“claiming he yelled racial slurs”
(For anyone who doesn’t want to click through.)
Something interesting is happening here:
Ford tries to work the refs.
Democratic lawmakers also have nearly twice the number of staff, on average, than their Republican colleagues: 11 employees compared to 6. From last December through this May, Democrats also spent more per employee than Republicans.
The disparity is structural — Republicans, as the minority party, don’t get the financial benefits like committee chairships that come with Capitol leadership. It reflects their diminished stature in a state where Democrats have long had an ironclad grip on every office and branch of state government.
The GOP isn’t anticipating a return to power in the Capitol anytime soon. But some hope a staff unionization push could ease some of the pain of being constantly stuck on the margins.
“Republican staff are significantly underpaid,” said Andrew Mendoza, legislative director to Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a GOP member whose district includes an expanse of the Mojave Desert. “It is unsustainable and many of us make a lot of personal sacrifices for our jobs.”
This July 2023 interview with one of the WGA strike leaders, David Simon (The Wire, Treme), taught me a few things.
Transcript and audio at the link.
…
LEVITT: Makes sense. Okay, so there have been a series of three-year contracts that are called the minimum basic agreement, and that’s what the bargaining is over. What are the main issues that are covered by this minimum basic agreement?SIMON: Again, the end to term employment. The idea that they’re trying to minimize term employment. They’re not putting protections in there, while at the same time, they’ve broken it. They’ve actually destroyed the writer’s ability to assure a living wage over time. If you’re a writer in television, you used to be able to get hired by a show and know that you were going to be working for 20 weeks. You could then sustain the fact that maybe 30 other weeks you were working on a freelance piece or hoping another show would go, or looking for another gig. Twenty weeks would at least get you enough to pay your mortgage and to qualify you for medical and get some pension. Now you might get on, they might give you two weeks of a miniroom at the beginning of the show, meaning, “Hey, break a bunch of stories for us in the beginning, but then no more writer’s room. Don’t keep going.” And then maybe you get handed a script, maybe you don’t. There’s some people who have been invited to minirooms and they’ve poured out their ideas and then they haven’t been hired for the show when the show got a script order. It’s as cynical as that. What used to be, “I can guarantee myself I’m going to make 60, 80, 100 thousand this year and qualify for my medical.” Now suddenly, I managed to pull one half of a script fee. Here it is July, and I may not qualify for medical next year because I managed to pull one half of a script and they’re not paying any term employment. So this salvaging and sustaining and improving term employment is issue number one in our fight. And their chief negotiator shrugged her shoulders and said, “You guys are lucky to have any term employment.” That’s a quote, that’s the direct quote.
…
Another set of victims of failed metaverse ambitions
AAA game development struggling within most game companies, Bandcamp investment not paying off as much as they expected (so that’s also bad news for indie musicians/artists too) so that’s being sold off and the Fortnite creator project that they branded as their metaverse not being as profitable as the top brass hoped.
I’m honestly surprised they’re increasing prices of V-bucks. If they just raised the cost of items in game, it’d also get the people that have it stashed.
Cross-post in Good and Encouraging Stuff
Bay Area Subway franchisee fined $1 million, ordered to sell businesses after wage theft investigation
The actions follow a Press Democrat investigation that revealed a long trail of workplace abuses by John Meza and his wife, Jessica Meza.
When I think about all the companies I’ve worked for who committed wage theft or fired me unjustly – or even threatened to fire me – it’s infuriating to know how short the window is to file a complaint. Most young people have been purposefully kept in the dark about their rights – not even by some shadowy cabal of employers, but by the general attitude of many employers that “this is how you do business” as a general rule. They bank on young/migrant folks’ ignorance. 
