Why LA County says it can't give raises to thousands of workers set to strike
While more than 55,000 unionized workers for Los Angeles County are set to strike Monday evening, county officials said there is simply no money to meet the employees' demands.
The members of Service Employees International Union Local 721, including public works employees, library workers and mental health professionals, were expected to walk off the job for 48 hours, starting at 7 p.m. Monday, accusing the county of failing to negotiate a new labor contract fairly.
'We faced nothing less than disrespect at the bargaining table,' a union leader said during a rally, claiming the county's proposal was a 0% increase for cost of living.
Although Supervisor Kathryn Barger, Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, acknowledged the financial hardships amid inflation, she said the county cannot afford cost-of-living increases to workers amid a massive budget hole.
In addition to the unexpected costs related to the Eaton and Palisades Fires, the country had to pay $4 billion to settle decades-old youth sexual abuse claims as the result of state law that reopened the statute of limitation of such claims.
'Even the union knows that $4 billion has compromised our ability to negotiate,' Barger said. 'We need to be able to make sure when we write a check, you can cash it.'
LA County's Chief Executive Office echoed the message in a statement, blaming 'unprecedented stresses,' which also include 'the potentially catastrophic loss of hundreds of millions or more in federal funding' from the Trump administration.
'Despite the severity of our fiscal outlook, the County has made fair and responsible counter proposals that we hope the union will seriously consider,' the statement said.
The county CEO also recently released the budget proposal for the coming year, including 3% cuts to some departments and the elimination of more than 200 vacant positions.
The strike is likely to affect critical services such as emergency health care and firefighting.
County Library officials also said the strike will impact services and possibly force temporary closures of some library locations.
Some non-urgent county clinics will be closed during the two-day strike, some beach restrooms may be closed, and there may be some delays in services provided by the medical examiner.
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NBC News
29-04-2025
- NBC News
Why LA County says it can't give raises to thousands of workers set to strike
While more than 55,000 unionized workers for Los Angeles County are set to strike Monday evening, county officials said there is simply no money to meet the employees' demands. The members of Service Employees International Union Local 721, including public works employees, library workers and mental health professionals, were expected to walk off the job for 48 hours, starting at 7 p.m. Monday, accusing the county of failing to negotiate a new labor contract fairly. 'We faced nothing less than disrespect at the bargaining table,' a union leader said during a rally, claiming the county's proposal was a 0% increase for cost of living. Although Supervisor Kathryn Barger, Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, acknowledged the financial hardships amid inflation, she said the county cannot afford cost-of-living increases to workers amid a massive budget hole. In addition to the unexpected costs related to the Eaton and Palisades Fires, the country had to pay $4 billion to settle decades-old youth sexual abuse claims as the result of state law that reopened the statute of limitation of such claims. 'Even the union knows that $4 billion has compromised our ability to negotiate,' Barger said. 'We need to be able to make sure when we write a check, you can cash it.' LA County's Chief Executive Office echoed the message in a statement, blaming 'unprecedented stresses,' which also include 'the potentially catastrophic loss of hundreds of millions or more in federal funding' from the Trump administration. 'Despite the severity of our fiscal outlook, the County has made fair and responsible counter proposals that we hope the union will seriously consider,' the statement said. The county CEO also recently released the budget proposal for the coming year, including 3% cuts to some departments and the elimination of more than 200 vacant positions. The strike is likely to affect critical services such as emergency health care and firefighting. County Library officials also said the strike will impact services and possibly force temporary closures of some library locations. Some non-urgent county clinics will be closed during the two-day strike, some beach restrooms may be closed, and there may be some delays in services provided by the medical examiner.
The Independent
10-04-2025
- The Independent
This federal rule helped clear air over America's most beloved parks. Trump's EPA wants to kill it
During a hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1995, Don Barger climbed Chilhowee Mountain hoping to gaze across the valley below. All he saw was a wall of gray haze. Today, he said, he can see some 50 miles (80 kilometers) across that same valley to the Cumberland Mountains. A 26-year-old federal regulation known as the regional haze rule has helped cut down on pollution over national parks, wilderness areas and tribal reservations, restoring some of the nation's most spectacular natural vistas for outdoor lovers like Barger. But conservationists fear those gains may be lost after President Donald Trump 's administration announced in March the rule is among dozens of landmark environmental regulations that it plans to roll back. 'It means a promise that was made to the American public is lost,' Barger, 74, said. 'More and more generations of people are going to grow up as ignorant as I was, not realizing what I'm missing and not seeing.' Congress pushes to clean air over parks, wilderness areas Haze forms when small particles of air pollution, such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides, scatter and absorb sunlight, blurring views and decreasing visibility. Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1977 to make restoring and maintaining visibility a goal for 156 national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges and tribal reservations across 36 states. That includes places like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee; Grand Canyon National Park; Glacier National Park; and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. After years of drafting and litigation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted regulations known as the regional haze rule in 1999 to implement the amendments. The rule calls for attaining natural visibility conditions by the year 2064 and mandates that states come up with plans that include limitations on emissions, compliance schedules and monitoring strategies. Older facilities that emit pollution, such as coal-fired power plants, must adopt mitigation technology such as scrubbers or shut down periodically to decrease overall annual emissions. A work in progress The states' plans have been plagued with delays as the EPA approves parts of them and rejects others. For example, two big oil- and coal-producing states, North Dakota and Wyoming, and industry groups filed petitions in federal court in January seeking review of EPA decisions rejecting their plans, according to the Harvard Law School's Environmental and Energy Law Program. The rule works in conjunction with other federal antipollution regulations, but it's been crucial in clearing the skies over national parks and wilderness areas. An Associated Press analysis of data from a nationwide network of monitoring sites from 1999, when the rule was implemented, through 2023 shows 93% of the parks and wilderness areas have seen improved air quality on clear days. No parks or wilderness areas have seen any notable worsening in visibility. Visibility in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was twice as good on a typical clear day in 2023 as it was in 1999, marking the biggest improvement among the national parks. The EPA estimates that between 2007 and 2018 the rule has cut 500,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 300,000 tons of nitrous oxides annually. The average visual range has increased from 90 miles to 120 miles (144 kilometers to 193 kilometers) in some western parks and from 50 to 70 miles (80 kilometers to 112 kilometers) in some eastern parks, according to the Harvard program. 