New Economy

Now that Californians have voted to keep ride-hailing drivers classified as contractors with limited job benefits, unions are shoring up their defenses as labor lawyers eye legal challenges and hope that Democrat Joe Biden ekes out a White House victory.

Her son’s third birthday party and his preschool field trip, those are the SeaWorld memories Anna M. holds dear. As a season passholder, she gushed about how fortunate children in San Diego are to get exposure to animals up close between the Zoo and SeaWorld.

“They aren’t just reading about them in a book or watching them on TV. My son has seen a real-life manatee. I didn’t know what a manatee was at his age!” said Anna, who preferred not to disclose her full name to protect her privacy.  

When the Iranian Revolution broke out in 1978, Sassan Rahimzadeh’s family made its way to the U.S., escaping the violence that killed thousands of people and toppled the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Just a few years later, his family opened its first dry cleaning business in San Diego County.

“It was your typical mom and pop shop,” said Rahimzadeh, owner of Arya Cleaners. “Over the years we opened more locations from Horton Plaza to Del Mar.” 

Sarah Rivas was barely making rent since she’d moved to the city of Sunnyvale, in Silicon Valley, California. When, three months into the pandemic, she woke up to an email from her school announcing a nearly 7% cut in teachers’ pay, she gave up a three-year battle.

“I moved into my parent’s house,” said Rivas, who’s been teaching her class of twelfth graders from Sacramento, three hours from their high school. “Not what every 26-year-old wants to do.”

Before March, VirBELA, a virtual reality company in San Diego, saw a steady flow of clients who wanted to offer their workers an engaging, remote office space. Today, the company, founded by Alex Howland and Ron Rembisz, has flared into a massive operation, seeing revenue increase by 260%. 

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Write it! Email it to hoa@ivn.us

Although the pandemic presents many new risks for organizations, this can also be a good time to adopt strategies to reduce harassment and prevent conflict and violence now and over the long term as we continue to shift into the new world of work. 

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Email it to hoa@ivn.us

Now is certainly an interesting time to design an office from scratch. Doing so, in the midst of a pandemic, means doing your best to predict what a workplace will look like and feel like post-COVID-19. 

Here’s the thing – no one yet is an expert in the post-COVID-19 world, let alone the workplace. 

As the pandemic forced Terry Delamater’s two Bakersfield-area fitness centers to shut down for months, the pharmacist-turned-gym-owner in desperation turned to his county supervisor for help. Maybe, Delamater suggested, the gyms could reopen as an essential business?

After all, Delamater said, he had kept up his pharmacist license. And he and his daughter had been working since last year with a national organization, the Medical Fitness Association, to certify the Sculpt 365 gyms as “medical fitness centers.”

In this TPR interview, Hilary Norton, newly appointed chair of the California Transportation Commission, reflects on the ‘phenomenal sea change’ driving state investments in transportation infrastructure and in advance of the 2020 national election. Citing Governor Newsom’s “all of the above” approach, Norton shares her priorities for the CTC and enthusiasm for creative projects that maximize benefits—and generate revenues—to support a more active and equitable vision for transportation in California.

Joseph Wood went to buy gas in Ventura in anticipation of driving up the coast to visit his children this week. The 39-year-old gig driver knew he had money on a debit card connected to his unemployment payments when his purchase was declined.

Unable to fill up his tank, he found his card was frozen. By the time it unlocked Monday, $1,380 had disappeared.