United Public Workers for Action

2 days ago

USW on Strike! Solidarity Mondays—Support Marathon Refinery Workers, June 22
www.sunflower-alliance.org/usw-on-strike-support-marathon-refinery-workers/
MAY 11, 2026
Join USW Local 5 on their strike line at the Marathon renewable fuels refinery in Concord every Monday at 5:30 PM until a settlement is reached. The strike has been ongoing since April 27, while the “green” refiner continues to reject worker demands for safe working conditions. Instead of negotiating in good faith, Marathon is threatening to lay off even more highly skilled, veteran union workers and replace them with unqualified operators. The constant flaring from the plant is one troubling sign that Marathon is endangering both its workforce and neighboring communities.

USW Local 5 is asking us to call Cal/OSHA at (925) 602-2665 to request a safety inspection of Marathon’s Concord refinery. Support for strikers and their families would also be of help. Please send donations the strike fund c/o USW Local 5, PO Box 349, Martinez, CA 94553-0034.

In November 2023, USW member Jerome Serrano was engulfed in a furnace fire at Marathon’s Martinez facility, suffering third-degree burns over 80% of his body. Safe workplaces require empowered workers, and right now over 100 of Serrano’s coworkers are striking because Marathon still won’t bargain in good faith after several fruitless months of negotiations over contract renewal and safety conditions.

KQED reports that “after the fire, Contra Costa County commissioned a third-party assessmentthat gave Martinez Renewables an overall “safety culture” rating of 65% — below industry benchmarks. The report identified understaffing as a key issue both during the interviews and in on-site observation days.” USW has been charging understaffing and poor safety conditions ever since the refinery converted to renewable diesel production in 2023.

From Eric Simpson’s report in The Militant:

Marathon claims the plant isn’t covered by the terms of the National Oil Bargaining Program because it doesn’t refine petroleum, but waste vegetable oils and tallow. This creates a fuel functionally identical to petroleum-derived diesel. Marathon bosses’ goal is to chisel out concessions not included in the national pattern. Known as Martinez Renewables, this is one of the largest renewable fuel refineries in the world, owned jointly with the Finnish company Neste.

Marathon also claims safety rules covering petrochemical refineries don’t apply here. The union says the national pattern should be implemented.

Marathon runs the operation understaffed, piling overtime on top of four 12-hour shifts, pushing workers to the point of fatigue. “Instead of hiring people and making it fair for everybody, and giving us the amount of people we need, they just want more out of us,” striker Greg Belcher told KQED radio on the picket line April 28.

The company is pushing to change the overtime rules to their advantage, Criff Reyes, a wastewater head operator and Marathon Local 5 union chair, told the Militant May 1. They want to save money by holding workers over whenever a ship pulls up to be off-loaded, rather than calling in a new crew. Striker Marwin Reyes, Criff’s brother, said, “We want any overtime after the 12-hour workday to be by choice, not mandatory. People have family, loved ones and responsibilities.”

“We do dangerous work,” Local 5 President Nick Plurkowski told a crowd of unionists at a rally in downtown here May 1. “We are fighting for safety.”

When the plant was being brought into production in 2023, a process preheater caught fire and temperatures climbed to 1,710 degrees Fahrenheit. Operator Jerome Serrano was engulfed in flames as he attempted to shut down the heater. Doctors gave him a 10% chance to survive and he spent seven months in a hospital burn unit. He lost fingers, an eye and his mobility, but has survived and is rehabilitating.

“Marathon says we don’t belong in the NOBP because we are not in fossil fuels. Do you think Jerome Serrano cares about the difference between being burned by corn oil or crude oil?” Criff Reyes said on the picket line May 1.

******

Help support the picket line on Solidarity Mondays starting at 5:30 PM, or whenever you can. The strike line is up 24/7 at the intersection of Solano Way and Arnold Industrial Way in Concord—or 1590 Solano Way.

Send contributions to the strike fund to USW Local 5, PO Box 349, Martinez, CA 94553-0034. … See MoreSee Less

United Public Workers for Action

2 days ago

Trump's Fascist Tactics Target Immigration Lawyers
Immigration attorney stopped and searched at SFO, told by DHS he was on ‘watch list’
www.sfchronicle.com/us-world/article/immigration-attorney-detained-sfo-dhs-watchlist-22315192.php
By Ko Lyn Cheang, St. John Barned-Smith,
Staff Writers
June 24, 2026

