract timelines, preventing unions from being pitted against each other, and establishing a national standard. Without that collective leverage, the Beaumont refinery workers were at a disadvantage. The Texas lockout lasted 10 months and ended in March 2022. When workers returned to their jobs, they did so under a weaker contract that gave ExxonMobil authority over job assignments, stripping the union of its previous role in determining a quarter of them.
Donald Skalka is proud of the organizing he’s done for his union.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
According to Eric Schultz, president of the USW Local 7-1, BP hired the architect of the Exxon negotiations, Jordan Marcks, as a director of employees and labor relations, while that lockout was ongoing. Schultz sees similarities between BP’s proposal and Exxon’s plan for the Texas refinery. For one, BP is pushing a contract term that would put the Whiting refinery out of step with the National Oil Bargaining Program. It is also looking to eliminate jobs and union oversight.
“They obviously liked that playbook,” he said. “They’re trying to bring that flavor up here to Northwest Indiana,” Schultz added.
When reached for comment about Marcks’ employment history and alleged tactics, a BP spokesperson said the company “does not comment on personnel matters.” Marcks did not respond to a request for comment.
Mike Smith, the chair of the National Oil Bargaining for the United Steelworkers, said it’s not totally clear yet whether the lockouts reflect a new tactic for Big Oil. “Whether this is an individual’s idea who happens to have been involved in both of those lockouts, or if this is a strategy — that’s still to be determined,” he said.
“A good fight on their hands”
With the workers locked out, the squat union hall has transformed into an all-hours crisis center. Makeshift shelves in a corner carry everything from simple groceries like canned food and pasta to diapers and baby formula. The formula and diapers are typically the first to go, according to Michelle O’Shaughnessy, a union member who has been helping run the improvised pantry since the lockout started.
The local community has also rallied behind the refinery workers. “We have some faithful restaurants who are very good to us,” O’Shaughnessy said. Beggars Pizza in Whiting has been dropping off 10 pizzas to the union hall every Monday, as do Aurelios of Hammond on Tuesdays and Center Lounge, which has been bringing in meals on Wednesdays.
A United Steelworkers Local 7-1 member rides the shuttle to a picket site outside the British Petroleum oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
Union members can also get help filling out unemployment applications at the center. The union has a strike fund that helps pay some bills, but members do not receive cash payments or salaries. Other organizations have also stepped up to assist with mortgage payments and help apply for SNAP benefits.
While the fight plays out, Skalka is hunkering down, preparing for a long road back to work. He’s not sure when or if he’ll get to put his BP uniform on again. What he does know is that he, his family, his nearly 800 USW brothers and sisters, and the rest of Northwest Indiana are determined to win.
“We’re still going to keep living our lives; it’s not gonna deter the hardworking people in Northwest Indiana,” Skalka said. “They’ve got a good fight on their hands, and we’re gonna give it to them.”
The oil company has locked out about 800 refinery workers in Whiting without pay for 140 days.
chicago.suntimes.comOakland approved a $105 million teachers deal. One board member’s dual role could threaten it
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/oakland-teachers-contract-ethics-22371973.php
By Jill Tucker,
Staff Writer
Aug 6, 2026
The Oakland Unified School District Board of …Directors voted on a new teachers’ contract earlier this year. Some experts are concerned one of the board members should have abstained from the vote due to a conflict of interest.
The Oakland Unified School District Board of Directors voted on a new teachers’ contract earlier this year. Some experts are concerned one of the board members should have abstained from the vote due to a conflict of interest.
Nathan Weyland/For the S.F. Chronicle
Oakland’s costly teachers contract is on shaky legal ground, according to conflict of interest experts, with a school board member’s ties to the state teachers union threatening the deal — despite millions of dollars in retroactive raises already paid to district educators.
The ethical dilemma concerns Trustee VanCedric Williams, who voted for the $105 million contract in June despite serving on the board of directors of the California Teachers Association, which is financially and politically tied to the deal. He declined to abstain from voting, closed-session meetings and public discussion about the contract.
If Williams violated conflict of interest laws, a court could overturn the board’s decision, effectively voiding the contract.
The legal question adds to the debate generated by the agreement, including whether the district can afford it even as teachers questioned a long delay in getting their retroactive raises.
Williams did not respond to requests for comment.
Some experts are concerned that Oakland Unified School District Board member VanCedric Williams cast a vote despite having an ethical conflict.
