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The California deadline to submit a FAFSA is just two weeks away, but technical issues with the new website still persist. Some state lawmakers are pushing for a one-month extension, and the U.S. Department of Education is also asking colleges to extend decision dates and payment deadlines.Every year, millions of students fill out the FAFSA to access funds to pay for college, including federal grants, loans, and work-study.
The federal delay has also caused issues at the state level. The California Student Aid Commission oversees state-based financial aid for students who plan to enroll at a CSU or UC campus; a California community college; or an approved career college or technical school. CSAC also processes. That task is now on hold, said spokesperson Shelveen Ratnam, while the agency awaits data from the U.S. Department of Education.
When will those applications reach colleges? LAist asked the U.S. Education Department how many applications it’s processing per day and for a timeline for sharing FAFSA data with colleges. KQED reviewed hundreds of pages of state documents and court records, knocked on doors of properties linked to Rivas and interviewed workers the construction contractor cheated to piece together an accounting of the stunning labor violations — and how an understaffed agency was unsuccessful in collecting most of what Rivas and his companies owe..
Beth Ross, an employment attorney, said the omissions point to a dysfunction at the Labor Commissioner’s Office, which has a critical role in protecting vulnerable workers from abuses and helping to level the playing field for law-abiding employers. Rivas did not respond to requests for comment by email, phone and messages left in person with an employee at his office in Los Angeles County and on a note at his residential property in San Bernardino County.
Spokespeople for district attorneys in San Bernardino and Orange counties said they had no records of cases against Rivas or his companies. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office did not return requests for comment.Javier Gonzalez and Saul Pedroza installed steel rods and wooden frames for RDV Construction in 2016 at an apartment complex in Glendale, north of Los Angeles. The crewmates, both Mexican immigrants, said the company never paid them for about a month of full-time work.
That meant state claims against RVR, which continues to operate, could not legally be collected outside of bankruptcy court, and obtaining funds from RDV would be very difficult, according to several legal experts. The former day laborer went on to grow businesses that earned millions of dollars per year, building private hotels, mixed-use buildings, luxury apartments and at least one affordable housing project near downtown Los Angeles.
Rivas’ companies repeatedly violated workplace standards, paying about $37,000 in back wages and damages to the U.S. Department of Labor in 2017, and additional fines to other regulators.
Looking ahead, the upper low will begin moving out the region tonight, back to Arizona. Keep up to date by following theGetting up super early? That’s for the birds! No, literally, go see the birds at this early morning nature walk in the Valley. You’ll learn how to identify and spot our local feathered friends, like the California Thrasher, on this experiential walk and talk with Diego Blanco, a birding expert at the Theodore Payne Foundation.
“I’m personally shocked at how well progressives did,” said David Levitus of left-leaning activist group L.A. Forward. “I was very nervous in the weeks leading up to this election just because of the low turnout.” Burgos, a North Hollywood Neighborhood Council member, forced former Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian into a runoff in the 2nd District;
Janet Torres, campaign field director for Jurado, recalled dispatching campaign volunteers to walk door-to-door to talk up the candidate and her platform. The district includes relatively flat downtown L.A. and Boyle Heights but also hilly El Sereno, Highland Park and Eagle Rock.An estimated 250 volunteers trekked up and down the streets within the district before the primary, knocking on 85,000 doors, Torres said.
In October 2022, he was heard on a secretly recorded audio tape engaging in a conversation that included racist and derogatory remarks. He apologized but most of the Democratic establishment had called on him to resign, including President Joe Biden. Taking a more personal — but labor intensive — approach to campaigning seems to have paid off, at least so far.
Unite Here Local 11, the hotel and restaurants workers union, also spent $100,000, mostly on get-out-the-vote efforts for Raman. L.A. Forward in recent years also began a judicial leadership academy that trains people to be candidates for judicial seats. “I would talk about how to use 311, how to report a pothole, how city council works, different things that really teach the community,” she said. “A lot of people gave us good feedback about the topics. I pretty much make a reel every day,”In the more conservative 12th City Council District race in the western San Fernando Valley, incumbent John Lee won reelection handily, beating back a challenge by former Ethics Commission President Serena Oberstein.
The March results have progressive leaders like L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez optimistic about the general election..And some say progressive candidates may expect to fare even better in November when more voters, young people in particular, are expected to cast ballots. On LQBTQ+ representation, Equality California, an advocacy group, expects California will, at the minimum, maintain its numbers. In 2022, California became the first state to achieve parity — with 10% LGBTQ+ legislators, the same as estimates of the state’s population.
“When I opened acetone bottles to remove customers’ nail polish, the smell would make my eyes and nose water — just like allergies,” said Trish Nguyen, who used to work at a salon in Westminster. “Customers certainly come for the manicures or the pretty designs, but they also come to feel like they belong in a community,” Sharma said. “However, we don't value enough in terms of wages or the kind of benefits that would allow salon workers to make ends meet.”Source: UCLA Labor Center and the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative
“ would say things like, ’Oh, I would be really happy and fortunate to get something anywhere close to minimum wage, but don't tell the owner I said that to you,’” Fu said. Where Vo is in agreement with the workers’ advocates is this: nail salons need to treat workers as hourly employees, entitled to overtime and rest and lunch breaks. He hosts seminars urging employers to switch from the 60/40 pay structure to a W-2 employee payroll — not just for the sake of the worker but for themselves.
Joanne Nguyen, a manicurist employed at a Whittier salon who volunteers with the collaborative, said the job offers the flexible hours she needs as a single mother of two. Trish Nguyen said the onus is on employers to improve working conditions by, for example, installing ventilators. She said she closed her own shop after five years and went back to working as a manicurist for someone else because she didn’t have the resources to buy a ventilator or higher-quality products.At 53, Joanne Nguyen says she isn't holding out for major improvements to workplace conditions before she retires.
Another option for employers is to accept a smaller cut of salon profits so workers can be paid more, said Mike Vo of the nail salon trade group. In it, Ballesteros lays out five areas for the chronically burned-out to focus on, and offers tools to the reader to begin to own their time again."Burnout is prolonged exhaustion," Ballesteros said. And it's this prolonged exhaustion that she identified as the hallmark sign of burnout, and because exhaustion pervades all aspects of ones life, it's usually clear when the pieces start to fall apart.
This doesn't mean it's always immediately obvious to us when we're experiencing burnout. But when you have the right resources at your fingertips, self-diagnosing burnout can be swift.getting her masters degree, Ballesteros said she reached a breaking point. When Ballesteros started to do some research into the feelings she was experiencing, she said the word that kept coming up was"burnout." Instead of simply addressing her own burnout and moving on, she decided to focus her professional work on creating a methodology that could address burn out with individuals, groups and organizations.
"Take a sincere look at your personal care and how you can make your life as easy as possible around the demands of work," she said. What can you automate and outsource? Can someone else walk your dog? Can you plan a Pilates class at 6 pm so you have to leave work?"
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