New details were recently announced about where exactly the new Nintendo store in San Francisco will be located.

Last month, the video game giant announced plans to open a new store in Union Square.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, city permits indicate that the new store will be located at 331 Powell Street, right next to the Westin St. Francis San Francisco.

The Powell Street space has been vacant for the past few years and previously housed BCBG and athleisure brand FILA.

The new Union Square location will be the second Nintendo store in the United States and the first on the West Coast. The other U.S. location is at Rockefeller Center in New York City.

Nintendo plans to open its new location in San Francisco next year.

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Image via Shutterstock

The city of San Diego is about to drop its latest plan to fight climate change, but local unions representing workers in the natural gas industry are worried it could cost them jobs.

Across the state, cities are seeking to ditch gas and require buildings be equipped to run solely on electricity for all energy needs including heating and cooking. And union-represented gas workers are paying attention.

In short, they worry the trend could mean more work for electricians and less work for the people digging trenches or laying and maintaining gas pipes.

“It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a lifeline,” said Joe Cruz, executive director of the California State Council of Laborers, which represents the workers who do heavy digging for pipe laying. “(Natural gas) creates many good-paying jobs. The ban on natural gas and decarbonization efforts in California will have a major impact on laborers across the state, including San Diego if that moves forward.”

Staff in the city of San Diego’s Sustainability and Mobility Department know the city has to cut planet-warming emissions from buildings somehow — 20 percent of the city’s emissions came from natural gas-use in homes and businesses in 2019. But the city is moving more slowly than San Francisco, for instance, where county supervisors banned natural gas in new buildings last year.

While San Diego works on a potential plan, staffers are conscious of the livelihoods attached to the industry and hired the same consultants San Francisco County used before passing its policy to study the potential impacts to the workforce.

“These aren’t just jobs, but people and their families,” said Alyssa Muto, the city of San Diego’s director of sustainability and mobility.

San Diego, like Encinitas, could decide to require new buildings be equipped to power everything — including stoves, water heaters, air conditioning and heating — with electricity. But new building growth is slow, accounting for just one percent of the building stock every year. The bulk of gas infrastructure is in existing buildings.

The city could be aggressive and require retrofits so buildings run entirely on electricity instead of gas. Or the city could give natural gas another pass under its next Climate Action Plan and focus instead on making buildings more energy efficient.

“I don’t know that building electrification has to be the lever, but you do have to get emissions out of the buildings somehow,” said Ashley Rosia-Tremonti, program manager in San Diego’s sustainability department.

Unions representing gas workers argue that relying solely on electrifying California’s buildings is the wrong answer to the climate crisis.

“We want (policymakers) to put online other affordable, safe and convenient forms of energy that everyday people will get confidence in using before they decide to shut down the natural gas industry,” Cruz said.

He means alternative fuels like so-called renewable natural gas and hydrogen energy. Hydrogen is a carbon-free fuel that can be mixed with natural gas to lower its greenhouse gas emission content, but the technology is only slowly penetrating the U.S. market. San Diego Gas and Electric, owned by a top liquified natural gas exporter Sempra, recently announced efforts to ramp-up production of these alternative fuels to offset the emissions the company generates, a popular climate policy goal dubbed “net zero.”

Gas worker unions view these new technologies as guaranteed jobs, whereby workers would retrofit natural gas-fired power plants to run on hydrogen or build new hydrogen fuel plants, said Sean Ellis, an organizer for San Diego’s Local 230 pipefitters union.

“The time to pick a winner and loser here is long gone,” Ellis said. “If we’re going to take fighting climate seriously, we have to have every option on the table.”

This puts local unions at odds with environmentalists who see anything short of electrification as strategies to perpetuate fossil fuels.

“It’s going to be important for us as climate justice advocates to work with our friends in labor to find the right solution and make sure nobody is left behind in this transition,” said Mat Vasilakis, co-director of the Climate Action Campaign. “But we have to get rid of methane gas infrastructure if we want a climate safe and ready future.”

But if San Diego goes electric, it could end jobs for one group of union workers, while creating new opportunities for workers represented by a different union.

That’s because unionized laborers — whether gas, electric or plumbing workers — are trained and certified for a specific type of work. This is partly how unions try to divide work fairly among construction trades.

“That eliminates the Laborers’ opportunity to deliver energy when you purely electrify,” Cruz said. “Electricians have jurisdiction, especially in California, in making wire connections. A laborer can’t perform that function. It requires certification.”

Unions representing San Diego’s electrical workers, IBEW 569 and 465, declined to comment for this story.

This series of pipes makes up part of the North City Pure Water Facility, a plant that converts wastewater to drinking water. / Photo by Megan Wood

Energy sector union labor around the world is fighting for a so-called “just transition” of the workforce as countries seek to curb climate change: If policymakers take gas work away, they would have to help those workers find different jobs — ones that pay and provide the same quality of life or cover the gap in wages with government money.

“The challenge here is that both policymakers and labor leaders are really trying to figure out how to thread the needle on an actual just transition,” said Carol Kim, business manager of the San Diego Building Trades Council, which represents unions from these sometimes-competing trades. “The problem is, environmental policies get passed before that stuff gets put in place.”

One growing job sector in Southern California could provide a bridge: water.

