A number of reactionary and anti-worker propositions are on the California statewide and San Francisco ballots for the Nov. 2 election. As is typical for California politics, the campaigns for these propositions have been given progressive sounding titles while being funded by big oil, banking and other corporate interests.
The prime example is state Prop. 23, the so-called “California Jobs Initiative.” It would suspend a state law calling for the rollback of greenhouse gas emissions by major polluters to the 1990 level by the year 2020. Prop. 23 would suspend the law until California’s state unemployment rate drops below 5.5 percent and stays there for a full year. California’s current unemployment rate, one of the highest in the country, is over 12 percent.
There is not the slightest reason to believe that Prop. 23 would produce any new jobs. On the contrary, its passage would lead to the loss of thousands of jobs in the alternative energy and pollution control industries. What it would produce is billions of dollars in additional profits for the oil, petro-chemical and other capitalists who are the biggest polluters.
So it is no surprise that the big funders behind a massive and deceptive pro-Prop. 23 TV ad campaign are the giant oil monopolies.
Many of the same big business interests are funding the campaign against Prop. 24, which would eliminate a modest number of corporate tax breaks, again in the name of “protecting jobs.”
In San Francisco, corporate and commercial business interests are behind Propositions B, G and L. Prop. B, placed on the ballot by current Public Defender and mayoral aspirant Jeff Adachi, calls for “pension reform” for city workers. In reality, this “reform” would mean sharp increases in what city workers would have to contribute to their health care and pensions.
Prop. G, spearheaded by anti-worker Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, is an undisguised attack on the MUNI public transit workers of Transport Workers Union, Local 250A. While the head of the S.F. Municipal Transit Agency, Nathaniel Ford, makes over $350,000 and many other SFMTA managers make over $150,000, reactionary politicians, the corporate media and some “civic” groups have directed their fire exclusively against the MUNI workers.
The MORE (MUNI Operators and Riders Expanding) Public Transit Coalition, which includes TWU 250A, POWER, Senior Action Network and the ANSWER Coalition, has been waging a vigorous campaign against Prop. G. The MORE coalition demands “Chop from the Top,” to solve the city’s budget crisis and rejects the attempts to make working people bear the brunt.
Prop. L calls for making it a crime to sit or lie on city sidewalks. Its main support comes from shop owners, particularly in the increasingly gentrified parts of the city. Rather than targeting the real source of increasing homelessness and unemployment in this city of great wealth, the backers of Prop. L want to target and criminalize the victims of the system.
Two progressive propositions related to voting are on the SF ballot. Prop. D calls for allowing parents or legal guardians of students to vote in school board elections regardless of immigration status. Prop. E would allow voter registration for municipal elections up to and including election day.
