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SFUSD’s $183M Price Tag For the Teachers Deal Has Numbers Missing
The strike is over, but both sides still have math homework. The district says a fuller accounting is coming soon.
https://thefrisc.com/sfusds-183m-price-tag-for-the-teachers-deal-has-numbers-to-fill-in/
by Taylor …Barton
February 25, 2026
A woman gesturing behind a microphone.
Superintendent Maria Su answers a board member's question at the Feb. 24, 2026 Board of Education meeting. (Courtesy SFUSD)
The San Francisco teachers’ strike ended 12 days ago, students returned to schools last week, and union members are voting this week to approve the deal their leaders struck with the San Francisco Unified School District.
The union, United Educators of San Francisco, won many key demands, including fully funded family health benefits. Those benefits, plus pay raises and other items, will cost $183 million, according to the district.
To cover those costs and avoid adding to the district’s budget deficit, there’s been talk of deep layoffs. They haven’t materialized yet. At last night’s Board of Education meeting, the board approved a worst-case scenario of 42 school staff pink slips, mostly classroom aides — a much lower number than in previous years, and which could improve in the next few months.
“It is up to the district to figure out how to continue funding these ongoing, permanent wins,” said Jodie Sheffels, a George Washington High math teacher and union bargaining team member.
Update, 2/27/26: The union announced that its members approved the contract with 92 percent of the vote.
Despite the deal, the two sides still don’t see eye to eye about the bottom line. Through the long months of bargaining, the union and its allies, like school board member Matt Alexander, have insisted the district has much more money to spend than it says. The district has countered those claims, saying that at least half of what looks like a $400 million surplus is in fact dedicated to areas like special education and can’t be moved around. But the district has also decreed other funds off-limits, like its $111 million rainy day reserves, only to dip into it to get this contract deal done.
To cover the contract costs, SFUSD has publicly identified only two pots of money so far, both of which are already in the district’s accounts: the rainy day fund and a city parcel tax stream that SF voters approved in 2008. It’s not clear how they add up to $183 million.
SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su said last night that in two weeks the district will release its formal funding plan.
“The plan will depend on multiple factors including final enrollment numbers, other labor agreements, and updates to the state budget,” said spokesperson Laura Dudnick.
Adults and a few children walking on a sidewalk, holding red signs and chanting
Striking teachers and some smaller supporters form a picket line outside the Chinese Immersion School’s Haight-Ashbury campus on the first day of the four-day teacher strike. (Photo: Alex Lash)
Given the union’s suspicion about SFUSD’s ledger, those details aren’t likely to settle longer-term disputes — and those disputes are coming back around in a year when the two sides start negotiating the next contract, which starts in the summer of 2027.
When asked how much emergency money it would use, or whether there are other reserves to draw from, Dudnick said the answer is pending.
SFUSD can’t craft the plan without oversight from the California Department of Education, whose advisers have veto power over district fiscal decisions. Here’s a deeper look at the district’s options.
Where cuts could come from
Personnel accounts for more than 80 percent of SFUSD’s budget. While announcing the deal on Feb. 13, Su said cuts to staff have “always been on the table,” because the district is supposed to reduce a $100 million deficit over three years — a projection that came before the strike and the new contract. SFUSD wants to prove to state education officials that it can balance its budget and take back full control of its finances.
But for now, school staff cuts don’t seem to be a major piece of the puzzle. With the school board vote last night, SFUSD began its yearly ritual of sending out pink slips that may or may not be real. The state requires potential layoff notifications by March 15 for the following school year, with final tallies coming in May. Many staff often keep their jobs, in part because the state budget outlook improves through the spring.
“This is unfortunately something we’ve come to expect from this very dysfunctional state budgeting system,” said Guadalupe Elementary social worker Maggie Furey.
Even if the 42 layoffs on last night’s agenda come to pass, they’re not enough to cover a $183 million tab. They are meant to address a different shortfall — the loss of state dollars connected to SFUSD’s shrinking student body.
State funds, which account for most of the district’s revenue, are tied to enrollment. And according to the Chronicle, this year’s enrollment is 48,306, more than a thousand fewer than expected. It continues a years-long decline; last year the district had 48,902 non-charter students, according to state data.
As soon as someone resigns, that’s one less person to issue a layoff notice.
SFUSD says it’s paying to fully cover premiums for union members’ families starting in July 2027 with city tax money it receives every year. (These taxes and other city funds make up about 25 percent of the district’s budget.)
The tax originated with a 2008 ballot measure known as QTEA meant to bolster teacher pay. Union bargaining team members say that their paychecks won’t change. “The QTEA going towards health care is what the district called ‘excess from previous years,’” said Sheffels.
There’s another catch: QTEA expires soon. To renew the funding, voters must approve an extension at the ballot in 2028. At least a few teachers aren’t happy about the arrangement. “It’s committed us to more bargaining and legal maneuvers, and using our health care as a justification to do other cuts,” said AJ Johnstone, who teaches social studies at Independence High.
Central office cuts?
For years, the union has decried central office expenses as out of proportion to what similar sized districts spend. In April, the district slashed 205 administrative positions, including 75 vacant jobs. The district will announce central office cuts, if any, next week.
Another savings route could be early retirement. Nearly 400 teachers took that option last year.
A woman in a red jacket speaks at a podium. Behind her are a group of people holding signs..jpeg
UESF president Cassondra Curiel announces that the teachers union will go on strike on Feb. 6, 2026. (Photo: Taylor Barton)
“We haven’t accounted for any resignations or retirements for next year,” the district’s head of human resources Amy Buster Baer said last night. “So as soon as someone resigns, that’s one less person to issue a layoff notice.”
Temporary staff and contractors might also be a target. The new teachers contract calls for less reliance on non-union special education contractors, which KQED projected would cost the district $42 million this year.
“It’s really expensive to have contractors instead of full-time employees,” said Furey. “We want to make sure that we’re all being good stewards of these public dollars.”
However, SFUSD must provide services to disabled kids by federal law, and outside contracts supplement the gaps that SFUSD can’t fill.
Temps and closures
In a closed session before last night’s public meeting, the school board also approved 328 potential “releases” of certificated employees — mainly temporary classroom teachers. But officials hinted that many of the positions are safe. Nearly 300 of the positions are temporary, often filling in for teachers on leave, and many work in special education, jobs the district needs and that the board voted to protect from cuts last night. “In the case of temps, we have to notify … the whole class of employees,” said deputy superintendent of business operations Chris Mount-Benites.
District staff and school board members insist that school closures won’t yield short-term savings. But closures and mergers are almost certainly coming back to the table after a failed attempt in 2024.
“We’re seeing a consistent decline in enrollment year after year,” said Su at Visitacion Valley Elementary last week. “We can’t provide that high quality education that our students deserve if we do not have enough students to make a school community successful.”
In a plan released in December, Su proposed $3.2 million in savings from “site consolidations” by the 2027-28 school year, with “three sites/programs per year for three years.”
Where could SFUSD find more money?
According to the Chronicle, the new teachers contract will add roughly 15 percent to the budget in the first year, with no extra revenue on the horizon.
Funds from the city’s Department of Children, Youth, and their Families, which supports SFUSD with afterschool programs and more, are already spoken for. “I haven’t been in conversations with the school district about supporting their overall budget,” said DCYF director Sherrice Dorsey-Smith. The agency is already paying extra to reimburse its nonprofit contractors for extra work they did during the four-day strike.