Some experts are concerned that Oakland Unified School District Board member VanCedric Williams cast a vote despite having an ethical conflict.
Nathan Weyland/For the S.F. Chronicle
The district and labor leaders agreed to the deal in late February, narrowly avoiding a teacher strike. The union’s members ratified it days later. But district officials sat on it for months, waiting until late June to produce a required cost analysis.
The board voted 5-0, with one abstention, on June 24 to approve the contract, which delayed the retroactive raises until after the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.
Williams, first elected to the school board in 2021, has also voted over the years on other teachers’ union agreements. His current term expires in 2029. He was elected as a CTA director in 2022.
The legal questions surrounding Williams’ vote center on his position as one of 23 directors of the California Teachers Association (CTA), a role that includes overseeing the labor organization’s policies, budget and fiscal health.
Its 310,000 members pay into the CTA’s coffers, their annual fees based on the statewide average teacher salary.
That means, the legal experts said, Williams sits on two boards that can have competing interests.
While public officials in dual roles can bring important expertise that can benefit both institutions, it’s also a red flag that results in “ethical problems waiting to happen,” said Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at the Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
“Having a foot in both rooms isn’t a problem per se,” she said. “It’s the voting. The conflict lives in having to make a decision.”
The CTA board of directors, which included Williams, was responsible for overseeing the CTA’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign, launched in February 2025 to coordinate contract negotiations of 32 school districts, including Oakland.
The goal was to align the local teachers unions to focus on the same issues, including smaller class sizes, opposition to closures and layoffs, and better pay and benefits. Oakland teachers achieved most of those goals in their contract.
According to the CTA’s February edition of the California Educator magazine, the campaign meant local teachers unions were “maximizing their power, moving from isolated fights to a coordinated campaign.”
That meant Williams was both supporting the CTA’s effort to ensure coordinated wins for local unions and sitting on the other side of the bargaining table as a school board member with a fiduciary duty to serve the public and well-being of the district.
Recusing oneself from discussions and votes when there’s a potential conflict maintains the fairness and transparency of the process, Hurt said.
“The rule of law matters and protecting our institutions is even more important,” she said.
Williams voted for the contract — as well as other agreements in the past with the Oakland teachers union — even after fellow board member Mike Hutchinson questioned whether there was a conflict of interest, especially if Williams was paid in any way by the CTA.
The district’s legal counsel told Hutchinson immediately before the vote that, since Williams was not paid for his CTA role, there was no conflict — a decision reflecting the state’s Political Reform Act, which addresses the need for public officials to abstain from voting if they have a financial interest in the decision.
Violations of those laws are enforced by the Fair Political Practices Commission.
It’s unlikely Williams’ situation would be the subject of an investigation by the commission, said Steve Churchwell, a government affairs and regulatory law attorney.
But those aren’t the only laws that could apply. Public officials need to adhere to common law, which is based on precedents from judicial decisions in court cases and address nonfinancial conflicts of interest, he said.
Those court rulings focus on the appearance of or actual impropriety based on personal or private interest, said Churchwell, a former general counsel for the state commission.
Conflict of interest common law dates to the earliest days of California and continues to the present day, Churchwell said.
A “public officer is impliedly bound to exercise the powers conferred on him with disinterested skill, zeal and diligence and primarily for the benefit of the public,” according to a 1928 ruling. “Actual injury is not the principle the law proceeds on.”
If public officials do not recuse themselves amid competing interests, they risk a challenge in court, with potential penalties for the elected official as well as the nullification of the vote.
“This has that,” Churchwell said of the Oakland contract and Williams’ vote. “You have to give your allegiance to the public agency.”
It doesn’t matter if the individual’s vote was critical to the outcome, he added.
“I would be concerned a judge could invalidate the decision based on common law conflicts of interest,” he said, noting that he advises clients to abstain from voting in such situations to ensure that doesn’t happen. “The risk is so great.”
Common law offers a clear rationale for such court intervention.
“When public officials are influenced in the performance of their public duties by base and improper considerations of personal advantage, they violate their oath of office and vitiate the trust reposed in them,” according to a 1956 precedent. “And the public is injured by being deprived of their loyal and honest services.”
Ultimately, public officials have an ethical imperative to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, Hurt said.
Recusal, she said, provides the public with an assurance that their elected representatives are serving with fairness and transparency while in office.
The ethical dilemma is related to the vote of one school board member who declined to abstain from a vote despite what some consider a conflict of…
www.sfchronicle.com
