Julie Light

We all know the rent and groceries are too damn high. Now, we have the data on how that affects local working families.

OMG YESSSSSS 🙌🙌

🚨: Today’s the last day to submit public comment to DHS to protect journalist visas!

So far, over 700 people have used our link to make their voices heard.

➡️Submit your public comment here:

actionnetwork.org/letters/stan...

Pete Hegseth, the same guy who texted classified war plans to a reporter, wants to decide what the media can report at the Pentagon.

The First Amendment is clear: the government cannot stop a free press.

This order is unconstitutional and un-American.

Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI Visual artists, illustrators and graphic designers share their stories about how AI is being used to lower wages, degrade work and even replace it altogether, in this installment of AI Killed My Job.

Freelance illustration gigs drying up. Ad agencies using Midjourney instead of hiring human artists. Costume design turned over to AI wholesale. Good work vanishing.

These are the stories of working visual artists, who describe losing jobs, wages, and hope as their clients and bosses embrace AI.

This is the third installment in the AI Killed My Job series, after tech workers and translators. It focuses on visual artists, illustrators, and graphic designers.

I received so many submissions from visual artists that I couldn't include them all, and, just a word of warning, some are very bleak.

120 land and environmental defenders killed or disappeared in Latin America last year, report finds A report by Global Witness reveals that at least 146 land and environmental defenders have been killed or gone missing worldwide in 2024.

Andrew Miller said transnational criminal networks involved in drug, gold & timber trafficking have become a major force behind threats—& often deadly attacks—against enviro. defenders. "The security situation for defenders across the Amazon is increasingly precarious.” apnews.com/article/envi...

NYC security guards making a fraction of a livable wage, study finds | amNewYork A new study of New York City security guards paints a picture of workers wearing shiny uniforms who are facing financial insecurity due to low wages.

Great work by my Labor Center colleagues. Security guards protect many of NYC's iconic buildings--and their inhabitants--but often can't support themselves and their families.
www.amny.com/lifestyle/ci...

BLS Is Hiring 25 Part-Time Staff to Collect Prices for CPI The Bureau of Labor Statistics is hiring price collectors for a key inflation metric that’s increasingly relying on a statistical guessing method to compensate for lost staff.

Since January, BLS has lost about 1 in 5 staff, largely through the combination of DOGE layoffs and paid admin leaves + hiring freeze.

This led to erosions in data collection and quality.

Good to see them open a crack in the hiring freeze.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

PEOPLE’S GAS & ELECTRIC

Unions Are Shrinking Nationwide — But Not in California Organizing here is holding strong, showing what’s possible even as Trump 2.0 makes the fight harder.

This piece by @markkreidler.bsky.social in @capitalandmain.bsky.social does a great job of putting our State of the Unions report in context. A must read as we enter Labor Day weekend.
capitalandmain.com/unions-are-s...

BREAKING: Social Security Administration chief data officer and whistle-blower Charles Borges has resigned after bombshell report that SSA put highly-sensitive data at risk. He sent out an email to colleagues moments ago.

Here is the text of his email shared with me:

Immigrant Subway Cleaners in New York Win Millions The victory surrounds back wages and the dangerous work cleaners undertook during the Covid-19 pandemic.

ICYMI: About 450 immigrant workers hired to disinfect New York City’s subways at the height of the pandemic were given inadequate equipment and paid less than the city’s prevailing wage. They have now won more than $3 million in back pay. inthesetimes.com/article/new-...

Great piece!

DC Defies the Trump Regime Five takeaways from DC’s organized resistance to occupation

New from me: what we can learn from DC's resistance to the Trump Regime. open.substack.com/pub/ctrlaltr...

A very hostile work environment:

Arrestado el cineasta británico Paul Laverty, esposo de Icíar Bollaín, por llevar una camiseta contra el “genocidio” de Israel en Gaza social.elpais.com/ok1f17

Why Are Firefighters Battling Wildfires Without Masks? | KQED We talk about why it’s been so hard to change the culture and policy around protective respiratory gear for firefighters and how firefighters are dealing with the life-threatening effects.

