Business

Small businesses call for better communication with Oakland City Council

Next spring, Spoiled Boutique owner Mika McCants’ lease will be up for renewal. She’s already paying $2,000 a month for her 400-square-foot storefront in Uptown Oakland, and she’s unsure how her shop will be affected if her landlord raises the rent. “I have seen the city change significantly in both positive and negative ways,” said McCants, whose clothing store has been at 2001 Broadway Street for 11 years. “I’ve seen the gentrification set in, and I would be lying if…

Construction boom brings industry jobs back to the Bay Area

Eight years after the financial meltdown on Wall Street, the Bay Area construction industry has finally managed to recover all the jobs it lost in the Great Recession. “From what I’ve seen and heard, we are doing better now than we were before the recession,” said Andreas Cluver, secretary-treasurer of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County, an umbrella organization of building trade unions. “We now have people coming off one job and quickly being called back out…

Night shift workers speak out against sexual assault

Leticia Soto—single mother, undocumented worker and rape survivor—stood in the auditorium at the Oakland State Building and addressed the crowd. In one hand, Soto clasped a placard reading: “When you’re alone at night, no one can hear you.” In the other, she gripped the microphone. “Just because I’m an immigrant or just because I’m a janitor does not mean I need to live in fear of being raped,” she said. Soto, along with sexual assault support groups and a union…

Temescal business owners see effects of neighborhood change

Adnan Ahmed, a Pakistani immigrant in a blue plaid shirt, looks gloomily around the 41 St Discount Store, just south of 41st Street on Telegraph Avenue in Temescal. At 10 a.m. on a recent Wednesday morning, the aisles of the small grocery and liquor store are devoid of customers, and the only thing that seems to cheer Ahmed up is having somebody listen as he recounts his tale of woe.