NAMED BEST CAMPUS NEWSPAPER IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2022 BY THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION AND CALIFORNIA NEWS PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Tuesday,
Volume 161 No. 15
September 26, 2023 SERVING SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
LAMAR MOODY | SPARTAN DAILY
Attendees gather to view one of the many airplanes on display at the annual Reid Hillview Airport Community Day event on Saturday morning in Southeast San José.
Community supports local airport
By Lamar Moody STAFF WRITER
Reid-Hillview Airport hosted its annual Community Day Airport Festival on Saturday Sept. 23. The variety of historic aircrafts scattered throughout the airport were the main attraction. ReidHillview Airport of Santa Clara County is a small primarily general aviation airport located on the east side of San José. Pilot Dotianne Reynolds said she hoped the event would help pique people’s interest in the airport. She’s hoping people will be more
interested in the aviation jobs they have to offer. “This festival is supposed to bring the community into the airport so they can learn about the classes that are offered, such as aviation classes and driving classes. Especially women, we need more women in aviation,” Reynolds said. There were between 20 to 30 aircrafts at the festival. The most popular aircraft that everyone wanted to take a picture in front of was the N742WT aircraft which was painted teal and white and had butterfly doors. Tom Reynolds, retired pilot and
Dotianne Reynolds’ husband, said the benefit of the festival is bringing the community together and getting to know each other, enjoying each other's company. “This festival gives people activity and there’s a lot of space here so we can bring people together,” Tom Reynolds said. The festival also had booths with many different vendors prepared for some hands-on fun. Volunteers from SJSU Aviation club explained several different assets that Reid-Hillview Airport has to offer. They gave out pamphlets and spoke about quality history on flying in the Bay Area.
Aviation and technology junior Andy Lapuzza said the airport is a learning environment for not only students, but for community members as well. “Some people want to shut down Reid-Hillview but there’s some people who want to keep it open. Our community is at a crossroads with this airport,” Lapuzza said. “The most beneficial thing the airport festival can do for the community is get people more aware of what the aviation industry is and what it has to offer,” Lapuzza said. “The festival also helps you get to know the community and
make new friends.” According to Green Foothills, The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to close Reid-Hillview Airport in Aug. 2021. Some in the community want the airport to close because surrounding neighborhoods have endured lack of sufficient urban green space, constant noise, risk of plane crashes, and dangerous air pollution for decades.
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New wages for food and health care workers By Vanessa Real
industry for granted. “I would say some people don’t look at employees working in fast food restaurants the same Fast food and health care workers as the ones who work at higher in California are in the process of establishments because fast food receiving higher minimum wages is cheap and fast,” Hulburt said. by next year. “They just kind of do whatever Fast food employees will see their they want without thinking of being minimum wages increase to at least respectful all the time.” $20 an hour in April of next year The California Legislative in Assembly Bill 1228, while health website states that in the history care workers can expect $21 an of Assembly Bill 1228, the bill hour in June in Senate Bill 525 was originally designed to create both according to the California a Fast Food Council to help Legislative Information website. the state oversee the fast food Assembly Bill 1228, the “Fast industries and to set certain Food Franchisor Responsibility standards. Under this bill, Act” or FAST Act, is a bill that franchisers are liable for the actions was first introduced in Feb. of this and behaviors of the franchisees year, according to OnLabor. The for labor violations. restaurant industry and unions Hulburt said that even with the reached a compromise leading to raising of pay for fast food jobs, he would still rather stay working as a server making less money per hour. “I would have to say no to going back to Taco Bell even if the pay is higher,” he said. “Dealing with customers at fast food places is not usually the best experience, and a positive change with this minimum wage raising is now these workers are not getting paid the fair amount of money for the things they have to deal with.” On Sept. 21, members from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office mediated negotiations between various unions and multiple restaurant industry groups to come up with a compromise bill. This compromise rewrote Assembly Bill 1228 agreeing to a $20 minimum wage, VANESSA REAL | SPARTAN DAILY a reduction in power of the Fast Students purchase meals from fast food chains in the Student Union. Food Council, and removed the
STAFF WRITER
changes to Assembly Bill 1228. Under the FAST Act, state officials were required to form the Fast Food Council, whose purpose is “to establish sector-wide minimum standards on wages, working hours, and other working conditions adequate,” according to the official California Legislative Information website. These standards are put in place to ensure the health, welfare, safety and to supply the needed cost of proper living for fast food workers. Business junior Kyle Hulburt, who is currently a server at a chain restaurant, said he worked at Taco Bell during the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and customers took him and other workers in the fast food
section of the bill that stated franchiser’s can be liable for the behavior’s and violations of the franchisees according to the Bill Text on the California Legislative website. The website shows in the bill history that the compromise negotiation potentially makes it more likely for Newsom to sign this bill into law, but it is currently pending a signature or veto. The minimum wage for fast food workers will be $4 more than the minimum wage for all businesses in California after it rises to $20. The minimum wage for all businesses in California will be raised to $16 an hour in January. Healthcare workers’ minimum wage has also been addressed by the California Legislative. California’s lowest paying health care workers are nursing assistants, patient aides, janitorial workers and medical technicians according to the official Cal Matters website. Senate Bill 525 was used to satisfy multiple issues within the health care industry, according to a website from California Legislative Information. According to the bill, “Even before the COVID pandemic, California was facing an urgent and immediate shortage of health care workers, adversely impacting the health and wellbeing of Californians, especially economically disadvantaged Californians. Higher wages are needed to attract and retain health care workers to treat patients, including being prepared to provide necessary care in an emergency.”
Health care provider of internal medicine worker at Kaiser, Lina Valceschini said she is not on strike yet but says she will be if there is no pay raise or bonus given. “If they give us a pay raise and our bonus, people will be much happier and they will want to work harder because there is incentive and a reward. They will not leave to find a better paying job. If employees leave, Kaiser won’t want to replace them, they will want us to work harder,” Valceschini said. “We need our bonus because we deserve it for busting our butts. We need to fight for our rights to win. We are underpaid and overworked, so that the big CEO’s make more money with our hard work.” SJSU alumna Emily Cheung is a medical scheduler at Kaiser and said she agrees with the higher pay along with having good and stable unions. “Bigger health care companies such as Kaiser Permanente or Sutter Health already have a pretty competitive job pool because of their good benefits and relatively much better pay. From a health care contract worker, I do feel overworked and underpaid,” Cheung said. “In health care, there’s something we follow known as ‘Health Equity’. This is to ultimately believe in equal fair opportunities despite their backgrounds to achieve optimal health.” Follow the Spartan Daily on X (formerly Twitter) @SpartanDaily