Immigration attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker poses for a portrait in front of “A Mural of 67 Sueños” near 36th Avenue and International Boulevard in Oakland on Tuesday. De Bremaeker was detained and questioned at San Francisco International Airport on June 10 and learned the Trump administration allegedly placed him on a watch list.
Immigration attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker poses for a portrait in front of “A Mural of 67 Sueños” near 36th Avenue and International Boulevard in Oakland on Tuesday. De Bremaeker was detained and questioned at San Francisco International Airport on June 10 and learned the Trump administration allegedly placed him on a watch list.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Nikolas De Bremaeker began to suspect something wasn’t right when he couldn’t access the boarding pass on his phone for his flight from San Francisco to Boston on June 10.
After printing it out, he was waiting to go through security at San Francisco International Airport when a Transportation Security Administration supervisor pulled him aside and said he would need to undergo enhanced screening. The 38-year-old immigration attorney quickly turned off his phone’s fingerprint sensor so agents couldn’t access his client files.
Moments later, De Bremaeker was surrounded by a half-dozen TSA agents who he said were behaving “very tensely.” For 45 minutes, the agents pored through his belongings, turned on his two phones and laptops, and gave him “the most extreme pat-down,” he said.

When De Bremaeker asked why he was being subjected to such scrutiny, he said a TSA agent told him “it’s not random,” while another told him that he was on a “watch list” but didn’t provide any additional details. In December, De Bremaeker, a managing attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland, had helped win a first-in-the-nation ruling in a class action lawsuit barring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from illegally arresting immigrants at their court hearings.
His detention at SFO, which has not been previously reported, is an escalation of the Trump administration’s targeting of immigration lawyers that began with his March 2025 executive order calling for sanctions against attorneys and firms that violate laws, said attorney Andrew Fels, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of De Bremaeker regarding the alleged watch list. Fels said De Bremaeker was the first immigration attorney he’s aware of who was detained for a non-random secondary screening at an airport since Donald Trump took office.
Immigration attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker poses for a portrait at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland on Tuesday.
Immigration attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker poses for a portrait at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland on Tuesday.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
The situation raises questions about to what extent and how the federal government is surveilling and investigating attorneys who provide legal representation to immigrants that the administration has vowed to detain and deport.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees TSA as well as immigration enforcement, did not respond to a request for comment.
De Bremaeker was ultimately able to board his flight. He was not detained on the way back to San Francisco, but the experience prompted him to indefinitely postpone a trip to Belgium that he and his wife had been planning.
De Bremaeker’s ordeal came just a day after Fels, a staff attorney at San Diego-based nonprofit Al Otro Lado, filed a FOIA lawsuit on behalf of another immigration attorney who had first discovered a secret watch list of immigration attorneys by accident.
That attorney, Tennessee-based Arlene Armarante, was using ICE’s detention facility appointment website to schedule a visit with her client when she clicked on a page she hadn’t seen before, according to the lawsuit.
It was an alphabetical list, titled “watch list,” of thousands of immigration attorneys’ names and email addresses — including her own.
“If DHS has in fact constructed a watch list of civil immigration attorneys, then they’ve done so without any reasonable suspicion for having put them on a watch list as a prelude to apparently investigating them,” Fels said.
The watch list has disappeared from the ICE website, but the Chronicle reviewed screenshots of it that included buttons to apparently solicit information from criminal law enforcement agencies about the immigration attorneys, including the FBI, the Army Office of Special Investigations and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Fels said he does not know what criteria ICE used to place immigration attorneys on the watch list or if De Bremaeker is on it.
He noticed that it included many nonprofit, politically engaged and nonwhite attorneys, but also people who were not. Many on the list had no prior ethics violations or criminal charges, including the plaintiff, and were in good standing with their state bar association.
“It is already a deeply stressful time to work in immigration law, then to have this Sword of Damocles immigration watch list hanging over your head … which is why it’s so important for the government to just clarify what this watch list is,” Fels said.
Fels said the only person he’s aware of who’s on the watch list and has had a brush with the Department of Homeland Security is a Muslim immigration attorney from Michigan, who has had her checked baggage searched by TSA each of the four times she has flown in the past year.
The FOIA lawsuit said a secret government watch list of attorneys could conflict with constitutional values and strikes at the “independence of the bar.” It called for ICE to publish policies and staff instructions governing the watch list.
De Bremaeker doesn’t know why he was stopped at the airport. However, he has been a vocal and visible opponent of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
In February, he was profiled in one of the largest newspapers in his home country, De Morgen, where he compared Trump’s immigration crackdown to the actions of the Nazis in the 1940s, when Gestapo agents pulled his grandfather off a tram in Brussels.
Immigration attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker poses for a portrait at Taqueria San Jose in Oakland on Tuesday. Earlier this month, he was detained and questioned at San Francisco International Airport while trying to fly to Boston.
Immigration attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker poses for a portrait at Taqueria San Jose in Oakland on Tuesday. Earlier this month, he was detained and questioned at San Francisco International Airport while trying to fly to Boston.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Brian Hofer, a privacy advocate who serves as executive director of the organization Secure Justice, called the watch list “an egregious violation of both human and civil rights” that will have a “chilling effect.”
“Just to do your job as a lawyer, you need to have private communications,” Hofer said. “How can you do your job very well if you know you’re constantly being surveilled and profiled?”
Hofer said the Trump administration’s surveillance of immigration attorneys and immigrants is enabled by the vast data tracking systems created by both social media and local agencies, such as city license plate readers. ICE has long purchased location data from data brokers.
He has hosted training sessions for immigration attorneys and others on protecting data privacy, including by using encrypted apps and turning off advertising ID tracking on phones.
Trump’s March 2025 executive order stated, without citing evidence, that “rampant fraud and meritless claims have supplanted the constitutional and lawful bases upon which the President exercises core powers under Article II of the United States Constitution.”
Trump directed the attorney general to sanction immigration attorneys who engage in “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation,” including through removing security clearances, terminating contracts and disciplining them.
Immigration courts are unique in that they are nested under the executive branch, not the judiciary, unlike other civil and criminal courts that maintain a separation of powers. As such, although only the highest court of the state in which an attorney is licensed can disbar them from practicing in the state, the Department of Justice can disbar an immigration attorney from practicing before immigration courts.
To date, no attorneys have been criminally prosecuted in relation to this executive order. However, Andrew Nietor, a San Diego-based immigration attorney, said many are concerned that they are in the “crosshairs.”
“The administration is definitely pushing a narrative about immigration attorneys,” Nietor said. “To the extent they’re demonizing immigrants, they’ve also demonized immigration attorneys and advocates.”
He has organized trainings for immigration attorneys on how to avoid criminal prosecution under laws prohibiting the harboring and transportation of “unauthorized aliens” — undocumented immigrants.
Besides attorneys, volunteers who support immigrants have also been targeted by the federal government.
The first Trump administration tried unsuccessfully to prosecute a humanitarian aid volunteer for the organization No More Deaths, which works in the border desert regions, on felony charges of illegal harboring after he provided food, water and shelter to Central American migrants. He was acquitted.
Nietor also represented five volunteers in a separate case who were observing immigration court proceedings in San Diego when they were arrested, thrown out of the building, and charged with the petty offense of “failure to conform with signs and directions.”
Federal prosecutors dropped the case this month.
Though he acknowledged his experience at the airport spooked him, De Bremaeker said he doesn’t plan to back down.
“With what my grandfather went through, I don’t want that happening again,” De Bremaeker said. “I will do what it takes, and if the government wants to harass attorneys, I think that it’s unconstitutional and undemocratic and it’s harassment, but that’s not going to stop me from doing this work.”
June 24, 2026 … See MoreSee Less

