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Today was a big day. Together with the First Amendment Coalition, we filed a lawsuit against the City of San Jose at the Santa Clara County Courthouse. We’re demanding sunlight on the City’s secret backroom negotiations to sell Google some of our most valuable public land.

Since the City of San Jose began discussions with Google about the tech giant bringing 20,000 employees into the city with a huge new mega-campus, we’ve sought details about this project and what it would mean for the city.

San Jose is already in the grip of a severe housing and cost of living crisis. We know from elsewhere in our region that big tech often comes with big increases in homelessness, evictions and rent prices.

We wanted to make sure that the City of San Jose was looking out for its residents in its negotiations with Google. But the more we’ve tried to look into these negotiations, the more the City has tried to block us from finding out the details.

Our mayor and other city staff have signed secretive non-disclosure agreements at Google’s request. They have refused a number of public records requests to release details that should be made public.

That’s why we’ve sued the City today.

Additionally we sent the City a letter outlining the City’s violations of California’s open-meetings law. The City Council has conducted 20+ meetings about the development in secret – behind closed doors with no public accessibility, no transparency and no accountability. We demanded the City bring these debates into the public before taking further action, including the proposed land sale scheduled for December 4th.

Despite all this, the Mayor still wants to rush through the sale of public land before Google has revealed any of the most basic information about the project to the public.

Before this huge decision is taken on the future of the city, we need to bring this whole backroom deal out into the open. We need public meetings. We need the public documents that have been held back. We need to see what plans have been shared with Mayor Liccardo and the City and what if any promises have been made. We need this process re-done in a legal, transparent way so that residents know what’s going on here and can be a part of the debate about the future of their city.

We need to know how this deal will address the public’s biggest concerns: ensuring this project doesn’t lead to more poverty wage jobs, homelessness, rent increases, and evictions.

How to stand up for affordable housing, good jobs, quality schools and healthcare this election:

The Nov. 6 elections are fast approaching! Our Neighborhood Action Team has been out in the community knocking on doors and speaking to people about the elections and the choices that voters will be making.

There are some crucial initiatives on the ballot that affect our region’s most pressing issues — affordable housing, protections for renters, good jobs with living wages, workers’ rights, school funding, access to healthcare, and funding for vital community services:

State of California

Yes on Prop 1: Affordable housing bond

Prop 1 would ease our housing crisis by allowing the state to build or renovate affordable housing for low-income Californians, veterans, and farmworkers by borrowing $4 billion.

Yes on Prop 2: Housing the homeless bond

Prop 2 would allow the state to build or renovate housing for Californians with mental illness that are homeless.

Yes on Prop 3: Safe water bond

Prop 3 would allow the state to fund water and environmental projects, including upgrading the crumbling water pipelines system that has left some communities in the Central Valley without access to water.

Yes on Prop 4: Children’s hospital bond

Prop 4 would allow the state to construct, expand, renovate, and better equip children’s hospitals by borrowing $1.5 billion.

No on Prop 5: Tax giveaway for wealthy homeowners

Prop 5 would cut over $100 million dollars from the budgets of our local governments and schools every year, growing to about $1 billion annually. Instead, this money would go towards tax breaks for wealthy older homeowners when they decide to purchase a new, expensive home. Losing that funding would seriously impact our schools and communities.

No on Prop 6: Cuts road repair and transportation funding

Prop 6 would cut more than $5 billion in road and public transportation funding. That would stop critical infrastructure projects, including many that are currently underway, like repairing crumbling roads and bridges, filling potholes, and reducing traffic by upgrading our public transit system.

Yes on Prop 8: Safeguards access to dialysis

Prop 8 would help to stop for-profit dialysis clinics from overcharging sick patients and turning patients away if they’re unable to pay.

Yes on Prop 10: Expands right to pass local rent control

Prop 10 will help to stop California families being priced out of their areas and allow people them to remain in their communities and children to stay enrolled in their schools. It would do this by paving the way for stronger rent control protections across the state by allowing cities and counties more control to pass rent stabilization laws that are best for their residents.