Plumbers and pipefitters pushed back when San Francisco County banned natural gas in new buildings until policymakers struck a compromise. Supervisors agreed to make more pipe work by pushing new water-recycling requirements, like one requiring large buildings to treat and reuse their own wastewater, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

San Diego’s got a lot of pipe-related work in its future, too. The city’s stormwater system, which controls where water goes after it hits the ground from rain, needs about $1.27 billion in repair over the next five years. San Diego is also building a multi-billion wastewater recycling system called Pure Water. And there’s a so-far-uncalculated amount of work preparing the city’s water infrastructure to handle climate-induced sea level rise.

Ellis, from the pipefitters union, acknowledged workers could be retrained to do different kinds of pipe projects, but said it’s not that simple.

“You’re essentially asking someone in their 40s to go back to school and retrain and educate themselves, then take a pay cut,” he said.

[Disclosure: Mitch Mitchell, SDG&E’s vice president of state governmental affairs and external affairs, is a member of Voice of San Diego’s board]

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This post is sponsored and contributed by Thumbtack, a Patch Brand Partner.

As a homeowner, plumbing probably doesn’t cross your mind much until there’s a problem. But when your faucet won’t stop dripping, your toilet is clogged or a burst pipe causes flooding, finding a plumber to come to the rescue quickly is an absolute necessity. Fortunately, Thumbtack, a home services app used by millions, has Union City residents covered.

Thumbtack connects homeowners with local professionals, including top-rated plumbers. When you need a plumbing professional to repair faulty fixtures, clear drain blockages, replace damaged pipes, or handle any other plumbing need, Thumbtack makes it simple to find and hire a plumber in the Union City area.

Whether the result of a natural disaster or a burst pipe, an emergency plumbing situation can occur at any time. Because of both the danger of standing water and the cost of cleaning up a flood, it’s important to immediately attend to your situation — and fortunately, there are plumbers who are available to handle your emergency plumbing needs. The average cost of emergency plumbing services in San Francisco is $220.1, according to data obtained by Thumbtack.*

Find out what’s happening in Union Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Stubborn clogs in sinks, toilets, or showers can eventually lead to pipe and drain issues. Plumbers have specialized tools to repair drains, clear blockages and ensure water flows freely. The average cost of plumbing drain repair in San Francisco is $208.53, according to data obtained by Thumbtack.*

There are also several reasons you might need new pipes. Old water pipes can wear out and spring a leak, causing thousands of dollars of damage to your home. You also might need new pipes as part of a remodel or an addition to your house. The average cost of plumbing pipe installation or replacement in San Francisco is $422.03, according to data obtained by Thumbtack.*

Find out what’s happening in Union Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Once your plumbing needs are handled, you can use Thumbtack to connect with other pros in the Union City area to complete virtually any home task. You can hire a house cleaner, electrician, landscaper, and more to help you tackle that to-do list.

Each professional on Thumbtack has a profile, allowing you to read reviews, see how many times they’ve been hired by others, and see how long they’ve been in business. You can contact pros and request free cost estimates, allowing you to compare prices and choose the professional that best fits your budget.

Whether you need services from a plumber or any other professional in the Union City area, Thumbtack is the way to go.

Need something done in Union City? Thumbtack can help you find and hire the pro for the job!

*Pricing data is based on projects requested on Thumbtack in the past 24 months as reported directly by the independent service professional or individual consumer. These figures are provided for educational purposes only and are subject to change at any time due to various factors. Details about your specific project and local rates can impact costs.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

This post is sponsored and contributed by Thumbtack, a Patch Brand Partner.

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On Nov.14, the Teamsters union went on strike to protest unfair bargaining and a lack of improvement in their contracts. The Teamsters union represents electricians, plumbers, carpenters and other trade skill workers. Union members, students and other people stood with them in solidarity on the picket line while holding signs and marching around the school. Teamsters unions across the other 22 CSU campuses also went on strike today.

The striking party traveled from the picket line, past the Administration building, through the quad, past Burk Hall and the student center, and continued out onto Font Blvd. From there, the striking union walked parallel to the Mashouf Wellness Center and next to the Mary dorm buildings. They then walked on Lake Merced Blvd past the lot 20 parking garage and headed toward Annex 1 and Annex 2. The union then looped back to the picket line.

Jose Fuentes is the business agent for Teamsters Local 2010. Fuentes and others were shouting into bull horns and leading chants while marching around campus. He also helped organize today’s strike on San Francisco State’s campus.

“Our members are willing and able to strike for a day, two days, three days or whatever it takes to get a fair contract,” Fuentes said.

The CSU has not bargained in good faith, according to several Teamsters union members. The CSU is also bringing in contracted workers as replacements for union members on projects like electrical, carpentry and plumbing in new developments being built.

“They’re also trying to take away methods on how to get equity increases,” Fuentes said. “The proposal that they have on the table is not even competitive to the private sector market for electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and workers like that.”

Jaime Alvarado is an electrician and a part of the union. Alvarado has been on the picket line since the strike first started at 7 a.m.

Xavier Morgado, an electrician, chants, “We are your community, we support you. Please support us back” to students coming out of the Muni train on the way to classes on 19th Street and Holloway at SFSU on Nov. 14, 2023. (Tam Vu / Golden Gate Xpress)

“We want to show them that we’re ready,” Alvarado said. “We’re ready to do whatever it takes to get a just contract because that’s what it really is about, is to get a fair contract. That’s what we’re striking about.”

