This is Part ll of Prevailing Wage Scams Between State DIR and Unions. Part l is HERE

Janitorial company owner Jeff Baron is in trouble with the state of California because large general contractors who hire him as a subcontractor charge the state the union prevailing wage rate of $48.50 per hour in their bids on public works projects, but then refuse to pay him that rate. Taxpayers are on the hook for paying $48.50 per hour for janitors on public works projects, but in reality, subcontractors like Baron’s janitorial clean up company, are only paid the going rate of $10 to $15 per hour, and the general contractors pocket the rest.

Some say the Riverside District Attorney is going after Baron Services because it’s easier to go after small subcontractors — low-hanging fruit.

The Destroyer

In the middle of all of Jeff Baron’s troubles is… Read More

A San Bernardino janitorial contractor has always paid his employees union-approved wages. But he has been kicked off public works job sites for so-called prevailing wage violations for five years now. The kicker?

Three years ago I asked, “In what strange world do janitors get paid $45 per hour? In California, the land of the prevailing wage.” The answer today is still the same, only I will add, “In labor union-run California….” And today this janitorial prevailing wage rate is up to $48.50 per hour.

The strange and tragic case of Jeff Baron, proprietor of Baron Services, a janitorial service specializing in final clean up of big construction projects, is not complex – in fact, it’s crystal clear what’s going on. But it has become convoluted.

Another Corrupted State Agency

The crux of the issue is there is noDepartment of Industrial Relationsprevailing wage classification for this specific type of construction clean up janitorial work. Baron explained that the going rate in the private sector for a basic janitorial job is between $10 and $15 per hour. But the… Read More

The United Farm Workers labor union just received advertising and public relations help, thanks to several pro-UFW stories published in the Sacramento Bee last weekend.

Sept. 24, Kerry Kennedy wrote about her father Robert Kennedy’s involvement with Cesar Chavez in the 1960’s. Sept. 26, the Bee ran a story about the 50thanniversary of the UFW’s grape strike in Delano, CA. Rounding out the pro-UFW public relations and marketing campaign was a story on Sept. 27 about Phil Serna, son of late former Mayor of SacramentoJoe Serna Jr., who was also aUFW organizer.

This interestingly timed PR move comes on the heels of the order to destroy farm worker’s ballots from the 2013 labor union decertification election, rather than allow them counted,by Administrative Law Judge Mark Soble, employed by the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Thousands of farm workers in California must now abide by an unwanted unionization deal struck decades ago and never ratified or enforced. The workers’ votewas expected to… Read More

In the early 1970’s, the Environmental Protection Agency forced automakers to cut emissions. And the cars were awful. I remember a 1972 Chevy Caprice station wagon, 140 horsepower, 4300 lbs. Chevy claimed the horsepower was 160 – even at that, it was still grossly underpowered.

Prior to the EPA, that particular engine was rated at 250 horsepower. The EPA took 40 percent of the engine capacity away. When you’re pushing a 4300 lb car with only 140 horsepower, the gas mileage is terrible. Cars didn’t run well. They were unreliable. The only thing that saved the car industry was fuel injection – something Porsche, Mercedes and BMW were already moving to.

Car manufacturers were lying then, and they’ve been forced to lie again.

Chapman University’s Center for Demographics and Policy just published a new study, which verified California’s 2011 Greenhouse Gas Emissions were just one percent of emissions worldwide. According to the study, even if California’s emissions dropped to zero from now until 2050, which is the year Brown there would be no significant effect on the environment because of greenhouse gases generated by developing nations… Read More

Former Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach won his Senate race in March, and already has become a standout. Now-Senator John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, has waged challenges to Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown’s May Budget revise, minimum wage hikes, Democrats’ lack of fiscal restraint and perpetual overspending.

Moorlach, eloquently, but authoritatively, has become the Legislature’s outspoken expert on California’s Department of Transportation’s 3500 unneeded engineers and gross careless spending, while the governor simultaneously asked taxpayers to foot the bill for even more transportation taxes.

In 1994,… Read More

How would parents react if they knew their kids were attending community college with convicted violent criminals and gang members?

This is today’s reality and a result of Assembly Bill 109, passed in 2011, and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown.

There are 55 known street gangs in Sacramento, CA. Two of these gangs clashed at Sacramento City College Sept. 3, leaving one man dead, two others seriously injured, and a college campus in fear.

But the recent… Read More

When it comes to carrying out the death penalty for convicted murders, the California Legislature finds the lethal drug cocktails “cruel and unusual punishment,” which they say is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Yet lawmakers were more than willing to approve a lethal drug cocktail to allow sick people to kill themselves.

After months of contentious and difficult wrangling, the California Legislature has finally passed the controversial physician assisted suicide bill, which now awaits Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature or veto. But many argue that passage of legalized physician-assisted suicide would provide perverse incentives for insurance carriers to choose the… Read More

In 2003, an Agricultural Labor Relations Board administrative judge identified Jessica Arciniega as “UFW staff member” at its Oxnard office. ALRB administrative law judge Nancy Smith even called her a “union agent.”

Today, Arciniega is one of the ALRB’s top staff attorneys. And with the recent shakeups in the ALRB general counsel’s office that resulted in the sackings and sudden resignations of top lawyers, people are wondering why Arciniega remains on the job.

The lawyer has come a long way since getting her law degree as an “apprentice” of longtime UFW lawyer Barbara Macri-Ortiz, who in fact calls Arciniega “my apprentice.”

State law requires all ALRB personnel to be worker advocates with no partiality for or against either employers or unions. Arciniega is anything but objective. Her title at the UFW was “lead organizer.” The Militant, published by the Socialist Workers Party, reports Arciniega being a UFW boycott leader as far back as 2000.

In Oxnard more than a decade ago, the Los Angeles Times profiled Arciniega under the headline, “… Read More