No on Prop 11: Eliminates ambulance worker break rules

Prop 11 would remove labor protections for private-sector ambulance workers. That could mean that ambulance workers who already work long, exhausting shifts, do not get uninterrupted breaks while on duty.

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Santa Clara County

Yes on Measure A: Continues funding for critical services

Measure A will retain $50 million annually in funding for critical County services by extending a 1/8th of 1 cent sales tax passed by voters in 2012. This funding can be used to fund Valley Medical Center and related health services, programs for the homeless, affordable housing, and other services and programs.

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City of San Jose

Yes on Measure S: Public sector contracting reforms

Measure S will give small, local, and economically disadvantaged businesses a better shot at public contracts. It will also allow the city to consider experience and work quality in addition to cost when selecting a contractor for a City project.

Yes on Measure T: Infrastructure funding

Measure T will repair critical infrastructure like bridges vulnerable to earthquakes. It will also repave streets and potholes, and prevent flooding and water quality contamination.

Yes on Measure V: Affordable housing funding

This $450 million bond will assist the city in reaching its goal of adding 10,000 affordable homes over the next five years. The affordable housing funds will be targeted toward extremely low-, low-, and middle-income families who are suffering the effects of the housing crisis the most.

If we want tech growth to create widespread prosperity, we need to shift the rules that determine who reaps the benefits.

By Bob Brownstein, Strategic Advisor

Google is planning to build Silicon Valley’s biggest tech campus in downtown San Jose. It’s a project that business leaders have predicted will be a huge economic boon for the Bay Area’s largest city. But will it really benefit most Silicon Valley residents? Twenty years of data give good reason to be skeptical.

Two decades ago — when Google was run out of a garage in Menlo Park — I co-wrote a report finding that the then-nascent tech economy was contributing to instability and insecurity among low-wage workers. This year, we conducted a follow-up study looking at how workers in Silicon Valley have fared in the years since.

What we discovered was surprising: even though Silicon Valley has recorded the strongest per capita economic growth in the nation, nearly 9 in 10 jobs here pay lower real wages today than they did in 2001. The tech economy is not just failing low-wage workers. It’s now shortchanging nearly all workers.

Why is this happening? We found that the tech industry has adopted business models which let shareholders, executives, and the very upper echelons of tech workers capture an outsized share of the wealth generated by the sector’s growth. For instance, social media platforms or search engines derive a large portion of their profits not from the activities of the company itself, but rather from the network of people posting and searching.

These network effects lead to monopolistic ‘winner-take-all’ markets. An initial slight advantage can result in one or a few firms dominating an entire market, bending the rewards of production towards investors and executives. Those gains have come at the expense of workers and local communities — if workers had kept as much of the wealth they created in 2016 as they did in 2001, each worker would have been paid an extra $8,480 that year alone.

Google exemplifies these trends. Larry Page and Sergei Brin founded Google 20 years ago with technology developed on a National Science Foundation-funded research project. Since then, it has grown into an $800 billion company that accounts for 90 percent of internet searches.

Yet as it has grown, the tech giant has shifted towards hiring more contract workers instead of full-time employees. Contractors often have lower wages, fewer benefits and more job insecurity. Bloomberg reports that contractors now make up the majority of Google’s global workforce.

Meanwhile, Google has driven up the cost of living near its Mountain View headquarters, pricing more and more residents out of their homes. RVs line Mountain View’s streets and many workers face longer commutes after being forced to move further away.

This happens over and over again in Silicon Valley. A small number of firms end up dominating entire markets, funneling enormous rewards towards investors and away from everyone else.

If we want tech growth to create widespread prosperity, we need to shift the rules that determine who benefits from innovation. The data we’ve studied tells us that simply bringing a big tech company into town does not create prosperity. But there are ways we can make sure that communities get a share of the wealth.