Exclusive: Immigration attorney stopped and searched at SFO, told by DHS he was on ‘watch list’

www.sfchronicle.com

An advocate said the Oakland man may be the first immigration attorney to be detained for a non-random secondary screening at an airport since President Donald Trump took office.

United Public Workers for Action

3 days ago

Trump Gives Teamsters a Chance to Shed Oversight Meant to Curb Mob Ties
Sean M. O’Brien, re-elected to a second term leading the union, has used a relationship with President Trump to end court-ordered corruption monitoring.
www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/business/economy/teamsters-justice-sean-obrien.html?searchResultPositi…
Sean O'Brien wears a pin stripped blue suit and red patterned tie.
Sean M. O’Brien, the Teamsters president, was overwhelming re-elected to his second term at the union’s convention last week.Credit…Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
Rebecca Davis O’Brien.png
By Rebecca Davis O’Brien
Reporting from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ 31st convention in Las Vegas
June 23, 2026

Last winter, a lawyer representing the Teamsters union made a proposal to leaders at the Justice Department: After 35 years, the lawyer said, it was time for the government to stop monitoring the union.

The outreach, which has not previously been reported, was described by people who either participated in the discussions or were briefed on them, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations with the government. The talks paved the way for a motion filed last week by the Teamsters and federal prosecutors in Manhattan that would dismantle what remains of external disciplinary structures established in 1989 to rid the union of organized crime.

If approved by a federal judge, the proposal would be a major victory for Sean M. O’Brien, the Teamsters president, who has leveraged political connections and tough talk to assume outsize power in the union and in the Trump administration.

Last week, at the union’s convention in Las Vegas, Teamsters delegates voted so overwhelmingly in support of Mr. O’Brien’s nomination bid that he was re-elected on the spot to a second term. Mr. O’Brien, 54, is poised to begin his second term as Teamsters president with a clear mandate, a close hold on power and political influence, including the ear of President Trump.

In his profanity-laced acceptance speech to more than 1,700 Teamsters delegates, Mr. O’Brien celebrated the “militancy” that has defined his leadership. He demanded unity, “no more bullshit.” The union’s power flowed from the members up, he said, not the top down. But the chants of “five more years” made it clear who was in charge.

