hats off to the team and our partners, the labor union, folks in the front line doing the streets weeping. and pass off to our -- hats off to our guru. the park scores have also improved. we are seeing that trend now for five years. one of the big passions was parks, of course, passing those has helped substantially to move us in the right direction. there was a major reorganization last year, and they said this is going to turn back the clock. we had to make some tough decisions, but we proved again that the commission, we can move at a different direction. we saw the highest scores in five years in the quality of our parks. 90 parks got a score of the highest number we have ever gotten. one of the things i am very proud of, a number of years ago, we had a weekly videos for some of the lower part scores, the f's, d's, or c's. we went from 66 parts that received the lowest and is now the 14 parts that are receiving failing grades. there were as much as 66 just a short time ago. real progress, to very important reports -- two very important reports. i wanted to highlight that this week. an

of course that labor is always the low wage not unionized. that is really where the labor movement, if you can think about it in a larger sense, where it is right now, in a transitional time trying to become -- trying to keep up with the global nature of capital. it is behind, obviously. there have been some inroads over the past ten years, and thai sweatshop leaks, successful consumer boycotting of brand names, efforts to get world bodies of trade to put in place enforceable coats. but it is really a long way to go. will probably be another generation or so before you see real -- you can speak confidently of it. >> sort of irrelevant today. >> well, now it is part of unite. >> but it is not as forceful as it was 40 years ago. >> well, i think you night here, they are still active with the needle trade. i don't follow them. most of what i worked on, the research had to do with the past. in terms of the present time not really an authority. as far as i know you night here has a little less than a million members and are still active in not only

that the opera a limited to was involved in people outside of the labor movement as there was an organization called the women's trade union made up of upper-middle-class new york women who wanted to join women's labor issues with other issues such as suffrage, temperance and education. so they got involved and with the ideal gw you to help with the fund raising and the organizing for the strike they helped mass rallies and meetings amongst the parade. most importantly, they went down to the picket lines and also with female college students a cullom to witness what is happening to the young seamstresses' which is borrow because the companies have hired thugs to police the picket lines and there were a lot of very violent encounters and displayed in the hands of the labor costs because the newspapers which were critical of sleeper these are images they really couldn't ignore and couldn't help feel sympathetic with young teenage women the assertive -- being beaten up to keep them off the sidewalks and you begin to see a kind of public opinion trending in the direction of the seamstresses and cord makers themselves. that par

i think this is workable with regard to some of the concerns of the union labor. i look forward to entering with the the discussion -- with the discussion. as well as us striking concern with those that might feel excluded, it means an exclusion of people and other cities not being able to work in san francisco. we want to find the right temperature so that it is not one that has the unintentional effect of making sure that we are excluding those and we absolutely want to make sure they have these right jobs. this is the level of moving parts that has to come to synchronous city. i think this is a great first step. -- synchronicity. i think this is a great first step. and i co-sponsored the legislation. [laughter] supervisor avalos: your name was taken out, that is why i was asking. we are back to public comment. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i was born and raised in san francisco. i have a little bit of a disparity with these guys. they say that they hire apprentices. contractors are hiring more apprentices. and they are from sacramento, and they are hiring a w

my name is events with the labor union. we represent the majority of the maintenance workers at the recreation and parks department. i live across the street from the recycling center. one of the reasons we came here today was to talk about something most people are not talking about. that is safe working conditions for the people in the parks. they are gardeners, teamsters, carpenters, and a lot of times, they are confronted, not by members of the community. you could not find a group of workers that work better with the community than the gardening staff. there are folks that come in that are attracted to the recycling center that causes trouble. it is a dangerous situation to be in, especially for the females, but for all of us, when it is dark in the morning. we have to have the courage to address that. it is not that we are opposing anything more supporting anything. we believe that as a factor, the safety of the staff. these folks go to school. they're professionals. they want to garden. they don't want to pick up afte