Debbie Elia is the facilities project supervisor for housing at SFSU. Elia has been seeing the change in labor wages across the state, but has yet to see a change on campus.

“It’s been years. This is not the first time that they’ve been unfair to us,” Elia said. “It’s been years of unfairness and we’re behind all the other trades locally, and across the state.”

The CSU and Teamsters are at an impasse in their contract negotiations. Both parties are still in the process of bargaining according to an email statement from CSU’s Director of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs Amy Bentley-Smith.

“The CSU remains committed to the collective bargaining process and reaching a negotiated agreement for increased compensation with the Teamsters, as we have done with five of our other employee unions in recent weeks,” Bentley-Smith stated in an email.

Students came out and supported the union members who were striking. They could be seen out on the picket line, chanting to people as they crossed said line to go to classes for the day. Some students brought food, hand warmers and more. Dulce Euclide is a first-year child adolescent development major and like other students, was upset about how the CSU has treated the Teamsters union.

“First of all, I think that it’s bullshit,” Euclide said. “I think that especially with the stuff we’ve been seeing for CFA (California Faculty Association), we need to come out and support our workers, there is no difference. We need to support workers’ rights no matter what, they make our school happen.”

Ian Longenbaugh is the general foreman of the new Science building project that is currently in construction. Longenbaugh and his crew had their day cut short because of the strike and chose to stand in solidarity with Teamsters.

Teamsters union members cross the street toward the Muni Station as an act of protest against the unfair bargaining in their contracts on 19th Street and Holloway at SFSU on Nov. 14, 2023. (Tam Vu / Golden Gate Xpress) 

“It makes me feel good knowing that we missed a day’s wages but we all stand together, we stand with them,” Longenbaugh said. “We let them know that because we lost wages, that’s okay. They need better wages for themselves.”

Secretary Treasurer Jason Rabinowitz was out leading the strike into the intersection of 19th and Holloway Ave. Rabinowitz and others successfully stopped traffic a multitude of times and got passersby’s attention.

“We’re standing up to CSU and their arrogance, their greed, their mistreatment of workers,” Rabinowitz said. “We represent 1,100 skilled trades workers throughout CSU who do the hard work that keeps the university running every day.”

Rabinowitz and other members of today’s strike were saying that if their contract demands are not met, then the union will not go back to work and the school will shut down.

“They don’t have a university without our work,” Rabinowitz said. “It’s about time they show appreciation in the form of a fair contract and bargain in good faith with us.”

Those who were out on the picket line want to see the CSU stand with their union workers, not against them. First-year broadcast and electronic communication arts major Elsy Hernandez could be seen passing out flyers that covered all the different reasons for the strike happening today.

“If you’re a student and maybe you don’t understand why you should be supporting this, why you should be out here — it’s all about solidarity,” Hernandez said. “One day we’re gonna be workers, one day we’re gonna be out here fighting for our salary, our rights. It’s these people who are out here doing all of this wonderful work that make our school run.”

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San Francisco’s public school staff just started their third school year with a faulty payroll system, and the district is still slogging through a backlog of 3,000 issues. 

Last month, almost 1,000 public school employees received their paychecks days late.

For employees of the San Francisco Unified School District, a mundane-sounding glitch in a payroll system that went live in January 2022 brought real-world consequences, including  canceled insurance benefits during health emergencies, tax-filing nightmares and delayed retirement contributions. Some school district staff even had to borrow money to pay their rent. 

The district has spent more than $40 million on the system—called EMPowerSF, configured using software by SAP America—and says progress has been made. But the leader of the United Educators of San Francisco union wants the district to pull the plug.

“This system’s gotta go,” said the union’s president, Cassondra Curiel. “There’s only so long you can squeeze a round peg in a square hole.”

The district adopted EMPowerSF with high hopes for replacing an antiquated, 17-year-old system that was paper-heavy and tracked its $1 billion budget on Google Sheets. It contracted with SAP America in 2018 and, later, its subsidiary, SAP Public Services.

A U.S. subsidiary of SAP SE, one of Germany’s largest companies, has been linked to numerous payroll snafus in California. | Source: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

The school district selected SAP, even though problems linked to the company’s payroll software had made headlines in other jurisdictions. The best-known instance came in 2016 when the software company settled with the California State Controller’s Office for $59 million after an exchange of lawsuits.

So why did San Francisco school officials still choose SAP? And will they pull the plug, too? 

‘I Don’t See It Getting Better’

Although it’s the namesake behind the SAP Center, home to the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks, German-founded SAP—originally called System Analysis Program Development—is hardly an instantly recognizable corporation like, say, Oracle or AT&T. In the world of California government, SAP is rather infamous.

The company’s connections to payroll snafus are extensive. In 2005, Los Angeles Community College District officials called a troubled transition to a SAP-powered system “horrific” after reports of missing pay. Two years later, a new $95 million payroll system held up by SAP software left thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District employees without checks. That episode took about a year to stabilize, and SAP remains in use there today. 

In 2010, Marin County stopped a $30 million SAP project, leading to a legal battle with the implementation contractor, Deloitte. The same year, the State Controller’s Office hired SAP for what was then billed as the largest payroll modernization project in the country. In 2013, it ended its $90 million contract with the software company after the project’s pilot stage became overwhelmed with errors. 

The ordeal was so colossal that it was the subject of a 2013 California Legislature report, which highlighted lapses in due diligence and disagreements about contractual responsibilities. The settlement stemming from another legal battle, which granted $59 million to the state with no admission of fault for either party, came one year before San Francisco school officials sought contractors for a new payroll system in 2017. 