“I’ve got an alpha personality, there’s no doubt,” Mr. O’Brien said in an interview in Las Vegas. “But I do have a tremendous amount of integrity, I’ve always prided myself on doing what’s right for the organization.”

He said he viewed his re-election as proof that he had been “inclusive and transparent” with the union’s members, and the potential deal with the government as a testament not to his force but to his relationships, and to the Teamsters’ demonstrated ability to police itself.

“I mean, enough is enough,” Mr. O’Brien said of the new agreement. “The time was right.”

The prospect of Mr. O’Brien unbound worries some Teamsters and lawyers familiar with the union, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive legal matters or because they feared reprisal from union leadership. Even those who said Mr. O’Brien was an effective leader also said he could be a bully with little tolerance for dissent. And while many believe the union should police itself, they fear that without meaningful opposition or independent monitoring, Mr. O’Brien will run the union like an autocrat.

Last week, the day before the union and prosecutors filed their motion before a judge in Manhattan’s Southern District, more than 20 Teamsters filed their own letter in the case, expressing concern that Mr. O’Brien might undermine the independent investigation process.

“There are ongoing cases and investigations involving alleged improper dealings, including concerns regarding election-related conduct within our Union,” they wrote. “For that reason, there is significant need for the independent safeguards preserved under the Court-approved framework to remain in place and fully effective.”

Judge Loretta Preska, who has overseen the case for nearly a quarter-century, has not responded to the union’s request. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.

Mob ties

The outside monitoring of the Teamsters has its roots in a 1988 racketeering case brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. They found that organized crime had taken control of the union, engaging in mail fraud, embezzlement, bribery and murder. Union members were intimidated through violence and threats, while corrupt union officers enriched themselves.

In 1989, the Teamsters signed an agreement that barred members from engaging with organized criminal groups and established election procedures for the union. The agreement also established a court-appointed review board to investigate and prosecute claims of wrongdoing and to oversee disciplinary proceedings.

Union leaders and people involved with the case over the years agree that, by the late 90s, most of the mob influence had been rooted out. In 1999, James P. Hoffa, the union’s president, vowed to end the government’s supervision. But problems remained, and the government — specifically, the federal prosecutors, who were in a semi-adversarial position with the union — retained powers over union affairs.

In 2015, Judge Preska approved a new agreement called a final order that paved the way for the Teamsters to assume more responsibility for union elections, internal investigations and discipline. The union can appoint people to the three main roles in the setup: election supervisor, independent investigations officer and independent review officer.

Timothy S. Hillman, a retired federal judge from Massachusetts, was appointed in 2024 to serve as the elections supervisor. Barbara S. Jones, also a retired federal judge, has served as the independent review officer since 2016. Robert D. Luskin, a partner at the law firm Paul Hastings, was appointed as the independent investigations officer in 2021.

The independent investigations role has long agitated union leaders. Mr. Luskin and his team investigated claims of wrongdoing and makes recommendations to the Teamsters board, which can determine punishment.

The 2015 final order called for the Teamsters to create an internal investigative, disciplinary and audit apparatus. Under Mr. O’Brien, that office has taken shape under Frank Hughes, a former Massachusetts State Police officer.

People who have participated in Teamsters investigations and disciplinary proceedings said there was awkward and confusing overlap between the work of Mr. Luskin’s team and that of Mr. Hughes’s team. On a few occasions described to The New York Times by people involved in the investigations, witnesses would speak with somebody from the independent investigator’s office, only to be contacted days later by an internal Teamsters investigator.
Late last year, two Teamsters leaders — including a former international vice president on Mr. O’Brien’s election slate — resigned amid an investigation into their abuse of union funds, and each paid $50,000 in restitution. In February, Mr. Luskin filed a 150-page report detailing how the men had for years enriched themselves through embezzlement, abuse of the union credit card and shorting local union dues, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Luskin’s report chided the union’s executive board for letting the men off easy, an “unacceptable resolution” for their “egregious misconduct.”

When Mr. Luskin’s five-year term expired earlier this year, he was not renewed for another. Rather than appoint a new outside investigator, the Teamsters moved Judge Hillman into the role, in addition to his work as elections supervisor.
Image
Robert Luskin sits with his hand over his mouth looking ahead.
Robert D. Luskin in 2019. He served as the independent review officer from 2016 until earlier this year, when his term was not renewed.Credit…Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
The moves didn’t show up in any public activity on the docket in Judge Preska’s courtroom. A few weeks earlier, Brian T. Kelly, a lawyer working for the Teamsters, had asked Todd Blanche, then the deputy attorney general, to negotiate an end to the government’s oversight of the union, according to people involved in the case.

