The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership.

Issue No. 166 - July 21, 2023

Labor

• Jacobin covers the first week of the SAG-AFTRA strike. SAG-AFTRA has released a negotiation status report showing in detail how little the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has been willing to give. Mayor Karen Bass, after a much-derided initial statement calling on “all sides to come to the table,” released a second statement expressing support for striking workers.

• Members of striking unions including the WGA, SAG-AFTRA, and UNITE HERE attended a Teamster rally and picket on Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles. Some 340,000 Teamster drivers and warehouse workers are poised to go on a nationwide strike against UPS if they cannot come to terms on a contract before August 1.

• In further “this is all one struggle” news, NBCUniversal recently pruned the trees outside their studio, removing shade from picket lines — only a week after LAPD communications revealed a plot to remove a tree that provided shade to an encampment. Universal has been fined $250 by the city for trimming trees without a permit. SAG-AFTRA and the WGA have filed unfair labor practices charges.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Knock-LA has published the results of an intensive survey of every time Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies have fired a weapon at a person.

• Local media once again chose to validate the strange and incorrect belief, seemingly prevalent among police officers, that simple exposure to certain narcotics is a health risk, after several LAPD officers were taken to the hospital for “meth exposure.”

Incarceration

• Starting on October 1, Los Angeles County will all but eliminate the use of cash bail for defendants accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies. Before this announcement, the use of cash bail had already been paused, as a result of a lawsuit. The decision comes as the public has become increasingly aware of decrepit and unsafe conditions of LA County jails.

Environmental Justice

• Southern California is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave. LA Public Press covers the annual shortcomings of Los Angeles’ system of cooling centers, which in the neighborhood of Skid Row has only gotten worse.

• California’s three largest electric utilities have proposed a plan to charge customers not just for how much energy they use but also based on their household income. Their proposal is designed to accommodate a new law to make energy less costly for California’s lowest-income customers.

• An experiment in Pacoima applied “cool paint” to 10 square blocks of streets. One year later, the results have shown temperatures that are 10 degrees cooler than regular asphalt.