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California’s proposed billionaire tax exposes rifts among labor unions
www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-30/labor-organizers-spearheading-california-billionaire-…
SEIU-UHW Chief of Staff Suzanne Jimenez leaves the stage after delivering a speech during a news briefing of the California Billionaire Tax Coalition at the Intercontinental hotel in Los Angeles in April. (Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
Los Angeles Times staff writer Nicole Nixon
By Nicole Nixon
Staff Writer
July 30, 2026 Updated 3:44 PM PT
California’s largest SEIU affiliate has refused to back Proposition 40, a proposed one-time tax on billionaires’ assets, exposing deep rifts inside labor over how to respond to federal cuts.
The measure, crafted by healthcare workers to plug an estimated $100-billion hole in safety-net programs, drew opposition Thursday from other unions such as the California State Council of Laborers and United Domestic Workers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech titans including Sergey Brin are shaping a broader fight over taxing extreme wealth.
SACRAMENTO — In a blow to backers of a proposed state billionaires tax, a handful of California labor unions joined the growing campaign against the controversial ballot measure while another labor giant opted to remain on the sideline.
A collection of unions — among them the California State Council of Laborers, United Domestic Workers and the California Police Chiefs Assn. — announced their opposition to the measure Thursday, a sign of simmering divisions over the proposal, which will appear on the November ballot as Proposition 40.
A day earlier, the executive board for Service Employees International Union California voted to take a neutral position on the tax, which would impose a one-time, 5% tax on the assets of billionaires who resided in the state at the start of this year.
In a statement, that 750,000-member union noted revenue from the “one-time tax proposal [is] dedicated 90% to healthcare,” echoing concerns from other unions opposed to the measure. Teacher, police and firefighter unions that previously announced their opposition argue the tax largely would benefit the healthcare sector and fear it would destabilize the state budget and, along with it, services such as education and public safety.
Instead of uniting the left, California’s billionaire tax measure has split Democratic allies
SEIU California is a parent organization of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the union that crafted the measure and moved to put it on the ballot before securing broad support from other labor groups.
SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan said he pushed the tax to backfill an estimated $100 billion in cuts to healthcare and food assistance programs that California is expected to shoulder under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Trump last year.
“Trump’s ‘Big, Ugly Bill’ slashed funding for healthcare in California to pay for more billionaire tax breaks. Now, millions of Californians are losing their health coverage, and millions more are being forced to pay skyrocketing costs,” SEIU-UHW Press Secretary Renee Saldana wrote in a statement to The Times.
Saldana pointed to an internal poll showing 70% of union members in California support the billionaire tax, adding: “We’re confident that SEIU members will be joining millions of their fellow Californians and voting YES on Prop. 40 this November to protect healthcare, keep hospitals and clinics open, and stand with California working families.”
In negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, Regan offered to pull the tax from the ballot in exchange for concessions for his union, including help securing contracts at several medical facilities around the state, two sources told The Times. Regan denies making the demand and said the proposal is meant to solve an impending “catastrophe in California’s healthcare system.”
Los Angeles, CA – February 18: Billionaire Tax Now sign placed on chairs at the Billionaire Tax Now rally where Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to speak on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026 in Los Angeles, CA. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Several unions and Democratic allies, including Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, argue the one-time tax is the wrong solution for the cuts, which are unlikely to be reversed while Republicans hold power in Washington.
United Domestic Workers President Astrid Zuniga said the union supports the goal of taxing billionaires more but opposes Proposition 40 because it would not fund in-home or child care and “does not create the sustainable funding stream that is required to fully fund vital care programs.”
“Instead, we need a long-term plan for funding these programs, so that our communities can grow and thrive for years to come” Zuniga said. “For these reasons, we’re urging our members to vote no on Prop. 40, because we know it’s possible to deliver a better funding plan for our communities.”
SEIU California said its members are focused on “a multi-year campaign to secure California’s fiscal foundation with ongoing revenue,” including an effort to tax large companies that pay wages so low that their workers rely on public benefits.
Surrounded by members of the SEIU California executive board, Newsom this month signed a bill punting the “Fair Share” measure to next year, when a new governor will take office.
Sunrise at the McMackin's beach on Billionaire Row in Manalapan, Florida on Tuesday, Feb 24, 2026. The McMackins were early members of a wave of wealthy Californians moving to south Florida including Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg. They are currently constructing a larger home down the beach. (Jennifer Ortiz / For The Times)
HOLLYWOOD INC.
Some labor unions and elected Democrats worry that in the long run, the proposed billionaire tax will hurt the state budget — which raises more money from wealthy people taxed at higher rates — by pushing rich Californians to move to other states.
Some already have. Google co-founder Sergey Brin last year moved to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe to preemptively avoid the tax and has pumped $82 million into a committee fighting Proposition 40.
Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender, has begun arguing for a federal wealth tax that the rich could not escape by moving to a new state.
“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” he wrote on Substackin June. “The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”
SEIU California on Wednesday also announced “strong opposition” to Proposition 39, a proposed voter ID measure; and Proposition 43, which would make it harder for local governments to raise taxes.
California’s proposed billionaire tax exposes rifts among labor unions
www.latimes.com
The tax, which will appear on the ballot as Proposition 40, drew opposition from unions such as the California State Council of Laborers and United Domestic Workers, while the executive board for Serv…
Ghirardelli closes flagship San Francisco shop as Unite Here Local 2 workers strike
The chocolate maker directed customers to two other Ghirardelli Square locations after union workers began a three-day walkout over health insurance and a 6% surcharge.
www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/ghirardelli-san-francisco-workers-strike-22367269.php
By Aidin Vaziri,
Staff Writer
Updated July 30, 2026 12:15 p.m.
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Ghirardelli closed its flagship chocolate and ice cream shop in San Francisco on Thursday after union workers walked off the job, prompting picketers to move to another company location that remained open in Ghirardelli Square.
