Genevieve Shiroma, long time member of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, as well as a board member for the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, is the subject of a legal brief to disqualify her from the ALRB for bias and conflicts of interest.

How could the SMUD board and the Ag labor board be tied together in a conflict?

ALRB board member Shiroma hired UFW lobbyist Richie Ross for her personal campaign the same year he successfully lobbied passage of the ALRB’s California Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation Statute. The MMC law empowers the board to write and force contracts on employers and workers.

In September 2002, then-Gov. Gray Davis signed into law SB 1156 and AB 2596, the first major amendments to the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. The MMC law would compel Gerawan and its workers into a state-imposed “contract” that would saddle the employees with the UFW as their exclusive representative.

The UFW won an election to represent Gerawan Farming’s workers 25 years ago. But after only one bargaining session, the union disappeared and wasn’t… Read More

California state budgets no longer require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to be passed, butthere are still budget games, deals and hinky promises that happen in the process.. However, tax increases do still require two-thirds vote.

This year, Gov. Jerry Brown had proposed tax increases – a gas tax hike, a road tax for miles driven, a car registration hike, and a health plan tax… to name a few.

In order to get these tax increases approved, Brown and his administration use arm-twisting and extortive tactics on lawmakers who show resistance.

In… Read More

Regardless what a punk Carolina Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton may or may not be, the ugly news that he will owe $137,900 in taxes — for losing the Super Bowl – shouldn’t be the thanks he gets.

The thanks is courtesy of California’s highest-in-the-nation tax rate of 13.3 percent, known as the “jock tax” – the nonresident income taxes that states and cities enforce on athletes performing in their jurisdictions.

As Kurt Bedenhausen explained in Forbes last week, “Newton will pay California 86.3% of his Super Bowl earnings if the Panthers win. Losing means his effective tax rate will be a whopping 172.2%. Oh yeah, he will also pay the IRS 40.5% on his… Read More

“If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

~Ronald Reagan

Despite California’s highest-in-the-nation taxes, a couple of Assembly Republicans have allegedly agreed to vote for Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax on health plans in the State of California.

Even if Brown is able to convince health insurers, he needs a two-thirds majority vote from the Legislature. And this is where Republican votes come in. Currently, Democrats do not have a supermajority, and need to peel off a couple of Republican votes for tax increases.

Predictably, Brown has been trying to convince Republicans his health plan tax is really “tax reform.”

“This is not a tax increase, no matter what anyone tells you,” he said during his State of the State address.

“It will be pretty easy to tell if this is a tax increase, or some sort of revenue neutral swapping of one tax for another,” said Jon Fleischman, publisher of the Flash… Read More

There’s more good news for Gerawan Farming! Superior CourtJudge Timothy Frawley finds that the Agricultural Labor Relations Board IS subject to the California Public Records Act.

For several yearsI’ve been writing about Gerawan Farming in Fresno, and the company’s gutsy refusal to cave under the pressure of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board’s denial of farmworkers’ rights to vote for or against unionization.

Gerawan recently was granted a significant win by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley, who agreed to the Gerawan’s request for documents in an unfair labor practice… Read More

There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.

– Madeleine Albright

Progressive feminists give us an insight into the twisted logic and rooted bigotry of feminism, their hypersensitivity to women-only issues, and a general loathing of men (unless these men are serial, sexual harassing, raping Democrats). The political and pop-culturefeminists who are leading the feminist movement today… Read More

I’ve written several times since 2009 about the ridiculous hassles I’ve had with the manypress credential hold-ups at the hands of the Capitol Correspondents Association and Assembly Speaker’s press office.

“Statehouse leaders affirmed a committee of journalists’ recommendation to reject press credentials for Watchdog.org, raising questions about both journalistic ethics and the First Amendment in the state’s vetting process, ethics experts say,” a recent Watchdog.org story reported. It could be my story.

I’ve been in a battle once again with the Capitol Correspondents Association of California media cartel over my annual request for Capitolpresscredentials renewal. I was informed at the end of the legislative session that the CCAC denied my request. Their reason this time is because the publisher of the Flash Report, one of the websites where I post my articles and columns, has a political consulting business, and the CCAC board feels payments to him violate the CCAC bylaws.

I… Read More

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley partially granted Gerawan Farming Company’s request for documents in an unfair labor practice complaint filed by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Frawley’stentative rulingcame out Thursday, prior to a court hearing Friday.

The tentative ruling is a win for Gerawan Farming and its employees. The court says that all communications between the ALRB and the General Counsel concerning the Temporary Restraining Order application authorization must be… Read More