Strike signs on Market Street
SF public school teachers’ new contract includes pay raises, family health benefits, and special education support. (Photo: Taylor Barton)
Longer-term, SFUSD might get more flexibility in how it spends its city funds. But it will require City Charter reform, which Mayor Daniel Lurie and allies want to put on the November ballot.
There’s also likely to be less state funding this year, not more, given SFUSD’s enrollment drop. For future years, Su and other superintendents are lobbying Sacramento to change how it funds school districts based on attendance and poverty levels. Any changes will take time — not in time to fund the current contract.
Doubting the figure
Many union members say the need for cuts or more revenue is a red herring; they think the district is inflating the $183 million price tag for the contract. “It’s not that we believe they have a magical pot of money,” said Rebecca Johnson, a Lowell High social studies teacher and UESF bargaining team member. “We just don’t believe the financial situation is as dire as they make it sound.”
It’s not just union members. SFUSD parent Paul Gardiner and data analyst Philippe Marchand, who write about district data on the SFEDU
Union members acknowledge they didn’t get everything they’d asked for. Some, including AJ Johnstone and others at Independence High, say they won’t vote for the agreement because the bargaining process “wasn’t democratic enough.” It’s unclear how many others will join them, although they recognize the rank and file will likely approve it by a wide margin.
“No one person or group is going to have everything solved by this one contract,” said UESF bargaining team member Furey. “It is about building each time.”
The strike is over, but both sides still have math problems. The district says a fuller accounting is coming soon.
thefrisc.comSix Vital Lessons From Minnesota’s General Strike
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/02/minneapolis-minnesotas-general-strike-ice-border-patrol-trump/
Minneapolis organizers weigh in on how to make the movement go national.
\editorSCHUYLER MITCHELL
Associate Editor
…
Every few months you likely notice something: people on Instagram calling for a general strike.The posts will appear suddenly evincing urgency but sparse in details. Their provenance is usually obscure. But the message is always clear. To resist Trump’s authoritarian agenda Americans need to unite in a national economic blackout.The cyclical nature of the posts can be frustrating but the impulse is born from a hopeful place. General strikes have a rich history in the United States. A wave of citywide strikes in the 1940s proved so threatening to the prevailing order that Congress passed the Taft–Hartley Act banning unions from striking in solidarity with workers at other companies. For the past few decades the general strike has seemed more like the fanciful hope of the anarchist bookstore poster than a real possibility. Online much the same has happened. Modern-day social media calls for mass strikes have rarely translated to collective action in the material world.Then came Minneapolis.On January 23 roughly 75000 people flooded the streets on a workday in sub-zero temperatures demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) leave Minnesota. Hundreds of businesses and cultural institutions in the Twin Cities closed their doors one in four Minnesota voters either participated in the shutdown or knows a loved one who did according to Blue Rose Research. A motley coalition led the charge: labor unions racial justice groups faith-based organizations.“There is no one figurehead that’s going to save us from authoritarianism. What I’m seeing every day here is thousands of people finding the way to plug in and do what they can.”The remarkable success of Minnesota’s “Day of Truth and Freedom” as it was billed by organizers inspired student groups at the University of Minnesota to call for another day of action. One week later on January 30 tens of thousands of protesters across all 50 states took to the streets. Students held walkouts on high school and college campuses. Many businesses in major cities either closed for the day or committed to donating their proceeds to immigrant advocacy groups. More than 1000 organizations signed on in support of the “national shutdown.” “We want to bring it to the national stage and see it happen all over the country” Austin Muia vice president of the University of Minnesota’s Black Student Union told my colleague Nate Halverson. “We want everyone to feel that solidarity that we felt last week.”While the day of action on the 30th was an impressive start it ultimately manifested more like a mass protest. A general strike requires a substantial portion of workers organized across multiple industries to halt economic activity in pursuit of a shared goal.The US economy largely functioned as usual. That means there’s still a lot of work to be done. But as Trump’s federal agents continue to occupy US cities—raiding workplaces wrenching apart families and shooting protesters dead in the street—the momentum for a national general strike is undeniably growing. Advertise with Mother JonesLast week I spoke with five organizers involved in the Day of Truth and Freedom. We discussed the tactics they used to organize a labor stoppage in the Twin Cities and what strategies the rest of the country can employ to replicate Minnesota’s success. Here are six key takeaways from those conversations.1) A general strike needs to involve both organized labor and a broad coalition. Labor unions were vital for executing the Day of Truth and Freedom. They mobilized thousands of people to stop work across sectors—both those in their unions and those who aren’t in them.Devin Hogan president of OPEIU Local 12—whose members include roughly 2000 clerical workers and paraprofessionals—told me that unions bring experience in spearheading collective action. “We’ve seen our labor movement so organized over the years” he said and so even if others were nervous “we knew that this could be pulled off basically without a hitch.”An event two years ago provided an example for how local labor leaders could coordinate mass action. In 2024 various unions across industries in Minnesota arranged for their contracts to expire at the same time increasing their leverage and bargaining power. Local units are now “organized in a way that allows them to basically all be ready to go on strike if they need to” said Hogan “and also bring in the broader labor movement.” Advertise with Mother JonesOther union leaders told me similar stories of working across the movement. As a hospitality union composed largely of women people of color and immigrants UNITE HERE Local 17 has been hit particularly hard by the ICE occupation in Minnesota. President Christa Sarrack said at least 17 of the unit’s members have been detained since December. She said organizing collectively was crucial to protect workers. “We’ve been working together closely with lots of other unions for years” Sarrack said. “It can’t be any one union…We just had to take that risk and really believe in what we were doing and know that at the end of the day if something happened it was worth it.”While organized labor provided a foundation both Hogan and Sarrack highlighted the importance of unions working in coalition with a broad range of community groups to broaden the reach.“It was very helpful to have faith leaders as part of the coalition from the start because when we’re talking to employers we’re not saying ‘Oh this is just unions doing union stuff.’ Instead it was faith leaders cultural organizations and labor unions all working together for this goal” said Hogan. “I’m glad to see the participation of clergy across various religions seeing this as what it is—as a righteous fight.”Minnesota organizers continually looked for people with different skillsets and positions that could help build the movement. Advertise with Mother Jones“We’re looking at our own communities to see where the pillars of power are represented. Do we have people in the press? In our churches and synagogues? Do we have people in major corporations?” said Rev. Dana Neuhauser a Methodist deacon who serves on the steering team of MARCH (Multifaith Antiracism, Change & Healing). “There is no one figurehead that’s going to save us from authoritarianism. What I’m seeing every day here is thousands of people finding the way to plug in and do what they can so the work is distributed and broad and growing deeper.”2) Ask your employers to close.Officially of course unions can’t call for general strikes. So Minnesota labor leaders tried something different: They asked their employers to close.