New spins on old roasted chestnuts, food drives with rumbling bass, drag in all its myriad joyful forms, punk rock hurrahs, even a little “Acid Xmas”—check out the below if you’re looking for a little tinsel-time.

THU/15: HOLIDAY GAIETY SF Symphony conductor Edwin Outwater and drag goddess Peaches Christ just slayed London’s Royal Abert Hall with their holiday extravaganza, don’t miss this annual cavalcade of queer entertainers (Sister Roma, Monet X-Change, Marga Gomez, Jocquese Whitfield, many more) donning their gay apparel and jingling all the way, backed by a full orchestra. The Symphony has a whole lineup of fun seasonal programs, including Harry Connick, Jr, and a Merry-achi Christmas, make sure to check out their site. 7:30pm, Davies Symphony Hall, SF. More info here.

THROUGH DECEMBER 23: GOLDEN GIRLS LIVE: THE CHRISTMAS EPISODES The heavenly Miami quartet is channeled by beloved local drag queens to raucous effect in this annual tradition. Heklina (Dorothy), Matthew Martin (Blanche), D’Arcy Drollinger (Rose), and Holotta Tymes (Sophia) sat up the Christmas punch with Christmas kaftans to die for. Victoria Theater, SF. More info here.

THROUGH DECEMBER 31: THE KINSEY SICKS: OY VEY IN A MANGER More drag holiday hijinks! “America’s Favorite (and only) Dragapella® Beautyshop Quartet returns home to NCTC for the holidays. In this bawdy and blasphemous musical, Angel, Winnie, Trixie, and Trampolina are trying to sell off their manger—yes, that manger—before it’s foreclosed upon. Crises arise, secrets are revealed, Jewish-Gentile tensions surface, and mayhem ensues, all in glorious four-part harmony.” New Conservatory Theater, SF. More info here.

THU/15-SAT/17: KILLING MY LOBSTER’S VERY SPECIAL HOLIDAY SPECIAL Forget Charlie Brown and the Grinch — Killing My Lobster, the self-described “eggnog of sketch comedy troupes,” are brewing up a hilariously schmentzy parody holiday variety show and performing it for you. Read our full review here. PianoFight Oakland, more info here.

Dance Along Nutcracker

SAT/17 + SUN/18: DANCE-ALONG NUTCRACKER I love this event so much, and it’s perfect for the whole family. The 75-piece San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performs selections of the famous Tchaikovsky score—now wrapped around a tale of a blizzard in San Francisco—and gets you up marching, whirling, clapping, and more. YBCA, SF. More info here.

SAT/17: FRINGE HOLIDAZE BASH The Fringe party at Madrone Art Bar has been reviving the indie-dance sounds of the 2000s since that decade ended. DJs Blondie K and subOctave invite you to don your glittery shutter shades and jingle some electro bells during a special holiday edition of the event. 9:30pm, Madrone Art Bar, SF. More info here.

A Very Merry Misfit Cabaret

SAT/17: A VERY MERRY MISFIT CABARET The fabulous Kate Robichaud and her merry band of singing, dancing, flying misfits bring out all the sparkle—and Gremlins, and Star Wars, and Grinches—of the solstice in this cavalcade of wow. 8pm, Alcazar Theater, SF. More info here.

SUN/18: BAYMELE KLEZMER TRIO This trio’s name means “little tree” in Yiddish, and in observance of Hannukah the group is keeping traditional Ashkenazi Jewish music alive, performing klezmer compositions that build on the traditional sounds of Poland, Ukraine, and Romania. 4pm, St Alban’s Church, Albany. More info here.

12/22: A NOT SO SILENT NIGHT Turn up the bass—and benefit the SF Firefighter’s holiday drive with canned food, toys, and clothing—at this pumping party. DJs Años b2b Singe, Bubblephunk, Dalfin, and Nunya put some rumble under the tree at this top-notch community event. The $10 cover goes straight to help others. 10pm, Temple, SF, more info here.

12/23: ACE’S SPACE RADIO XMAS XTRAVAGANZA Forget coal, it’s time for all the punks to get some rock in their stocking, with Fuzz Attack, TV Static, and Heat blowing some flaming guitar solos up your chimney, presented by omnipresent host Ace of Space Radio. 8:30pm, Amado’s, SF. More info here.

12/24: ACID XMAS Three of the wiggiest local DJs in the game—Solar, Mozhgan, and Tyrel Williams—get the stars twinkly with a celebration of acid house. Interzone DJs Hex Embrace, Saiman Li, Brandon Stewart, and Visc get dark in the back room. Perfect antidote for holiday Schmaltz. 9:30pm-3am, F8, SF. More info here.

12/23-12/25: KUNG PAO KOSHER COMEDY Thirty years in and comedian Lisa Patientig’s fantastic “Jewish comedy on Christmas in a Chinese restaurant” event is still killing it (kosherly). In-person ticket sales end December 15, but you can watch online from the comfort of your own menorah-lit home via Youtube if you miss the deadline. More info here.

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Vivian Kargbo thought her daughter’s Boston school district was doing the right thing when officials kept classrooms closed for most students for more than a year.

