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Performers who help bring Disney's beloved characters to life at its Southern California theme parks filed a petition Wednesday to form a labor union.
The post Disneyland Performers File Petition to Form Labor Union appeared first on Breitbart.
Democratic officials are throwing billions at California high-speed rail projects that have yet to be built, funding thousands of jobs specifically for union members.
Despite funding initially being approved by a referendum in 2008, the California High-Speed Rail project currently has less than a quarter of its expected length under construction and was initially supposed to have connected Los Angeles and San Francisco by 2020, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents 48 local unions and more than 150,000 members in California, boasted of the creation of 13,000 unionized construction jobs due to continued funding of California’s high-speed rail project.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority, in its community benefits agreement regarding the construction of the rail, lays out that it will exclusively bargain with union representatives for craft labor and that no employee will be required to join a union, but workers who are at the site for more than eight total days will be required to pay union dues.
The agreement outlines that union members will be the primary source of labor and that the local unions will be given the opportunity to refer employees for the job.
“The project has been a windfall for the union workers who’ve been on the job,” Kerry Jackson, William Clement fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “By some counts, as many as 13,000 have been hired. The California High-Speed Rail Authority itself even brags about the ‘steady union jobs that provide union wages and benefits’ they get. That’s not to mention the benefits the union bosses everywhere always enjoy when they have more dues-paying members supporting their salaries and perks.”
The Biden administration announced $3 billion in federal funds for the project in December to push along the first phase of the project connecting Merced, Fresno, and Bakersfield, adding to the $9 billion already appropriated by the state and the approximately $3.5 billion in grants given by the Obama administration.
The project has been estimated to need between $88 billion and $128 billion to be fully completed, and the rail authority told the Daily Caller News Foundation that it is aiming to be operational from Bakersfield to Merced between 2030 and 2033.
“Of course, project costs are affected by higher, nonmarket wages,” Jackson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “When you have so many workers making these wages over the years, it adds up. The unions are a force behind the rail and one of the reasons, if not the main one, that this project has not been halted even though it’s far behind schedule, way over initial cost projections, and looks like a failed enterprise.
“The community benefits agreement that serves as the Project Labor Agreement requires unions to be the primary source of all craft labor.”
The California High-Speed Rail Authority told the Daily Caller News Foundation that, so far, 22.5 miles in the Central Valley have reached substantial completion, but that efforts are underway to design stations and track systems, complete environmental reviews and procure trains.
“The project is very much happening and continuing to make progress with our commitment unwavering as we remain active and aggressive in moving the project forward while actively pursuing federal funding,” the authority told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Big News: Today, President Biden announced funding to build the first high-speed rail projects in our nation’s history.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 9, 2023
These investments will get people and goods where they need to go more quickly, reduce emissions, increase passenger safety, and create good-paying union jobs. pic.twitter.com/zxR6SQawIw
“Even if we didn’t have the Project Labor Agreement, there would be prevailing wage and benefits on this project, both because of state requirements and federal funding requirements,” Anne-Marie Otey, communications and editorial director at the LA/OC Building and Construction Trades Council, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “So, they’d be there no matter what, so we might as well make the best of it. I think it is better for the workers when there’s also a union agreement on the project.”
Otey pointed to the Davis-Bacon Act, which is a federal law that requires the government to pay at least the local rate to workers when constructing public projects, as the reason why using union workers on the project would not raise labor costs.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that if the Davis-Bacon Act were repealed in 2020, it would have reduced government spending outlays by $10.7 billion by 2030.
“It’s benefiting workers,” Otey told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “And these workers are represented by unions, but no, we didn’t look at it as ‘What can we do for unions?’ We said, ‘What can we do for workers in the state?’ Especially again, in areas like the Central Valley, where they can’t just drive to San Francisco, Sacramento or L.A. for jobs, they live in the great heartland of our state.
“So, we wanted to figure out a way to keep them employed and keep them working at least somewhat near where they live. So, we think it’s a positive.”