The Original Ghirardelli Chocolate & Ice Cream Shop shut down after workers began a three-day strike, according to Unite Here Local 2, which represents employees at the store.
Ghirardelli directed customers to the nearby Ghirardelli Chocolate Experience and Ghirardelli Chocolate To Go, the union said.
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Ghirardelli had not responded to requests for comment by late Thursday morning, or said how long the flagship shop would remain closed. Its website continued to display regular hours for all three Ghirardelli Square locations.
The closure escalated a contract dispute centered on employee health insurance and a 6% surcharge added to customers’ bills.
Local 2 accused Ghirardelli of bargaining in bad faith by refusing to provide information about how much money the surcharge generates while proposing changes that the union says would weaken workers’ health coverage.
The union asked customers not to patronize Ghirardelli locations while workers are picketing.
The dispute highlights a long-running source of confusion and frustration for San Francisco diners: surcharges described as covering employee health care or other city-required labor costs.
San Francisco does not require restaurants or retailers to add such a fee. Businesses choose whether to impose one.
But when a covered employer says a surcharge is intended to pay for obligations under the city’s Health Care Security Ordinance, it must report annually how much the fee generated and how much it spent on covered workers’ health care, according to the city’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.
If collections exceed qualifying health care spending, the excess must ultimately be spent on those employees’ health care.
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Unite Here said negotiations began in May 2025 and have failed to produce a new agreement.
Alicia Tamayo, a stocker who has worked at the shop for 22 years, said she relies on the union health plan to cover herself and her two daughters.
“They charge customers an extra 6% fee that’s supposed to be for our healthcare, but they won’t tell us how much they earn from that fee,” Tamayo said in a statement released by the union. “Now they want to cut our health insurance. My two daughters are on my insurance. I’m not going to let them take our union healthcare plan away from me and my daughters.”
The union did not release the company’s full health care proposal.
The Original Ghirardelli Chocolate & Ice Cream Shop is one of several Ghirardelli businesses at the waterfront shopping complex near Fisherman’s Wharf. The company says the original ice cream shop opened in 1966, although the chocolate maker traces its San Francisco history to 1852.
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Ghirardelli workers walk off the job today on a three-day Unfair Labor Practice strike due to bad faith bargaining by Ghirardelli management outside of the chocolate factory in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Calif. Thursday, July 30, 2026
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
The union said the shop employs about 50 people and is the only unionized Ghirardelli location in San Francisco.
Local 2 also said the shop’s workers had not gone on strike since 1984.
Swiss chocolate company Lindt & Sprüngli owns Ghirardelli.
It was not immediately clear whether the shop would remain open during the strike. Ghirardelli’s website continued to list the location and its regular hours Thursday morning.
Ghirardelli closes flagship San Francisco shop as workers strike
www.sfchronicle.com
Workers at Ghirardelli’s flagship San Francisco shop are asking customers to stay away during a three-day strike involving health insurance and a 6% surcharge.
San Francisco Supervisors show support for Kaiser therapists at special hearing over introduction of chat-boxes & digital algorithms — instead of licensed clinicians — to triage patients.
home.nuhw.org/2026/07/06/workers-meet-with-oaklands-mayor-lee-over-hospital-funding/
July 27, 2026
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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors appears ready to formally oppose Kaiser’s “terrible three” contract proposal after conducting a July 21 special hearing on contract negotiations.
Supervisors criticized Kaiser for refusing to participate in the hearing as mental health clinicians and leaders of behavioral health advocacy organizations laid out the dangers posed by Kaiser’s contract proposals — not only for Kaiser patients and providers, but for behavioral health care in California.
“This is not a very good plan at all for quality care,” Linda Michaels, a psychologist and cofounder of the Psychotherapy Action Network, told board members. “And I think, while a lot of these policies may save Kaiser money in the short term… they will actually create new and higher costs in the long term. In terms of replacing therapists. It’s a very costly long-term gambit that Kaiser is playing here, and it’s not good for patients, for therapists, or really for Kaiser itself.”
Several news outlets covered the hearing, including KTVU-2, KPIX-5, KPFA, KQED, KALW, Behavioral Health Business, SFist, CalMatters, and the San Francisco Standard, which reported on a complaint NUHW filed against Kaiser for using digital algorithms — instead of licensed clinicians — to triage patients.
Check out the video on YouTube to watch the full hearing. The video description includes links to key moments, including remarks by NUHW members and allies.
The hearing was convened more than a year after negotiations began between Kaiser and its 2,400 NUHW-represented mental health clinicians, including psychologists, social workers, and marriage and family therapists.
Mediation is scheduled to start August 11 in an attempt to break a deadlock caused by Kaiser’s insistence on three contract demands, which center around:
Artificial intelligence: Kaiser wants to be able to replace therapists with A.I. and exert total control over a technology that stands to dramatically shift how therapy is provided. Kaiser is already using A.I. to record therapy sessions and algorithms to screen patients seeking care, and is now unwilling to agree to language that it accepted in its Southern California contract, stating that the intention of new technologies like A.I. “is not to replace” clinicians.
Layoffs and outsourcing: Kaiser is proposing language that would allow it to lay off clinicians in order to refer far more patients to third-party contractors for behavioral health services, divorcing behavioral health from the rest of Kaiser’s integrated model of care.
Disempowering clinicians: Kaiser is demanding that the contract state that it has the “sole discretion” to “determine or modify the behavioral health operating and clinical models of care,” thereby ending any requirement that it work collaboratively with therapists to improve care.
NUHW members Tianna Lui, Molly Parsons, and Ilana Marcucci-Morris addressed those three issues with the board and answered questions.
Parsons noted that Kaiser’s outsourcing proposal flies in the face of its marketing pitch to patients that their doctors, pharmacists, and therapists are all under one roof with Kaiser and able to work together to support patients.