Kargbo, a caregiver for hospice patients, didn’t want to risk them getting COVID-19. And extending pandemic school closures through the spring of 2021 is what many in her community said was best to keep kids and adults safe.

But her daughter became depressed and stopped doing school work or paying attention to online classes. The former honor-roll student failed nearly all of her eighth grade courses.

“She’s behind,” said Kargbo, whose daughter is now in tenth grade. “It didn’t work at all. Knowing what I know now, I would say they should have put them in school.”

Preliminary test scores around the country confirm what Kargbo witnessed: The longer many students studied remotely, the less they learned. Some educators and parents are questioning decisions in cities from Boston to Chicago to Los Angeles to remain online long after clear evidence emerged that schools weren’t COVID-19 super-spreaders — and months after life-saving adult vaccines became widely available.

There are fears for the futures of students who don’t catch up. They run the risk of never learning to read, long a precursor for dropping out of school. They might never master simple algebra, putting science and tech fields out of reach. The pandemic decline in college attendance could continue to accelerate, crippling the U.S. economy.

In a sign of how inflammatory the debate has become, there’s sharp disagreement among educators, school leaders and parents even about how to label the problems created by online school. “Learning loss” has become a lightning rod. Some fear the term might brand struggling students or cast blame on teachers, and they say it overlooks the need to save lives during a pandemic.

Regardless of what it’s called, the casualties of Zoom school are real.

The scale of the problem and the challenges in addressing it were apparent in Associated Press interviews with nearly 50 school leaders, teachers, parents and health officials, who struggled to agree on a way forward.

Some public health officials and educators warned against second-guessing the school closures for a virus that killed over a million people in the U.S. More than 200,000 children lost at least one parent.

“It is very easy with hindsight to say, ‘Oh, learning loss, we should have opened.’ People forget how many people died,” said Austin Beutner, former superintendent in Los Angeles, where students were online from mid-March 2020 until the start of hybrid instruction in April 2021.

The question isn’t merely academic.

School closures continued last year because of teacher shortages and COVID-19 spread. It’s conceivable another pandemic might emerge — or a different crisis.

But there’s another reason for asking what lessons have been learned: the kids who have fallen behind. Some third graders struggle to sound out words. Some ninth graders have given up on school because they feel so behind they can’t catch up. The future of American children hangs in the balance.

FILE – Chicago charter school teacher Angela McByrd works on her laptop to teach remotely from her home in Chicago, Sept. 24, 2020. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)

Many adults are pushing to move on, to stop talking about the impact of the pandemic — especially learning loss.

“As crazy as this sounds now, I’m afraid people are going to forget about the pandemic,” said Jason Kamras, superintendent in Richmond, Virginia. “People will say, ‘That was two years ago. Get over it.’”

When COVID-19 first reached the U.S., scientists didn’t fully understand how it spread or whether it was harmful to children. American schools, like most around the world, understandably shuttered in March 2020.

That summer, scientists learned kids didn’t face the same risks as adults, but experts couldn’t decide how to operate schools safely — or whether it was even possible.

It was already clear that remote learning was devastating for many young people. But did the risks of social isolation and falling behind outweigh the risks of children, school staff and families catching the virus?

The tradeoffs differed depending on how vulnerable a community felt. Black and Latino people, who historically had less access to health care, remain nearly twice as likely to die of COVID-19 than white people. Parents in those communities often had deep-rooted doubts about whether schools could keep their children safe.

Politics was a factor, too. Districts that reopened in person tended to be in areas that voted for President Donald Trump or had largely white populations.

By winter, studies showed schools weren’t contributing to increased COVID-19 spread in the community. Classes with masked students and distancing could be conducted safely, growing evidence said. President Joe Biden prioritized reopening schools when he took office in January 2021, and once the COVID-19 vaccine was available, some Democratic-leaning districts started to reopen.

Yet many schools stayed closed well into the spring, including in California, where the state’s powerful teachers unions fought returning to classrooms, citing lack of safety protocols.

In Chicago, after a six-week standoff with the teachers union, the district started bringing students back on a hybrid schedule just before spring 2021. It wasn’t until the fall that students were back in school full time.

Marla Williams initially supported Chicago Public Schools’ decision to instruct students online during the fall of 2020. Williams, a single mother, has asthma, as do her two children. While she was working, she enlisted her father, a retired teacher, to supervise her children’s studies.

Her father would log into his grandson’s classes from his suburban home and try to monitor what was happening. But it didn’t work.

Her son lost motivation and wouldn’t do his assignments. Once he went back on a hybrid schedule in spring 2021, he started doing well again, Williams said.

“I wish we’d been in person earlier,” she said. “Other schools seemed to be doing it successfully.”

Officials were divided in Chicago. The city Department of Public Health advocated reopening schools months earlier, in the fall of 2020. The commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, said they felt the risk of missing education was higher than the risk of COVID-19. Others, such as the director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University, advocated for staying remote.

“I think the answer on that has been settled fairly clearly, especially once we had vaccines available,” Arwady said. “I’m concerned about the loss that has occurred.”