“That’s really the biggest lesson I can share to the rest of the country: just ask” said Hogan. “You’d be surprised by how many people are willing to either close for the day or make arrangements to plan ahead for their ‘business needs’ while also letting as many people off as possible.” Once a few large cultural institutions agreed to close others followed suit. “That’s really the biggest lesson I can share to the rest of the country: just ask.”Hogan and Sarrack explained how they negotiated using a ladder of requests. First if employers refused to close organizers asked that unit members be allowed to take time off without penalty. Then they requested permission for employees to use paid time off. If businesses imposed limits on how many people could take off that day unions pushed to increase the cap. And then finally they asked employers to refrain from disciplining unit members who called in sick. Advertise with Mother Jones“Very very few of our employers were just not willing to negotiate” said Sarrack. “I think they also know that this is their workers’ safety too.” 3) Building community power takes time—so start now.Every person I spoke with emphasized that the Day of Truth and Freedom was made possible by Minneapolis’s decades of organizing history and the existing fabric of community groups. “There’s a very deep movement ecosystem in the Twin Cities metro area from unions to community groups to renters’ rights and worker centers” said Merle Payne executive director of Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL) a grassroots organization that fights for fair wages and better labor conditions especially among immigrant workers who can’t unionize. These hundreds of organizations Payne said enabled the people of Minneapolis to “take the anger of being pushed into a corner and channel it in a direction of mass peaceful resistance.”That ecosystem didn’t appear overnight. It was built often through previous tragedies. “Unfortunately we’ve had a lot of practice in Minneapolis responding to state-sanctioned murders of our neighbors” said Rev. Neuhauser. She pointed to the police killings of Jamar Clark Philando Castile George Floyd and others in recent years. Advertise with Mother Jones“I think with each of those inflection points we’ve gotten more skilled at building deep relationships so that we are nimble and ready to show up” she said. “The on-ramp to growing a resistance was shorter because of that muscle memory.”Hogan of OPEIU Local 12 also said that 2020 was a tipping point for building out organizing infrastructure. “We had Proud Boys and Boogaloos on the streets so we had to get to know our neighbors in order to stand watch and protect ourselves.”“Right now the thing that is going to win is community-led community-decided solutions.”Rod Adams founder and executive director of the New Justice Project—a Black-led organizing hub focused on racial and economic justice for low-income Minnesotans—told me something similar. “Every five years there is a moment where Minneapolis is center stage in America or global political news” he said. “It’s important for people around the country to learn how we got this way.” And he noted sustained mass political engagement has led to real legislative change. Adams cited a suite of progressive policies passed by the Minnesota legislature in 2023 including paid family leave voting rights for formerly incarcerated people and a new child tax credit. “Those are policies that have been worked on for 20 years by hundreds if not thousands of people” Adams said. “The thing that I say to the rest of the country is that right now is the moment to get organized.” Advertise with Mother Jones4) Effective organizing happens at the micro level.Okay so you’re not in Minnesota and you’re not in a union or in a community group. Now what? How do you actually get organized?“Get to know your neighbors” said Hogan. “Start with two or three people on your block and then just keep talking to people. And then that can turn into not only protecting yourselves from ICE but saying hey let’s all work together to show up at the next protest or event.”Those neighborhood connections proved vital for pulling off the Minnesota strike. While social media played a role in getting the word out much of the communication happened on the ground—whether among neighbors or labor unions inside congregations and local ICE rapid response networks or simply going from business-to-business asking them to close for the day. “We talked to dozens of Black businesses in North Minneapolis which is really the core economic hub here for Black Minnesotans” said Adams of the New Justice Project. Sarrack of UNITE HERE Local 17 said the regional labor federation went door-to-door with flyers. Advertise with Mother Jones“If your city is being occupied by ICE and there’s a rapid response group in your neighborhood join it. If there isn’t create one. If there is a mutual aid network join it and support it. If there isn’t create one” Adams added. “Right now the thing that is going to win is community-led community-decided solutions.”Building power at the micro level also means understanding the immediate needs of your community and strategizing accordingly. Since OPEIU Local 12 represents clinic workers for instance Hogan said that unit members had conversations with hospital employers about creating protocols for protecting the rights of undocumented patients in the event ICE shows up. Something everyone can do right now he said is demand their employer have a policy for when ICE enters their specific facility or detains a colleague.5) Offer ways to get involved for people who can’t strike. Organizers pointed to the range of ways that community members showed up on January 23 and throughout that week. While 75000 people marched down the streets of Minneapolis protesters demonstrated against ICE deportation flights at the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport. Roughly 100 faith leaders were arrested after kneeling on the road praying for immigrants who had been detained—including members of UNITE Here 17 Sarrack noted. A few days before that action a group organized by CTUL’s worker-leaders occupied the offices of developer DR Horton demanding that the company protect its employees against ICE raids on construction sites. Advertise with Mother JonesIn addition to asking folks to strike UNITE HERE Local 17 used the Day of Truth and Freedom to push out a mutual aid fundraising drive. When I spoke with Sarrack on January 29 she said the fund had already raised $100000 for members who are currently unable to work.Rev. Neuhauser said she saw a huge outpouring of donations of winter wear for protesters and clergy. “And then there are these community-based little glimpses of—I mean I don’t know how to describe it other than love” she said. People served hot beverages to marchers on the side of the road while businesses opened their doors just so people could come get warm. “One of my favorite things about what’s been happening in Minneapolis is the number of Somali aunties that show up to public actions with trays of homemade sambuses and cups of hot Somali tea” Neuhauser added.6) Understand how movements are connected so you can keep building power.The Day of Truth and Freedom may be over but the work will continue. “We’re in a different world than we were even a month ago. The possibility of what can be done is different” said Payne of CTUL. Advertise with Mother JonesHe noted that CTUL is using the momentum generated from the strike to demand workplace protections from large developers and visiting job sites to talk to workers about their rights. “There’s been silence from the largest business interests in the state since all of this is happening but this is impacting their bottom line” Payne said. “We see an opportunity to make our campaign significantly larger than we ever could have in the past…and drive a wedge between the largest business interests and the Trump administration.”Organizers all said they were encouraged by seeing people across the country march and strike in solidarity with Minnesota because it shows people understand their struggles are connected.“We are all under attack” said Adams. “If you don’t understand that you’re under attack you’re going to wake up one day and realize that you had an opportunity to stand up and now it’s too late.”
Minneapolis organizers weigh in on how to make the movement go national.
www.motherjones.comState clears S.F. General Hospital for social worker’s killing on campus
https://missionlocal.org/2026/02/sf-general-hospital-stabbing-alberto-rangel/
California Department of Public Health found ‘no deficiencies’ after investigating Dec. 4 stabbing of Alberto Rangel
A young woman… with long dark hair, wearing a white shirt and brown jacket, smiles at the camera against a plain light background..jpeg
by ABIGAIL VÂN NEELY
February 27, 2026, 4:00 pm
A state inspection found "no deficiencies" after social worker Alberto Rangel was killed at a San Francisco General Hospital clinic. Photo by Mariana Garcia.
A California Department of Public Health inspection found “no deficiencies” at San Francisco General Hospital following the lethal Dec. 4 stabbing of a social worker at Ward 86, an HIV clinic on campus.
On Dec. 9, four days after the social worker, 51-year-old Alberto Rangel, was killed, the state completed an “investigation of one Facility Reported Incident,” records show.
The investigation documented “no deficiencies” with state and federal requirements, according to a Feb. 9 letter from the California Department of Public Health’s Center for Health Care Quality obtained by Mission Local in a public records request. No plans for correction were suggested.
Mission Local logo, with blue and orange lines on the shape of the Mission District.jpeg
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It is unclear what the state’s investigation entailed, though the Feb. 9 letter states it did not include a “full inspection of the facility.” Spokespeople for the California Department of Public Health and San Francisco Department of Public Health declined to provide further comment. Generally, when investigating a complaint, California Department of Public Health surveyors review records, visit the facility, and conduct interviews.
Jessica Hoopengardner, a Ward 86 nurse who saw Rangel after he was stabbed, said she was never interviewed by the state. She felt that there had, in fact, been several “deficiencies” in the city’s response.
“We had no idea that there were panic buttons, that’s a huge deficiency,” she said. “There was no clarification around why a cop was only outside [one] doctor’s door, not protecting the entire building, that’s a huge deficiency.”