the labor's union handed out leaflets this weekend. 's latest proposal would reduce health and retirement benefits. >> bottom line, our members haven't gotten a race in five years. they are being burned to medical as we speak they have a accident medical plan. >> the union represents grounds keepers. track spokesperson has not responded to our request for a comment. >> newly enacted credit card reforms were supposed to protect us from abusive credit card practices but it is not that simple. 7 on your side michael finney shows us how spending with plastic can still be perilous. >>> obviously we are having some problems with michael's report. we may be able to fix it. coming up a christmas cake you will have to see to believe. switching to progressive could mean hundreds more in your wallet year after year. feed me! saving you money -- now, that's progressive. call or click today. >>> let's back to michael finney on credit card practices. here is his report. >> amy is carrying less debt these days. >> i pay my bills immediately. >> the su

and the criticism we see of labor unions increasingly -- give me a moment to go off in another direction. this is been really harsh in terms of the relationship between organized labor, teachers, and schools. that is an ongoing story of crisis in terms of quality of the public-school education and school reform. overall, you are seeing people who have been involved in blue- collar industries watched their jobs be outsourced. in some cases, they have disappeared. they do not know what to do or say. clearly, they believe in labor unions. labor unions go back to the 1930's and 1940's. they helped to establish the middle class way of life in this country. they provided the means for the growth of some much of the infrastructure in this country. what we see now is a declining level of union membership in the country. there are lots of questions about whether a labor unions have become highly politicized. the argument of the citizens united supreme court case on campaign financing, that led to people saying that big corporations would be paying

and the house in 2006, we saw the economy turn sour because they knew that the trial lawyers, the labor unionsations in the cities were going to do exactly this damage to the economy. exactly what they did. >> let me ask you both, i believe both of you oppose this report put out by the president's deficit reduction commission. secretary reich, i think i'm right in saying you're among those on the left, you don't want to cut spending so much right now because of the state of the economy. number two, why should you force major changes there? and grover, your position is is this thing in the end, even though it would take a lot of loopholes and deduction, in the end has more revenues which means more taxes. so if the left says dead on arrival and the right says dead on arrival, how does washington solve any big problem? >> john, first of all, i don't like to be put in a box called the left. i think that the deficit commission has some very good ideas over the long-term. all i'm saying is that in very short-term right now, we don't want to cut back on the deficit, we don't want to embrace austerit

the area's seagoing labor organizations specifically, the sailors in and of the pacific, the international organization of managers, maids, and pilots, the inland boatman's unit, and the marine firemen's union, i wish to express our support for this resolution. maritime labor would also like to publicly recognize carry mcclellan for the tremendous effort she put into addressing our concerns and for her work in developing what we believe will be a bit leading to a magnificent series of events for all of san francisco to enjoy for years to come. [applause] supervisor mirkarimi: next speaker please. >> we can only have one microphone on at a time, sir? >> about two years ago, i came over from the east bay by bart, and i walked past the craft center and the farmers' markets and the ferry building. i buy things. i get food there. i spend my money. then i walk down. practically every weekend, i'm out there, and i'm spending my money at local cafes and restaurants along the embarcadero. i would not have done this three years ago before i started coming to san francisco to sale. i'm probably one of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who would come to san francisco to spend their money because

operators and the city's transit bosses are going to sit down after the new year to hammer out labor dispute issues. the workers union plan to meet behind closed doors twice next month to discuss contract negotiations. the current contract expires in june. this marks the first time the two sites will negotiate since voters passed measure g in november. it gives more leverage while eliminating for muni employees. >> a win for the history books. still ahead, the stanford cardinal women and the longest winning streak in divisn one college basketball. >> what's new year's eve without new york city's time square. the security measures in place there tonight with police on high alert. >> a rare tornado lifts through ♪ [ male announcer ] with cable's bundle choices, there's not much to see. with at&t u-verse tv, you can record up to four shows at once on a single dvr. hey. yeah. ony way home. [ femalennouncer ] you can even choose wireless voice service. he can't do that with cable. now you have your choice of offers. call today to get u-vee tv and internet plus choose home phone or wireless voe service starting at $99 a mo