FILE – Audra Quisenberry, right, whispers in the ear of her classmate, Logan Bowhay, both 6, as they wait to meet other schoolmates via online Zoom, at Premier Martial Arts, Aug. 24, 2020, in Wildwood, Mo. (Jeff Roberson/AP File)

From March 2020 to June 2021, the average student in Chicago lost 21 weeks of learning in reading and 20 weeks in math, equivalent to missing half a year of school, according to Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, which analyzed data from a widely used test called MAP to estimate learning loss for every U.S. school district.

Nationally, kids whose schools met mostly online in the 2020-2021 school year performed 13 percentage points lower in math and 8 percentage points lower in reading compared with schools meeting mostly in person, according to a 2022 study by Brown University economist Emily Oster.

The setbacks have some grappling with regret.

“I can’t imagine a situation where we would close schools again, unless there’s a virus attacking kids,” said Eric Conti, superintendent for Burlington, Massachusetts, a 3,400-student district outside Boston. His students alternated between online and in-person learning from the fall of 2020 until the next spring. “It’s going to be a very high bar.”

Dallas Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde initially disagreed with the Texas governor’s push to reopen schools in the fall of 2020. “But it was absolutely the right thing to do,” she said.

Some school officials said they lacked the expertise to decide whether it was safe to open schools.

“Schools should never have been placed in a situation where we have choice,” said Tony Wold, former associate superintendent of West Contra Costa Unified School District, east of San Francisco. “With lessons learned, when you have a public health pandemic, there needs to be a single voice.”

Still, many school officials said with hindsight they’d make the same decision to keep schools online well into 2021. Only two superintendents said they’d likely make a different decision if there were another pandemic that was not particularly dangerous to children.

In some communities, demographics and the historic underinvestment in schools loomed large, superintendents said. In the South, Black Americans’ fear of the virus was sometimes coupled with mistrust of schools rooted in segregation. Cities from Atlanta to Nashville to Jackson, Mississippi, shuttered schools — in some cases, for nearly all of the 2020-2021 school year.

In Clayton County, Georgia, home to the state’s highest percentage of Black residents, schools chief Morcease Beasley said he knew closing schools would have a devastating impact, but the fear in his community was overwhelming.

“I knew teachers couldn’t teach if they were that scared, and students couldn’t learn,” he said.

Rhode Island was an outlier among liberal-leaning coastal states when it ordered schools to reopen in person in the fall of 2020. “We can’t do this to our kids,” state education chief Angélica Infante-Green remembers thinking after watching students turn off cameras or log in from under blankets in bed. “This is not OK.”

But in the predominantly Latino and Black Rhode Island community of Central Falls, more than three-quarters of students stayed home to study remotely.

To address parent distrust, officials tracked COVID-19 cases among school-aged Central Falls residents. They met with families to show them the kids catching the virus were in remote learning — and they weren’t learning as much as students in school. It worked.

Among teachers, there’s some dispute about online learning’s impact on children. But many fear some students will be scarred for years.

“Should we have reopened earlier? Absolutely,” said California teacher Sarah Curry. She initially favored school closings in her rural Central Valley district, but grew frustrated with the duration of distance learning. She taught pre-kindergarten and found it impossible to maintain attention spans online.

One of her biggest regrets: that teachers who wanted to return to classrooms had little choice in the matter.

But the nation’s 3 million public school teachers are far from a monolith. Many lost loved ones to COVID-19, battled mental health challenges of their own or feared catching the virus.

Jessica Cross, who taught ninth grade math on Chicago’s west side at Phoenix Military Academy, feels her school reopened too soon.

“I didn’t feel entirely safe,” she said. Mask rules were good in theory, but not all students wore them properly. She said safety should come before academics.

“Ultimately, I still feel that remote learning was really the only thing to do,” Cross said.

A representative from the American Federation of Teachers declined in an interview to address whether the union regrets the positions teachers took against reopening schools.

“If we start to play the blame game,” said Fedrick Ingram, AFT’s secretary-treasurer, “we get into the political fray of trying to determine if teachers did a good job or not. And I don’t think that’s fair.”

Regrets or no, experts agree: America’s kids need more from adults if they’re going to be made whole.

The country needs “ideally, a reinvention of public education as we know it,” Los Angeles Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. Students need more days in school and smaller classes.

Short of extending the school year, experts say intensive tutoring is the most efficient way to help students catch up. Saturday school or doubling up on math or reading during a regular school day would also help.

Too few school districts have made those investments, Harvard economist Tom Kane said. Summer school is insufficient, Kane says — it’s voluntary, and many parents don’t sign up.

Adding school time for students is politically impossible in many cities. In Los Angeles, the teachers union filed a complaint after the district scheduled four optional school days for students to recoup learning. The school board in Richmond rejected a move to an all-year school calendar.

There are exceptions: Atlanta extended the school day 30 minutes for three years. Hopewell Schools in Virginia moved to year-round schooling last year.

Even the federal government’s record education spending isn’t enough for the scope of kids’ academic setbacks, according to the American Educational Research Association. Researchers there estimate it will cost $700 billion to offset learning loss for America’s schoolchildren – more than three times the $190 billion allocated to schools.

“We need something on the scale of the Marshall Plan for education,” said Kamras, the Richmond superintendent. “Anything short of that and we’re going to see this blip in outcomes become permanent for a generation of children — and that would be criminal.”