“In fairness, Kaiser’s integrated health care system is an excellent model,” Parsons told the supervisors. “That’s why I can’t understand why Kaiser wants to segregate behavioral health from it and treat it as a second-class service.”
Parsons added, “Kaiser clearly wants to radically downsize its behavioral health workforce and rely more on apps and external vendors. We want Kaiser to provide good care and good jobs — just like their ads say.”
Supervisor Chyanne Chen, who called the hearing, said she was “shocked” and “very disappointed” that Kaiser refused to participate in the hearing. “Mental wellness is incredibly important and how we are taking care of our patients and workers, especially with emerging technology, is more important now than ever,” she said.
Chen has introduced a resolution that will go to a vote later this summer, putting the board on the record opposing Kaiser’s “terrible three” contract demands.
Board President Rafael Mandelman said that Kaiser’s refusal to participate in the hearing suggested “that the picture being painted by the workers is pretty accurate of a large business that is interested in squeezing efficiencies out of an under-resourced part of its operation.”
The hearing came one day after NUHW filed a complaint against Kaiser with state and federal regulators. The complaint documents how Kaiser is using digital algorithms to make immediate determinations for patients seeking mental health services, including deciding whether they need an urgent appointment or should receive therapy at all. This violates state law governing how health plans must triage patients and contradicts how Kaiser says its e-visits are supposed to work.
Tianna Lui, a therapist for Kaiser in San Francisco, told supervisors that the non-human-based triage makes it harder for patients to get the right care for themselves.
“I’ve had LGBTQ+ patients tell me they’ve waited forever to find a clinician with my background,” Lui said. “When patients are essentially told, ‘Here is your option, take it or leave it,’ that’s not ethical, and that’s not good clinical care. Not at all.”
Workers meet with Oakland’s Mayor Lee over hospital funding – NUHW
home.nuhw.org
Workers at UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland had a sit down meeting with Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, who committed to making sure that hospital caregivers have a say in how UCSF spends a portion of fu…
Workers meet with Oakland’s Mayor Lee over UCSF Benioff Children’s hospital funding
home.nuhw.org/2026/07/06/workers-meet-with-oaklands-mayor-lee-over-hospital-funding/
July 6, 2026
One year after UCSF initiated a hospital integration plan that forced more than 1,300 NUHW members at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland into other unions, the workers haven’t given up hope of returning to NUHW or given up fighting for their patients and East Bay communities.
On Saturday, June 27, about a dozen workers, who used to be NUHW stewards at Children’s Hospital Oakland before UCSF “integrated” it with its children’s hospital in San Francisco’s Mission Bay District, had a sit-down meeting with Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.
Lee listened as workers discussed how the integration has resulted in additional services being moved across the Bay to San Francisco, forcing Oakland families to travel farther for care. The reduction in services came as no surprise to workers who held a strike in June 2025 opposing the integration plan, which also effectively cancelled their NUHW contracts and forced them into other unions, whose contracts included higher healthcare costs and pension contributions.
A federal judge is considering NUHW’s objections to the “integration,” but Lee stated that she is committed to making sure that funds from the 2020 Measure C sales tax ballot measure are used in the best interest of Oakland kids and the people who serve them at Children’s Hospital.
NUHW members helped pass the Alameda County tax measure six years ago, which generates about $20 million a year for the hospital. However, the measure wasn’t clear about how the money should be distributed, which left NUHW members at Children’s Hospital teaming up with the local unions to have a say in how it’s spent.
“UCSF is not doing what was intended with Measure C dollars,” Griselda Chavez, an infant development specialist at the hospital, told Lee during the meeting. “They took money that came from the pockets of everyday people, money meant for helping children, and spent it on construction.”
Lee was receptive to Chavez and her coworkers, and pledged to talk to UCSF Health President Nicolas Holmes and county officials to make sure they follow through on a plan ensuring that 5 percent of the proceeds go towards programs that hospital workers identify as major problems, including lack of equipment and lack of staff, which leads to long waitlists for important pediatric services. The mayor is making good on her pledge and is convening a meeting with workers and Holmes on August 3.
“I was happy with the commitment we received from Mayor Lee,” Chavez said. “She listened, and I believe she will follow through, but I’m not optimistic that UCSF will honor any commitment. Over the past year of being under UCSF, I’ve seen them ignore rules and requirements that they don’t like.”
Workers meet with Oakland’s Mayor Lee over hospital funding – NUHW
home.nuhw.org
Workers at UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland had a sit down meeting with Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, who committed to making sure that hospital caregivers have a say in how UCSF spends a portion of fu…
Longshore solidarity forces C&H Sugar back to bargaining
www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2026/07/29/longshore-solidarity-forces-ch-sugar-back-to-bargaining/
July 29, 2026 Lallan Schoenstein
MEMORANDUM FROM: ILWU International
SUBJECT: Update re: ILWU Local 6 Strike and Bargaining with C&H
DATE: July 27, 2026
Please find attached a Press Release regarding ILWU Local 6’s strike at C&H Sugar, Inc. and the status of continued bargaining…..
The International and Local 6 thank all locals and affiliates for their support thus far. However, this fight is not over so please continue to support Local 6 during this period of bargaining.
‘An injury to one is an injury to all.’
ILWU Local 6 / C&H Sugar Company, Inc. – Joint Press Release
CROCKETT, CA, July 27 – The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6 and C&H Sugar Company, Inc. today jointly announce that they have agreed to a sixty-day period of continued contract negotiations. …
ILWU Local 6 represents approximately 100 warehouse workers at C&H in Crockett, California, who have been on strike since June 15, 2026. The parties have been far apart on a number of Issues. The parties met with a federal mediator several times in July but were unable to reach Agreement. …
In a showing of good faith, ILWU Local 6 has agreed to return to work during this period, and C&H will withdraw its declaration of impasse. The parties have committed … to bargain in good faith and reach agreement on a fair contract.