She wasn’t the only one with criticisms. In the days and months after Rangel was killed, healthcare workers told Mission Local that hospital management had repeatedly ignored their safety concerns prior to his death. They described a lack of metal detectors, security cameras, and emergency protocols as incidents of workplace violence rose.
In 2025, the number of complaints and reported incidents at San Francisco general hospital, which can be filed by patients, staff, or members of the public, was double the statewide average. The state recorded far fewer deficiencies.
Rangel’s friends and colleagues maintain that the city failed him by not having a plan in place to stop his attacker, who was a known threat. As one veteran practitioner put it, he “died from neglect.”
A state inspection found “no deficiencies” at S.F. General Hospital following the lethal Dec. 4 stabbing of a social worker on campus.
missionlocal.org‘We can’t vote on hope’: West Contra Costa school board slashes hundreds of positions
West Contra Costa Unified School District facing a two-year $87 million budget deficit
…https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2026/02/26/we-cant-vote-on-hope-west-contra-costa-school-board-slashes-hundreds-of-positions/
Sierra-Headshot.jpg
By SIERRA LOPEZ | slopez@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: February 26, 2026 at 4:49 PM PST | UPDATED: February 27, 2026 at 6:10 AM PST
RICHMOND — Another round of major budget cuts hit the West Contra Costa Unified School District, leaving nearly 200 district employees bracing for pink slips on the heels of a major contract win.
With a two-year $87 million budget deficit looming, district trustees agreed to reduce staffing by 324 positions. Of those, 186 are expected to be through layoffs and 138 from existing vacancies.
All departments, from administrators to gardeners and cafeteria workers to teachers and classroom aides, will be impacted by the reductions, approved by trustees during their Wednesday meeting.
School staff, students and community members packed the Lovonya DeJean Middle School multipurpose room to implore trustees to vote against the cuts. Students said they’ve benefited greatly from programs where cuts will be made, like music and theater or the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a federally funded character building program the district matches.
Campus maintenance, food, security and support staff, represented by Teamsters Local 856, said their working conditions will become unsafe because of the reductions. Workloads will become untenable for all, they and educators agreed. The elimination of a glass glazier, someone responsible for replacing broken windows on campuses, would leave the district with one person qualified to do the job, a particular concern for Teamsters who noted sheets of glass are heavy and hard to move and install alone.
Alameda schools, union reach tentative contract deals
United Teachers of Richmond President Francisco Ortiz questioned district spending, asserting it spent $8 million over what was approved in the last budget on things like conference travel. Some of that spending came from restricted dollars that had to go toward specific areas, said Jeff Carter, acting assistant superintendent of Business Services. Unrestricted travel has been frozen as of December 2025, Carter added.
The union, which represents about 1,400 educators, counselors and other education professionals, has also demanded the district cut from the roughly $117 million worth of contracts rather than in-house staff and services.
“Where’s the accountability for spending like drunken sailors in this district?” Ortiz said. “Priorities, that’s where you’re lacking at this point, and real accountability.”
The cuts follow a major contract win for both unions. Members launched a strike in December 2025 that landed them 8% raises over the next two years and 100% employer-funded health care by mid 2027, among other work condition improvements. The contracts are valued at about $90 million combined over three years.
Administrators warned that budget cuts would be likely if they were to meet union demands. They’d initially offered 0% raises when contract negotiations first began.
Financial instability and substantial budget cuts have long been part of the district’s story. It was the first in the state to declare bankruptcy in 1991, requiring a $28.5 million state loan that was repaid in 2012.
The district is still under threat of losing local control, meaning budgeting decisions would fall to the Contra Costa County Office of Education or state. Trustees have committed to reducing the budget by $127.1 million by fiscal year 2027-28 in a new fiscal solvency plan adopted Feb. 11. A previous fiscal solvency plan called for $32.7 million in reductions to be made between the 2024-25 and 2026-27 school years.
Dipping enrollment, a key factor for determining state funding, and rising labor and operational costs have led to revenue not keeping up with expenses, district office staff have routinely said. A total of 24,792 students are currently enrolled, compared to 28,247 pre-pandemic.
Having to make staffing reductions was not what the district wanted, but overpromising is what has led to Wednesday’s vote, Trustee Jamela Smith-Folds said. The district also plans to drain $28.5 million from a reserve fund and to borrow $39 million from a retiree health fund to help balance the budget in the coming years.
Trustee Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy argued that some cuts could be avoided if the district took into consideration an increase in funding that’s been proposed in the latest state budgeting process. But heeding advice from finance staff, Smith-Folds said the most prudent measure would be to replenish funds being used to cover existing budget caps.
“We cannot vote on hope,” Smith-Folds said.
Attempts by Gonzalez-Hoy and Trustee Cinthia Hernandez to remove some positions like music teachers from the list of reductions were unsuccessful but the board did agree to allow the Contract Review Committee to consider where contracts can be cut to fund music programming.
Those possible adjustments would come back before the board for a vote.
Retirement incentives will be offered to some qualified administrators and pink slips will be sent to impacted staff in the coming months and layoffs taking effect at the end of the school year. Some positions may be saved, depending on what grant funding is provided to the district.
Superintendent Cheryl Cotton said school community outreach workers will also be invited back after a new job description is written that will allow the roles to be funded with restricted funds.
All departments, from administrators to gardeners and cafeteria workers to teachers and class room aides, will be impacted by the reductions, …
www.eastbaytimes.com‘We can’t vote on hope’: West Contra Costa school board slashes hundreds of positions
West Contra Costa Unified School District facing a two-year $87 million budget deficit
…https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2026/02/26/we-cant-vote-on-hope-west-contra-costa-school-board-slashes-hundreds-of-positions/
Sierra-Headshot.jpg
By SIERRA LOPEZ | slopez@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: February 26, 2026 at 4:49 PM PST | UPDATED: February 27, 2026 at 6:10 AM PST
RICHMOND — Another round of major budget cuts hit the West Contra Costa Unified School District, leaving nearly 200 district employees bracing for pink slips on the heels of a major contract win.
With a two-year $87 million budget deficit looming, district trustees agreed to reduce staffing by 324 positions. Of those, 186 are expected to be through layoffs and 138 from existing vacancies.
All departments, from administrators to gardeners and cafeteria workers to teachers and classroom aides, will be impacted by the reductions, approved by trustees during their Wednesday meeting.
School staff, students and community members packed the Lovonya DeJean Middle School multipurpose room to implore trustees to vote against the cuts. Students said they’ve benefited greatly from programs where cuts will be made, like music and theater or the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a federally funded character building program the district matches.
Campus maintenance, food, security and support staff, represented by Teamsters Local 856, said their working conditions will become unsafe because of the reductions. Workloads will become untenable for all, they and educators agreed. The elimination of a glass glazier, someone responsible for replacing broken windows on campuses, would leave the district with one person qualified to do the job, a particular concern for Teamsters who noted sheets of glass are heavy and hard to move and install alone.
Alameda schools, union reach tentative contract deals
United Teachers of Richmond President Francisco Ortiz questioned district spending, asserting it spent $8 million over what was approved in the last budget on things like conference travel. Some of that spending came from restricted dollars that had to go toward specific areas, said Jeff Carter, acting assistant superintendent of Business Services. Unrestricted travel has been frozen as of December 2025, Carter added.
The union, which represents about 1,400 educators, counselors and other education professionals, has also demanded the district cut from the roughly $117 million worth of contracts rather than in-house staff and services.