Around $3 billion in federal funding was also announced in December for a high-speed railway between Las Vegas, Nevada, and Rancho Cucamonga, California, with Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., claiming that 35,000 union jobs would be created as a result. The funding for the project comes from the $1.2 trillion in new spending that was approved by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.
“We disagree that the California high-speed rail project has yet to make substantial progress,” a spokesperson for the California State Transportation Agency told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Quite the contrary. There are 119 miles currently under construction, with one construction package already substantially complete, and preconstruction work is underway to complete the initial 171-mile operating segment between Merced and Bakersfield. The nation’s first high-speed trains will be tested by the end of the decade, and we expect service to begin between 2030 and 2033.”
California is one of the more unionized states in the U.S., ranking sixth in terms of the share of workers in unions, exceeded only by five other blue states (Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Washington), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The share of California workers who were members of unions declined from 16.1% in 2022 to 15.4% in 2023.
The Biden administration’s push for high-speed rail funding in California is part of a larger national push for increased passenger rail access for Americans. President Joe Biden announced in November that $16.4 billion would be given to Amtrak, the national passenger railroad of the U.S., to fund 25 passenger rail projects along the East Coast.
“Although in California, public works projects are always union labor, so I think their biggest reason they like high-speed rail is that it’s just such a long-term project,” Edward Ring, director of water and energy policy at the California Policy Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The unions get behind these projects because they’re big. The other reason, though, that they get behind these projects is because these are projects that the environmentalist community won’t vehemently oppose. They ought to be building things that are more practical; they ought to be upgrading freeways. But the environmentalists want us on a road diet.”
Biden has also boasted of new train sets for the California rail project being all-electric, resulting in zero emissions and powered through renewable energy, according to a White House fact sheet.
The president claims that all of his proposed rail projects will create “tens of thousands” of union jobs. As of September, the state of California had spent more than $600 million on environmental reviews for the rail project, not including a 78-mile stretch out of 500 miles that had not yet been evaluated.
“The environmentalists are so powerful that the unions go, ‘Well, if we’re going to get our guys working, we’re going to have to play ball with the environmentalists,’” Ring told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “And so, the environmentalists will buy off on projects that really have no practical value. High-speed rail has no practical value in California. You could also argue that it has no environmental value, and I think you could argue that very convincingly.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
The post California’s High-Speed Rail Project Far From Finished, but It Is Putting Money in Unions’ Coffers appeared first on The Daily Signal.
A California Christian club is fighting to put their cross back on display after city officials used eminent domain to remove it while citing complaints of it being "reminiscent of KKK cross-burnings" and offensive to "diverse communities."
The post California Christians Fight Back Against City Removing Cross appeared first on Breitbart.
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The California economy should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the nation, showcasing the negative impact of illegal immigration combined with liberal social welfare programs that discourage citizens from working.
The ‘Californication’ of the United States would exacerbate illegal immigration, depress market-driven labor rates, expand welfare rolls, significantly raise taxes on those employed, and prompt the government to address the diminished standard of living by imposing an exorbitant minimum wage.
Increasing the labor pool through illegal immigration drives down wages. The most basic law of economics, supply and demand, states that when supply increases and demand remains the same, price goes down.
You need water to live, but water is cheap because there is a large supply. Gold and diamonds are less of a necessity for maintaining life, but they are expensive because there is a large demand and limited supply. If tomorrow a new goldmine was discovered which quadrupled the supply of gold, the price of gold would go down.
Illegal immigrants increase the supply of workers, which brings down the price of labor, i.e., the wage. And although it is true that illegal immigrants are concentrated in certain industries, the decline in wages affects all industries.
The industries with the highest percentage of illegal immigrants are construction, cleaning, maintenance, food service, garment manufacturing, and agricultural occupations. The Americans who were displaced from those industries went to work in other industries, increasing the quantity of labor and driving down wages.
Using California as an example of what some people want to do to the entire country: illegal immigrants comprise 9% of the population. The market wage for workers was low because of the large pool of immigrants.
The Democratic legislation addressed this issue by imposing a draconian minimum wage of $16 an hour for all workers and $20 for those working in fast food.
The state also has liberal unemployment and welfare rules. As market wages drop and unemployment or welfare benefits increase, people are disincentivized to continue working.