After a hard-fought 42-day strike launched on June 15, the ILWU forced C&H back to the bargaining table on July 27. They won this position by standing firm against brutal government repression, carried out in collaboration with American Sugar Refining, the sugar monopoly that owns C&H.
On July 21, shortly after 4 p.m., Contra Costa County Sgt. Daniel Marzilli, accompanied by more than a dozen sheriff’s office vehicles, ordered the ILWU Local 6 and Local 10 picket line at the intersection of Loring Avenue and West Street to disperse.
“I hereby declare this is an unlawful assembly,” said Marzilli into a megaphone. Surrounding him were the sheriff’s deputies armed with batons and tear gas. “If you do not do so, you may be arrested or subject to other police action,” including “less lethal munitions, chemical agents or police dogs.”
Earlier in the day, ILWU members were injured, and one was hospitalized, when two scab trucks plowed into the union picket line. According to Trent Willis, vice president of ILWU Local 10, scabs have been brought into the refinery since July 18. Willis said the workers were not attempting to block the scab driver when they were run down.
Clarence Thomas, an ILWU Local 10 retiree who is on the executive board of the Pacific Coast Pensioners Association, told Steve Zeltzer live on Labor Radio Podcast Network, “You can see from the turnout of the police, there’s two things that are bothering the cops: Number one, we’re working people and number two, we’re Black and people of color. They have a problem with both of those things. It has taken longshore workers exhorting the police to do their job, which is to arrest someone who has hit a pedestrian with a vehicle intentionally. So, it’s taken all this time. I understand now they’re in handcuffs. They are towing his vehicle away, and they’re being forced to respond to the power of the ILWU rank and file.”
Striking members of ILWU Local 6 and solidarity strikers from Local 10 were picketing the entrances to the C&H Sugar factory to confront scabs that the company hired to unload sugar from a cargo ship.
“We’re letting the truckers know what’s going on — you’re crossing a picket line, taking money and our jobs away from us,” said worker Frank Gaskin.
Adrian Wells, a truck driver who called himself “a local scab,” reportedly said of driving through strike lines, “We all have a choice. We could stop what we’re doing. But I want to make some money.” According to him, the company is paying $1,700 a week for scab work.
Following the attack by the scabs who drove their trucks into the picket line on July 21, the police attacked the union members. They handcuffed 10 people on the picket line while threatening others with arrest. Then they cordoned off the picket area with yellow police tape.
Supporters had come from all over the Bay Area to converge at C&H’s main entrance on Loring Avenue and the truck entrance on Dowrelio Drive under the Carquinez Bridge. They gathered at the sides of the gates with cars and motorcycles. The community in Crockett, a company town, has been deeply engaged in supporting the strike, often joining the picket line since the beginning.
Confrontation.jpeg
Police ordered the ILWU Local 6 picket line to disperse and surrounded the area with yellow police tape. Earlier, a scab truck rammed into the picket line.
ILWU Local 6 members are fighting to retain their union contract covering health care benefits for current and future retirees; overtime pay, which most C&H workers rely on to earn a living; an established seniority system for promotions and scheduling; and sick leave. They are also fighting unfair weekend scheduling.
In addition, they are demanding that all charges be dropped against the strikers, union members, and supporters arrested on July 21. They are also calling for the immediate reinstatement of three workers illegally fired on June 24.
Looking at the contract the company wanted to impose, Mario Rivas, a crane operator at C&H for 10 years, said, “The contract is so bad, you can’t afford to take it.”
Rivas grew up in Crockett, and his grandfather and brother both worked for C&H. Staffing shortages and the rising costs of living don’t help, said Rivas. “They’re going to raise the bridge tolls again, gas prices are going up. This is pretty egregious,” he said of the contract.
“Every three years, we have a contract,” Rivas added. “There’s always a give and take.” This year was different. “This year is the first year there was no negotiation — it was basically, ‘We want to take everything you guys have.’”
To lead negotiations, Crockett C&H management brought in Rene Ruiz, chief labor counsel for parent company American Sugar Refining — a lawyer whose official bio boasts that he “trains employers on union avoidance and strike preparation.”
Clarence Thomas, Local 10 retiree, said: “The other shoe has yet to fall — for this union-busting outfit American Sugar Refining. They want to break the union. What it’s going to take is for the employers of the Pacific Maritime Association to weigh in when they can’t get their ships loaded and unloaded. That’s what it’s going to take. The only thing that the capitalists respond to is when you cut off their profits. This ain’t business as usual. They’re unloading this ship from the Philippines with scabs. So, they broke the contract.
The union says that C&H is trying to avoid dealing with the just demands of the strikers by diverting the sugar to the Levin-Richmond Terminal, where it is in danger of toxic contamination, an area declared a Superfund site due to rampant DDT contamination. City leaders and union officials say the product is being dumped on a wharf where coal, petroleum and metal scrap are handled. Richmond City Councilmember Claudia Jimenez said, “Sugar, which is a food product, is being dumped here next to petroleum and coal products.” The coal isn’t covered, and the wind will contaminate the sugar.
C&H has not denied that the sugar is being contaminated. They claim it will be edible after they refine it! Union leaders dispute their assurances.
ILWU Local 10 refused to unload the sugar at the Crockett refinery pier in solidarity with the Local 6 strike. Michael Villeggiante, president of Local 10, said, “We didn’t work the ship. It was anchored for 10 days, and then they brought it here to Levin.”
C&H Sugar was acquired in 2005 by American Sugar Refining (ASR), a monopoly and one of the world’s largest sugar refiners. ASR demanded union-busting concessions from members of ILWU Local 6, refusing to negotiate and issuing a rigid “take-it-or-leave-it” ultimatum.