“Where’s the accountability for spending like drunken sailors in this district?” Ortiz said. “Priorities, that’s where you’re lacking at this point, and real accountability.”
The cuts follow a major contract win for both unions. Members launched a strike in December 2025 that landed them 8% raises over the next two years and 100% employer-funded health care by mid 2027, among other work condition improvements. The contracts are valued at about $90 million combined over three years.
Administrators warned that budget cuts would be likely if they were to meet union demands. They’d initially offered 0% raises when contract negotiations first began.
Financial instability and substantial budget cuts have long been part of the district’s story. It was the first in the state to declare bankruptcy in 1991, requiring a $28.5 million state loan that was repaid in 2012.
The district is still under threat of losing local control, meaning budgeting decisions would fall to the Contra Costa County Office of Education or state. Trustees have committed to reducing the budget by $127.1 million by fiscal year 2027-28 in a new fiscal solvency plan adopted Feb. 11. A previous fiscal solvency plan called for $32.7 million in reductions to be made between the 2024-25 and 2026-27 school years.
Dipping enrollment, a key factor for determining state funding, and rising labor and operational costs have led to revenue not keeping up with expenses, district office staff have routinely said. A total of 24,792 students are currently enrolled, compared to 28,247 pre-pandemic.
Having to make staffing reductions was not what the district wanted, but overpromising is what has led to Wednesday’s vote, Trustee Jamela Smith-Folds said. The district also plans to drain $28.5 million from a reserve fund and to borrow $39 million from a retiree health fund to help balance the budget in the coming years.
Trustee Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy argued that some cuts could be avoided if the district took into consideration an increase in funding that’s been proposed in the latest state budgeting process. But heeding advice from finance staff, Smith-Folds said the most prudent measure would be to replenish funds being used to cover existing budget caps.
“We cannot vote on hope,” Smith-Folds said.
Attempts by Gonzalez-Hoy and Trustee Cinthia Hernandez to remove some positions like music teachers from the list of reductions were unsuccessful but the board did agree to allow the Contract Review Committee to consider where contracts can be cut to fund music programming.
Those possible adjustments would come back before the board for a vote.
Retirement incentives will be offered to some qualified administrators and pink slips will be sent to impacted staff in the coming months and layoffs taking effect at the end of the school year. Some positions may be saved, depending on what grant funding is provided to the district.
Superintendent Cheryl Cotton said school community outreach workers will also be invited back after a new job description is written that will allow the roles to be funded with restricted funds.
All departments, from administrators to gardeners and cafeteria workers to teachers and class room aides, will be impacted by the reductions, …
www.eastbaytimes.comParamount beat Netflix to buy Warner Bros. What about the workers?
…https://www.laborontheline.org/p/paramount-beat-netflix-to-buy-warner?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2624037&post_id=189399026&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=emsp8&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
ON THE LINE AND JEFF ROSENBERG
FEB 27
On the Line interviewed Rhianna Shaheen, a Los Angeles-based Assistant Production Coordinator in Film and TV and a member of IATSE Local 871 Board of Directors.
Jeff Rosenberg (JR): After months of this unfolding corporate drama, yesterday Paramount appears to have come out on top in a sort of twist, with Netflix pulling out their bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). In the conversation around this megamerger bidding war, we are hearing all about the schemes and power moves of Netflix vs Paramount – both giant corporations, and billionaires with big egos like Trump and Ellison. What is actually happening with this corporate bidding war and consolidation?
Rhianna Shaheen (RS): What’s happening with the WBD bidding war is the latest chapter in Hollywood’s oldest story: consolidation. We’ve seen battles like this before, but the players are different and the stakes are much higher.
For anyone who works in this industry, none of this is surprising. Hollywood more or less started with consolidation. In the 1920s, the original “Big Five” studios dominated the industry by squeezing out independent producers and theater chains. That pattern never disappeared, it just accelerated. In 1982, about 90% of U.S. media was owned by 50 companies. By 2012, that same 90% was controlled by just six. Streaming didn’t break that model, it intensified it. Amazon bought MGM. Disney absorbed Fox. Everyone has been racing to scale up fast enough to survive.
That’s how we ended up with Warner Bros Discovery. Warner merged with Time Inc., was later swallowed by AT&T, then spun off and merged with Discovery. By the way, in the course of all of these mergers, splits, and rebranding one of the biggest winners was McKinsey consultants who got over $150 million from WBD to advise them. That included $37 million to rebrand “HBO” to “HBO Max” to just “Max” and then back to “HBO Max” again. Hell of a lot of good that did them.
Now WBD is once again up for grabs, with Paramount Skydance coming out on top. We’re talking bids well over $100 billion, far eclipsing the $71.3 billion Disney paid for Fox. That kind of scale is unprecedented. And they’re not just buying a studio, they’re buying massive libraries of intellectual property and franchises that once lived across multiple companies.
JR: Much has been said about the role of Larry Ellison in all of this as well. Who is Ellison and what is he trying to accomplish here?
Larry Ellison is the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, an early tech giant. Not only is he a billionaire – he is one of the 3 richest people in the world with over $200 billion net worth. Now he is aggressively moving into media and politics at the same time.
He’s already bought Paramount just last year, which he then maneuvered to put his son, David Ellison, in charge of as CEO. And then a few months later he bought TikTok’s American operations, facilitated by Trump and Congress essentially forcing the sale on ByteDance or risk being banned in the US. Now he’s coming for Warner Bros and CNN. He’s deeply embedded in defense tech and AI and is a key Trump ally. This isn’t just about making money off of content, it’s about consolidating economic, political, and cultural power under fewer hands.
This isn’t just speculation either. We can see how it is playing out with TikTok. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, has condemned TikTok’s recent “censorship spree” against content critical of Israel. They noted Ellison’s history as a major donor to the Israeli military and his close personal relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu.
We’ve seen this playbook before. Bezos with the Washington Post. Zuckerberg with Instagram. Musk with X. Weiss with CBS. Technically these companies aren’t run by one person, but they’re controlled by Wall Street and the corporate class. This merger is about power, and workers are nowhere in the conversation.
JR: We aren’t hearing about the impact on the workers who produce this media. What has been the historic impact of corporate consolidation of media on entertainment workers? What do you think this merger could mean today?
RS: It’s been brutal, especially for freelancers. Hollywood isn’t a factory. Everything is project-based. When an eight-month film or TV series ends, that’s it. There’s no fallback job, no place to transfer. And when work dries up, most of us don’t get laid off, our jobs just disappear.
Shows don’t get picked up. Seasons get shorter. Departments get smaller. Most people are hired through relationships built over years, and crews tend to move together from job to job. But when the people who normally hire you aren’t working either, there’s nowhere to go. Suddenly there are thousands of people competing for the same few gigs. Your options become taking whatever you can get, leaving the industry, or leaving Los Angeles altogether because you can’t afford to wait it out.
The financial strain has been devastating. Many workers have been forced to change careers just to avoid going into debt. And the emotional toll is just as real. People build their entire adult lives around this work, often moving across the country to be part of it. Being pushed out isn’t just losing a job, it’s losing your identity.
In the last three years alone, the industry lost roughly 41,000 film and TV jobs. Around 16,000 IATSE members reportedly lost their health insurance because they couldn’t bank enough hours. There’s often no clean paper trail because work disappears quietly, but there’s no question consolidation has played a major role.
