Fall equinox 2020

I’m writing this after having learned that my hero RBG has died. What a way to top off a most distressing season! I’ve been telling my friends and repeating to myself that our primary job is to protect our own mental (and physical) health. My best antidote to depression is the outdoors and clean air, not an easy fix with pollution from fires that threaten to continue till the rainy season starts.

We work to influence the coming presidential election, calling and writing postcards reminding voters in swing states to vote. Of course, what we do in California is of little consequence nationally but I worry about the consequences on a state level. Polls show that proposition 16, the measure that would resurrect affirmative action, is headed for failure. The discussion has revolved around race preferences in state colleges, but no one thinks about women in the construction trades. Here’s the letter I just sent to local newspapers supporting Prop 16.

I am a woman who made a great career as a construction and maintenance electrician. I would never have gotten a job in the previously all-male all-white industry without affirmative action. I’ve devoted my life to helping other women achieve success in the construction trades. Why? Because these union jobs pay wages substantially above what women can make in traditional female careers, decreasing the number of women (and children) in poverty.

Women got a foot in the door but we are still being denied entry to these jobs because of entrenched sexism and racism, especially after affirmative action was made illegal in California by the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996.

Proposition 16 on the November 3 ballot will overturn the 1996 law. Right now only about three percent of construction workers are women. That’s not enough. Women still experience isolation and harassment on the job. Working conditions in construction will not truly improve until discrimination ends and the numbers of women increase.

So …

A YES vote on Proposition 16 will make programs like targeted recruitment for women and minorities possible again, restoring a level playing field for all.

Then there are a couple of other propositions on the state ballot I fear will fail, so I’m already getting prepared for election letdown, a familiar feeling for those of us who support peace, justice and human rights. 

Please vote yes on Prop 15 to restore property taxes on large commercial property, and yes on Prop 21 to allow local communities to decide whether to enact rent control (which is now prohibited statewide). And vote no on Prop 22. Don’t let Uber & Lyft turn this into a gig world where all workers are “independent contractors” and get no benefits.

Please take care of yourselves.

Sending virtual hugs to all.

Love, Molly

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