The matter was quickly in the hands of federal prosecutors in the Southern District, under the leadership of the U.S. attorney Jay Clayton. While some people involved in Teamsters oversight felt the move was too sudden, there was general agreement that the union should manage its own affairs, people familiar with the discussions said.

The new final order would close the independent investigator’s office on Dec. 31. The role of the independent review officer, still held by Judge Jones, would end in three years. Judge Jones would still have the authority to review some Teamsters disciplinary decisions. She would also continue to review the practices of the union’s internal investigative structure.

Expanded powers

Mr. O’Brien’s re-election marks the first time since the new election structure began in 1992 that an opposition slate of candidates failed to meet the 5 percent vote threshold at the convention to challenge an incumbent.

Earlier this year, a member of the opposition slate filed a complaint against Mr. O’Brien with the union’s election supervisor, saying Mr. O’Brien had violated campaign finance rules by discussing the election, including attacking his opponents, on his podcast, “Better Bad Ideas.”

The episodes involve a lot of profanity. Among the printable things he and his guests say about their opponents are that they are “clowns” and “losers” and “no good.”

The election supervisor ordered Mr. O’Brien to remove the offending episodes from streaming platforms and disclose some sponsorship payments, among other measures.

Mr. O’Brien was elected president of the Teamsters in 2021. He captured national attention in 2022, when he nearly got into a fistfight with Markwayne Mullin, then a Republican senator from Oklahoma, during a labor committee hearing. While Mr. O’Brien made public appearances with Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, he soon made overtures to Republicans, including Mr. Trump.

He spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention, praising Mr. Trump before railing against corporate greed. He has said he was denied a spot at the Democratic National Convention but that he would have given the same speech. That fall, the Teamsters did not endorse a candidate, a blow to the Democrats.
Image
Sean O'Brien speaks on stage in front of an audience with a large screen of his face projected behind him.
Mr. O’Brien speaking at the Republican National Convention in July 2024. He has said he was denied a spot at the Democratic National Convention.Credit…Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Since then, Mr. O’Brien — and, he says, the Teamsters — have benefited from his access to Mr. Trump, including meetings at the White House. After the 2024 election, he urged Mr. Trump to nominate Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a one-term Republican congresswoman from Oregon and labor ally, to run the Labor Department. She resigned under pressure earlier this year, amid investigations into her abuse of office.

Mr. O’Brien said he had spoken with Mr. Trump on matters such as transportation projects and labor legislation, including a bill passed by the Senate with bipartisan approval earlier this month that would expedite collective bargaining agreements.

“From the Teamsters’ perspective, having a relationship with Trump is extremely important,” Mr. O’Brien said.

With the midterms approaching and 2028 presidential hopefuls starting to test the waters, Democrats and Republicans alike continue to seek the Teamsters’ favor. Representative Ro Khanna of California and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, both Democrats, and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, spoke at the convention in Las Vegas.

Mr. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, has been a critic of the concentration of power and wealth in Big Tech, a particular bugaboo for Mr. O’Brien. He received a standing ovation in Las Vegas, and opened with a joke about Mr. O’Brien’s resounding victory. “Ninety percent! Those are Putin numbers!” There was some halting laughter.

In fact, Mr. O’Brien secured 96 percent of the vote.

William K. Rashbaumcontributed reporting.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien covers labor and the work force for The Times. … See MoreSee Less

Trump Gives Teamsters a Chance to Shed Oversight Meant to Curb Mob Ties

www.nytimes.com

Sean M. O’Brien, re-elected to a second term leading the union, has used a relationship with President Trump to end court-ordered corruption monitoring.

United Public Workers for Action

3 days ago

San José State Professor Fired Over Campus Gaza Protests to Win Back Job

www.kqed.org/news/12088425/san-jose-state-professor-fired-over-campus-gaza-protests-to-win-back-j…

San José State Professor Fired Over Campus Gaza Protests to Win Back Job
Sang Hea Kil is one of the first full-time, tenured professors to be fired from a public U.S. university in connection with the protests.
Jun 23, 2026
Updated 9:04 am PT
Sara HossainiElize Manoukian

240125-SFSUStrike-08-BL_qut.jpg
Sang Hea Kil, San Jose State University professor and co-chair of the California Faculty Association's Palestine, Arab and Muslim Caucus, cheers during a rally at SFSU in San Francisco on Jan. 25, 2024, urging a no vote on the tentative deal that ended the California State University faculty strike. Professor Sang Hea Kil will be reinstated to her post with full back pay after an arbitrator ruled her firing over her role in campus pro-Palestinian protests was excessive. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
San José State University must reinstate Sang Hea Kil, a professor fired for actions related to pro-Palestinian activism, with full back pay after an arbitrator on Monday decided the school went too far with its sanctions.