“Every time SAP is implemented, it seems to fail,” said Bilal Mahmood, an entrepreneur and 2022 Assembly District 17 candidate who analyzed San Francisco’s implementation errors. “The legacy companies—the SAPs, the Oracles—they know how to navigate the government procurement process.” 

United Educators of San Francisco Executive Vice President Frank Lara has fielded teachers’ payroll complaints for nearly two years. | Source: Jeremy Chen/The Standard

As the 2013 state report shows, the Controller’s Office ordeal led to questions about how well software like SAP’s can work for public entities with numerous departments and labor agreements. But a payroll transition’s success also comes down to preparation and management.

“SAP has a long and successful track record of partnering with thousands of public sector organizations including the San Francisco Unified School District,” the company said in a statement. “We are fully committed to ensuring our customers realize the value of their digital investments, and in this case more specifically, the long term sustainability and success of the SFUSD.”

The decision-making process is somewhat opaque. A public records request conducted by The Standard did not yield any documentation indicating how the district came to pick SAP out of a pile of software companies from the 2017 public contract proposal process. It is unclear how many bids were made, which was the cheapest or whether SAP had addressed recent issues with transitions.

A district spokesperson did not respond to questions regarding EMPowerSF’s origins and future. 

The district’s Service Employees International Union chapter, whose president has called the new system “the worst thing to come to the district,” is similarly in the dark, despite repeated questions about why the school district chose this particular system. And though union leaders acknowledge that the decision to bring in expensive consultants—now costing over $15 million—has greatly improved the situation, they don’t see a great future for workers when it comes to EMPowerSF.

“I don’t have any faith this program is going to get any better,” said Antonae Robertson, the chapter’s vice president. “I don’t see it getting worse, but I don’t see it getting better.”

Many technical aspects of the contracts were written to the district’s disadvantage, according to a Standard analysis. For example, Infosys, the information technology firm that was hired to put the software into action, did not have a contractual responsibility to remedy issues with the system. The district was also responsible for migrating data between the old system and the new.

Mahmood stressed that he has great empathy for government entities changing payroll systems, as software must be customized to account for all their intricacies. The problem compounds for districts like San Francisco that reported gaps in documentation needed to plug into the payroll system, he added. 

After combing through the district’s contracts, Omid Ghamami, a procurement consulting expert who reviewed the paperwork at the request of The Standard, highlighted another red flag: that the district switched from one major payroll provider to another rather than modernizing the preexisting PeopleSoft system by Oracle. 

“I would suspect they blamed these issues on the system rather than their own procedures,” Ghamami said. “When they switched to another system, they got a rude awakening. The worst thing they could do is let history repeat itself.”

SAP has opened an office on Townsend Street in San Francisco. Its subsidiary SAP SuccessFactors has a campus in South San Francisco. | Source: Sundry Photography/Getty Images

Keep or Ditch? 

Under Superintendent Matt Wayne, who began his post in July 2022, the district has simplified and addressed many issues with district operations identified as the major causes of its payroll misery. Several key vacancies in business services, technology and human resources departments continue to be filled as the caseload is increasingly tamed. 

“We’re in a very different place than we were a year ago,” Wayne said at the Aug. 8 board meeting. “[There’s] a lot of work to do, but there has been progress. You have my continued commitment to make this work for us because we need to focus, as I said, on our [academic] goals—which is what we’re really here for.” 

Since 2018, the district has spent at least $43 million across seven contractors to launch the system and clean up the mess, according to a Standard analysis of related records. Of that, SAP accounted for $5.9 million. 

In addition, the district hired another consultant for $2.6 million to stabilize its business operations, including payroll, through July 2024.

How much longer until EMPowerSF works for the district remains to be seen. The smart move in 2017 would have been to upgrade PeopleSoft, Ghamami said. The smart move now, he added, would probably be to stick with SAP, due to the district’s sunk costs.

Curiel, the educators’ union president, however, has seen enough. The union staged a takeover of district offices in March 2022 to secure agreements for timely replacement checks and interest for delayed payments, but it’s unclear when the district will be in a place to tally all that up. 

Meanwhile, workers still have a tough time understanding their paychecks and what may have gone wrong. An official union complaint is working its way through a state system. 

Frank Lara, the union’s vice president, has fielded complaint after complaint from members. This year, he watched his own help ticket move painfully slowly through the system while he was charged an extra $850 a month for health care his family did not receive. 

“It just gets lost,” Lara told The Standard. “There’s some key system issues that may not be solvable.”

Questions, comments or concerns about this article may be sent to [email protected]

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By last Friday, all of the striking nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, were scheduled to lose their employer health care coverage. No new talks are scheduled.

“As of Sept. 1, RWJUH nurses must pay for their health benefits through COBRA,” said RWJ spokeswoman Wendy Gottsegen. “This hardship, in addition to the loss of wages throughout the strike, is very unfortunate. We hope the union considers the impact a prolonged strike is having on our nurses and their families.”

This painful standoff has some of the state’s wealthiest and most politically connected power brokers up against the United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200, which represents close to 1,700 nurses who weathered a once-in-a-century mass death event that around the country killed thousands of health care workers and disabled many more.