🎙️ON AIR:

NYT investigative reporter Hannah Dreier and CA firefighter Joe Perez join to discuss the lack of protective respiratory gear for firefighters and the consequences on their health.

❓ Is there a firefighter in your life who's dealing with the impacts of smoke inhalation?

📻 Listen:

(Guardian) - Household electricity bills have increased by 10% since Donald Trump re-entered the White House, a new report has found, with its authors highlighting the impact of the president’s datacenter boosterism .. as part of the cause.

@theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

“It’s a bit of an obscenity that I’m asked so much to speak on this subject because I happen to be Jewish and because I happened, as an infant, to have survived the Holocaust" Dr. Gabor Maté says on The Marc Steiner Show @therealnews.com. "Why aren’t we listening to the Palestinians?”

The UC Berkeley Labor Center/ Institute for Research on Labor and Employment seeks a Program Coordinator to be based in Berkeley, CA. Details can be found at: unionjobs.com/listing.php?id=29140 #1u #UnionStrong @ucblaborcenter.bsky.social

The FBI's Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Had Nearly 3 Minutes Cut Out Metadata from the “raw” Epstein prison video shows approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of two stitched-together clips. The cut starts right at the “missing minute.”

NEW: Metadata from the “raw” Epstein prison video shows approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of two stitched-together clips. The cut starts right at the “missing minute.”

Supreme Court allows mass layoffs at Education Department as Trump seeks to close the agency The justices, by an apparent 6-3 vote announced Monday, lifted an injunction a federal judge in Boston granted in May against the firings.

NEW: The Supreme Court will allow Trump's mass layoffs at the Education Department as the president seeks to close the agency.

Here’s the great short film on this I show my students. They are always so impressed that in an era way before smart phones young activists had the savvy and tools to record their own activism so that we have the footage

The Los Angeles raids make Deaf immigrants more vulnerable Both disability rights and immigrant rights advocates are limited in the help they can offer disabled communities

My latest for @prismreports.org. prismreports.org/2025/07/14/l...

Bay Area Trash Pickups Stall as Republic Services Workers Join Nationwide Strike | KQED Three days after Bay Area workers joined their East Coast counterparts in a nationwide strike, garbage pickups across several counties have been on pause, causing trash pileups.

“How do you boast about your company doing well if workers are being left behind, and not keeping up with the pace of that growth from the company?” @BrendaMunoz www.kqed.org/news/1204759...

In its rush to shutter oil and gas refineries, California risks abandoning workers and local communities OPINION: The potential closure of a Benicia refinery highlights key gaps in California’s energy transition strategy: a lack of planning for fuel supply disruptions and inadequate support for...

In its rush to shutter oil and gas refineries, California risks abandoning workers and local communities. Reupping an op-ed by my colleagues: www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

Heavily armed immigration agents descend on L.A.'s MacArthur Park Agents on horseback and in armored vehicles participated in a daytime raid in the heart of Los Angeles' immigrant community.

Immigration agents in military green surrounded MacArthur Park as the convoy readied for a show of force akin to a Hollywood movie.

By @melissagomez.bsky.social @racheluranga.bsky.social @brittnymejia.bsky.social
www.latimes.com/california/s...

Clinics, hospitals and thousands of S.F. residents could be hit by Trump’s Medicaid cuts Clinics and hospitals that see a high number of patients on Medicaid could be hit the hardest, health care experts and employees say.

missionlocal.org/2025/07/clin...
This bill proposes the biggest cuts to Medicaid in the 60-year history of this program,” said Laurel Lucia, a deputy executive director at the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center.

In its rush to shutter oil and gas refineries, California risks abandoning workers and local communities OPINION: The potential closure of a Benicia refinery highlights key gaps in California’s energy transition strategy: a lack of planning for fuel supply disruptions and inadequate support for...

In its rush to shutter oil and gas refineries, California risks abandoning workers and local communities. Great piece by my colleagues. www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...