operators and the city's transit bosses are going to sit down after the new year to hammer out labor dispute issues. the workers union plan to meet behind closed doors twice next month to discuss contract negotiations. the current contract expires in june. this marks the first time the two sites will negotiate since voters passed measure g in november. it gives more leverage while eliminating for muni employees. >> a win for the history books. still ahead the stanford cardinal women and the longest winning streak in division one college basketball. >> what's new year's eve without new york city's time square. the security measures in place there tonight with police on high alert. >> a rare tornado lifts through arkansas killing several people and flattening homes. it with my dentures. i love kiwis. i've always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. super poligrip free -- it creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. even well fitting dentures let in food particles. just a few dabs of super poligrip free is clinically proven to seal out more food particles so you're more comfortable and confident whi

beginning in the late '70s you have a substantial sharp diminution in the strands of labor unions. united under the change in the organization of production, or deregulation and privatization. many people say yes, but the economy did so well under the reagan fractured type ideas. that begs the question, what's the economy? the median wage, i keep going back is because i think if you find an economy from the ground up, as what do most people experience in terms of their wages, and their benefits, median wage benefit through the 19, late '40s, '50s, '60s and early '70s kept on going up at a very remarkable, remarkable pace. then what happened in the late '70s, particularly after 1980, stagnation. this was not -- >> and a lot of people thought the end of the '70s what they were expecting was not very pleasant and they voted for reagan on the basis of that. you are suggesting here somehow a system was subverted because inflation caused by oil seems coming is that not overly simplistic? >> is that not overly simplistic? is that not a rhetorical question you asked? no, i don't think he wa

, supervisor avalos, i have talked about the need for new hire legislation around the adoption of a project labor unions. that is important for couple of reasons. it will basically be a mandate imposed on the developers and contractors. in order for them to meet the threshold ha, who has to be some kind of agreement in place. the best way to get her -- to get there is through project labor agreements. in the l.a. and other places, there has been traditional things that they do in terms of satisfying or addressing disputes between different trades and in assuring -- ensuring projects. we have to have a labor agreement or some kind of agreement that says that not only do we think that the network needs to be union work, but the unions need be inclusive and we need to figure out a way for them to find it today. construction curriers are regional in nature. if someone wants to build a career, it will not be billed based on the work that happens in bayview or south of market. it will be based on their ability to take on work throughout the region. my last issue here is that we need to figure out a way to wor

long ago set aside their interests in favor of expanding government, raising taxes doing the bidding of labor unions and the personal injury trial bar. activist judges. americans are fed up with the repeated incursions into their liberty however their disdain for washington doesn't just stop at the party line. americans are fed up with democrats and republicans who have embraced bailouts, championed so-called stimulus programs and supported big government giveaway. voters understand the true threat posed by this mountain of debt and are increasingly perplexed by bankrupt federal programs like social security and they're deeply frustrated by federal officials who do nothing to address these serious problems. the american people are fed up with bureaucrats telling them how to live their lives. calling the shots of healthcare insurance. they say they must buy. what kind of food they eat. what kind of light bullen -- lightbulbs they use in their homes. they're also fed up with elected judges telling them when and where they can pray. how we can display the 10 commandments. this simmering trues stations

the issue of labor unions being concerned by jobs. my part of the country where it was important, the african-american members of congress and teixeira politicians restrained themselves from getting that -- out too far that they were defense the issues because they knew it was important to hispanics as it was the case if it was south africa on the border with with dks instead of mexico. so i think we at least in my backyard we try internly to have the discussions before it blows. sometimes people have a bad attitude. it won't have anything to do with you being black or brown, you got a bad attitude. that had nothing to do with race, it is because i just didn't like that person >> i can give you an example of where -- where african-american and hispanic communities in the redistricting process fought against each other. this comes from rhode island where in the last round of redistricting. >> rhode island? >> yes. >> rhode island? >> i'm just checking. is >> y'all lighten up. >> we not in vermont. i'm guessing. >> the city of province i