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Gecker reported from San Francisco. Collin Binkley in Washington, D.C., Sharon Lurye in New Orleans, Arleigh Rodgers in Indianapolis, Claire Savage in Chicago and Brooke Schultz in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.

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Rodgers, Savage and Schultz are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

___

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Bentonville, Arkansas

Getty Images

The number of people leaving the Bay Area jumped 21% from March 2020 and September 2021, according to a report from University of California researchers. We talk to one man who left about why he did it. (Thinking of ditching your pricey city too? Check out the lowest mortgage rates you can get here now.)

Life as a CEO in San Francisco became increasingly stressful for Phil Libin, founder of the app mmhmm and former CEO and executive chairman of software company Evernote. After 15 years of city living, Libin decided it was time to wait out COVID-19 somewhere peaceful. So he packed his bags, told all of his employees they could work virtually forever and headed east to Bentonville, Arkansas — a place he’d passed through once or twice before, that’s known for its artsy vibe, beautiful outdoors and as the headquarters of Walmart.

“I thought I’d go somewhere for a few months, so I got an Airbnb and then decided to stay,” says Libin, who hasn’t looked back on leaving the tech capital. The thing he misses the least? Traffic. “In San Francisco, I was Ubering everywhere. I looked back at my calendar and realized I was spending almost three hours every day in a car, going to the office or from meeting to meeting,” says Libin. Now, he works from home, or a few local places within walking distance. “My life here feels much more integrated. Things are much cheaper and money goes much further,” says Libin.

He has a point: According to Realtor.com, the median sales price of a home is just over $400,000, compared to $1.5 million in San Francisco. And overall San Francisco is 147% more expensive than Bentonville, according to Sperling’s Best Places, with home prices being the biggest factor in that.

Phil Libin

While in San Francisco, Libin thought he had a high standard of living – “I was the CEO and I had a pretty good quality of life because I spent a lot of money,” he says – but he says his standard of living in Bentonville is actually much higher. “I have a higher quality of life and 100% of the people that work with me could afford to live the way I am,” says Libin. (Libin lets all of the mmhmm employees live wherever they want, and he says that about half of them who were in the Bay Area ended up moving.) “They can afford to eat at the same restaurants and be members of the same clubs, says Libin.

Now, instead of living in an overpriced condominium, Libin has bought land and is planning to build a house. “I was in SF a few weeks ago for the first time in a year and I was shocked by what I used to put up with. I had forgotten about sitting in traffic. I would sit in the car for 90 minutes all the time and I thought it was okay. I never want to ask someone to do that,” says Libin.

Of course, the restaurants and culture of San Francisco are hard to beat, but it’s easy enough to travel from Bentonville, Libin says. “There are direct flights … It’s actually easier to fly domestically from here than SF because the airport is smaller and there’s no traffic. If I have to fly internationally to Asia or Europe, it adds a hop, but it’s worth it,” says Libin.

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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN / CBS SF) – As San Francisco continues its efforts to buy PG&E electrical equipment and convert the city to public power, city officials said Tuesday they had asked the California Public Utilities Commission to assess the value of local electricity infrastructure to be determined by PG&E.

The formal call for the CPUC to determine the value of PG & E’s electrical assets for the city comes after the utility twice rejected a $ 2.5 billion city offer to buy its local assets.

CONTINUE READING: East Bay Fire Crews respond to 2-alert structural fire in San Lorenzo

In 2019, after PG&E filed for bankruptcy as it faced liabilities for deadly forest fires across the state, the city made its first offer. The following year, PG&E turned down a second offer.

City officials claim the utility also charged more than $ 1 billion in new fees to urban customers and delayed basic electrical connections for public buildings, including schools, affordable housing projects, transportation projects, and a University of California research facility at San Francisco.

“Although I would like to partner with this company, it was a great challenge,” said Mayor London Breed on Tuesday at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

“Imagine the hundreds of potentially affordable housing units that could be made available today to low-income families who cannot open because we cannot connect the electricity; because of the delays; because of the excuses; because of the cost of deploying new equipment that we didn’t even know we had to deploy at the beginning of the process. The goal post is moved during the game; we have to deal with that all the time, ”she said.

CONTINUE READING: CDPH issues recommendations for inner masks regardless of vaccination status

“We are more than ready to go before the California Public Utilities Commission and make it clear why we want to acquire these assets and what we think their value is,” said Attorney General Dennis Herrera.

“PG & E’s failure to come to the table was made worse by his disability,” he said. “This obstruction, this delay has to stop, and we have to move forward to ensure that we can provide reliable and affordable public electricity to everyone.”

In response, PG&E said while it prides itself on providing over 85 percent clean energy to San Francisco residents, the city’s request was reckless as PG&E does not want to sell.

“Ultimately, PG & E’s assets are not for sale and San Francisco’s request today for an assessment of PG & E’s electrical assets by the California Public Utilities Commission is yet another waste of time and resources,” PG&E officials said in a statement. “While CCSF has repeatedly offered to buy PG&E infrastructure for pennies per dollar, PG&E does not agree that the results of this type of ownership move will benefit customers, taxpayers, other local communities, the state, or our economy. For these and many other reasons, we believe that San Francisco’s long-term interest in acquiring PG & E’s assets is not in the interests of the customers and the San Francisco neighborhood. ”

Breed and Herrera argued that the CPUC request is necessary if the city plans to take ownership of local utility companies and meet its goal of using 100 percent renewable electricity through its public electricity programs, Hetch Hetchy Power and CleanPowerSF by 2025.