In many Democrat-led states, workers can earn more on benefits than they can working. And a minimum wage of $20 an hour will not fix this problem. Jobs like landscaping and construction used to pay more than $20 an hour.
And jobs in maintenance and janitorial services, while not the highest paid, used to have job security and benefits when they were done on the books, by legal workers.
The Americans who lost those career jobs to illegals cannot make up the lost income by flipping burgers. Removing the illegal immigrants from the labor force will cause the natural rate of wages in landscaping, construction, and maintenance to increase, motivating people to go back to work.
Not surprisingly, as a result of its socialist policies, California has the highest poverty rate in the country when the cost of living is considered (the supplemental poverty measure).
The high taxes, high minimum wage, and lack of law enforcement have caused a steady exodus of companies, resulting in rising unemployment. However, the minimum wage only applies to legal workers, not illegals, so many of the unemployed citizens were replaced by illegal immigrants.
And now, the taxpayers are paying for it in the form of unemployment or welfare benefits. However, the illegals do not pay taxes. So, the tax burden on each legal worker is increasing, which then disincentivizes people from working. And the circle goes on and on, spiraling steadily downward.
At the national level, Democrats in favor of illegal immigration claim that low unemployment rates in the US are proof that “we need illegal immigrants” to fill those jobs. However, this claim ignores the labor force participation rate, which took a nosedive in 2020 and has never returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The labor force participation rate refers to the percentage of the working-age population (usually defined as individuals aged 16 and older) who are either employed or actively seeking employment.
People who are on unemployment are still counted as being part of the labor force because they are allegedly looking for a job. Only those who give up or go on permanent welfare or benefits are no longer counted.
There are two important points here. By liberalizing unemployment benefits, increasing the amount and the duration of the payments, the Biden Administration gets to count these people as part of the labor force.
And yet, the labor force participation rate is declining. This brings us to the second point. The federal government spent $1.3 trillion on welfare programs in 2023. If social benefits were not plentiful, more people would remain in the workforce.
In California, the labor force participation rate has been trending steadily downward since 1989. Currently, only 62% of legal adults are part of California’s labor force. Meanwhile, California has one of the highest incidences of tax in the country.
It also has 28% of the total homeless population of the United States, with the number having increased by 40% over the past 5 years. In short, California is a mess of outcomes that could not happen in a free-market economy that enforced immigration laws and was tough on crime.
According to Pew Research, 87% of Democrat voters agree that illegal immigrants only do jobs Americans won’t do. This notion is completely false. The reality is, there is no job Americans won’t do if they are paid for it.
Removing the illegals and canceling the benefits programs will bring about an equilibrium between wages and labor force participation. Taxes could be cut, and the minimum wage for unskilled work could go back to a reasonable market rate.
People would be incentivized to work and to better themselves, while the burger-flipping jobs would revert to the high school and college students who previously held them.
The post Illegal Immigrants Do Jobs Americans Collecting Benefits Won’t Do appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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Corona Farmers Market in Queens, New York is one of the most dynamic and diverse farmers markets in the city and is steps off the subway and mass transit system for the city. USDA Photo by Preston Keres
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters shutdown San Francisco's iconic Gold Gate Bridge on Monday amid a wave of protests.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters Shut Down Golden Gate Bridge appeared first on Breitbart.
Migrant activists in San Diego, California, are celebrating the additional $39 million in federal funding for illegal border crossers.
The post San Diego to Receive Additional $39 Million for Illegal Immigrants appeared first on Breitbart.
Californians are arming up for self-defense as the U.S. Border Patrol carries out street drop-offs of illegal immigrants in San Diego.
The post Californians Arming Up for Self-Defense as Illegals Flood into Cities appeared first on Breitbart.
Nineteen students from Pomona College in Claremont, California, were arrested following a pro-Palestinian protest that involved occupying an administrative building on campus.
The post 19 Pomona College Students Arrested After Pro-Palestinian Protests appeared first on Breitbart.