The move ends a two-year institutional standoff and represents a significant win for Kil and her advocates.

Contrary to the recommendation of a faculty panel, SJSU fired Kil late last year, citing her involvement in three on-campus demonstrations spanning the spring of 2024, when student activism over the war in Gaza gripped university campuses nationwide.

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Kil, the former faculty adviser for Students for Justice in Palestine, is one of the first tenured professors fired from a public U.S. university over on-campus demonstrations in connection with the recent protests.

“I feel what happened to me was to silence any pro-Palestinian solidarity in academia and also in this nation,” Kil told KQED on Monday. “I fought as hard as I possibly can with the support and solidarity of my colleagues and social justice groups. We won, and it’s a victory for academic freedom on campus and pro-Palestine speech.”

The university declined to comment, citing “ongoing personnel matters.”

260622-SJSU-Gaza-02-KQED.jpg
Sang Hea Kil at a protest at SJSU in February 2024. (Courtesy of Sang Hea Kil)
Ultimately, the arbitrator stated that while the California State University system was able to meet the burden of proving that Kil engaged in unprofessional conduct, it could not prove a failure or refusal to perform her job duties as a professor.

Moreover, the third-party review concluded that dismissal was an “excessive and disproportionate” sanction.

“To determine a proportionate sanction for such misconduct, the surrounding circumstances, the harm that resulted, and the likelihood of recurrence must be considered,” arbitrator Howard Pearlman wrote.

According to faculty review documents and arbitration hearing records obtained by KQED, the case against Kil began in February 2024, when she planned to attend a public guest lecture by Jeffrey Blutinger, director of the Jewish Studies program at Cal State University Long Beach, on a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.

Aware that some pro-Palestinian students were organizing to protest the event, university administrators, faculty organizers and campus police testified that they had moved the talk to a private classroom less than an hour before the event.

Kil testified that she and several dozen demonstrators who showed up at the library eventually learned of the new location and made their way to the classroom hallway, still unaware that the lecture was no longer public. She said when they were denied entry at the door, the group sat, chanted and stomped.

In April, school officials notified Kil that she was under investigation for allegedly violating school rules around professional responsibility and time, place and manner — policies that govern where and how sanctioned campus protests can take place.

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The following month, the university expanded its probe and placed Kil on paid administrative leave for “directing and encouraging” students to join encampments and violate university policies — which Kil and her representation disputed.

After more than a year of suspension, SJSU fired Kil, who then opted for her right to appeal via a panel of her peers to publicly review the university’s case against her — a rarely invoked step. The faculty panel recommended no further sanction beyond the yearlong suspension Kil had already completed.

In late 2025, the university upheld her termination anyway.

According to SJSU’s agreement with its faculty’s union, a five-day arbitration hearing would be Kil’s final chance to appeal her firing. During those March 2026 proceedings, CSU lawyers justified the dismissal by emphasizing the “totality” of her alleged unprofessional conduct and refusal to perform her duties as a professor during the spring events.

Top administrators argued that Kil’s “lack of remorse” indicated a lack of “rehabilitative potential” — something Pearlman told lawyers he “had a hard time believing” given her 17-year employment and clean record. In 2018, the Justice Studies professor earned the College of Health and Human Sciences Department’s lifetime achievement award.

Kil, a self-described “scholar-activist,” and her union representatives alleged that university administrators bypassed standard disciplinary procedure and terminated her.

Tower Hall at San José State University on April 3, 2025. (Gina Castro/KQED)
Her team also argued her punishment was unfair, given examples of other professors who’d received lighter discipline for more serious conduct.

Henry Reichman, California State University, East Bay professor emeritus and academic freedom expert, testified that the “worst thing [Kil] did was engage in noisemaking that was already happening.” He went on to offer a blistering rebuke of the school’s disregard for progressive discipline and tenure, which he said would have a chilling effect on academic freedom and free speech throughout the CSU system.

Though Kil said she’s excited to return to the classroom after two years away, she’s worried for her safety. She said she’s faced backlash, describing hateful graffiti threatening violence against Asians, Jews and Muslims scrawled on her office building.

“People who have been targeted for anti-genocide or pro-Palestine speech, once they’ve been fired, they’re blacklisted,” she said. “If they had won, I would never have gotten an academic job in the U.S.A. ever again.” … See MoreSee Less

San José State Professor Fired Over Campus Gaza Protests to Win Back Job | KQED

www.kqed.org

Sang Hea Kil is one of the first full-time, tenured professors to be fired from a public U.S. university in connection with the protests.