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Both programs currently cover more than 70 percent of the city’s electricity.

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In den letzten vier Monaten hat fast jede große Hotelmarke der Welt ein Reinigungsprogramm angekündigt, in dem neue Desinfektions- und Sterilisationsverfahren vorgestellt werden. Viele Unternehmen beraten mit medizinischen Organisationen; einige verwenden Roboter; alle sagen, dass sie mehr denn je putzen. Ihre Botschaft ist klar: Hotels sind sehr sauber.

Aber viele der Haushälterinnen, die Hotels in den USA schrubben, staubsaugen und desinfizieren, sagen, dass Unternehmen die Verfahren und Richtlinien nutzen, die im Zuge des Coronavirus eingeführt wurden, um Reinigungskräften mehr Arbeit zu geben und gleichzeitig ihre Stunden, Löhne und Leistungen zu reduzieren und in einigen Fällen Arbeitsplätze.

In einer Zeit, in der sowohl der amerikanische Reiseverkehr als auch die Hotelauslastung auf einem historischen Tiefstand sind, sagt die Hotelbranche, dass es ihre Priorität ist, Gäste und Mitarbeiter zu schützen und gleichzeitig geöffnet zu bleiben. Die American Hotel and Lodging Association, eine Branchengruppe mit Mitgliedern, darunter Hotelmarken, Eigentümer und Verwaltungsgesellschaften, hat in Übereinstimmung mit den Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in einem Programm namens Safe Stay neue Reinigungsrichtlinien festgelegt. Haushälterinnen möchten jedoch, dass Hotels die von der Weltgesundheitsorganisation festgelegten Regeln befolgen.

Ein besonderer Streitpunkt zwischen Housekeepern, der größten Hospitality Union in Nordamerika, und den Hotels ist die tägliche Reinigung der Hotelzimmer. Viele Hotels haben sich von der täglichen Reinigung abgewendet und hoffen, sowohl Mitarbeiter als auch Gäste daran zu hindern, sich mit dem Coronavirus zu infizieren oder zu verbreiten. Sie haben auch das Gefühl, dass sie den Gästen versichern können, dass sich kein Fremder in ihrem Zimmer aufgehalten hat, indem sie Haushälterinnen während eines Aufenthalts von den Zimmern fernhalten.

„Die überwiegende Mehrheit unserer Kunden möchte nicht, dass wir ihr Zimmer während ihres Aufenthalts bei uns reinigen“, sagte Robert Kline, der Geschäftsführer und Mitbegründer der Chartres Lodging Group, einer Private-Equity-Investmentfirma, die sich auf Unterkünfte konzentriert. „Sie wollen wissen, dass das Zimmer sauber ist, wenn sie das Zimmer betreten, aber sobald sie das Zimmer betreten, sagen sie: ‚Komm nicht rein.‘“

Haushälterinnen sagen, dass die Reinigung der Zimmer, nachdem jemand ausgecheckt hat, ein größeres Risiko für sie darstellt und körperlich anstrengender ist als die tägliche Reinigung.

„Wir glauben, dass die tägliche Zimmerreinigung unser Arsenal ist, um die Ausbreitung von Covid zu bekämpfen“, sagte Nia Winston, Generalvizepräsidentin von Unite Here, der Gewerkschaft der Hotel- und Restaurantarbeiter, die mehr als 300.000 Beschäftigte im Gastgewerbe vertritt. “In China und Hongkong und anderen Orten, die das Virus erfolgreich eingedämmt haben, ist eine tägliche Zimmerreinigung erforderlich.”

Frau Winston, die auch Präsidentin von Unite Here Local 24 ist, der Mitgliedsorganisation der Gewerkschaft für Michigan und Ohio, sagte, dass die Richtlinien der WHO die Aussetzung von Programmen fordern, die es Gästen ermöglichen, auf Reinigungsdienste zu verzichten.

Fast die Hälfte der 16,9 Millionen Arbeitsplätze im US-amerikanischen Freizeit- und Gastgewerbe ging im März und April verloren. Mehr als ein Viertel der Arbeitnehmer in diesem Sektor bleibt arbeitslos. Es arbeiten weniger Haushälterinnen, und sie sagen, dass sie in der gleichen Zeit wie für die tägliche Reinigung Räume reinigen müssen, in denen sich mehrere Tage lang Müll, Staub und Keime angesammelt haben. Und da die Zimmer nicht so oft gereinigt werden, haben sie jede Woche weniger Arbeitstage, was zu niedrigeren Löhnen führt.