ASR is controlled by the Fanjul brothers — Alfonso, José “Pepe,” Alexander, and Andrés — whose family owned sugar plantations, mills, and port concessions in pre-revolutionary Cuba. After the 1959 revolution expropriated their holdings, the family relocated to Florida and built a multibillion-dollar empire shielded by U.S. tariffs, import quotas, and federal subsidies. Today, the Fanjuls are key allies of Donald Trump, bankrolling the right-wing Cuban-exile political machine, lobbying for high domestic sugar prices, and pouring millions into political campaigns aimed at attacking socialist Cuba.
Regarding ASR’s attack on the union, Thomas says, “Our employers are paying particular attention to our resolve and solidarity in fighting against concessionary bargaining with our Local 6 sisters and brothers at the bargaining table with C&H Sugar.
“We are trying to let our members know, particularly in Local 10, that this is a test run. If we don’t support the Local 6 strike, this will set the stage for what the employers will try to do to the Longshore Division contract negotiations in 2028.”
Local 6 has the support of ILWU on the West Coast, especially ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco. There have been reports of several actions of ILWU Locals in support of the Local 6 strike.
Members of Hawaii’s ILWU 142 traveled to Crockett to join the picket line. Chris West, a native Hawaiian, has worked as a longshoreman for 25 years and is president of the Hawaiian Local. “It made sense for us to be here considering the long history of our fight with these guys.”
West said: C&H executives are “deciding between if they’re going to buy their new yacht this year or save it for next year,” he said. “Whereas our guys are trying to figure out if they’re going to be able to pay the water bill or the electric bill, which one they’re going to float.”
The Filipino community is supporting Local 6 as well. It has been on the picket line because C&H gets sugar from the Philippine island of Negros, where there is a labor struggle. In April, the Philippine Army’s 79th Infantry Battalion killed 19 people in Toboso, on Negros Island. The killings came as Washington and Manila launched Balikatan 2026, their largest joint war games yet.
Lyle Prijoles, a leader of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) from Hayward, California, was one of those killed. He was documenting conditions of sugar workers and linking their struggles to international networks.
“Because we wouldn’t cross Local 6 picket line, the company decided to go get some strike breakers to work the Local 10 jobs also,” said Trent Willis, vice president of ILWU Local 10, standing alongside strikers outside the C&H truck entrance under the Carquinez Bridge on Tuesday.
“The ILWU fights for good working conditions,” said Willis. “That raises the standards for other workers outside the ILWU — a standard they can compare to when they’re fighting for their own contracts.”
Speaking to Zeltzer on the labor podcast, Willis said, “This is a basic issue for the unions, for the ILWU and the labor movement. The ILWU is one of the last remaining strong diversified unions, where you have all races of people that are standing up together, which is what’s needed in the labor movement today.
“All of the gains that working people — when you talk about African Americans, Black people in this country — all of those gains that were made during the Civil Rights movement, it benefited everyone. It didn’t just benefit Black people. So when you see these attacks on labor rights, attacks on social justice and all of that, it is affecting everyone.
“The trick bag that they have a lot of non-Black people thinking is that those rules don’t apply to them. They have to find out that corporate greed and white supremacy attacks us all — that racism is a distraction from working people gathering together and demanding respect, decent pay and safe working conditions. If you win at one place, it benefits working people everywhere.”
Longshore solidarity forces C&H Sugar back to bargaining
www.struggle-la-lucha.org
MEMORANDUM FROM: ILWU International SUBJECT: Update re: ILWU Local 6 Strike and Bargaining with C&H DATE: July 27, 2026 Please find attached a Press Release
Trump says he will impose 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods in 30 days
The move has nothing to do with the Canadian wildfires Trump complained about on Sunday, an official said.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/07/20/trump-says-he-will-impose-50-percent-tariffs-canada/
July 20, 2026
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, joined U.S. President Donald Trump at the World Cup final Sunday in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/FIFA/Getty Images)
By David J. Lynch
President Donald Trump announced Monday that he will impose 50 percent tariffs on most Canadian goods effective in 30 days unless Canada drops what the administration called “discriminatory” trade barriers against U.S. products.
The move comes one day after Trump threatened to impose tariffs in retaliation for wildfires in Ontario that sent thick smoke pouring into the United States late last week. After watching Sunday’s World Cup final alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump told reporters that the subject had come up.
“Our air has been poisoned. Have a good relationship with Mark Carney, but you know we got to stop the fires up there. If we can help them, we’ll help them. But maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs,” the president said Sunday.
On Monday, however, a senior administration official said the president’s latest tariff action was unrelated to his irritation over the wildfires. Instead, the official said, the president was acting in response to Canada’s retaliation for emergency tariffs Trump imposed in April 2025, when U.S. alcohol was removed from Canadian store shelves. The administration has also complained about Canadian limits on auto imports and dairy products.
Monday’s action relies on a never-before-used provision of a 1930 trade law, which provides for tariffs of up to 50 percent against countries that discriminate against U.S. goods. The 30-day delay provides time for the two nations to resolve the dispute before tariffs take effect.
If the tariffs do take effect, they will apply to most Canadian goods, including those that qualify for duty-free treatment under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated during his first term. Energy, potash fertilizer, critical minerals, fish and products covered by existing national security tariffs will be exempt, said the administration official, who briefed reporters under ground rules that did not allow them to be identified.
That would probably hit consumers with higher prices ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, exacerbating the administration’s political challenges with affordability, said Ed Gresser, vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute in D.C. and a former U.S. trade official.
“If you as a family or you as a business were hoping for some relief this fall, you’re not going to get it. Things are going to get more expensive,” Gresser said.
But it’s not clear that will ever happen. “The fact that it’s delayed 30 days makes me think it’s a negotiating tactic,” said Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding, who served in the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office during the first Trump administration. “It seems like leverage.”
