So this week the union asked its 32,000 members — down from 45,000 in 2008 — to raise their dues by nearly a third, to about $1000 per member annually, and also to allow UTLA to pass on to members any future increases in dues owed to state and national parent unions.
The California Solar Jobs Census report released Wednesday found that roughly one out of three employees in the solar industry works in California.
If Medi-Cal were a state of its own, it would be the nation’s seventh-biggest by population; its $91-billion budget would be the country’s fourth-largest, trailing only those of California, New York and Texas. . . The question California officials now face is how — and on days with a gloomier economic outlook, if — the massive health program can be sustained.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the region’s largest carrier, lost more than 10% of its boardings from 2006 to 2015, a decline that appears to be accelerating. Despite a $9-billion investment in new light rail and subway lines, Metro now has fewer boardings than it did three decades ago, when buses were the county’s only transit option.
In a short speech with a long view of California, Gov. Jerry Brown used his State of the State address to challenge lawmakers to better balance the cyclical nature of success and setback that has dominated state government for the better part of two decades.
The birds I’m talking about are programs, mostly worthwhile, that Sacramento previously enacted. Now they have to be paid for.
The Los Angeles City Council in recent years has repeatedly settled costly, high-profile lawsuits, agreeing to spend millions of dollars to end litigation brought by grieving families, disability-rights groups and people wrongfully convicted of crimes.
Brown sounded a distinctly sour note on pending ballot measures that would extend taxes on high earners, raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour and finance billions in new school construction.
The study from Beacon and Next 10, a California public policy research group, looked at annual census data going back to 1976. The numbers provide a state-by-state and national look at the number of business establishments that open or close in any given year, along with jobs tied to those companies.
Drought, climate change and environmental curbs on water deliveries are fueling campaigns for more water storage in California. Sites Reservoir — as it would be called after the tiny settlement it would wipe off the map — is one of a handful of resurgent proposals challenging the notion that the era of big dam building is over.
Even as the recovery from the Great Recession brought booming corporate profits, most workers’ salaries have barely kept up with inflation. But now, as the nation edges ever closer to full employment and with layoffs near historical lows, there are growing indications that ordinary workers are finally starting to reap some of the gains of the 6 1/2 year-old recovery.
SolarCity announced plans Wednesday to cease operations in Nevada after regulators drastically cut benefits for retail solar owners.
The reason for such bleak retirement prospects is the disappearance of traditional defined benefit pensions and the failure of 401(k)-type plans to fill the gap. A recent analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that, in 2011, only 14% of private-sector employees participated in a defined benefit pension plan. The participation rate has been falling quite rapidly, so it was almost certainly lower in 2015.
California employers added just 5,500 net new jobs in November, according to federal data — a significant slowdown from more robust monthly gains earlier in the year.
Despite the utilities’ campaign, the California Public Utilities Commission largely backed the solar industry, which had said the power companies’ proposals could have devastated its business.