United Public Workers for Action

3 days ago

National Education Association hit with federal antisemitism investigation
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jun/22/national-education-association-hit-federal-antisemitism-…
National Education Association President Becky Pringle testifies during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on gun violence on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 8, 2022. (AP Photo_Andrew Harnik, Pool) **FILE**.jpeg
National Education Association President Becky Pringle testifies during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on gun violence on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 8, 2022.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has begun an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the National Education Association, part of the Trump administration’s ongoing battle against rising anti-Jewish hostility on the left.
The Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism said the federal probe comes in response to its charge filed last month accusing the nation’s largest teachers’ union of perpetuating “hostile environments for Jewish members” that have seeped into the classroom.
“At a time when anti-Semitism in schools has reached an all-time high, the charge asserts that the NEA has perpetuated hostile environments for Jewish members in the union, in the NEA’s state and local affiliates, and in the workplace, resulting in the spread of anti-Semitism throughout K-12 public schools,” the center said Monday in a statement.
An EEOC spokesperson said the agency cannot comment on whether an investigation is underway.
“Under federal law, both charges filed with, and charge inquiries made to, the EEOC are confidential,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The EEOC can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any charge or charge inquiry.”
The complaint filed with the agency listed incidents from last year, such as the NEA distributing a map that labeled Israel as “Palestine” and issuing a handbook that made no mention of Jews in its description of the victims of the Holocaust.
The NEA revised the handbook to include a reference to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust and removed the map after a public backlash. Still, the union’s 2025 Representative Assembly offered proof that the episodes were more than isolated mistakes.
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At the gathering in Portland, Oregon, Jewish delegates were swarmed by pro-Palestinian members when they tried to speak on the floor on topics related to antisemitism and Israel, such as a proposal to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League.

“I watched as delegates, lined up wearing keffiyehs, donned in Palestinian flags, and sporting shirts accusing Jews of genocide — ready, coordinated, and rehearsed to speak against anything remotely Jewish,” a California teacher said in a July 12 email to the NEA. “These were not spontaneous remarks. They were strategic efforts to erase and vilify. It was a preplanned coordinated attack to demonize, vilify and make Jews feel unsafe.”
NEA President Becky Pringle has repeatedly denied allegations of antisemitism, insisting after the assembly that the union is “deeply committed to ensuring the safety and inclusion of Jewish educators and students.”
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce and Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, have also opened investigations into alleged antisemitism at the NEA.
Brandeis CEO Kenneth Marcus, who served as the Department of Education’s assistant secretary for civil rights under the first Trump administration, praised the EEOC for its “quick response and firm commitment to enforcing Title VII.”
“The promptness of the EEOC’s response to our complaint reflects the high degree of attention and professionalism that we have been seeing, under the tenure of Chair Andrea Lucas, at that agency,” he said Monday in a statement. “We are actively working with EEOC investigators to provide relevant documents, witness information, and other evidence supporting our clients’ allegations of pervasive antisemitism within the NEA.”

The center said it has provided documents, witness statements and other information to EEOC staff at the Washington field office conducting the investigation.
“No employee or union member should be excluded, intimidated, harassed, discriminated against, or denied opportunities because of their Jewish identity,” Mr. Marcus said. “That’s why our goal is not merely to end antisemitic discrimination and harassment at the NEA but also to ensure an equal playing field for members of all races, religions, and national origins.”
The Washington Times has reached out to the NEA for comment.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans government, labor and educational institutions from discriminating in employment based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin or ancestry, which includes Jewish heritage.

The NEA’s 2026 Representative Assembly is scheduled for July 4-7 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.
• Sean Salai contributed to this report. … See MoreSee Less

National Education Association hit with federal antisemitism investigation

www.washingtontimes.com

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has begun an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the National Education Association, part of the Trump administration’s ongoing battle again…