The administration has been negotiating revisions in USMCA, which the president hailed upon signing in 2020 as the “fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed.” Talks with Mexico have been proceeding apace, but negotiations with Canada have yet to begin.
Jamieson Greer, the president’s chief trade negotiator, has made no secret of the administration’s irritation with the Canadian government. The impact of the Canadian wildfires has only aggravated the situation.
Though the administration denied any link between Monday’s tariff announcement and the fires, the president has asked for potential measures that he can take in retaliation, the administration official said.
Greer is scheduled to visit Mexico City starting Wednesday to continue talks with Mexico.
Trump says he will impose 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods in 30 days
www.washingtonpost.com
The president said the levies will take effect in 30 days unless Canada drops what the administration called “discriminatory” trade barriers against U.S. products.
Why I Wrote a Letter to the Wall Street Journal About Medicare Advantage
healthcareuncovered.substack.com/p/why-i-wrote-a-letter-to-the-wall
Why I Wrote a Letter to the Wall Street Journal About Medicare Advantage
The Wall Street Journal's readers deserved the full story about Medicare Advantage.
WENDELL POTTER
JUL 29, 2026
https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a6b58ee-92e7-4839-b2e2-36e321976e87_1600x1000.gif
The Wall Street Journal recently published an opinion piece by John C. Goodman titled, “Why Do Democrats Hate Medicare Advantage?“ The target of much of the piece wasn’t just Medicare reform — it was Rep. Lloyd Doggett, whose bipartisan bill would curb some of the program’s most abusive practices, including excessive taxpayer overpayments to private insurers.
As someone who spent 20 years as a health insurance executive, I know how the spin-and-narrative-game works and I couldn’t let the article go unanswered.
Goodman portrays Medicare Advantage as “the best program in the entire U.S. healthcare system” while glossing over the evidence that has fueled bipartisan efforts to reform it: an estimated $140 billion a year in overpayments, widespread prior authorization delays, claim denials, risk-score manipulation and mounting complaints from patients, physicians, hospitals and federal watchdogs.
WSJ's Editorial Board Contradicts What Its Newsroom Has Reported on Medicare Advantage
Goodman has spent decades championing “consumer-driven“ health care, health savings accounts, and has long been one of Medicare Advantage’s most dependable defenders.
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As a light aside, Goodman's Wikipedia page includes a claim (complete with a "[citation needed]" tag) that he lost his college student body president race to Lloyd Doggett. Whether the claim is true or not, it offers a glimpse of the kind of tit-for-tat that can play out behind the scenes. The real issue, however, is whether taxpayers should continue pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a program that rewards giant health insurers like UnitedHealth Group, Elevance Health and Humana far more generously than the patients it is meant to serve.
That’s why I submitted the following Letter to the Editor:
To the editor,
I am not writing in as a Democrat or Republican in response to the July 9th piece “Why Do Democrats Hate Medicare Advantage?” I am writing as a former executive at Cigna and as someone who worked for 20 years in the industry. And let me say, Medicare Advantage is neither Medicare nor an advantage.
Which is why lawmakers from both parties have introduced bills to rein in the program – particularly the egregious overpayments, which are estimated to be over $140 billion per year.
The truth is that MA has been a broken system since the beginning, especially for patients. Many seniors say they feel trapped in the program, tricked into joining with promises of quality care and low costs, only to find their treatments denied and bills piling up when they become ill. A report from the Commonwealth Fund found that more Medicare Advantage patients (22%) than traditional Medicare patients (13%) reported delays due to insurance approvals. With all these issues, hospitals are increasingly refusing to accept MA at all, citing low reimbursement rates and excessive prior authorization as heavily burdensome to their work. MA model relies on providing as little care as possible in general, with insurers putting care approval behind a wall of delays and denials to save money and leaving patients suffering without necessary treatment.
Congress should strengthen and protect traditional Medicare, not continue funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into a program that too often rewards insurers for restricting care.
Wendell Potter
Wikimedia Will Not Voluntarily Recognize Union a Supermajority of Its Workers Want
www.404media.co/wikimedia-waits-until-after-its-massive-conference-to-say-it-wont-voluntarily-rec…
Jason Koebler
JUL 27 2026 AT 7:43 PM
The Wikimedia Foundation waited until immediately after its largest annual conference to say it wouldn't voluntarily recognize its workers' union.Wikimedia Will Not Voluntarily Recognize Union a Supermajority of Its Workers WantThe Wikimedia Foundation waited until the days following its largest worldwide conference to issue a statement saying it would not voluntarily recognize a union of its workers.Last week Wiki Workers United which is organized through the Communication Workers Union and represents U.S. workers at the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation requested voluntary recognition of their union. Wiki Workers United said that it had secured a “supermajority of union-eligible workers who have signed union authorization cards.” A group of more than 1100 Wikipedia editors have also signed a letter of support for the union.On Monday just days after the massive Wikimania Conference concluded in Paris the Wikimedia Foundation announced it would not voluntarily recognize the union and said the union would have to conduct a vote as overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.“The Foundation’s responsibility is to ensure that they can make their own choice freely” the foundation wrote in the statement. “So that every eligible employee has an equal voice we believe a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board is the appropriate path forward.”“We have heard a range of views from staff including concerns from those who have felt pressured to support union efforts and those who are confused by the unionization process” the foundation added in a frequently asked questions section. “We have also seen a misunderstanding around what the union can do for global staff and Wikimedia movement communities.”The Wikimedia Foundation’s statement and its frequently asked questions section is full of very carefully-worded language that is common among companies and organizations that have fought against unionization. For example the FAQ includes a long section about the benefits that Wikimedia Foundation already offers its staff and the statement suggests that there is a “wide range of views on unionization” among employees. Wikipedians immediately took issue with the timing of the statement and the language of it. On a talk page discussing the statement the Wikimedia Foundation is getting hammered for the timing of the statement and the statement itself.