Reflecting on 2023: A Year in Review – Center on Policy Initiatives

REFLECTING ON 2023

A YEAR IN REVIEW

At CPI, we are committed to making San Diego a region that respects workers and working-class people. Over the last few years, we have made significant progress towards this mission. These include winning a County Office of Labor Standards & Enforcement (OLSE), incubating the San Diego Black Worker Center, advocating for warehouse workers, winning a Worker Justice Fund, and providing public education on workers’ rights and wage theft.

In 2024, we are building on our momentum from 2023 and taking our fight against wage theft to the next level. Here’s a sneak peek into what’s coming up: a new report on wage theft violations in San Diego, Know Your Rights trainings, student and parent organizing, and expanded leadership development opportunities. In the meantime, keep scrolling for a review of all we were able to accomplish together in 2023.

Transforming systems

CPI builds powerful alliances that anchor campaigns to transform institutions so that they reflect the needs and better serve everyday working people and their communities. CPI ensures that worker voices are included in the decision-making process of how these resources are used and who it serves. This year, we continued to focus our work in the City of San Diego, County of San Diego, and San Diego Unified School District. Learn more about our campaign wins and highlights below.

City of San Diego

Community Budget Alliance

In 2023, the CBA called on the City of San Diego Mayor and City Council to intentionally create an anti-racist budget that breaks the pattern of discrimination against people of color and the exploitation of poor people. Each year, Community Budget Alliance partners develop budget priorities that meet the needs of and work towards explicitly reversing racial and economic inequities in the communities where we do our work. Our priorities address some of San Diego’s most pressing issues, especially those that disproportionately impact Black, Latinx, refugee, immigrant, LGBTQ+, youth, housing insecure, low-income, and other historically disempowered communities.

CBA coalition retreat

CBA Budget Wins (click to expand)

- $2.3M in additional funding for the Housing Instability Prevention Program: This program is administered by the San Diego Housing Commission and provides a rental subsidy from $350-$750 per month for households that would otherwise not meet their rental obligations. The subsidy is allowed for up to 24 months targeting the following populations: seniors, families with children, people with disabilities, and transitional age youth up to 25 years old regardless of immigration status. During FY23 the funding supported 300 families. This FY24 funding will support approximately 200 additional families. HIPP is one of few programs designed to prevent homelessness, which is a shift in how the city invests in programs to prevent homelessness, often through one-time funding or programming, not direct relief to families.
- $3M to continue the Eviction Prevention Program: This program was funded in FY23 through the Housing Commission who contracts with Legal Aid, CHCDC, ACCE, Chicano Federation and Casa Familiar. The program supports legal services and tenant outreach that enabled community based organizations to reach close to 50,000 tenants, refer more than 9,000 to legal and other resources, and educate over 4,000 tenants on their rights last year. Without additional funding, this important work would have stopped after June 30, 2023.
- $1M to pilot the Community-led Youth Care and Development Program: This program will establish two drop-in youth centers that provide social, emotional and development activities and recreation. Programs such as: mental health counseling; trauma-informed care; career guidance and job training; will provide a place for youth and young adults to thrive. We originally asked for $3M, but the IBA argued that $1M would be sufficient for the first year given the time it will take the City to help design the program, contract out, find a location, and then push the money out. This program will be life changing for youth in Mt. Hope and Memorial/Stockton neighborhoods who currently don’t have access to anything like what the program will offer.
- $750,000 for the City Heights Urban Revitalization Project/Jeremy Henwood Park Update: This will support upgrades to the Officer Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park and surrounding area referred to as the City Heights Urban Village, including playground structures, seating areas, lighting, bathrooms, trash cans, and hydration stations. This priority was brought to the coalition by the Mid-City CAN Youth Council.
- $1.1M in the Urban Forestry Program to increase tree planting in historically under-invested communities: This will support the addition of 3 FTEs and non-personnel funding to meet the requirement of Air Pollution Control District (APCD) settlement that requires increased tree planting in historically under-invested communities. This is $1M of a total $5M that is required by the APCD settlement that will be allocated towards this program over the next 5 years.
- $9.2M allocated to the Climate Equity Fund: This fund supports projects in eligible areas as defined by the Climate Equity Index for infrastructure such as, parks, streets, pedestrian and bicycle improvements, and street lighting. We have often seen CBA park asks funded with Climate Equity Funds.
- Parks and Infrastructure Projects
- – Barrio Logan Street Calming Design ($600,000) – $487,000 in the budget as part of the signal modification project list.
- – Beta Street Green Alley (unknown cost) – included as a project the City will complete with Federal Water Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act (WIFIA) Loan funding from the Environmental Protection Agency

County of San Diego

Invest in San Diego Families

The Invest in San Diego Families (ISDF) coalition is united by a commitment to making San Diego County a place where all San Diegans can thrive. Community, faith, and labor organizations have worked together for many years to move elected and civic leaders to create an equitable County budget, prioritize programs that support our most impacted County residents, and ensure that county operations are transparent, accessible and accountable to the public.

