Topic: Tax Fairness

Article Wealth Tax coronavirus
Education Funding

CFT continues push to tax extreme wealth in California
Assemblymember Alex Lee re-introduces legislation to tax billionaires

This week Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose) re-introduced his bill, now titled AB 2289, that seeks to impose a tax on the extreme wealth of the richest Californians. The bill would impact approximately 17,000 multi-millionaires and billionaires in California, which is 0.07% of the total taxpayers in our state.

CFT is a proud sponsor of this bill — that would raise more than $22 billion in revenue annually — and will be working closely with Assemblymember Lee as it makes its way through the state Legislature.

Article union communications
Standing Together

CFT wins top awards in national labor media competition
Federation lands 11 awards for communications in 2020

In a friendly competition with state and regional labor groups around the nation, the CFT won 11 awards from the International Labor Communications Association.

The awards show that content is still king. The CFT website won First Place in “best electronic content” for the third year in a row. Seven member-based stories won awards, with four claiming First Place honors.

Article Wealth Tax coronavirus
Education Funding

CFT sponsors California tax on extreme wealth
Why tax extreme wealth?

Since the beginning of the pandemic last March, while our families and our communities have suffered gut-wrenching pain and loss, billionaires in our state alone have increased their wealth by over half a trillion dollars.

And their numbers and their extreme wealth just keep on growing. In March 2020, just as COVID began, there were 154 billionaires in California – with a total wealth of $688.3 billion. In January 2021, there were 169 billionaires in California – with a total wealth of more than $1.2 trillion.

Article Elections 2020 Prop 15
Education Funding

Why your vote for Prop 15 is essential!
FAQ: What Prop 15 will do

Proposition 15 is a fair and balanced reform that will reclaim $12 billion to invest in schools and vital services for our local communities.

When Prop 15 passes, it will close a loophole that large corporations have used for decades to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes. The richest 10% of corporate properties will provide 92% of the new revenue.

Article Wealth Tax coronavirus state budget
Education Funding

CFT says “Tax Billionaires”
We can’t cut our way to the economic recovery our students deserve!

As we navigate the global COVID-19 pandemic, Californians are experiencing crises that reach far beyond the immediate public and personal health emergencies. The poorest Californians, disproportionately people of color in the service, hospitality, and healthcare sectors, have either lost their jobs, resulting in a spike to unemployment unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, or are risking their health performing essential frontline services.

Article Wealth Tax coronavirus state budget
Education Funding

How to avoid catastrophic cuts to education and vital social services
OPINION: Tax the super rich

By Jim Miller, AFT Guild, Local 1931

The COVID-19 crisis and subsequent economic collapse along with the national uprising against police brutality and systemic racism have cast a glaring light on the nature of American inequality on the healthcare, criminal justice, and economic fronts. It has never been clearer that as most Americans struggle, the elite thrive.

Article Elections 2020 Prop 15
Education Funding

Members collect 20,000 signatures in support of Schools & Communities First
Hitting statewide goal helped land measure on November 3 ballot

Update: On June 4, Schools and Communities First officially qualified for the November 3 General Election ballot.

Last fall, when CFT began circulating petitions to qualify the Schools and Communities First initiative, seems like a world away. Yet on April 1, the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the coalition submitted 1.7 million signatures, nearly twice the number needed to put the measure on the November ballot and the most ever gathered in California history.

Article Prop 15 split roll Elections 2020
Tax Fairness

Improved corporate tax reform initiative refiled with state
CFT working with coalition to put funding measure on the 2020 ballot

This week, the Schools & Communities First campaign refiled the the split roll ballot initiative with significant improvements. The refiling is a result of organizing during 2018 that allowed the campaign to hear feedback from stakeholders across the state on the ballot measure, and to consult with California’s leading policy and legal experts. CFT is a key member of the campaign coalition. 

California Teacher Up Front Prop 30 Prop 13 split roll
Tax Fairness

“Make it Fair” creates real change for California

By Josh Pechthalt, CFT President

California’s largest, oldest corporations have not been paying their fair share for more than 35 years. As a result, the state has lost billions of dollars in uncollected property tax revenues — a major factor pushing our public schools to the national bottom in per pupil spending and class size average. The state’s most at-risk families and individuals have also seen essential services repeatedly cut for more than a generation.

Article Prop 30
Education Funding

Prop. 30 delivers salary relief in recent contracts

After years of stagnant wages, classified employees are finally seeing long-overdue salary relief in recent months.

The raises largely result from the CFT campaign two years ago to pass Proposition 30. This year, the governor’s budget included $5.6 billion in additional funding for K-14 education. Prop. 30 will generate an average of about $6 billion per year for seven years.

Article Prop 30
Education Funding

Classified rise to the challenge of passing Prop. 30
Threat of more furlough days spurs community outreach and response

Classified employees had a lot to lose if voters rejected Prop. 30 on November 6. Staff swung into action across California, racking up victories in state and local campaigns that will go a long way toward saving public education.

Gilroy paraprofessionals in AFT Local 1921, for example, resisted pressure to take 10 furlough days until the need was clear, even though district teachers represented by CTA and classified employees represented by CSEA had agreed beforehand to give up the days.

Article Elections 2012 Prop 30 Prop 32
Elections

CFT members lead in passing Prop 30, defeating Prop. 32
Working with coalition partners, the union helps reach millions of Californians

Voters in California sent a powerful message on Election Day, passing Proposition 30 which raised income taxes on top earners to support public education — the first major tax increase since passage of the revenue-cutting Proposition 13 almost 35 years ago.

Nearly nine in ten CFT members, 87 percent, voted for Prop. 30, the merger of CFT’s Millionaires Tax and Gov. Brown’s original initiative, according to a post-election poll commissioned by the California Labor Federation.

Article Prop 30
Education Funding

The Fight for California’s Future
Our campaign for better education funding and fair taxation

With the passage of Proposition 30 in the November 2012 election, California is finally looking at improved prospects. Prop 30 begins the process of reversing the massive redistribution of wealth upwards that has taken place over the past thirty years. By imposing a 1–3% increase on the wealthiest Californians’ income taxes, and a modest sales tax increase of one-quarter of 1%, the state budget will gain some relief and programs in education and social services will not face further savage cuts.