Google has begun restricting access to news articles for some users in California in response to the pending California Journalism Preservation Act, which would require tech giants like Google and Mark Zuckerberg's Meta to pay publishers for news content.
The post Google Blocks News in California to Protest Proposed Media Payoff Law appeared first on Breitbart.
A California Christian bookstore owner was left paralyzed after being shot outside his business in front of his wife and three children, with the suspects still at large.
The post Los Angeles Christian Bookstore Owner Shot, Paralyzed in Front of His Children appeared first on Breitbart.
An anti-Israel protester is accused of lobbing terroristic threats at city council members in Bakersfield, California, claiming they are all "horrible human beings."
The post WATCH – ‘We’ll Murder You’: Anti-Israel Protester Accused of Threatening California City Council Members appeared first on Breitbart.
Elon Musk's ambitious plans to launch a Tesla robotaxi service have hit a roadblock in California, as the state's key regulatory agencies reveal that the company has yet to submit the necessary permit applications.
The post Despite Elon Musk’s Hype, California Regulators Have Not Received Permit Application for Tesla Robotaxis appeared first on Breitbart.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration lost track of $24 billion it spent over the past five years on the homelessness crisis, an audit found.
The post Audit: California Lost Track of $24 Billion Spent to Combat Homelessness appeared first on Breitbart.
A fast-food franchisee in California is rushing to install kiosks at his restaurants to save money as the $20 minimum wage goes into effect.
The post California Fast Food Franchisee Hurries to Install Kiosks as $20 Minimum Wage Slams Businesses appeared first on Breitbart.
An investigation has been launched into allegations of inappropriate digital photos being created and shared in a California school.
The post VIDEO: Officials Investigate Spread of AI-Generated Deepfake Porn at California High School appeared first on Breitbart.
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A crew of suspects believed to be part of a gang has been wreaking havoc in California over a two-month period and does not appear to care about possibly getting caught.
The post Police: ‘F*** Everyone’ Gang Sledgehammered CA Shops to Steal Nearly $1M in Cigarettes appeared first on Breitbart.
An illegal alien from Romania has been convicted of using electronic devices to break into ATM machines to steal money from public assistance benefits accounts meant to help low-income families in California.
The post Romanian National Gets 6 Years in Prison for ATM Theft of Government Benefits appeared first on Breitbart.
Police are investigating swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti found in the left-wing beach town of Santa Monica, California, which prides itself on its "progressive" politics.
The post Antisemitic Graffiti, Swastikas Found in Left-wing Santa Monica, California appeared first on Breitbart.
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A dog from California who began an extraordinary journey in July and ended up more than 2,000 miles away from home is safe again.
The post VIDEO – ‘I Never Gave Up’: California Family Overjoyed When Dog Missing Since July Found 2,000 Miles Away appeared first on Breitbart.
Did he or didn't he? California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), that is, who has never sought to dispel the notion he played at Santa Clara University as part of a long baseball career.
The post California Governor Gavin Newsom Claims He Played College Baseball, But Did He? appeared first on Breitbart.
Restaurant workers at a Foster's Freeze location in California arrived at work this week to find they had lost their jobs because it had closed, thanks to a $20 minimum wage signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) that took effect April 1.
The post California Workers Arrive at Restaurant to Find It Closed Thanks to Newsom’s $20 Minimum Wage appeared first on Breitbart.
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A bill introduced in the California legislature would help employees disconnect from their bosses after leaving work for the day.
The post California Would Give Employees ‘Right to Disconnect’ from Bosses After Clocking Out of Work appeared first on Breitbart.
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The move may hurt workers in a state that already has high inflation and the highest unemployment rate in the U.S.
The post California Raises Minimum Wage For Fast Food Workers Despite Highest Unemployment Rate In the Nation appeared first on Breitbart.
California Democrats’ incorrigible obsession with racial preferences is the definition of insanity: They keep trying and failing to legalize racial preferences, and yet, they expect a different outcome each time.
When will they learn from their failures?
Not any time soon.
