Negotiating a fair contract is a complex process that involves hard work and commitment from both labor and management. When both sides bargain in good faith and share a goal of securing a deal, a deal eventually gets done. I’ve personally been involved in many tough negotiations that ended with a fair deal both parties could live with. It takes patience and willingness from both sides to compromise.

In 2004, after a long string of Republican governors and the shockingly narrow defeat of Prop. 72—which would have ushered in the most progressive health care reform ever implemented in the United States—California labor leaders got mad. And then they got organized. 

Right-wing, extremist billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have ended their pursuit of the Los Angeles Times and other Tribune Co. newspapers after months of protests by community groups, journalists and other free press advocates.

I’ve seen some pretty outrageous anti-worker opinion pieces written about the contract negotiations at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) over the last two months. But nothing I’ve read is as infuriating as Friday’s San Francisco Chronicle op-ed from Chuck and Barbara McFadden.

In short, the McFaddens assert that workers like those at BART are not deserving of the middle-class wage their unions negotiate.

Early in the morning in the middle of August, in cities across the state of California, alarms went off, coffee was made and bags were packed as families left their homes to travel to Bakersfield for a massive mobilization in support of comprehensive immigration reform and a road map to citizenship.  

Some activists came in vans and some came in cars, motorcycles and even a giant Teamsters bus, but together thousands spoke in one voice to send a clear message to Rep. Kevin McCarthy: We demand a vote on comprehensive immigration reform that contains a pathway to citizenship!

You’ve probably heard it from a colleague, or maybe from a friend or family member:  

“Kids these days… they’re just too ambivalent to care about labor unions or workers' rights.”

But as it turns out, that’s just not true. Young people are actually big fans of unions. Fully 61% of young people view labor unions favorably – and that’s more than 10 points higher than the national average, according to a new Pew poll.

We all know that working for Walmart is no picnic. It pays low wages, slashes hours, offers little or no job security, exploits and intimidates workers and uses sweatshop labor. That’s why Walmart workers are on strike this week, to protest the corporation’s greedy behavior and shady business practices. Learn more about the strike here.

Don’t sell out to the Koch brothers / Don’t let the brothers in the door / We don’t want them taking over / That is what we’re marching for!

That  was the message, as sung by acclaimed musician Ry Cooder, carried by hundreds of Los Angeles residents who marched and rallied Tuesday to urge Oaktree Capital Management not to sell the respected Los Angeles Times to right-wing extremists David and Charles Koch. The “No Koch Hate in L.A.” rally was sponsored by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and community allies.

Hundreds of workers descended on the California state Capitol yesterday as part of the California Labor Federation’s legislative conference lobby day with a simple message for both Democrats and Republicans in office: “End the Corporate Gravy Train.” They were referring to the state’s wasteful enterprise zone program, which takes money away from schools, infrastructure and other valuable services to line the pockets of corporate CEOs at Walmart and other large, profitable corporations.

Yesterday, a growing coalition of labor unions, environmental groups and tribes made clear that protecting the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), our state’s landmark environmental protection law, is essential to California’s future.