one of the things the labor unions in this country have insisted on comically for a long time is insisting that our trading partners pay their workers proper wages, but they allow their workers to have unions and that they allow a collective bargaining. a big agreement we have with the chinese. one of the results of that is that we are bringing up labor standards and wage levels all over the world. i think that's a good thing. it also makes us more competitive. host: pat, a democrat, good morning. caller: the morning and thanks for your coverage and its outstanding. this gentleman kind of successfully dodged the question about 30-month-old peace. that has to do with the fact that at that point you can't tell that a = -- can cow hazmat cow disease. the chinese have safer standards and they don't want our beef. this gentleman says there's nothing we can do about this, that it is a "crossroads thing and we cannot do anything about this. -- that it is a global thing. these free trade he says the attorneys are trying to violate what do this is a good angle bad thing and how many people are empl

. >> we heard there were not clear lines of communication between the white house and the labor unions. was anybody set up as a liaison? >> i think there are pretty clear lines on that but i will check to say to what degree that was brought up. >> vice president biden said troops will be out of afghanistan by 2014. is that u.s. policy? >> i will point you to what was decided in lisbon a few weeks ago. we will much likely have primary security of afghanistan to the afghans as nato and a staff agree by the end of 2014, which would end our, that -- which would end our combat in that country. what the vice president was discussing was combat. >> he said july 2011 withdrawal would not be a token withdrawal. how does he know that when he says that is supposed to be based on conditions on the ground? >> it will be determined by conditions on the ground, but the vice president knows as many do hear that the president made -- the president in conjunction with the military worked through a plan one year ago that they think is achievable to meet the date of july 2011. there are many that believe

the companies who are here. webcor, thank you for helping us. amd, all the unions that are here. janitors, carpenters, laborers and operators are here, too. thank you to all of you. also to the mayor, he is the one that started the jobs program, here in san francisco. i want to let you know how the program works. the program is done september 30. now we have these four guys coming out of there and we have to give them a chance to go forward. they want to do something good. that is why we have these three apprentices here. more than 50% of these guys are san francisco residents. i do not know about the rest of the projects, but this one we have more than 50% from san francisco. thank you for helping us to make this project go forward. >> thank you. [applause] ok, benji, let's talk about community support. i did not know there was such a robust community of bocce players in our city. we talked to our partners, neighborhood groups, i see the folks from the barbara coast, and jerry crowley, one of the great leaders of san francisco, and they showed us the way to put the community support you need to put a project like this together in a publi

the agreement with city labor unions calls for the closure of nonessential services between christmasnd new year's. this is also the day a lot of kids are starting their christmas break. mike, they're starting with a wet note and it's going to stay wet quite a few more days. >> i think so. i think they'll get outside at times. the playgrounds and ball fields will be impossible to play on unless you want to be knee deep in mud. a little change in the pattern as the steadier rain shifted and stayed to the south. even with this low to our north, kind of caught between why we're going to have scattered showers even the clap of thunder possible. temperatures at 8:00 this morning, still pretty mild. mid to upper 40s in our inland valleys upper 40s to low 50s around the bay shore and out to the coast. look for some scattered showers around noon. temperatures low to mid-50s. as we head to the afternoon hours, more scattered showers and you can see lightning showing up in the clouds here. that gives you an idea how stable the air will be. could get up to around 1500ths to a third of the inch w

the imf and european union and underlined the fact that greece has lost its financial independence. as far as the trade unions are concerned, all these implement reforms are things that will set labor relations back in greece back to the middle ages as far as they're concerned. it was essential to give the firms the flexibility of the wages so they could stay afloat and they would not -- there would not be more unemployment. this may have been some of the worst social unrest the country has seen. the government refuses to be derailed from the path of austerity laid down by the international creditors. >> here the haight -- latest headlines. three years after kenya's election violence, six figures have been named publicly on the international criminal court. the u.s. justice department announced it is suing bp in several other companies for the mass of gulf oil spill. at least 27 refugees heading for australia have died in suspected people smuggling boats that smashed against the coast. it is -- has the country's largest detention center. our correspondent has the dramatic video of the boad disintegrating. >> residence said they feared the boat was in trouble when they heard the scr