You can see the writing on the wall by looking at studio staff. When Skydance merged with Paramount in 2024, about 10% of staff were laid off overnight. When Disney bought Fox in 2019, roughly 4,000 workers lost their jobs. Netflix was signaling it expected at least $2 billion in “cost savings” if it acquired WBD. Everyone in this industry knows what that means: thousands more layoffs. And with even more IP concentrated under one roof, production itself could slow dramatically. That’s the reality facing the people who built this industry.
JR: Paramount’s presumed acquisition of WBD also represents some of the bigger economic trends in the entertainment industry that have been causing bigger changes in Hollywood for a while now. How are we seeing some of these changes come to a crisis moment in recent years?
RS: It’s all coming to a head. Streaming, AI, and runaway production aren’t separate problems, they’re interconnected and hitting workers all at once.
You hear it most clearly from people who’ve been around a long time. I recently heard from a veteran dolly grip who was on a high-end commercial and noticed something missing: no blue screens. Normally, that setup would require extra crew and days of work. When he asked why, the visual effects supervisor told him they’d just do it with AI. It’s a small example, but it says everything. Work that once supported entire crews is disappearing quietly, shot by shot.
At the same time, writers’ rooms are shrinking, actors are being scanned so studios can reuse their likeness indefinitely, and productions are shipped overseas to dodge union contracts. All of this is about cutting labor costs and breaking hard-won protections.
That’s why 2023 exploded. The strikes weren’t just about pay, they were about survival. Mergers like this pour gasoline on the fire. More consolidation means more power to automate, offshore, and squeeze workers even harder. No matter who wins this bidding war or the next one, Hollywood workers are the ones who will pay the price unless something fundamentally changes.
JR: What do you think ultimately needs to be done for workers to respond to megamergers like this and to generally deal with the corporate power of media giants that this represents?
RS: First, we can’t treat these mergers as abstract business deals anymore. They are labor issues, plain and simple. Consolidation is designed to create a corporate bloodbath, and workers always pay the price. We can’t wait for the government to step in and save us. The only real answer is building the power and solidarity to fight back.
Every contract cycle, studios claim there’s no money for fair wages, residuals, or humane working conditions. But then you see bids like $80 or $100 billion on the table. The money is there, it’s just not meant for workers.
That’s why the WGA’s early opposition to the merger was so important. They’ve consistently seen the horizon first, whether it was the 2007 strike over streaming or the 2023 strike over AI. With WGA and SAG-AFTRA contracts expiring in early 2026, the next round of negotiations won’t just be about bread-and-butter issues. It will be about the future of this industry and the people who make it run.
We also need to think bigger. As attacks on working people escalate across industries, there’s growing talk of mass action and even a general strike. That is the type of response to the billionaire agenda that we need. If we want to challenge that power, we have to scale up our own. It’s happened before. It can happen again.
On the Line interviewed Rhianna Shaheen, a Los Angeles-based Assistant Production Coordinator in Film and TV and a member of IATSE Local 871 Board of…
www.laborontheline.orgHey, Mayor Mamdani—Please Don’t Miss the Next Screening of ‘A Home Worth Fighting For’
…https://www.work-bites.com/view-all/g2q6ad2sp94x1y4mta0xgdu8wfvgez?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=69a1ff292724f815521b8a0b&ss_email_id=69a2002b0d1ce65baedda106&ss_campaign_name=Hey%2C+Mayor—Don’t+Miss+the+Next+Screening+of+‘A+Home+Worth+Fighting+For’&ss_campaign_sent_date=2026-02-27T20%3A36%3A14Z
LATESTTRI-STATE NEWS
FEB 25
Why in the world is socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani “moving forward” with plans to privatize and demolish NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses? Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
Newly-minted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani certainly has had his hands full running back and forth to D.C. trying to make nice with Donald Trump and digging out from the Blizzard of ’26—but he really ought to catch a screening of “A Home Worth Fighting For” if he hasn’t already done so.
Director Natasha Florentino’s compelling documentary perfectly encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the Mamdani administration’s plan to demolish NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] Houses on Manhattan west side and hand over the keys to a private developer with a history of union busting.
Work-Bites caught a screening of “A Home Worth Fighting For” last week when it shown at Pratt Institute on West 14th Street. Some of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea tenants fighting the demolition of their homes and the ongoing privatization of New York City public housing overall, and who are also prominently featured in the documentary, were in attendance as well.
During the Q&A, Renee Keitt, president of the Elliott-Chelsea Resident Association and FEC Tenants Against Demolition, talked about her unsuccessful efforts to get a meeting with Mayor Mamdani to discuss tenant opposition to the demolition scheme.
“Right now, he’s in a spot where he has to say why are you taking about having the lights on in NYCHA developments but you’re ready to demolish one,” Keitt said. “Don’t talk about immigrants because, basically, the people in Chelsea Addition, most of them, are immigrants. Don’t talk about Black women—and then not listen to one.”
The Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed Mamdani administration took ownership of the FEC demolition scheme earlier this month when Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, told residents that the new administration is interested in “continuing to move forward the plans here at Fulton Elliot-[Chelsea] Houses.”
Renee Keitt, president of the Elliott-Chelsea Resident Association and FEC Tenants Against Demolition, speaks out against demolition during a Nov. 8, 2025 rally outside Related Companies headquarters in Hudson Yards.
For those keeping score, the plans Weaver referenced are the same ones former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration had for NYCHA tenants in Chelsea. If allowed to proceed over tenant objections, a towering new complex of tony market-rate apartments will completely supplant the existing FEC communities stretching from West 16th Street to West 27th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues.
Some 2,056 existing NYCHA apartments will be destroyed over the next two decades and their Section 9 tenants moved into new Section 8 housing units built on the site, which will then also include the addition of 2,500 new luxury apartments and approximately 1,000 units of densely-packed, so-called “affordable” housing units.
Tenants—including the senior citizens residing in the Chelsea Addition on W. 27th Drive—have already been subjected to a months-long campaign by NYCHA to push them out.
A Manhattan appeals court last week temporality put the brakes on the massive demolition project—but NYCHA is pressing full-speed ahead with the scheme and attempting to sidestep the city-mandated Uniform Land Use Review Procedure [ULURP] in the process.
And now it looks like they’ll have help from the NYC-DSA-endorsed Mamdani administration.
All this despite ongoing opposition from both FEC tenants and Community Board 4.
“People keep saying, ‘Oh, well…he just got in there,” Keitt continued at last week’s “A Home Worth Fighting For” screening. “[But] he knows [the issue]. He was the assembly person for the largest public housing in the United States.”
Before succeeding former Mayor Eric Adams this year, Mayor Mamdani was the Assembly Member representing the 36th District in Queens—home to the Queensbridge houses, the largest public housing development in North America.
Many in Chelsea had supported Mamdani’s mayoral run, hoping that the Democratic Socialist candidate would offer them something other than the public-private scheme former Democratic Mayor Eric Adams—and former Mayor Bill de Blasio before him—both advocated.
FEC tenants and their supporters maintain that the entire RAD/PACTscheme to privatize and financialize public housing is nothing more than a scam benefiting the rich at the expense of poor working class New Yorkers—and that repairing the existing FEC houses would be cheaper and make a whole lot more sense than tearing them down and “redeveloping” thriving communities.
“Where Are Our Electeds?” Fight for NYCHA member Marni Halasa during a Sept. 13, 2025 march on former City Council Member—and current State Senator—Erik Bottcher’s residence in Chelsea.
Others were never convinced Mayor Mamdani would ever offer FEC tenants anything different than what former Mayors Adams and de Blasio had in mind for them.