For Google’s proposed mega-campus, that could start with a community benefits package. In exchange for selling the tech giant some of San Jose’s most valuable public land, grassroots groups — including the Silicon Valley Rising coalition that we’re part of — have called on Google to negotiate a community benefits agreement to invest in affordable housing, prevent displacement, ensure family supporting jobs for construction and service workers, and address other needs while giving the community a role in enforcement.

Such an agreement would be a promising step towards compensating the public for their contributions and ensuring that Google’s growth benefits not just wealthy investors, but also the broader public.

Addressing economic inequality and financial insecurity brought by the growth of the tech sector will take a range of solutions, but steps like a community benefits agreement can put us on the right trajectory. If the next wave of innovation is going to bring advances — not just in technology, but in the lives of working families — then people need to be equal partners in shaping how tech grows in our communities.

Bob Brownstein is the Strategic Advisor at Working Partnerships USA and a co-author of the new report, “Innovating Inequality: How tech’s business models concentrate wealth while shortchanging workers.”

Originally published on Inequality.org

Workers at the Marriott Hotel in San Jose are striking for a living wage and a fair contract. Here are seven ways you can support the workers in their fight:

1. HONK: If you drive by the picket line on South Market Street (map), tap on your horn. A friendly beep shows support and encourages workers.
2. SIGN THE PETITION: Add your name to the One Job Should be Enough Pledge
3. DONATE: This GoFundMe supports workers during this time.
4. PACK GROCERIES: WPUSA is continuing to organize grocery deliveries in partnership with Sacred Heart Community Service. Email priscilla@wpusa.org to help assemble, unload, and load groceries between 12-1:30pm and/or 1:30-2:30pm in downtown San Jose this coming Tuesday, October 23, or to express interest for a later date — especially if you have a truck or van!
5. WALK: Walk with workers, who are on the picket line 24/7. Show up to the San Jose Marriott (301 S Market St) and simply join the march. Please contact us if you are new to this and would like additional support.
6. SOCIAL MEDIA: Follow Unite Here Local 19 on social media for the latest updates (Facebook | Twitter), and help amplify content by sharing tweets and Facebook live streams. Create your own posts using hashtags #1job #MarriottStrike; share informational links like this on your favorite platform.
7. DO NOT CROSS PICKET LINES: Crossing a picket line directly undermines the struggle of striking workers. Refuse to patronize Marriott hotels as well as any other business being picketed.

Silicon Valley’s economy is booming. Yet nearly 9 in 10 jobs here pay lower wages today than they did 20 years ago.

Why? Our new study, Innovating Inequality?, finds that the tech industry has developed business models that concentrate wealth by systemically shortchanging workers and communities.

Released in partnership with UC Santa Cruz Professor Chris Benner and the UCSC Everett Program, the study finds that Silicon Valley’s workers have produced the fastest per capita economic growth in the nation, but those huge profits overwhelmingly end up in the hands of a small group of investors and CEOs.

Across the country, cities are bending over backwards to emulate Silicon Valley. But big tech doesn’t mean widespread prosperity — unless workers and communities have the power to ensure that everyone who contributes to tech shares in its success. It’s time to rewrite the rules so workers and communities get a fair return on their work.

A place to call home is an essential ingredient to one’s self worth and personal dignity. But unfortunately too many Silicon Valley families are priced out of a roof over their heads.

San Jose’s Measure V takes an important step toward raising the funds to address this growing problem.

That’s why we think San Jose voters should back Measure V in November’s election.

This $450 million bond will assist the city in reaching its goal of adding 10,000 affordable homes over the next five years. If passed by a two-thirds majority of voters in November, the affordable housing funds will be targeted toward extremely low-, low-, and middle-income families.

For this reason, we recommend a YES vote for Measure V on November 6 – and will continue to educate our organized base of over 60,000 voters to support affordable housing production and good jobs with strong worker protections against exploitation, especially among vulnerable immigrant workers.