the trip. >> san francisco muni operates hammer out several labor issues. the transport workers unionnd city officials plan to meet behind closed doors twice next month to discuss contract negotiations. the current contract expires in june. this marks the first time the two sides will negotiate since voters passed measure g in november. the new law gives management more leverage in setting worker conditions while eliminating automatic raises for muni employees. >> it's 4:39. we're gonna ring in the new year tonight probably with showers in the area. >> yeah. let's check in with lisa argen. >> freezing temperatures so it's a tradeoff. warmer night tonight. a slew of temperatures near freezing. 32 napa, 33 livermore. 37 oakland and with more clouds down around san jose and mountain view we've got low 40s there. we'll look at the clouds thickening throughout the day today. sunshine still on the cool side with temperatures today in the 40s for some areas. and so for tonight the rain will begin near midnight. if you're headed out yeah good idea to take the umbrella and know the roadways wi

they brought together women's groups like the women's political council and labor unions, perhaps even the same people who had organized to defend taylor. after only a few weeks, african-americans delivered their own verdict in the case by driving green into a the red. in fact, they shut down green's grocery tore, and that ability to shut down his store constituted a major victory. not only did it establish the boycott as a powerful weapon for justice, but it also sent a message to whites that african-americans would no longer allow white men to disrespect, abuse and violate black women's bodies. now, besides police officers, few were as guilty of these crimes as were the city's bus operators who bullied and brutalized black passengers daily. worse, bus drivers had police powers. they carried blackjacks and often guns, and they assaulted and sometimes even killed african-americans who violated the racial order of jim crow. in 1953 alone african-americans filed over 30 complaints of abuse and mistreatment on the buses. most of these complaints came from black women, mostly working class

the economic impact, if the local resident labor is already available, if there are unemployed people in the trade are qualified and ready to work, contractors could encourage unions or otherwise supply resident labor at little additional cost to themselves or to the city, and no lost productivity. that is the sweet spot we are looking for. when the resident labor supply is low, they just do not live in san francisco, the qualified workers, or most are already employed somewhere else at prevailing wages, contractors will be forced to offer higher wages to attract local labor. if they are not available at all, there will have to pay penalties. in either case, contractors as a group will face the same labor market, the same penalty structure. they are unlikely to compete with one another to observe those costs. they are more likely to pass those costs on to the city in the form of higher bids. it is the lack of match between supply and demand, not the requirement itself, that leads to potential cost inflation for the city. chairperson avalos: how much of that analysis-specific piece did you consider some of the flexibility we have given contractors to bank hours, to

to concern and liberals would want someone else and interestingly, the former congressman from detroit has very close ties to labor unions being from the trait where the automobile industry said yes, we would have wanted to have somebody else, but there was nobody else. anyone else? >> [inaudible] more international globetrotter? >> [laughter] well, and he really loves it. he gets up every day wanting to give the average joe a shot at the american dream. i don't know about that begets up every day wanting to learn new things and meet new people. he is lucky and has said he has a certain freedom he did not have like the apparatus of power he had in the white house and does not command armies or the military establishment or the political establishment but the freedom to concentrate on what he once it has certainly developed a reputation as a global celebrity after he left office, he was a on the cover of "esquire" magazine the most influential person in the world was the headline. he is certainly loving what he is doing now and also has done something that he was not able to do it has a he has been traveling of the globe,

the decisions. i'm interested in germany as a union side labor lawyer. nd i'm interested in it because going over the whole planet earth, i say this country has the most worker control of any economy in the world. now, that's very little relatively, but it's way ahead of anybody else. and that fact has helped influence the way capital gets developed. and it also hurt germany for a long time because people didn't want to invest in germany because they didn't like co-determination, they didn't like workers on the board, they didn't like dealing with works councils. the second thing that they do smarter than us is they've got a center left and even a center-right party. think in terms of mercantilism. that the country should not be in debt, that the country should sell more than -- or at least be able to earn its own way in the world, and that it does matter whether you're exporting in some or sort of effective way. in the u.s. we have republicans and democrats that seem not to care about that. so the combination of this worker control and a leadership class