Bevor sie im März beurlaubt wurde, sagte Wanda White, eine Haushälterin im Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown, sie habe 16 Zimmer pro Tag gereinigt und Vollzeit gearbeitet. Seit Juni hat sie Rufbereitschaft und arbeitet drei bis vier Tage pro Woche. An den Tagen, an denen sie gearbeitet hat, sagte Frau White, sie habe durchschnittlich 13 Räume gereinigt, aber die Arbeit sei intensiver, weil sich im Laufe der Zeit Schmutz in den Räumen angesammelt habe. Sie sagte, sie habe vor kurzem gesehen, wie 10 Gäste einen Raum verließen, was ihr vorschlug, dass sie dort eine Party veranstaltet hatten.

„Das Auschecken macht es schwieriger, weil die Gäste Partys feiern. Wir wissen nicht, wie lange die Gäste schon drin sind“, sagte sie und fügte hinzu, dass sie seit Juni mehrere Räume gereinigt habe, in denen Leute Partys veranstalteten.

Frau White, die 53 Jahre alt ist, sagte, sie beeile sich jetzt, um zu fegen, Müll aufzusammeln und die Böden zu saugen, bevor sie Oberflächen wie Türknöpfe, Wasserhähne und Theken säubert und Betten macht. Obwohl die Zeit, die Haushälterinnen für die Reinigung der Zimmer eingeräumt werden, je nach Arbeitsort variieren kann, ist es üblich, 20 bis 30 Minuten pro Zimmer zu haben. Die Folgen, wenn die vorgesehene Zeit nicht beendet wird, können Aufschreiben und Zwangsarbeit in Überstunden sein. Der Mangel an zusätzlicher Zeit für die Reinigung schmutzigerer Zimmer, sagte Frau White, habe ihren Rücken und ihre Knie belastet und es schwieriger gemacht, alle Reinigungsstandards zu erfüllen, die von Hotels angepriesen werden, was andere Haushälterinnen wiederholten.

Das Franchise-Management-Unternehmen, das derzeit Sheraton Hotels betreibt, reagierte nicht auf Anfragen nach Kommentaren.

Sicherheit, aber für wen?

Im Juni, drei Monate nachdem sie von ihrem Job als Haushälterin im Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach beurlaubt worden war, wurde Pauline Petit-Homme wieder zur Arbeit gerufen. Sie erfuhr, dass sie die Zimmer nicht jeden Tag aufräumte, wenn sie auscheckten.

Frau Petit-Homme, die seit 22 Jahren im Hotel arbeitet, sagte, sie sei eine der wenigen Haushälterinnen, die wieder bei der Arbeit sind, und ihre Manager sagten, es gebe nicht genug Gäste, um mehr mitzubringen. Ihr wurde gesagt, dass die Reinigung der Zimmer an der Kasse dazu dient, sie und die Gäste zu schützen. Aber sie glaubt, dass das Hotel so beschäftigt ist, dass mehr Haushälterinnen zurückgeholt werden sollten.

Aktualisiert

10. Juli 2021, 12:53 Uhr ET

„Sie sind immer noch beschäftigt“, sagte Frau Petit-Homme. „Sie haben keinen Respekt vor dem Housekeeping. Wir arbeiten sehr hart im Haushalt und jetzt machen wir mehr Arbeit in der gleichen Zeit und es ist hart.“

Josh Herman, Vizepräsident für Marketing und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit im Fontainebleau, sagte, der Fokus des Hotels liege darauf, zu den früheren Auslastungsniveaus zurückzukehren und so viele seiner Mitarbeiter wie möglich wieder einzustellen. Er fügte hinzu, dass das Hotel seit der Wiedereröffnung den Anweisungen der AHLA folgt und positives Feedback von den Gästen erhalten hat.

„Obwohl die verbesserten Reinigungsprotokolle sowohl in Bezug auf Verbrauchsmaterialien als auch Arbeitskosten kostspieliger sind, haben die Gesundheit und Sicherheit unserer Gäste und Teammitglieder immer höchste Priorität“, sagte er. „Wir arbeiten weiterhin eng mit unserem Housekeeping-Team zusammen, um die Zeitpläne an diese neuen Anforderungen anzupassen.“

Frau Petit-Homme und andere sagten, dass der aktuelle Kampf nur das neueste Gefecht in einem mehr als jahrzehntelangen Kampf zwischen Hotels und Angestellten sei. Unternehmen, sagen Haushälterinnen, wollen Geld sparen, deshalb haben sie Programme entwickelt, die Gäste davon abhalten, eine Zimmerreinigung anzufordern, aber sie haben sie als Umweltinitiativen gestaltet und Gästen Prämienpunkte für das Überspringen von Reinigungen angeboten. Die Pandemie, wie sie sie sehen, hat diesen Unternehmen die Möglichkeit gegeben, die Reinigung noch weiter zu reduzieren – und ihre Kosten zu senken.

Hotelbesitzer und Investoren sagen, dass sie es sich einfach nicht leisten können, alle ihre Haushälterinnen wieder Vollzeit arbeiten zu lassen, und Maßnahmen wie die Reinigung nur an der Kasse sollen die Sicherheit aller gewährleisten. Sie sagen, es ist auch das, was die Gäste wollen.

Frank Lavey, Senior Vice President of Global Operations bei Hyatt, sagte in einer E-Mail, dass Gäste „mit neuen Erwartungen in Bezug auf Sauberkeit in Hyatt Hotels zurückkehren, was die Begrenzung potenzieller Kontaktpunkte, insbesondere innerhalb des Gästezimmers, einschließt“.