“There’s this cognitive dissidence that, to me, makes him appear like a fraud—because why are you going to take on this socialist label and then not really do what socialists would do?” Fight for NYCHA tenant activist Marni Halasa told Work-Bites this week.
Work-Bites reached out to the NYC-DSA to ask them about that “cognitive dissidence,” but we haven’t gotten a response.
We also reached out to the Mayor’s Office for comment on this story, but so far, we haven’t gotten a response from them either.
The mayor will have another opportunity to see “A Home Worth Fighting For” next week when the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies screens the documentary on March 5, at 6:30 p.m. A panel discussion will follow the screening.
Those interested in attending the free screening and panel discussion can click here to register.
Cameras At UPS, AI & Infrared Torture With IBT 190 UPS Driver Eric Johnson
https://youtu.be/xkQuUrN4g2E
In an interview IBT president Sean O'Brien claimed that there were not cameras at UPS. He then said that they were there but were not spying on the drivers.
Eric Johnson a …member of IBT 190 in Montana and a long haul driver with UPS talks about the cameras and the dangers to UPS and other drivers union and non-union.
He says he was injured by the infrared camera and that he and other UPS Teamsters a many other workers are being tortured by the use of this AI technology introduced into the industry.
This interview was done on 2/26/26
Additional Media:
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https://youtu.be/vD3Igqb-Ru8
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https://youtu.be/Ld55pZVykKQ
IBT Pres Sean O'Brien Tells Members He Stopped AI & Robots At UPS
https://youtu.be/yBa_2gDRz0Q
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https://www.tdu.org/ups_installs_surveillance_cameras
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https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5638970-teamsters-substack-newsletter/
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https://youtu.be/WN3D4TB1mgM
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https://youtu.be/QcsHR2YjZKo
California Teamsters Demand Fair Elections & Demand That CA AG Rob Bonta Close Down Unilect
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IBT 2010 UC Rank & File Run In Elections & Challenge Officials, UC & UniLect Services
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Labor leaders from across US come to Bay Area to raise concerns over Trump's tariffs
https://abc7news.com/post/labor-leaders-us-come-oakland-raise-concerns-president-donald-trumps-tariffs/18194398/
Labor Protests Trump's Trade War & Tariffs At Port Of Oakland
https://youtu.be/AEzZyVboNVw
Kill Tariffs Not Workers! Teamsters & ILWU Members Protest Tariffs & Trade War At The Port Of Oakland
https://youtu.be/DdIzrM2B-9w
Teamsters,The Rise of Fascism,TDU, Labor Notes & IBT Pres SOB With IBT VP John Palmer
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www.labormedia.net
What French Romance Novels Could Tell Us About A.I. and Translation Jobs Popular paperbacks are being translated with the help of machines, raising…
www.labormedia.netSF Building Trades Bureaucrats Pimping For Billionaires
S.F. leaders propose cutting city’s transfer tax to spur stalled housing projects
“Projects like this don’t move without capital,” he said. “That is union pension capital.
imposing a “6% transfer tax at the exact moment… financing must come together, we add friction that can stall or kill projects.” Says Building Trades ED Rudy Gonzalez
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/housing-transfer-tax-cut-21940739.php
By J.K. Dineen,
Staff Writer
Feb 25, 2026
San Francisco leaders hope cutting the transfer tax will spur more stalled housing development, like this site of a future 22-story residential tower at 1111 Sutter St.
San Francisco leaders hope cutting the transfer tax will spur more stalled housing development, like this site of a future 22-story residential tower at 1111 Sutter St.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood have introduced legislation that would cut the city’s transfer tax in half on large real estate transactions. The move seeks to jump-start the construction of thousands of housing units that are approved but stalled due to economic infeasibility.
The legislation would decrease transfer tax to pre-2020 levels: from 5.75% to 2.75% for transactions of at least $10 million and from 6% to 3% for deals of at least $25 million. It would not change transfer tax rates for single residences or for property transfers below $10 million. Transfer taxes brought in $324 million from 2021 to 2024.
The proposal would roll back former Supervisor Dean Preston’s 2020 ballot measure that doubled the transfer tax on large real estate deals, with 57% of votes in support of the measure. Lurie and Mahmood are able to legislate the changes — rather than go back to the ballot — because of a 2024 proposition that allowed transfer taxes to be decreased, but not raised, through legislation.
To offset the cost of the tax cut, Mahmood, Lurie and Assessor Joaquin Torres introduced a ballot measure Wednesday that would raise revenue by eliminating a tax exemption currently in place for foreclosures and “deed in lieu” foreclosures, where property owners voluntarily hand distressed properties back to lenders.
Lurie and Mahmood said the changes would encourage housing construction because they would improve the economic assumptions that developers and their investors make when calculating a deal’s financially viability. Lurie’s administration calculated that lopping off 50% from the transfer tax could save housing builders $32,000 a unit if they sell the multifamily property once built and leased up, as many homebuilders do.
In a statement, Lurie said legislation and ballot measure — called the Build Act — will “incentivize investment in these housing projects and buildings downtown, stimulating new jobs for electricians, plumbers and laborers.”
“Our politicians used to take our workers and our families for granted,” Lurie said. “But those politicians are gone, and those days are over.”
Supporters of the legislative package include the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, the North Coast States Carpenters Union, Laborers Union Local 261, and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
Torres said ending the tax exemption for foreclosure “has big implications for San Franciscans.”
“There’s long been a transfer tax exemption for certain foreclosure transfers in San Francisco, but in recent years we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of high-value commercial transfers claiming the exemption,” Torres said. “As administrator of the tax, it’s important to me that the public know what’s happening so that they stay in the driver’s seat.”
Mahmood said “San Francisco cannot afford to leave 50,000 entitled homes stalled because of outdated tax codes.”
He said the legislation and ballot measure “is not a tax cut, it’s a reform.”
“It will raise money for affordable housing while also making sure that we are not negatively penalizing construction development and jobs,” Mahmood said. “We now have years of data to show where the previous framework worked and where it didn’t.”
Rudy Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer for the San Francisco Building Trades Council, said the hope is that cutting the transfer tax would help jump-start the stalled 34,000 housing units in San Francisco’s pipeline that are part of major, multiphased projects. He pointed to 303 homes under construction at 1111 Sutter St., which received $180 million from the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust.
“Projects like this don’t move without capital,” he said. “That is union pension capital. That is retirees’ money being invested to build housing and put union members to work. So when we talk about transfer taxes on large transactions, we are talking about taxing deals that often include worker capital -union pension funds investing in housing and jobs.”
He said imposing a “6% transfer tax at the exact moment financing must come together, we add friction that can stall or kill projects.”
The 2020 transfer tax increase, Proposition I, was sponsored by Preston, a democratic socialist who lost his bid for reelection to Mahmood in 2024. Preston has long complained that the money raised through the measure went into the city’s general fund rather than toward affordable housing.
Preston said he had heard about the legislation and ballot measure only “second and third hand” but called cutting the tax “a very strange decision.” He also took issues with the characterization that the tax changes are focused on housing because more than half the transfer taxes come from the sale of downtown office buildings.
“This is one of the only taxes in San Francisco that is outperforming projections, and it would be a very strange decision to try to cut this tax on billionaires, especially when it’s money we should be spending on affordable housing,” Preston said.
Since 2020, San Francisco has had among the highest transfer tax rates in the country, along with Los Angeles, which taxes some transactions at 5.5%. In contrast, the transfer tax in Washington D.C. is 2.2% while Chicago levies 1.1%.