ISDF Budget Wins (click to expand)

$1.4 million for Office of Labor Standards: This funds 6 full-time employees, which is an additional full-time position above the current budget. The new position is included to help the office do more investigations of labor standards violations.

$100,000 to implement a Workplace Justice Fund that will help workers within underserved communities recover wages owed from employers
$5.1 million allocated to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs: This is an increase of $1.85M from the previous year. This includes 5 staff positions.

$5 million for the Immigrant Rights Legal Defense Program: The Public Defender will continue expanding implementation of a program that provides legal defense to immigrants facing removal proceedings.

San Diego Unified School District

Education Justice & Community Schools

Building on the success of our community schools coalition work, we are working with partners to become a leading coalition for education justice in the San Diego region. Together, coalition partners envision what San Diego Unified School District would look like if it truly worked for people, identify the barriers and opportunities, and then advocate for the policy changes necessary to make our vision a reality. Meaningful, equitable and permanent investments in education, enrichment, and expanded learning start with engaging students and parents who are informed about how they can make their demands heard and armed with the data and information that helps them develop and partner with the district in implementing those demands.

CPI joined teachers with the San Diego Education Association (SDEA), parents, students, and other members of the San Diego Community Schools Coalition at a rally to demand fair pay, smaller class sizes, more counselors, and more after school programs for our youth.

Earlier this year, CPI joined in solidarity with hundreds of union educators, staff, and community members at several actions to demand improved conditions for workers and students. SDEA teachers and other educators in San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) had been working for a year without a contract. Their demands include fair pay, smaller class sizes, more counselors, nurses, and more after school programs.

One of the demands this year, which came from the Community Schools Coalition, would allow parents and students to help decide what after school programs their school site will offer. Thanks to the powerful display of people power and solidarity by union educators, staff, and community members that came together, the district felt the pressure to bargain with educators and respond to demands. On May 25th, SDEA and SDUSD reached a tentative agreement!

In addition, San Diego Unified named the next 10 community schools for the 2023-2024 school year! Community schools are designed to address systemic barriers to education, such as poverty, language access, or housing insecurity, and have emerged as a democratic and collaborative response to structural inequities in the education system. CPI is proud to be a part of leading this work in San Diego.

Congratulations to: Bell Middle School, Burbank Elementary, Cherokee Point Elementary, Chollas-Mead Elementary, Crawford High School, Fay Elementary, Lafayette Elementary, Lincoln High School, Morse High School, Sherman Elementary. These 10 schools are joining ALBA Community Day School, Hancock Elementary School, Hoover High School, Millennial Tech Middle School, and Mountain View School as part of the movement to transform public schools.

BUILDING WORKER POWER

For many years, CPI has been advocating for better working conditions and fighting wage theft and retaliation against workers. In 2023, we celebrated several policy wins that were a result of many years of advocacy. We also published research and led trainings to keep the community informed. Learn more about them below.

Policy Advocacy

Click below to learn more about each policy.

Worker Justice Fund

In May 2023, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to create a Workplace Justice Fund. San Diego County is one of the first places to create this type of fund in California. Since 2021, when CPI and our partners won the creation of an Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement (OLSE) at the County of San Diego, we have been working with OLSE to win stronger pro-worker policies at the County, including the Worker Justice Fund. We are part of a fight across the state and the nation to stop employers from stealing from and intimidating working people.
The Worker Justice Fund will provide financial assistance to workers who experienced wage theft or retaliation and file complaints with OLSE. Many victims of wage theft do not file complaints even when they know their rights because they fear that their employer will fire them. The Workplace Justice Fund will provide workers with up to $4,000 if their employer fires them as retaliation for filing a wage theft complaint. This one-time payment is designed to help workers make ends meet while they search for a new job.
Even when workers file complaints and investigations prove the employer engaged in wage theft, often the employers simply ignore the judgment and refuse to pay the workers the wages they are owed. In this case, the Workplace Justice fund will pay up to $3000 of the judgment. Then, the County will work to recover all funds owed to the employee from the business that committed wage theft and/or retaliation.

SB 497 Protected Employee Conduct

CPI plays a leadership role in the statewide coalition, the California Coalition for Worker Power (CCWP). Along with our CCWP partners, we were proud to sponsor SB 497 (Smallwood-Cuevas) to strengthen retaliation protections for workers in California. Governor Newsom signed SB 497 into law in October!

SB 497 will make it easier for workers to speak up and hold employers accountable. This bill will give many workers a path to justice when faced with retaliation and deter employers from seeking retaliation when a worker asserts their legal rights. It create a rebuttable presumption, which means that when workers report that their employer has retaliated against them, the incident of retaliation is assumed to be true and puts the responsibility on the employer to prove otherwise. Retaliation occurs when an employer punishes a worker for exercising their rights, such as by firing or demoting them. For example, an employer illegally retaliates by cutting a worker’s hours (and pay) in response to the worker complaining to their supervisor or a government agency that they didn’t receive overtime compensation.

Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation

On April 28th, 2023, California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted unanimously to adopt the Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) Regulation which will require all medium and heavy-duty truck fleets (50 or more trucks) to be zero emission (electric) trucks by 2045. Heavy-duty trucks used specifically in areas like the port will need to be zero emission vehicles by 2035, ten years earlier.

Toxic emissions from trucks disproportionately affect low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Ports and warehouses, who are some of the largest producers of toxic emissions, often locate their operations where land is cheapest. These tend to be neighborhoods where low-wage workers and workers of color live because of historical redlining.

The new regulation will ensure that medium and heavy-duty fleet owners and companies are the ones financially responsible for the transition. It prevents employers with large fleets from putting the financial burden onto contracted drivers who own their trucks, but don’t control the operations of their trucks or what products the trucks carry. There is still a lot of work to do to end this business model that allows corporations to exploit drivers. But it is a significant step towards protecting vulnerable communities from harmful diesel emissions.

Know Your Rights Training

In August, we hosted a “Know Your Rights” event together with the Employee Rights Center, San Diego Black Worker Center, and DSA San Diego. Representatives from both the city and county Offices of Labor Standards and Enforcement also joined the event to talk about resources for workers. CPI spoke with attendees about what wage theft is, how it impacts families and communities, and where workers can get help with reporting wage theft.

Email us at cpi@cpisandiego.org if you’d like “Know Your Rights” wallet cards to share with other workers and community members or if you would like to request a Know Your Rights training for your organization.

CPI Researcher and Policy Advocate, Keara O’Laughlin, presenting data at our Know Your Rights training.

San Diego Black Worker Center

CPI continues to serve as the fiscal sponsor and incubation partner to the San Diego Black Worker Center. At the SDBWC’s inaugural Black in Front Summit in September, CPI’s Senior Researcher and Policy Advocate, Dr. Derrick Robinson, presented to a full room on the state of Black workers in San Diego, liberating data on poverty, unemployment, unequal pay and wage theft for Black workers.

For many people who attended, this was the first time they had heard this data and information about wage theft and their rights as workers. Derrick helped the audience understand how Black workers are disproportionately unemployed and forced into low paying jobs because of discrimination and racism, regardless of qualifications that Black workers have.

CPI’s Sr. Researcher and Policy Advocate, Derrick Robinson, presenting at the SDBWC’s Black in Front Summit

“The room was filled with Black people looking for tools to take back to their communities to uplift Black workers. These audience members were asking tough questions and really responded positively to the material being presented. They really helped us to relay the point that worker justice cannot be achieved without also focusing on racial justice issues. I definitely felt the safety and love being shared in the space, along with the readiness to be called to action. I’m excited for what the future holds for the Black Worker Center and the Black community in San Diego as a whole. I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to connect with Black San Diegans around what we all can do to support Black workers in our community.”

—Dr. Derrick Robinson, Senior Researcher and Policy Advocate

NEW RESEARCH REPORT

We published a report analyzing the most recent ACS Census data (2021 5-year estimates) for County Supervisorial District 4. In the report we talk about severe poverty because the federal poverty thresholds are an inadequate measure to describe who is really struggling in San Diego.

The most recent data show that in 2021 almost 1 in 7 (13.5%) residents of County District 4 lived below the federal poverty level, an income level that means San Diegans are so poor that food and housing insecurity are constant challenges. The federal poverty rate in District 4 was higher than any other supervisorial district. With most COVID supports ending, it is likely that severe poverty, hunger, housing instability, and racial disparities have worsened in 2022 and 2023 and will not improve without substantial and intentional interventions.

Developing the next generation of leaders

Students for Economic Justice

This summer, eight students completed our Students for Economic Justice paid internship program. We are so happy that we could spend this time with our interns and to share knowledge, ideas and support their growth as future leaders of the progressive labor movement. Thank you to all the trainers, facilitators, and speakers for sharing their knowledge and experiences with this year’s interns.

Congrats to the SEJ Class of 2023! Check out our program recap post to learn more about what the interns did this summer.

SEJ Interns, Class of 2023

“I think this program is really special and a great introduction. Especially when it comes to making relationships, that’s something that you’re definitely going to learn when it comes to developing yourself as an organizer and realizing that organizing is something you can ingrain in any career you want to do in the future. So being able to establish those relationships not only with the other interns, but within your site and within other sites that for sure is going to be something really beneficial in the future. I think I’ve developed a lot as a person throughout this summer. Which is really awesome and it’s something I’m going to take away for a really long time.”

– Lana Al Any, SEJ 2023 Intern

IN COALITION, ALWAYS

Nothing we do is done alone. We’re grateful to our coalition partners, ally organizations, foundation funders, individual donors, and community members who make our work possible. We are humbled and honored to serve the San Diego region.

Learn more about the coalitions we lead:

JOIN THE FIGHT

At the Center on Policy Initiatives, we fight every day to reduce inequality and build a community where working families thrive. Your support helps carry on CPI’s work for economic justice throughout the San Diego region.