Im Juli hat San Francisco die strengsten Regeln des Landes für die Reinigung von Büros und Hotels mit mehr als 50.000 Quadratmetern angenommen. Diese Regeln schreiben vor, dass die öffentlichen Bereiche mehrmals täglich gereinigt und desinfiziert werden und die Gästezimmer täglich gereinigt werden, es sei denn, die Gäste lehnen dies ab. Die AHLA war einer von drei Hotelverbänden, die Klage auf Aufhebung der Verordnung eingereicht haben. Dieser Rechtsstreit ist noch anhängig.

Die Hotelbesitzer argumentieren, dass Mandate wie die von San Francisco die Branche weiter dezimieren würden. Fast zwei Drittel der Hotels sind laut AHLA bei oder unter der Hälfte der Belegung. Das ist unter der Schwelle, bei der die meisten Hotels die Gewinnschwelle erreichen und ihre Schulden bezahlen können. Ein kürzlich von Trepp, einem führenden Datenanalysten für Gewerbeimmobilien, zusammengestellter nationaler Bericht ergab, dass die Hotelbranche mit einer beispiellosen Welle von Zwangsvollstreckungen konfrontiert ist.

Chip Rogers, Präsident und Geschäftsführer der AHLA, sagte, dass in einer pandemiefreien Welt Streitigkeiten zwischen Mitarbeitern, Unite Here und Hotels vernünftig und ein gesunder Teil des Prozesses seien. Aber da Hotels ums Überleben kämpfen, könnte der Druck von Unite Here auf die tägliche Zimmerreinigung und andere Personalanforderungen dazu führen, dass Hoteliers schließen.

“Es geht wirklich ums Überleben”, sagte Mr. Rogers. „Im Moment gibt es keine Gewinne zu teilen und jeder verliert Geld. Diese Kämpfe jetzt zu haben, ist kontraproduktiv. Es schadet den Mitarbeitern.“

In Bezug auf die tägliche Zimmerreinigung sagte Herr Rogers, dass Hotels den Gästen die Möglichkeit geben sollten, zu entscheiden.

„Ich habe noch nie von einem Gast gehört, der gesagt hat: ‚Ich möchte, dass mein Zimmer gereinigt wird‘ und das Hotel hat nein gesagt“, sagte er und fügte hinzu, dass das Safe Stay-Programm Gäste und Mitarbeiter gleichermaßen schützen soll.

Die Angst, gute Jobs zu verlieren

Was Branchenvertreter als Versuch sehen, die Sicherheit der Mitarbeiter zu gewährleisten, sehen Unite Here und seine Mitglieder als Angriff insbesondere auf farbige Arbeiter der Arbeiterklasse, die ohne qualitativ hochwertige Arbeitsplätze bleiben könnten.

Obwohl Daten zur Demografie von Haushälterinnen in der Hotellerie rar sind, zeigt das Bureau of Labor Statistics, dass 2019 fast 71 Prozent der Zimmermädchen und Haushälterinnen in den USA Farbige waren. Viele sind Einwanderer der ersten Generation, vor allem aus der Karibik, Afrika südlich der Sahara, Mittelamerika und China, so Unite Here.

In vielen Hotels werden für Hauswirtschaftsjobs bis zu 27 US-Dollar pro Stunde bezahlt, mit Gesundheitsleistungen, die die Familien der Arbeiter abdecken. Viele, wie Nely Reinante, Haushälterin im Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel am Waikiki Beach, leben in Angst, ihren Arbeitsplatz zu verlieren und ihn nicht ersetzen zu können.

Erica Hayes war Haushälterin im DoubleTree by Hilton Chicago Magnificent Mile, bis sie im Februar beurlaubt wurde. Sie lebt von Arbeitslosengeld, befürchtet aber, dass diese bald enden wird und sie immer noch nicht wieder arbeiten kann. Ihr Mann wurde diesen Sommer getötet und sie muss ihre vier Töchter im Teenageralter allein ernähren. Die Angst, nicht mehr dazu in der Lage zu sein, war alles verzehrend.

Diese Beschäftigungsängste werden durch die Tatsache verschärft, dass Haushälterinnen angeben, nicht über genügend persönliche Schutzausrüstung zu verfügen. Alle befragten Haushälterinnen sagten, sie könnten mehr Masken und Handschuhe gebrauchen. Lisa Brown, die im März von ihrem Job im Detroit Marriott im Renaissance Center beurlaubt wurde, sagte, dass neue härtere Chemikalien auf ihr Gesicht und ihre Haut spritzen, sodass Uniformen, die mehr von ihren Armen bedecken, auch nützlich wären.

Ofelia Cardenas, eine Haushälterin im Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country, sagte, wenn Haushälterinnen nicht ausdrücklich nach neuen Masken fragen, können sie am Ende eine Woche lang dieselben tragen, obwohl sie mit Chemikalien und dem Schweiß der Mitarbeiter in Kontakt gekommen sind. Das Hotel, sagte sie, solle den Zugang zu Masken und Handschuhen erleichtern. Sie sagte, dass sie oft nicht genug Handschuhe hat und nur einen Handschuh an der rechten Hand trägt, mit dem sie Dinge schrubbt, weil sie nicht auslaufen will.