“Our transfer tax has been among the highest in the country, and at those levels it undermines transactions and slows the very activity we need to create new opportunities,” said Rodney Fong, president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
Enrique Landa, whose company Fifth Space is redeveloping Dogpatch Power Station, said the implications of having a high transfer tax is especially significant because it’s paid entirely by equity investors — the very group whose unwillingness to invest in San Francisco has crippled the city’s ability to produce housing since the pandemic.
“It’s really punitive on capital and it makes it uncompetitive for use to get housing starts,” Landa said. “We have to hit much higher returns than a place like Dallas which basically has no transfer tax.”
While the details have yet to be announced, Lurie said he has convened key city departments to identify a more effective source of funding for affordable housing. The group is considering options including a bond measure. He said the plan would be announced in the next three months.
Since 2020, San Francisco has had among the highest transfer tax rates in the country.
www.sfchronicle.comAmerica Has an Edge Over China. Why Won’t We Use It?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/opinion/china-america-manufacturing-ai.html
Feb. 24, 2026
An illustration of an old sketch of a wheel, with a modern rainbow pinwheel placed on the center.
By Jonas Nahm
Dr. Nahm was a… White House economist in the Biden administration.
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
Tesla’s factory in Shanghai produces far more cars per worker than its plant in California. The gap reflects something unsettling about China’s broader edge in manufacturing: It has figured out how to organize production around large-scale deployment of automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. The United States has not.
Reindustrialization is one of the few economic goals that now command bipartisan support. Successive administrations — first Joe Biden’s, now President Trump’s — have made rebuilding American manufacturing a priority. In Washington, the gap between American factories and global competitors is often explained as the product of unfair subsidies, distorted markets or other forms of cheating.
Those factors matter, as does the power of China’s political structure to command fast change from the top down. But the central challenge for the United States is not that China bends the rules. Around the world, modern manufacturing no longer resembles the mid-20th-century factory floor. Robotics, automation and A.I. now make it possible to produce more with fewer human workers, though those who remain are more skilled and better paid. Unlike China, America has failed to reckon with this reality and organize manufacturing in ways that turn its own technological strengths into comparable gains.
Washington talks about A.I. as if it lives in research labs, venture capital portfolios and data centers. China treats it as factory work. Today, A.I. is embedded into China’s efforts to accelerate automation — guiding machines, scheduling work and detecting problems in real time. China has built more than 30,000 smart factories. More than half of all new industrial robots installed worldwide in 2024 went into Chinese factories. Research from Weijian Shan, an investor and economist based in Hong Kong, has found that, in sectors ranging from steel to shipbuilding, these factories now produce more per worker than comparable U.S. plants.
The shift is visible on the shop floor. By last year, the Chinese electric vehicle company Zeekr had over 800 robots in its factory in Ningbo. The company even experimented with putting humanoid robots to work on its factory floor lifting boxes, assembling components and performing quality checks. Rather than following fixed instructions, the robots use cameras, sensors and A.I. to respond to conditions on the line, much like driver-assistance systems that adjust to traffic. That flexibility can allow them to handle variation, work safely alongside human workers and absorb routine changes that would otherwise force production to stop. These are the kind of efficiency gains that can eventually increase productivity per worker and help ease shortages of skilled labor.
These gains are not limited to experimental systems. At Midea, one of the world’s largest home appliance manufacturers, an A.I.-driven control system coordinates robots, sensors and machines at its Jingzhou plant. A company official said the system has reduced response times from hours to seconds.
Productivity gains come from multiple forms of A.I. Software can analyze camera feeds so that defects can be removed from production. Scheduling algorithms can automatically balance production, inventory and logistics. Lenovo, for example, says it has used such systems to cut production scheduling times from hours to minutes. A.I. can also analyze streams of production data in real time and highlight small inefficiencies before they slow the entire line. The technology company Xiaomi says it used smart manufacturing and over 700 robots to produce a car every 76 seconds on average in its Beijing plant.
For a decade, Beijing has pursued factory modernization as a national project, driven by all levels of the government, beyond flagship factories like Zeekr’s and deep into China’s manufacturing supply chains.
Provinces fund local companies developing A.I and automation technologies. Government ministries coordinate standards so that suppliers and manufacturers can share data and solutions. The government promotes programs to train workers to use these technologies. Smaller manufacturers can plug into shared, government-supported digital networks that collect production data, coordinate schedules and monitor equipment, allowing them to adopt A.I. tools without building from scratch.
On the other side of the Pacific, U.S. policy on A.I. emphasizes frontier research in A.I. and large language model development. While America leads in these fields, this focus neglects other practical areas for using A.I. and automation, leaving American manufacturers struggling to use digital tools on the factory floor. Only 18 percent of manufacturers surveyed by the Manufacturing Leadership Council said they have formal A.I. strategies for their operations; two-thirds said they were struggling to scale A.I. test projects into production.
Some American manufacturers are experimenting with similar tools. Auto manufacturers like Ford are experimenting with A.I.-enabled visual detection systems to identify defects on assembly lines. They are also investing in systems that can detect equipment problems before they shut down production lines. Yet these efforts remain fragmented.
The barriers are practical rather than technological, especially for small and midsize companies. In many factories, production data is incomplete or still recorded manually, making it impossible to use digital tools that rely on continuous information. Three-quarters of manufacturers surveyed struggle to connect older machines to systems that could help them run more efficiently. And eight in 10 report shortages of workers who can use A.I.-powered manufacturing tools. More than half say the upfront cost of A.I. projects is prohibitive.
Yet the U.S. policy response to China’s rise in manufacturing targets trade flows rather than factory performance. A familiar mix of tariffs, trade investigations, and restrictions on imported components and technologies looks tough but does little to close the productivity gap.
These policies actually leave American manufacturers in a bind. When they attempt to automate, they often rely on importedrobotics, sensors and machinery. Yet the Trump administration has opened a national security investigation into these robotics supply chains, potentially leading to tariffs that would raise the cost of such modernizing equipment.
If the goal is to bring manufacturing back from overseas, American policymakers should focus less on protection and more on helping manufacturers deploy digital tools. That means connecting legacy equipment to digital systems so they can generate usable data. It means modernizing older plants so equipment can integrate with sensors, software and analytics. It means investing in work force training so employees can use A.I. tools. And it means federal and state governments supporting shared digital infrastructure that allows small and midsize manufacturers to adopt advanced tools.
This is what China is doing. And other advanced economies in Germany, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere are responding with similar strategies.
America has emphasized invention and breakthroughs over deployment. But sometimes, technology needs to be treated as factory work — unsexy and perhaps boring, but essential for being competitive.
American manufacturing prowess won’t be restored without bringing new technologies to the factory floor.
www.nytimes.comCameras At UPS, AI & Infrared Torture With IBT 190 UPS Driver Eric Johnson
https://youtu.be/xkQuUrN4g2E
In an interview IBT president Sean O'Brien claimed that there were not cameras at UPS. He then said that they were there but were not spying on the drivers.
Eric Johnson a …member of IBT 190 in Montana and a long haul driver with UPS talks about the cameras and the dangers to UPS and other drivers union and non-union.
He says he was injured by the infrared camera and that he and other UPS Teamsters a many other workers are being tortured by the use of this AI technology introduced into the industry.
This interview was done on 2/26/26
Production Of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
In an interview IBT president Sean O’Brien claimed that there were not cameras at UPS. He then said that they were there but were not spying on the…
youtu.be