'Most consequential day of deregulation' Trump's EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced March 12 that the agency would look to roll back 31 landmark environmental regulations, including the regional haze rule. Zeldin called the announcement the 'most consequential day of deregulation in American history' and said in an essay published in the Wall Street Journal that the administration is 'driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.' Asked for comment on the regional haze rule, the EPA said they want to better account for pollution from outside the U.S. and from natural sources and avoid unnecessary burdens for states and industry. Has the rule hurt energy producers? In a cost-benefit analysis of the rule before it took effect, the EPA found it would cost energy producers up to $98 billion by 2025 while providing about $344 billion in benefits such as health care savings. Producers argue that the haze rule has done its job and it doesn't make sense to continue to impose costs on them. 'This is a matter of diminishing returns,' said Jonathan Fortner, interim president and CEO of the Lignite Energy Council, which advocates for North Dakota's coal industry. 'The air is clean, the data proves it, and the science backs that up. The rule's being misapplied, not because we disagree with clean air goals, but because we're already there.' Two federal properties in North Dakota are subject to the rule, the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The AP analysis found both sites have seen dramatic visibility improvements over the five years from 2019 to 2023. EPA officials did not respond to an AP request for a list of power plants that have closed due to the regional haze rule. A number of energy industry groups did not return repeated requests for comment, including the U.S. Energy Association and the National Utility Contractors Association. What's next for the parks? Advocates of the rule say eliminating it could lead to reduced tourism and the economic boom visitors bring to national park regions. The National Park Service estimates 325 million people visited national parks in 2023, spending $26.4 billion in gateway communities. Nothing appears likely to change overnight. Conservationists expect the Trump administration to pursue a rollback through language revisions in the rule, a process that would require a public comment period and would likely trigger court challenges that could last years. 'I've watched the Great Smoky Mountains National Park emerge from the chemical haze that once enshrouded it and was getting worse,' Barger said. 'It's just this visceral sense of place. We had lost it entirely. The Clean Air Act is working and it's a work in progress. You have to stay with it or it doesn't work.' ___ Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
The Independent
09-04-2025
- The Independent
California's effort to hold oil companies liable for natural disaster damage stalls
California lawmakers have blocked a bill to make oil and gas companies liable for damage to homes from natural disasters caused by climate change, warning it could raise gas prices. The bill would have allowed victims of natural disasters, including fires, floods and hurricanes, to sue fossil fuel companies over harm to themselves or their property for damage totaling at least $10,000. Home insurers would also have been able to seek damages under the legislation. The proposal was announced weeks after the Los Angeles-area fires broke out in January, burning thousands of homes and killing at least 30 people. The Senate Judiciary Committee rejected the bill late Tuesday, with several Democrats abstaining, but left open the possibility for it to be reconsidered later this year. Opponents also said it would threaten jobs in the energy industry by dealing a blow to business, and that it would be difficult to prove a specific company's responsibility for a particular natural disaster. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat representing San Francisco who authored the bill, rejected the argument that it would lead to higher gas prices. He said it was about holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for the impacts of climate change. The bill would have eased the burden on disaster survivors and insurance companies to cover damage costs, he said. 'Today's vote is a setback for the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires and for the cost of living in California,' Wiener said in a statement. 'Victims of the Eaton and Palisades Fire — and of all climate disasters — deserve accountability for the decades of Big Oil lies that devastated their communities.' When fossil fuels such as oil and gas are burned for energy, carbon dioxide and other emissions enter the Earth's atmosphere, causing the planet to warm. Climate change has made natural disasters more frequent and intense. State Sen. Anna Caballero, a Democrat representing part of the Central Valley, said ahead of the vote that lawmakers' decision not to support the bill shouldn't be viewed as a move to deprioritize environmental policy. And she said it wouldn't help people who lost their homes to recent fires rebuild. 'If this was going to actually result in building homes in the fire zones faster, better and with more efficiency, I would probably support it,' she said. "But from my view, this is more about lawyers. This is about litigation.' Wiener said it was important for California to remain a climate leader, invoking President Donald Trump 's efforts to roll back environmental policies. Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to identify state rules he said could hinder 'America's energy dominance.' He called out California's cap-and-trade program, as well as other climate policies in New York and Vermont. The California bill's failure to advance comes after lawmakers in recent years blocked a proposal that would have made oil companies liable for the health problems of people who live close to oil wells. California, a U.S. trendsetter on climate policies, has approved policies over the years to limit emissions from cars, lawn mowers, trucks and trains. But some of those measures have faced threats from the Trump administration. The state Air Resources Board pulled back its requests for federal approval to enforce rules curbing pollution from diesel-powered big rigs and trains ahead of Trump's return to office. Other major California rules are at risk. Congressional Republicans introduced proposals last week to block state policies approved by President Joe Biden's administration that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, cut tailpipe emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, and curb smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. ___