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4 days ago

Privatizing Corrupt SF Mayor Lurie Gets Vote To Privatize Planning Department
sfstandard.com/2026/06/18/lurie-opengov-permitting-software-deal/
SF Commission greenlights Lurie’s controversial permitting software deal
The Civil Service Commission voted 4-1 to keep Lurie’s OpenGov contract alive — but with conditions. City workers and their union aren’t satisfied.
A man in a suit and blue tie smiles warmly, with two blurred people behind him also smiling in a casual setting.
Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Permit SF was cleared by the Civil Service Commission | Source: Giselle Garza Lerma/SF Chronicle/Getty Images
By Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez and Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler
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Published Jun. 18, 2026at6:16pm
A city commission on Thursday cleared a key hurdle for Mayor Daniel Lurie‘s beleaguered permitting overhaul, voting 4-1 to allow San Francisco to continue its lucrative — and controversial — contract with software firm OpenGov.
The Civil Service Commission’s vote authorizes the city to contract out IT work to OpenGov, the SF-based tech firm that Lurie’s office hired last summer to modernize the city’s outdated permitting system, bypassing a competitive bid process and sparking allegations of favoritism.
The approval came after a grueling two-hour meeting, during which the Planning Department leadership defended its admittedly rough implementation of the new permitting software. Meanwhile, city IT employees, represented by the union IFPTE Local 21, attacked the software as riddled with security holes and called it a “black box” the city could neither improve nor modify.
The Civil Service Commission cleared the path for OpenGov, but with strings attached: City leaders agreed to include a labor intermediary in the program to ensure worker protection and remain in talks with IFPTE Local 21 to smooth the software’s implementation. The Planning Department must report back to the commission every six months.
The commissioners’ decision knocks down a key roadblock in the way of Lurie’s $6.5 million contract for professional services with OpenGov. The city is planning to spend an additional $22 million in OpenGov licensing fees over the next five years, with the option of a one-year extension. The OpenGov contract is still subject to a vote by the Board of Supervisors.
Commissioner Adam Wood cast the lone dissenting vote. He said the implementation of OpenGov was obviously “half-baked” and “rushed.”
The commission’s vote comes on the heels of an investigation by The Standard, published last month, into the contract. Multiple former OpenGov employees and current city workers said the company knew it would not meet benchmarks laid out by the mayor’s office and that the software is missing key features.
Lurie is betting heavily on OpenGov’s implementation — it’s the centerpiece of his PermitSF plan to revitalize San Francisco’s archaic way of processing the public’s paperwork.
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In the meeting, Sarah Dennis Phillips, the executive director of the Planning Department, told the Civil Service Commission that the transition to OpenGov isn’t just crucial to meeting the city’s goals of accelerating housing permit approvals; it’s also part of building the city’s tax base.
“We’re midstream in our economic recovery,” Phillips said. “We don’t want permits to hold up our jobs or small businesses.”
Roughly a dozen union members showed up to the meeting with signs that read, “Protect public services. No contracting out.”
Lurie’s office referred The Standard to Office of Small Business spokesperson Michelle Reynolds for comment.
“We are looking forward to continuing the vital work to modernize San Francisco’s permitting, in close partnership with city staff whose hard work every day makes it possible,” Reynolds said. We’ve made strong progress and the Civil Service Commission’s approval is an important step towards even more.”
That staff was less than happy with OpenGov’s software. IFPTE staff representative Emily Wallace alleged in the meeting that San Franciscans’ data may be left vulnerable. In the meeting, she said the software’s framework reached “end of life” in 2022, raising security issues.
Wallace alleged that city workers who spoke out against PermitSF in meetings — where feedback was solicited — were pulled off the work in retaliation, causing a “chilling effect” on staff.
“They were told ‘you have too much information, and it threatens to undermine what we are trying to do,’” Wallace claimed. “They were moved.”
Planning Department leadership defended their personnel assignments, saying the task of assigning them was complex and ongoing.
Last month, ex-SF Planning employee Michael Christensen allegedintimidation by project leaders’ objections to OpenGov’s implementation and said that Liz Watty, one of the managers of PermitSF, asked him to report colleagues who spoke critically of the project. The city denied Christensen’s claims.
Lurie began PermitSF in February 2025 and chose OpenGov as the software to lead that effort later that summer. The mayor’s office did not seek a competing bid for the technology, and city staff had preferred another company over OpenGov, raising issues with its apparent lack of features and high cost. A $5.9 million deal was signed with OpenGov in October.
Lurie also has connections to OpenGov: The company’s founders donated tens of thousands of dollars to his former nonprofit, Tipping Point Community. Katherine August-deWilde, a major donor to Tipping Point who leads one of the mayor’s business groups, Partnership for San Francisco, was an adviser to OpenGov when the city signed the deal with the company. Lurie and his family also held investments in OpenGov through a firm headed by another Tipping Point donor.
In response to the revelations, Supervisor Jackie Fielder called for aninvestigation into how OpenGov was chosen. The report(opens in new tab) found the OpenGov selection process “did not violate city requirements,” although it could not be assured that an unfair advantage was not given to bidders for the permit reform contract, because a lack of transparency made it hard to tell.
The mayor’s office has denied any favoritism in the deal and claimed that OpenGov was the only software company capable of meeting its aggressive implementation deadlines. Lurie had given the city until February 2026 to create a new, OpenGov-powered software.
But the city has not met its deadlines. The city’s contract with OpenGov promised 15 permit types by March. By last month, less than half were available on the new PermitSF platform.
In the meeting, Civil Service Commissioner Vitus Leung pressed the Planning Department on OpenGov’s myriad delays. Watty denied OpenGov had any culpability.
“The delays are not due to the vendor,” she said. “The delays are due to the city.” … See MoreSee Less

SF commission clears path for Lurie’s controversial OpenGov contract

sfstandard.com

The Civil Service Commission voted 4-1 to keep Lurie’s OpenGov contract alive — but with conditions. City workers and their union aren’t satisfied.