By Andrew Perry President, Artesia Local 1520 Vice President, AFSCME District Council 36 Artesia, California - City employees had to do a double take when the City Council decided to offer handsome salary increases for two managers in particular, while maintaining historic low salaries for all other employees. As union president, I take the philosophy of transparent local government to heart. Many Artesians have expressed to me the approval of not just the fight for the City in 2021, but also the reasons behind it - that employees were concerned about the City's finances and the ability of the City to serve its residents. Recent events have again raised concerns about transparency, particularly in light of the roles these two managers played in 2021, when the City was under a different city manager, whom employees contend ran the City like a mafia boss. How Two High Level Managers Compromise Artesia's Integrity When every employee rebelled against the former City Manager for...

Tom McCabe, Freedom Foundation President   Artesia, California - Sitting in front of Artesia City Hall, a college student in his 20s passes out flyers suggesting that city employees not pay their union dues. However, a brief conversation with the union’s president revealed that the  student volunteer had been lied to. When a union member asked what he was doing, the student  said that the Freedom Foundation had convinced him that unions are unfairly using member money to finance political campaigns, and that the best way to counter that was for union members to opt out of their union dues. The Freedom Foundation is an organization funded by conservative billionaires with the intent of weakening worker resolve, and creating a cheap and underpaid workforce. Artesia union members were kind to the gentleman, but notified AFSCME Local 1520 President Andrew Perry that someone was passing the information out. "I spoke to the guy for about five minutes," said Perry, "and what w...