„Es ist beängstigend, weil Sie sich Sorgen um Ihre Gesundheit machen“, sagte Frau Cardenas durch einen Übersetzer auf Spanisch. „Ich sehe, sie kümmern sich nicht um den Arbeiter. Sie kümmern sich um ihr Endergebnis. Wenn es ihnen wichtig wäre, hätten sie genug Handschuhe, sie würden kommen und sehen, wie es uns geht.“

Herr Lavey von Hyatt sagte, dass die Mitarbeiter zu Beginn ihrer Schicht eine Maske erhalten und die Haushälterinnen zu Beginn jeder Schicht ihre eigene Schachtel Handschuhe erhalten unter der Voraussetzung.

Übersetzung von Isvett Verde

The post Resort Housekeepers Say New Cleansing Protocols Put Their Jobs at Danger appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Large San Francisco corporations with seven-figure salaries could be forced to save a dime for the city’s general fund if voters approve a new tax this November.

The supervisory board unanimously voted on Tuesday to put the measures referred to as “CEO tax” and “overpaid executive tax” on the November vote.

If approved, a tax of between 0.1% and 0.6% would be added to the annual business tax payment for companies in the city that compensate their executives 100 times more than their average employee. The tax rate starts at 0.1% for a ratio of 100: 1, then increases to 0.2% for a ratio of 200: 1, and so on, up to 0.6% for a six hundred times the pay gap between executives and employees.

“What we are proposing today is a very simple, straightforward tax measure,” said Board Chairman Matt Haney, who supported the law along with nine other board members and presented the bill to the board of directors. “When it happens, any company that pays its top manager 100 times more than its median worker will have a 0.1% surcharge added to its annual business tax payment. The greater the inequality between top management and workers, the higher the percentage. “

For example, a company with 3,000 employees and an average salary of $ 125,000 would pay additional income tax of $ 375,000 if it had an executive who also earned at least $ 12.5 million annually; If his CEO made $ 75 million, he’d have to pay $ 2.25 million in taxes. However, a company that pays its employees less, say a median of $ 50,000, would be more likely to be affected by the tax; it would start paying the additional rate on a board pay of $ 5 million.

Wells Fargo, the San Francisco-based bank, reportedly increased its CEO’s salary to $ 23 million in 2019. She would have to pay her average city worker at least $ 38,000 to avoid the highest tax rate and $ 230,000 to avoid the lowest tax rate.

Uber, the ridesharing giant headquartered in San Francisco, reportedly paid its CEO $ 45 million in 2019. Its drivers are considered independent contractors, so the salary test would fall on its well-paid engineers in town. Still, the average worker would have to earn $ 450,000 annually to avoid the tax at a compensation rate as high as Dara Khosrowshahi.

“Big companies that can afford to pay their executives multi-million dollar salaries each year can afford to pay their fair share of taxes,” Haney said.

The law was written to cover the many types of compensation paid to top executives, including bonuses and stock options. In the text of the bill, “compensation” is defined as “wages, salaries, commissions, bonuses, property issued or transferred in exchange for the provision of services (including but not limited to stock options).”

The additional tax would only apply to companies with gross annual revenue of $ 1.7 million or more and to executives with annual revenue of $ 2.7 million or more.

Regulators estimated that the new tax would raise $ 140 million each year for the city’s general fund, what Haney described as a “much-needed source of income to tackle income inequality,” which would enable the city to “help hundreds of doctors, “Hire nurses and first aiders.”

Earlier this year, San Francisco officials announced that the coronavirus pandemic had set their projected two-year budget to a deficit of $ 1.7 billion.

The proposal is one of three additional tax measures that San Francisco voters will face this November. If approved that required a simple majority at the ballot box, the tax would come into effect in 2022.

The post San Francisco will put ‘CEO tax’ on the poll this November appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

There are still a few significant offseason moves for the 49ers, with most of the free hand being canceled and the NFL draft released in late April. Their roster could look significantly different if the dust settles by Week 1, but they are in a pretty good spot on the post-free agency power rankings published by ESPN.

San Francisco with the free agency was mostly in 13th place, four places less than in the much too early ESPN rankings earlier this season.

It’s difficult to add the 49ers to the NFL hierarchy considering how their last two seasons have gone. Their roster looks much the same as last year, when injuries to a number of key players derailed their NFC championship defenses throughout the season. There is an argument that their offense looks better than they did when they went to the Super Bowl in 2019, while their defense may struggle to reach the elite level they reached that same season.

However, given a clean health status, before drafting, their list looks like it could pass in the NFC. The biggest question mark, however, is in the middle, which pushes them out of the top 8 areas and keeps them from being a consensus Super Bowl contender.

The draft has yet to be messed up, and depending on Jimmy Garoppolo’s future, the 49ers could move up or down a few spots at the start of the season. The good news is that if things change in 2021 they are able to win anything, but the bigger story will be their future with the quarterback and how that player will help them win championships in the years to come .

The post ESPN energy rankings put San Francisco 49ers in high half of NFL appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.