Our health care system in New Jersey and across the nation did not hold up well during COVID. The U.S. has 4% of the world’s population, but at least 12% of its COVID deaths. Multiple peer-reviewed studies have documented the lack of N-95 masks and proper staffing in our health care system helped drive the infection and death rate, particularly in underserved communities of color. 

In a reality that residents of New Jersey and New York know all too well, congregant care facilities where the most vulnerable are housed, became vectors for the disease.

Holding the American health care system accountable for its failure means being prepared to take on some of our nation’s most entrenched interests that have cultivated both major political parties. President Biden’s recent comment that “health care is a right” is a sign that we might see some attention to the health care affordability and access crisis that still grips our nation.

Even before the pandemic that killed 1.1 million Americans and disabled millions more, our health care system, largely based on nonprofits like RWJBarnabas that pay Wall Street wages for leadership, was ranked as the most expensive among peer OECD nations with the worst health care outcomes.

In the big picture, U.S. life expectancy continues to decline as costs go up. Our nation is likely to drop further in that ranking as the corporatization of health care accelerates.

In 2018, CNN reported the U.S. would “take the biggest drop in ranking of all high-income countries, falling from 43rd in 2016 to 64th by 2040, with an average life expectancy of 79.8. The U.S. will be overtaken by China, which rises 29 places to 39th in the table.”

That was before the pandemic.

U.S. life expectancy continues to decline as costs go up. Our nation is likely to drop further in that ranking as the corporatization of health care accelerates.

The RWJBarnabas system is a not-for-profit health care giant with a dozen acute care hospitals and a partnership with Rutgers University. The system has 38,000 employees and $6.6 billion in revenue. It relies on hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-exempt state issued bonds for capital construction.

Yes, it sounds like a public, almost quasi-governmental entity with a vital and noble mission, which, along with its workforce, is executed 24/7 in some of New Jersey’s poorest and most underserved communities.

Yet it also generates vast fortunes for some people on top of the health care pyramid.

The system’s recently-retired CEO and president, Barry Ostrowsky, earned $16 million in the second year of the pandemic, making him the highest paid hospital executive in the New York area, according to Crain’s New York.

He’s now on the board of directors of PSE&G, New Jersey’s largest utility. 

According to RWJBarnabas’ latest available 990 IRS form from fiscal year 2020, Ostrowsky made $5.59 million three years ago. More than a dozen other top executives listed were in the $1 million or more category.

The hospital system’s filing includes links to dozens of “related organizations taxable as partnerships,” identified with nondescript names like Medmerge LLC or Jersey ASC Ventures LLC. There’s a C-corporation called Major Investigations Inc., which is listed as “security” at the same address in West Orange, New Jersey, as the RWJBarnabas Health Foundation.

Any entity that operates on the scale of the RWJBarnabas system needs to have cash on hand and investments that can help it sustain its charitable mission. It’s all a matter of degrees and transparency.

Under Schedule F in the RWJBarnabas IRS filings, which catalogues its financial “activities outside the United States,” listed are “program services” in Central America and the Caribbean described as a “financial vehicle” worth $41.2 million.   

For its PR strategy, the nonprofit’s management is relying on MWW, the powerhouse firm founded by Michael Kempner, who has been described by Politico as a “major Democratic fundraiser who bundled millions of dollars for Barack Obama’s campaigns.”

According to Kempner’s LinkedIn profile, he is “active in progressive politics, having played roles in the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and most recently, Joe Biden.”

For its PR strategy during the strike, the nonprofit relies on MWW, the powerhouse firm founded by Michael Kempner, a “major Democratic fundraiser” who bundled millions in donations for Barack Obama.

The global crisis management firm has a high-powered team that includes Steve Sandberg, a former journalist and former chief spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who currently chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In his role as senior vice president for public affairs “at one of the world’s leading public relations agencies,” Sandberg is playing a key role in the RWJBarnabas system’s response to a strike it has consistently asserted it wanted to avoid.

Sandberg, who has been proactive about getting management’s message gets out, did not answer a query from this reporter as to whether MWW is providing its services pro bono.

He responded by asking if I was in the employ of any unions. I responded that I was not, but that I do benefit from a SAG-AFTRA pension and Social Security so I am grateful to the union movement.

Central to the labor-management dispute in this case the question of which side represents the best interests of the hospital’s workforce and the patients, as well as the broader community they serve. 

Three years ago in its IRS filings, RWJBarnabas reported it spent $18.5 million for advertising. In the present media landscape that buys a lot of space.

In one recent release, the nonprofit heralded the success of RWJUH’s heart transplant team, which “successfully performed a transplantation on August 4 within the first 24 hours of the nurse strike implemented by its nursing union.” That patient, a 52-year-old resident of Trenton, was reportedly discharged on Aug. 14 after 10 days in the hospital’s cardiovascular ICU and in-patient unit. 

Last year, Lester J. Owens was named as chair of the RWJBarnabas Health Board of Trustees. Owens “has served as Vice Chair since 2019 and has served on its Audit, Compliance, Compensation, Nominating and Governance, as well as Racism and Social Justice Committees,” according to a press release.

Owens is also senior executive vice president and head of operations for Wells Fargo & Company, where “he oversees a team of more than 70,000 employees and is responsible for building a more unified, integrated approach to Wells Fargo’s business operations functions,” according to the press release announcing his appointment. Before joining Wells Fargo, Owens held prominent positions at BNY Mellon, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Citibank and Bankers Trust.

