LOS ANGELES, CA - As historic labor struggles rage on, attacks on immigrant rights increase, housing prices skyrocket, and armed conflicts with unimaginable human loss continue, the Los Angeles May Day Coalition announces the 2024 May Day march theme: “Solidarity is Power: The People United.” This year’s May Day demonstration features a new march route and location.

On International Workers’ Day, May 1, 2024, thousands of immigrants, workers, students, educators, parents, activists, and people of faith will unite in solidarity to take over the streets of Hollywood—the entertainment capital of the world and the economic epicenter of Los Angeles—in a powerful demonstration for better wages, housing for all, a path to citizenship, the right to strike, and a call for a ceasefire in war-torn areas and an end to all wars.

SAN PABLO, California - Tenant advocates are ready to put a rent control measure on the November ballot in San Pablo, while renter and landlord groups across the Bay Area have launched dueling campaigns.

Tenant groups led by the Los Angeles-based Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment have submitted to the East Bay city more than 1,500 signatures needed to bring a measure to cap rent increases and add renter protections before voters, the East Bay Times reported.

Officials will now work to verify the signatures.

In addition to San Pablo, tenant groups led by the alliance are coordinating signature gathering campaigns for rent control measures in Redwood City, Pittsburg and Larkspur, according to the Times.

The proposed ballot measures in each city would cap yearly rent increases to 60 percent of the inflation rate and no more than 3 percent or 5 percent in total, depending on the city. They would also beef up enforcement of current renter protections and add rules against tenant harassment.

SAN PABLO, California - Over 1,600 signatures were submitted to the San Pablo city clerk by activists Tuesday for a renter protection legislation package to go on the November ballot.

The Contra Costa County registrar of voters has 30 days to approve at least 1,278 valid signatures before it goes to voters.

If it goes on the ballot and is approved in the election, the package would establish a rent program under the city manager's office, where tenants can file petitions if the landlord fails to make repairs or takes away housing service and landlords can file a petition if they are not receiving a reasonable return on their investment. It also includes ordinances for rent stabilization, tenant anti-harassment and just-cause evictions.

"There is no state law that makes these requirements," said Leah Simon-Weisberg, a UC Law San Francisco professor who directs the legal nonprofit California Center for Movement Legal Services that wrote the ballot initiative for San Pablo.

SAN PABLO, California - Tenant advocates in San Pablo are one step closer to getting rent control on the ballot this November.

On Tuesday, advocates submitted to the city more than 1,500 signatures needed to bring a measure to cap rent increases and add renter protections before voters. Officials will now seek to verify the signatures.

In recent months, renter and landlord groups across the Bay Area have launched similar ballot-box campaigns, including competing measures to either expand or roll back tenant protections in Berkeley. In Concord, a landlord-backed effort was underway to repeal a newly approved rent control law but didn’t have the signatures.

In addition to San Pablo, tenant groups led by the influential Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment are also coordinating signature gathering pushes in Redwood City, Pittsburg and Larkspur.

LOS ANGELES, California - Tenant rights organizations gathered Wednesday afternoon on USC’s campus to express their outrage with the university’s building plans for upcoming expansion projects. The protest started at the S Vermont Ave and Downey Way intersection and ended at Doheny Memorial Library.

In attendance were representatives from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Eastside LEADS, Inner City Struggle, Legacy LA and ACCE Action.

The protestors wrote and posted an eviction notice to USC President Carol Folt. They delivered it to Rene Pak instead, chief of staff in Folt’s office. The eviction notice stated: “YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that effective THIRTY (30) DAYS from the date of service on you of this notice; the tenancy of the premises known as the USC Health Science Campus and South L.A. Campus is terminated, at which time you are required to vacate and surrender possession of the premises.”

The notice demands fair union contracts for shuttle bus drivers and maintenance workers, various community benefit agreements, support of legacy businesses and defunding USC’s Department of Public Safety (DPS).

LOS ANGELES, California - Protestors mobilized at Viterbi today and marched throughout campus to Bovard Auditorium. They called attention to the increasing presence of wealthy investors building and buying homes at the expense of local residence.

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE, led the protest. Sergio Vargas is the co-director of ACCE.

Sergio Vargas: They’re building this three, four story buildings where they’re charging $1,000 per bed, which is unfair for the students. It’s unfair for the community. And it’s created a lot of chaos for our people, our folks are being taken out of their communities so they can make space for students who are going to come here are going to be here for maybe three months, six months, a year, and they’re going to be gone. They truly do not care about this area and the historic community that has been here for years.

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, California - The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved removing immigration requirements and raised income eligibility limitations for the county’s basic healthcare program.

The amended policy aims to assist 10,500 uninsured people by providing access to general care, mental health, specialist medical care, and emergency and inpatient treatments within the county’s healthcare network and community clinics.

Supervisor John Gioia described the healthcare expansion as a corrective measure for a “mistake.” During the 2009 recession, the county added legal status as a requirement to qualify for its public healthcare. This measure would rescind that requirement.

“We are creating equity by removing the barrier we placed in 2009 on undocumented [people] when they were kicked off the program,” said Gioia during the board meeting.