Labor

Oakland Unified School District celebrates low teacher vacancies

The talent recruiters at the Oakland Unified School District worked around the clock this summer to make sure all students in Oakland would have a teacher waiting to welcome them back to school. They had to. Last year, students returned to find as many as 77 of their classrooms manned by an improvised crew of coaches and librarians as the district scrambled to fill the vacancies with credentialed teachers. This year, as of August 28, there were only three vacancies…

Women Build graduates its first all-female class in the construction trades

The majority of people in the room seemed to be women, and many wore proud smiles on their faces. They were attending the graduation ceremony of the first all-female Green Energy Training Services (GETS) pre-apprenticeship cohort held by Berkeley non-profit organization Rising Sun Energy Center, and the room at John F. Kennedy University’s Berkeley campus was buzzing with excitement. Dubbed “Women Build,” the program trains women for union jobs in construction and other skill-based industries traditionally employing men. It launched on March…

Building the future for women in trades

The Bay Area’s first and only all-women construction and solar training program was launched last week in Berkeley. Women Build was launched in response to the low participation of women in the construction trades.

Oakland workers and students protest proposed Hampton Inn construction

On Thursday evening, high school students from the Oakland youth organization Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL) wrote their visions for the vacant lot at 11th Street and Franklin on a poster. Some ideas were a skate park, garden, vegan restaurant or a dog park, but none of them included the current proposed development, a Hampton Inn hotel. Members from AYPAL and UNITE HERE Local 2850, a union that represents East Bay and North Bay hotel and food…