“What a shameful decision to tie the process to the willingness of Trump-controlled NLRB. Everyone involved in denying the voluntary recognition should resign in disgrace or be driven out” one editor wrote. “The fact that this response came exactly 1 day after Wikimania shows that you are afraid of being confronted” another wrote. “This is an extremely disappointing statement. It says that ‘Foundation leadership respects the right of staff to unionize if they choose to do so. That decision rests with them.’ But that decision has been made – by a supermajority of US-based staff. The only thing standing between the US WWU and recognition is WMF executive leadership who could recognize the union today if they cared to” a third wrote. “As a U.S. trained labor lawyer and past organizer with WWU this statement alongside the WMF’s public facing community post reek of union-busting disinformation. What’s critical for the community to know is that a supermajority of the workers already did vote by signing a card. This ‘extra step’ is just a delay tactic that employers are advised to do when they don’t want a union” a fourth wrote. “These WMF workers have already been extremely brave by expressly affirming their commitment to a union. Years of efforts to get this accomplished. This is not some rash decision by them. Moreover the community supports their union too! It literally makes no sense as to why WMF thought this was the right decision here in this critical moment.”At Wikimania in Paris the Wikimedia Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer Bernadette Meehan was asked about voluntarily recognizing the union. Meehan said “our focus is on executing and helping the core organizing team execute a great event. We will respond to that particular request when we have a chance to review it.”“We are supportive and we support employees’ right to unionize. The context is complicated because we operate in multiple different places” she added. “We respect the right if it is the majority will of eligible staffers to unionize.” The Wikimedia Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.ABOUT THE AUTHORJason is a cofounder of 404 Media. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Motherboard. He loves the Freedom of Information Act and surfing.
Imprisoned writer Mumia Abu-Jamal seeks UN intervention after 44 years behind bars
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/28/mumia-abu-jamal-un-jail
The former Black Panther’s lawyers ask a UN panel to review his detention after US legal avenues were exhausted
Ed Pilkington
Tue 28 Jul 2026 09.00 EDT
As he approaches the 45th anniversary of his incarceration in December, the Black radical writer and prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is taking his claim that he has been subjected to arbitrary imprisonment for a crime that he did not commit to a new tribunal: the United Nations in Geneva.
On Tuesday Abu-Jamal, 72, lodged a petition with the UN’s working group on arbitrary detention, a body within the Human Rights Council. It marks the latest attempt by the internationally-renowned prisoner and prolific author of 15 books to seek relief, having exhausted all domestic channels through state and federal courts.
In a telephone interview with the Guardian from Mahanoy correctional institution in Pennsylvania, where he is being held on a life sentence with no chance of parole, he said the appeal to the UN was part of his personal and legal efforts to keep hope alive.
“Hope is an element of struggle, is it not,” he said. “As we used to say in the old days, ‘La luta continua’.”
‘Intoxicating freedom, gripping fear’: Mumia Abu-Jamal on life as a Black Panther
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The hope that this former Black Panther might one day walk free from Mahanoy is slim. He is serving a life sentence without any possibility of parole. In Pennsylvania, life without parole means just that: there is no accounting for rehabilitation, age or health, and any prisoner serving it will die behind bars no matter his or her circumstances.
Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 of a crime for which he has always protested his innocence – the first degree murder of a police officer, Daniel Faulkner, in Philadelphia. Since then, he has become a lightning rod for both left and right.
For progressives, he is arguably the most celebrated political prisoner in America today. For the law and order crowd, led by the Fraternal Order of Police that has pushed relentlessly for his maximum punishment, he is nothing other than a cop killer.
Despite the long odds, Abu-Jamal is doing all he can to stay upbeat. “I’ve rarely, if ever, placed my hope in courts of law,” he said. “But I do trust in people, as people are the ones who build movements and make change.”
Tuesday’s newly-lodged petition calls on the UN to take a stance over what it says are the many injustices against Abu-Jamal during his original trial and in the decades of unsuccessful appeals that have followed. His legal team – led by Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center, joined by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights – argues that he has endured multiple violations of international law.
The document describes how the prosecutor excluded almost all Black jurors from his 1982 trial. During jury selection the prosecutor scrawled in his notebook the letters “B” and “W” over jurors’ names, to denote Black and white.
He then threw out 71% of all potential Black jurors, and just 20% of all non-Black candidates. The result was a jury of 12 that had only two Black members – in a county that was almost 40% African American.
The trial judge, Albert Sabo, the petition goes on, was perhaps the most prolific death penalty judge in the country. He presided over 31 capital cases ending with death row, all but two of the defendants from minorities.
Shortly before trial he was overheard saying: “I’m going to help them fry the nigger.”
The UN’s rapporteur on arbitrary detention is also being asked to consider how new evidence only disclosed to Abu-Jamal’s defense team in 2018 raises serious doubts about the credibility of the state’s main eyewitness, Robert Chobert. Weeks after the trial concluded, Chobert wrote to the chief prosecutor inquiring about “the money own to me”.
One of the main thrusts of the petition is that Abu-Jamal’s current sentence, life without parole – is in itself a form of arbitrary detention in breach of international rules. The sentence has been dubbed “death by incarceration”, but Abu-Jamal thinks of it as “slow death row”.
He said: “It is death row without a specific date of execution. Or execution through time.”
He said he was struck by the contrast between America’s fondness for life sentences – more than 200,000 people are on them, about one in seven of all prisoners – and the approach of other advanced countries such as Norway. When Anders Breivik committed the deadliest mass shooting by a single person in modern times in Oslo in 2011, killing 77 people, he was sentenced to the country’s maximum penalty – 21 years, extendable on review every five years thereafter.