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Residents of communities like Newark and Irvington know Wells Fargo well.

Earlier this year, Fortune reported on internal documents from the beleaguered banking multinational that privately expressed “increased concern that a years-long effort to unionize the bank’s employees could soon start notching victories” and outlined “plans to spend millions addressing the ‘pain points’ that can fuel organizing efforts.” 

Fortune further reported that Wells Fargo “has seen ‘an increase in organizing activity’ by employees working with the Communications Workers of America, according to an internal PowerPoint presentation. … That comes amid what it called a broader ‘resurgence’ of U.S. union activity.”

An unnamed source in Wells Fargo management told Fortune, “Leaders at the San Francisco-based bank have worried over the trends. … The company has estimated the extra expense of having unionized workers, and drafted plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on staffing improvements.”

In a statement, the bank responded: “Wells Fargo believes our employees are best served by working directly with the company and its leadership – not a third-party group like a union – to address matters of concern. The company is investing in employees through training and education, is boosting minimum pay and health benefits, and now has a Diverse Segments, Representation, and Inclusion leader who reports directly to its chief executive officer.”

Fortune observed that the bank had roughly 193,000 U.S. employees at the end of 2022, none of them unionized.

RWJUH, on the other hand, has had a nurses’ union going back decades. Back in 2005, the United Steelworkers Local 4-200 took up the mantle. As one of America’s legacy unions, it has 1.2 million active and retired members including 50,000 in the health care sector representing titles as varied as physicians and EMTs from New Jersey to California. The union even scored a recent organizing coup in Wyoming.

On day one of the strike, the plumbing in a church rented by the union suffered a “construction accident” that disabled its plumbing, taking out the toilets available for striking workers.

On day one of the job action, the plumbing in the Magyar Reformed Church in New Brunswick, which the union is renting as a strike headquarters, suffered a “construction accident” that disabled its plumbing, taking out the toilets available for striking workers on the picket line. The church sits at the center of the RWJUH complex, which includes the ongoing construction of its $1 billion cancer center.

“We’re nurses, we are resourceful, we do what we have to do, so we rented portable toilets,” Judy Danella, president of United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200, said. The union has filed several claims of unfair labor practices against the hospital system.

The union says its top priority is to improve nurse-to-patient ratios and to establish an enforcement mechanism to hold hospital management accountable when it falls short of that standard. The hospital counters by saying that it tried to prevent a strike and painting the union as an erratic and unreliable bargaining partner.

“RWJUH did everything it could to avoid a strike. The hospital agreed to and signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on July 13, which included the union’s core staffing proposal and compensation settlement,” according to the hospital. “The union leaders signed it and agreed to recommend the MOA to its membership but did not. It was voted down by the nurses and a notice to strike was presented to the hospital.”

Two days before the strike, the hospital narrative continued, RWJUH “submitted a proposal to the union that went even further than what was in the MOA, and the union never presented that proposal to its membership before they went out on strike.”

RWJUH further asserts that it “offered to enter binding arbitration or participate in a federal mediation and conciliation board of inquiry” and asked the union to “rescind its strike notice and return to the table to continue good faith negotiations,” and that the union refused those offers. The hospital chain also alleges that “during the 10-day window prior to the strike, the hospital made another counteroffer to attempt to avert the strike. The union did not respond to the offer until after the strike. Since the strike, mediation has not been productive; counteroffers from the union have far exceeded all previous asks, including those the union agreed to in the MOA.”

The union has a different narrative, of course. Danella told hundreds of her members on the picket line on Aug. 28 that the hospital was not coming to the table, and that the union had “never refused to bargain” with management. She said the failure to make progress “was not for the lack of the union trying.”

Danella told members she hoped that “somebody would push” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, to become engaged in the almost month-long strike at one of the state’s Level 1 trauma centers. Unlike in a recent strike at Rutgers University, Murphy has stayed on the sidelines so far. He has committed to use the tragic lessons of the pandemic to improve New Jersey’s health care system. That’s no small task. A lot of powerful folks have made a killing from the way New Jersey handles health care. 

“Hospitals have been downsizing their staffs over the years to try and save money at the same time that some of the hospitals are full — so safe staffing is something that nurses not just in New Jersey but all over the country are looking at,” New Jersey AFL-CIO president Charlie Wowkanech told Insider NJ earlier this month. “The issue isn’t just about the nurses, it’s about you and me and our families. Someone gets sick and goes to the hospital and they’ve got one nurse for eight or nine patients, particularly in some of these wards with infants, or in intensive care units where people need pretty much constant attention. That’s really what the fight is all about.”

Local 4-200 nurse and activist Renee Bacany said, “We need to make sure that we can take care of our patients to the best of our ability, and that would mean less patients than we are taking on now on a daily basis. Better staffing reduces infection, reduces patient mortality — that’s what study after study shows.”

Christi Peace, a spokesperson for Gov. Murphy, said that the governor “remains a strong proponent of organized labor and believes employees deserve a seat at the table when negotiating labor matters. The administration encourages both parties to maintain an open dialogue and will continue to remain engaged with them as they work towards a fair and acceptable resolution to these negotiations.”

Last Monday, the striking nurses got a pep talk from state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, a Democrat. He discussed his own daughter-in-law’s experience as a nurse during the COVID pandemic.

