Posts Tagged california

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California passes the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

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Yesterday, the California Senate passed a bill that would guarantee domestic workers basic labor protections such as overtime pay and meal breaks. This could be a huge step for California domestic workers, allowing them to join the ranks of Hawaii and New York, where domestic workers bills are already in place. According to the National Domestic Workers Alliance:

If signed by the Governor, AB 241 would provide all domestic workers who care for California’s homes and families with some of the basic labor protections they have been denied for decades.

This move is particularly important in a state like California, which has the largest population in the country comprised largely of ...

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Yesterday, the California Senate passed a bill that would guarantee domestic workers basic labor protections such as overtime pay and meal breaks. This could be a huge ...

Video: Contextualizing California prison sterilizations

I posted yesterday about the recently exposed forced sterilizations in California prisons. On All In, Chris Hayes explains why we should be outraged but not shocked by such reproductive coercion given the state’s history of eugenics and unconstitutionally cruel prison conditions, in the news again today thanks to a 30,000-strong hunger strike. The clip is worth a watch, but Hayes doesn’t take the obvious next step: forced sterilization isn’t only of a kind with California’s particular brand of mass incarceration but also with the inherent abuse of imprisonment.

Transcript, via MSNBC, after the jump.

I posted yesterday about the recently exposed forced sterilizations in California prisons. On All In, Chris Hayes explains why we should be outraged but not shocked by such reproductive coercion given the state’s history of ...

California prisons have been sterilizing women for years

Yesterday the Sacramento Bee published a devastating (if unsurprising) article from the Center for Investigative Reporting revealing that, between 2006 and 2010, 148 female prisoners were illegally sterilized by force. Corey G. Johnson writes:

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.

The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for ...

Yesterday the Sacramento Bee published a devastating (if unsurprising) article from the Center for Investigative Reporting revealing that, between 2006 and 2010, 148 female prisoners were illegally sterilized by force. Corey G. Johnson writes:

At least ...

Latinas were targeted for involuntary sterilizations for decades

Today we are reminded that pro-choice politics are as much about the right to reproduce as they are about the right to abortion. We are also reminded of our country’s history of taking away the right to reproduce of so many women of color.

A new report put out by the University of Michigan has found that Latin@s* were disproportionately targeted for involuntary sterilization under the U.S. eugenics movement. Between 1909 and 1979, Latin@s made up 20-30% of the 60,000 people who were coercively sterilized in the U.S., mostly in mental institutions in California. The majority of these people were women who were labeled as “bad girls” or “sexually wayward”: in other words, women who didn’t follow the strict ...

Today we are reminded that pro-choice politics are as much about the right to reproduce as they are about the right to abortion. We are also reminded of our country’s history of taking away the right ...

Quick Hit: California Attorney General makes the case for marriage equality

Ed. note: I’m off this week. The wonderful Tobias Rodriguez is filling in for me. Tobias originally hails from Texas and now lives in New York where he works in social media at a reproductive health organization.

Before tomorrow’s Supreme Court hearing on Prop 8, take a look at California’s Attorney General’s argument against the ban on same-sex marriage. She nails it in under a minute. (Here’s a partial transcript)

And from Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill who announced her support this morning: “Good people disagree with me. On the other hand, my children have a hard time understanding why this is even controversial. I think history will agree with my children.”

Ed. note: I’m off this week. The wonderful Tobias Rodriguez is filling in for me. Tobias originally hails from Texas and now lives in New York where he works in social media at a reproductive health organization.

Before ...

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoes California domestic workers protection bill


Ai Jen Poo and other organizers from the National Domestic Workers Alliance. 

Because ensuring meal breaks are apparently too much to ask for. AP reports:

Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday announced that he had vetoed legislation that would have provided overtime pay, meal breaks and other labor protections to an estimated 200,000 caregivers, nannies and house cleaners in California. […]

Advocates said the legislation, dubbed the Domestic Workers of Bill of Rights, is necessary to protect a primarily female, immigrant workforce from abuse. They were successful in persuading New York lawmakers to pass similar legislation in 2010.

Among other things, the bill would have required that live-in workers be compensated if their rest period was interrupted during an eight-hour ...


Ai Jen Poo and other organizers from the National Domestic Workers Alliance. 

Because ensuring meal breaks are apparently too much to ask for. AP reports:

Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday announced that he had ...

Happy Harvey Milk (teen predator) Day!

Happy Birthday Harvey Milk! Today you would have turned 82. But your life was cut short when you were shot to death at the young age of 48, a year after being elected (as the first openly gay person) to California’s Board of Supervisors.

Harvey Milk is often considered an LBTQ rights activist, which he was. But he was an activist who saw the connections among the struggles of all disenfranchised people. In 2009, President Obama awarded Milk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, which his openly gay nephew, Stuart Milk, accepted. That same year, Stuart and Harvey Milk campaign manager Anne Kronenberg co-founded the Harvey Milk Foundation, with the support of Desmond Tutu.  The Foundation established Harvey Milk Day, ...

Happy Birthday Harvey Milk! Today you would have turned 82. But your life was cut short when you were shot to death at the young age of 48, a year after being elected (as the first ...

UC Davis Chancellor apologizes but will not resign

If you missed the chilling video of police pepper spraying peaceful protesters at UC Davis last week, you can catch it in the clip above. UC Davis Chancellor Katehi has apologized for the actions of the police and wants a full investigation of what happened. Despite calls for her resignation, Katehi will not resign, but says she is committed to making sure this doesn’t happen again. She also put the police chief on leave. In the above interview, it is clear her apology is tinged with a clear frustration at the avenues protesters are taking on campus–peaceful, non-violent, public demonstrations.

I don’t really think it matters what her opinion is on the avenues protesters are taking in expressing their (completely ...

If you missed the chilling video of police pepper spraying peaceful protesters at UC Davis last week, you can catch it in the clip above. UC Davis Chancellor Katehi has apologized for the actions of ...

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