Breivik is unlikely ever to be released, but the system has not irrevocably slammed the door on him. “Such a response would be impossible, unthinkable in any of our 50 states,” Abu-Jamal said.
The UN working party has no direct enforcement powers within the US. But his legal team are calculating that a strong condemnation from the world body would support the push back home for a retrial or a commutation of his sentence.
At the very least, Abu-Jamal welcomes the chance to present the facts of his case to experts who have not come under the intense political pressure faced by elected judges (all Pennsylvania’s judges are elected). He remembers being “flabbergasted” in 1995 when he learnt that four out of the seven justices on the state supreme court had been endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police.
“Presenting my claims to the UN will be one of the first times that judges will be hearing them without a vested interest,” he said.
Abu-Jamal was 14 when he was literally booted into the Black liberation struggle. It was 1968 and he was at a protest in Philadelphia against the segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace when a Philadelphia police officer kicked him in the face.
A year later he co-founded the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther party and became a regular contributor to the party’s newspaper. From there he built a successful career as a writer and broadcaster, serving as president of Philadelphia’s Association of Black Journalists.
All that came crashing down when he was arrested in the early hours of 9 December 1981. He was supplementing his income by cab driving, and happened to be passing the corner of 13th and Locust Streets just when his brother William Cook was being detained in a traffic stop by police officer Faulkner.
A shootout ensued. Abu-Jamal was shot in the chest. Faulkner was struck multiple times and died in hospital hours later.
At trial, the state accused Abu-Jamal of murdering Faulkner. The prosecutor presented the jury with samples of his Black Panther writings to suggest an antipathy towards police, and on the back of that plus the questionable testimony of Chobert and other state witnesses he was convicted and sentenced to death.
He remained on death row for 28 years until 2011 when he was switched to life without parole after a court found his original capital sentence unconstitutional.
As has been the case throughout his incarceration, he did not discuss the specifics of the charges leveled against him with the Guardian. But he did talk about the toll that decades behind bars has had on him and on his family.
There has been the toll of distance, of separation, from his burgeoning family of four generations. How many great grandchildren does he have?
“I don’t even know, but it’s quite a few.”
Being Abu-Jamal, he puts the pain of forced isolation in a political context. “The state creates a system of solitary confinement for people on death row to dehumanize them to the people who love them. You cannot touch this person.”
In one of his best known books, Live From Death Row, he recounts the agonising prison visit from his young daughter Samiya early on in his incarceration. He recalls that moment again during our conversation, speaking in a voice that is at times so soft it is barely audible.
“She rushed in, her eyes lit up, and she looked at me, and she was confused because of the glass between us. She ran to the glass, this little girl, and began hitting it, shouting: ‘Break it! Break it!’ It tore my heart.”
Since then he has had time to develop strategies for overcoming the barriers to human contact. “What I learned, you know, over these long years, is how to make people kind of feel you without being able to touch you.”
How do you do that?
“I just talk to people as earnestly and as deeply as I can, to make contact with them without making physical contact. It’s a way to defeat the dehumanization process.”
One thing that buoyed him up over the years was the avalanche of global support from people concerned about his plight. When he was facing execution, the New York Times reported that he was the “world’s best known death-row inmate”, and his cause was adopted by a slew of celebrities such as Maya Angelou, Spike Lee and Paul Newman.
He routinely received 50 or more letters from supporters each week. Now that number has dwindled, he said, to 10 or 12. He thinks the slump is partly because the prison mail system has become more restrictive.
But it’s also because the shift from the death penalty to life without parole has to some degree taken him out of the limelight. “Some people seem to believe that because I’m off death row, now I’m home. They don’t know. They don’t get it.”
Though his international profile may have receded, last month he was still made an honorary citizen of the Paris suburb Saint-Denis. A road there was named after him at the height of his death row ordeal in 2006.
Were he ever to be released, that would be one of his first ambitions. “I’d like to walk on my street in Saint-Denis. And I’d like to visit Ghana. And I’d like to teach somewhere,” he said.
After a pause, he added that he would also make a beeline to the graves of his mother Edith and wife Wadiya, both of whom have died during his time behind bars.
Books – reading and writing them – have been his prime survival tool throughout the near half century of his imprisonment. “Books have been my closest friends for decades,” he said. “Most of what I’ve done in prison is read, and you have to read in order to write – to cultivate ideas and produce works.”
Even that has now become a struggle. For most of last year he was functionally blind as a result of his eyesight deteriorating over the past eight years.
It is one facet of the immense physical toll that 28 years in solitary confinement on death row has extracted. He puts his fading sight down to a series of health crises that began with a severe skin rash, led to diabetes brought on by heavy steroids, and culminated in a diabetic coma.
At every step he has had to fight for even basic medical care. That included a two-year court battle to get medication for hepatitis C which was withheld on grounds that he was “not sick enough”.
It took him most of last year to wrestle the prison authorities into having his cataracts removed. During the two spells in which he was hospitalised for congestive heart failure, he was shackled for days to his medical bed.
Whatever you think of Abu-Jamal – whether you place him in the political prisoner or the cop killer category – his punishment does not include the annihilation of his health. Nor does it require the deprivation of the one activity in captivity that he holds most dear.
“When you cannot read, that is extremely painful,” he said.
It’s a form of punishment in itself.
“Yes,” he said. “The very nature of imprisonment is punishment on all levels. It may not be written in an order from a court, but it is the practice – these are cruel places.”
Despite his impaired vision, he is compelled to finish his latest book which he is submitting for a PhD. It is an exploration of the writings of the Algerian revolutionary Frantz Fanon, focusing on his treatise on anti-colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth.
“I must finish it. I am determined to finish it. And I am closing in.”
It must be difficult, producing such a complex work with blurred vision on top of the daily burdens of incarceration.
“Yes it is,” he conceded. “But difficult is not impossible. You do what you must do.”