“To thank you requires more than a speech, it requires some action,” Coughlin said. “I know what this is about — fundamental fairness. This is about people getting paid what they ought to be paid, being able to provide the care that their patients need each and every day…. This is about patient care and fundamental fairness and that’s why it’s so important that you stand up for yourself today.”

He went on, “It’s time to stand up together and to get a contract. It’s time for all of you to be back inside doing what you love to do, what you care about doing and making the difference that you make each and every day.”

Last weekend, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., also offered support for the striking nurses. “We hailed them as heroes during the pandemic, but when it comes to their compensation, the nursing ratios, we’ve got to make sure they are being treated like heroes, not just in words but in the kind of contract and living circumstances they have,” he said.

Read more

on America’s labor resurgence

The post Labor Day showdown: Deep-pockets N.J. hospital chain vs. sturdy nurses union appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Walking away San Francisco style

One of the largest hotels in the US — the 1,921-room Hilton Union Sq in SF — has been forfeited from owner to lender.

The lender was First Republic. Now Chase. The loan amount was approximately $260,000 per room. Can you build a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom in San Francisco for less?

dormitories? Supportive Living? https://t.co/i1Rid03Flt

— Zach Klein (@zachklein) June 5, 2023

leave ship

Please note that the owner of SF’s largest hotel, the Hilton Union Square, is walking away and leaving it to the lender

Virginia-based REIT Park Hotels & Resorts has decided to stop making payments on a $725 million loan, the SF Business Times reports today, essentially ceding over 2,900 hotel rooms and hotel facilities to its lender. These include the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square, which is San Francisco’s largest hotel to occupy an entire city block and one of the largest hotels in the country outside of Las Vegas.

Park Hotels & Resorts is also foregoing the 1,024-room Parc 55, citing the ongoing debt burden of the two hotels in its portfolio and several factors that have made the SF market less attractive to their company.

“After much thought and deliberation, we believe it is in the best interest of Park shareholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market,” said Thomas J. Baltimore, CEO of Park Hotels, in a statement. “We believe more than ever that San Francisco’s path to recovery will continue to be marred and prolonged by major challenges, both old and new: record-breaking office vacancies; concerns about road conditions; lower return to office than comparison cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027, which will negatively impact business and leisure demand.”

The two hotels were valued at $1.56 billion in total for the current loan, as estimated in 2016. So it’s a significant move that Park Hotels would deleverage less than half that amount – and as one analyst told the Business Times, “It says they’re not optimistic about the business of corporate travel or conventions and… conventions.” Return soon to downtown San Francisco.

Away from 50% equity?!

Not really. This means that the estimated value is bullsheet.

Q: And if the appraised value of one of the largest hotels outside of Las Vegas is Bullsheet, what does that say about the value of any building in downtown San Francisco?
A: It’s all bullsheet

Property tax questions and answers

Q: What are San Francisco property taxes?
A: Secured property taxes are calculated based on the property’s appraised value, which is determined annually by the Office of the Assessor-Recorder. The secured property tax rate for fiscal year 2022-23 is 1.17973782%.

I don’t know how the Union Square building or the 1,024-room Parc 55 building rated.

But I’m willing to surmise that the whole damn town is valued at values ​​no one in their right mind would pay.

Other examples

Q: Mish, do you have any other examples of such a claim?
A: Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked.

Second San Francisco Office Tower is selling for 70% off the original list price

Wolf Richter just reported today that the second San Francisco office tower is selling for 70% off the original list price

For the past two years, the burning question has been what these largely vacant older office towers in San Francisco are worth.

The market was frozen. There were no transactions because no one knew what anything was worth as, in just a few short years, the San Francisco office market has gone from being one of the trendiest office markets in the US with a 7% vacancy rate in 2019 and some of the highest rents in the USA to closure through home office. About 33% of all office space is currently available for rent – worse than Houston, which was the worst office market in the US for years.

So now there’s the second deal in about a month – although the sale isn’t over yet. Wells Fargo found a buyer for one of its San Francisco office towers, the 13-story, 32,000-square-foot 1960s tower at 550 California, across the street from and around the corner from the headquarters tower in Montgomery.

Wells Fargo bought the tower in 2005 for $108 million. The building is cleared. Last year, the company was listed for $160 million, but was subsequently delisted after it reportedly received bids under $40 million. Earlier this year, the company hired real estate investment bank Eastdil Secured to relist the tower.

The company has now closed a deal for about $42.6 million to $46 million ($120 to $130 per square foot), according to sources cited by the San Francisco Business Times — the name of the buyer was not disclosed. That would be 71% below the original asking price and almost 60% below the purchase price in 2005.

reassessments required

Every San Francisco homeowner should push for a property tax adjustment.

And guess what will happen to the city if there are honest assessments.

The San Francisco Board of Directors unanimously approves reparations of $5 million per person

In case you forgot (or didn’t know), please note that the San Francisco Board of Directors unanimously supports compensatory payments of $5 million per person

People who never owned slaves would make payments to people who never were slaves in a state that never had slaves.

Stanford University’s Hoover Institution calculated that the proposal would cost non-black families in the city at least $600,000.

Get lost.

This post originated on MishTalk.Com.