Their futile cycle has restarted with another effort to legalize racial preferences. The California state Assembly passed a proposed constitutional amendment, ACA 7, that would effectively nullify a provision of the California Constitution that prohibits the state from “discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”
That anti-discrimination provision, known as Proposition 209, affirms the constitutional right to equal protection under the law for all individuals, regardless of race.
Left-wing politicians and activist groups have assailed it relentlessly and continuously since its adoption in 1996. They want to reinstate racial preferences within California’s institutions, but they have failed every time.
Before ACA 7, California legislators had attempted to overturn the anti-discrimination provision in a measure known as Proposition 16, which was decisively rejected by California voters in the November 2020 general election. A comfortable majority of voters voted “No” on the measure, despite the “Yes” proponents outspending the opposition by more than 19 to 1.
Although California voters emphatically rejected racial preferences in education and hiring, the supporters of racial preferences still have not taken “No” for an answer.
This time, they’re hoping to trick the people into changing their minds. Whereas Prop 16 was open and honest about abolishing racial neutrality, ACA 7 is much more deceptive. Rather than repeal race neutrality, ACA 7 creates “exceptions” that look modest, but which would effectively nullify the rule.
Assemblyman Corey Jackson introduced the bill to create a procedure for agencies to appeal to the governor for “exceptions” to Prop 209. The amendment would give the governor power to approve exceptions if a state-funded, “research-informed” program that uses racial preferences “increases the life expectancy of, improves educational outcomes for, or lifts out of poverty specific groups based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, or sexual orientation.”
In other words, this bill is just an attempt to restore racial discrimination under the guise of science.
Find some ideologically driven, low-quality research that appears to support a program that allegedly “increases the life expectancy” or “educational outcomes” of any minority group, and voila, racial discrimination is lawful again.
Jackson insists that Prop 209 is an “unjust law” and a “barrier.” Yes, it’s unjust, he says, not to discriminate on the basis of race. He’s wrong about that, but he’s right about Prop 209 being a barrier. Prop 209 bars the state government from racially discriminating against the state’s residents.
It guarantees one of the fundamental tenets of justice; namely, that all are equal before the law.
Jackson is happy to sacrifice equal justice to “rectify the enduring disparities that have afflicted California for far too long.” But even assuming that racial discrimination would rectify disparities and would do so without causing even worse problems (both faulty assumptions), that doesn’t change the fact that racial discrimination is unjust and immoral.
Most Californians know this. So, thankfully, there’s still hope in the fight against racial preferences.
The resounding defeat of Prop 16 in 2020 pointed to the reality that California voters, despite their infamously deep-blue political leanings, are not in favor of considering race in education or hiring decisions.
According to Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies’ post-2020 election survey of Californians, although 56% of African American voters supported Proposition 16, only 30% of Latinos and just 35% of Asians did.
If ACA 7 passes the California state Senate, it will appear on the November ballot. If past is prologue, California voters will demonstrate—as if twice wasn’t enough—that racial discrimination is not tolerated in California, no “exceptions.”
The post Some in California Want to Legalize Racial Discrimination—Yet Again appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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Colorado Democrats are pushing an 11 percent excise tax on gun and ammunition sales, as well as numerous other California-style gun controls.
The post Colorado Democrats Pushing 11% Excise Firearms Tax, Other California Gun Controls appeared first on Breitbart.
Spring rains washed away part of California's famous Highway 1 near Big Sur on Saturday, stranding 1,600 people who had to be moved past the collapsed portion in convoys.
The post Rains Wash Away Part of California’s Iconic Highway 1 Near Big Sur, Stranding Tourists, Locals appeared first on Breitbart.
If you live in Oakland, California, then prepare to be watched, followed, and tracked. Big time. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday he is sending hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras to be installed across the city and surrounding freeways to battle rising crime.
The post Gavin Newsom Flooding Crime-Ridden Oakland with 500 Surveillance Cameras appeared first on Breitbart.
A 102-year-old wheelchair-bound resident of Oakland, California, has been threatened with fines for being unable to remove graffiti that was painted on his fence by vandals.
The post 102-Year-Old Disabled California Man Fined Thousands over Graffiti Left on His Property appeared first on Breitbart.
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