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mix

The post The 1,921 Room Hilton Union Sq. Lodge in San Francisco Was Simply Deserted appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The San Francisco hotel industry takes a hit when Park Hotels & Resorts defaults on a $725 million loan and is giving up 2,900 hotel rooms, including the city’s largest hotel, the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, and the Parc 55. The investment firm attributes San Francisco’s stalled recovery to Francisco’s convention market, record-breaking office vacancies and other challenges as reasons for reducing exposure to the city. The move suggests pessimism about the return of business travel and meetings to downtown San Francisco, further impacting the local market and hinting at a possible drop in room rates. Continue reading on SFist →

Photo via Trip Advisor/Hilton

The post Hilton San Francisco Union Sq. and Parc 55 Inns Handed Over to appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Union Square in downtown San Francisco has seen better days—or even better years. As big companies pack up and leave, the popular public space is redefining its identity.

the context

According to reports from Los Angeles Times:

• Nearly 30 downtown businesses have closed since the pandemic and seven more are on the verge of closing.
• A slowdown in consumer purchases, supply chain issues and high operational costs, as well as public safety are some factors behind the city’s 6% increase in vacancy rates in the first quarter of the year. Last year the figure was 5.2%, which has been described as “the highest in the city” since 2006.
• About 300,000 fewer people live downtown compared to 2019 and homelessness has impacted foot traffic.
• “It’s a very serious problem for the entire city, let alone downtown,” Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, said in the article.

The answer

The LA Times reported that San Francisco Mayor London Breed “defeated the narrative” that Union Square was in trouble.

Breed said in the article that the media is not talking about the confiscated deals.

“For the people who don’t walk the streets of San Francisco, who don’t live in San Francisco but want to write and comment on San Francisco, I urge you to come to this city and see how it feels. ” Breed said at a press conference in May. “I urge you to shop at the stores you complain about and which you have probably never set foot in.”

Breed, in an ABC 7 article, acknowledged the need to increase police presence to attract more businesses to the city and more foot traffic. She added that concerned residents “will see a difference” in the city’s proposed upgrades.

Why it matters: Breed said stores like Ikea and Banana Republic are moving to Union Square — but no one’s reporting it.

Union Square Alliance CEO Marisa Rodriguez said in the article that while some stores have gone, luxury retailers are staying.

“The heart of the place is beating strongly — it’s alive,” she told the LA Times. “There have certainly been challenges post-pandemic that many major cities have faced. We try to position ourselves to do justice to the moment and turn where we can.”

Repeating her views, Breed announced a $6 million investment for three blocks near Union Square, where stores like H&M, Uniqlo and Gap have closed.

The City of San Francisco is positioning their city’s business park as unbeatable and undeterred. While Union Square has faced (and still faces) fights and store closures, its representatives are reminding others that there is more to come and should ignore the haters.

Despite negative press surrounding a brand, continue to remind others of the reality of the situation – find and reinforce positive news.

Strengthen your brand and keep shouting about its resilience from the mountaintops, but don’t get delusional either. Find the right balance of positivity and share this hard truth with others.

Rodriguez acknowledged the issues at hand, but didn’t just address them either.

If you dig deeper, there are always great stories to tell. Focus on finding positive and inspiring stories about comebacks and people triumphing over adversity. Because who doesn’t love an outsider?

Top Headlines:

• From Amazon and Kleenex to Cheerios and Dove – the Morning Consult is ranked among the 10 most trusted brands in the United States with some well-known names among the top winners. Brands are ranked by companies that people trust to “do the right thing”. Others that made the list include Band-Aid, Lysol, UPS, Amazon, Kleenex, Cheerios, and Dove.

• Air New Zealand would like to see how much you weigh before boarding the aircraft. The New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority needs to know how much passengers weigh on their international flights for safety reasons to ensure the weight distribution is appropriate for a survey. Program officials make sure passengers know their weight will not be shared with anyone. Your data is sent directly to the weight recorder and is not visible on the scale. The aviation authority stressed that they wanted to protect their customers from potential embarrassment by hiding their weight from everyone, which in turn showed care and concern.

Sherri Kolade is a writer at Ragan Communications. When she’s not with her family, she enjoys watching Alfred Hitchcock-style films, reading, and building an authentically curated life that involves more than just finding the occasional tasty fried meal. Follow her on LinkedIn. Have a great idea for a PR story? Email her at sherrik@ragan.com.

COMMENT

One Response to “The Daily Scoop: San Francisco’s Union Square Struggles With Store Closures and Media Coverage”

Ronald N Levy says: May 30, 2023 @ 3:54pm

This is excellent. At first glance, it looks like Mayor Breed is either right or wrong, but a closer look suggests a third choice the mayor might be happy to call upon: new and better PR to restore San Francisco’s success .

From the fat sea lions of Pier 39 to the slim beauties of San Francisco bars to the fat corporations of California tech, SF is blessed with beauty
and brains. And the city has a nice, smart selection of great PR firms, some of the biggest in the world, that can make SF one of the greatest cities again.

It won’t happen until San Franciscan makes it possible. If Mayor Breed sees a realistic chance of becoming governor, or if SF’s new businesses see a chance to find new wealth with new governance, it could happen. SF has the community and site resources, as well as tremendous PR talent, to make what Horace Greeley called for: go west, young man.

Thanks to our better PR skills, we could skip the “man” and the “boy” today.

Go west. I loved San Francisco, had a good office there, and would love to watch one of San Francisco’s great public relations firms rebuild this once-leading city of equal opportunity and exceptional originality.

Answer

The post The Day by day Scoop: San Francisco’s Union Sq., grapples with enterprise closures and media protection appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.