Up next on booktv after words with guest host Gregory Jaczko the former chair of the u. S. Nuclear regulatory commission. This week lets are prizewinning journalists Susan Stranahan and her latest book fukushima the story of a nuclear disaster. In it the environmental newswriter helps members of the union of concerned scientist to present the first definitive account of of the Fukushima Nuclear power plant meltdown after the march, 2011 tsunami. This program is about an hour. Host welcome susan. This is a great opportunity for me. Normally im the person having the questions asked of me and now i get the opportunity to ask a former journalist questions about the book that you have written so i look forward to that. Guest i will do my best. Its a noncostumed role for me to answer the questions. Its good to be here. Host im glad it i wanted to start just to ask you a few issues that are really general in nature about the book and the first question i wonder is what drove you to this topic
Sunshine ordinance and of the brown act and as a result shouldnt be included. Now, the other thing i would like to mention sort of irrespective of this were talking about lobbyists meeting in private with employees of the city and we can have discussions about levels and all this other stuff. Why are they having private meetings anyway . Why dont they submit a memorandum to explain the ideas so members of the public can put a request in to see what theyre arguing and see what is a counter argument . I dont see why there is a reason for private conferences. Citizens dont get private conferences with these folks. Why should the lobbyists firms gets them . I know they want it because they make money on t if they convince somebody to buy a contract or do what they want they come out ahead but where does the public come out . They dont know what is being discussed by whom, when . And many of the employees will make recommendations to the senior officials were talking about in the ordinance
With the university home, could you give us some examples of wage theft in the Nursing Home Industry . Yeah, i deal a lot with the care home industry which is a smaller facility. Theyre usually a sixbed facility. It is either elderly individuals or folks with Developmental Disabilities that receive funding through private or through the state. The common practice in those care homes, small Residential Care homes is to hire one or two individuals to take care of the residents in the facility and pay them a certain flat rate. So, youll hear testimony actually in the Public Comment section from a woman who worked in one of these facilities who came forward and complained about the conditionses and a collaboration that largely came out of the task force, with we were able to collect wages through attorney and [speaker not understood] being involved in the community center. These individuals work up to 17, 18, 24 hours a day sometimes, for a flat rate of 60 a day. And 60 does not compensate
Departments, perhaps including agency that were not sitting on the task force but do have a part to play, the ongoing collaboration among the city departments is of utmost importance. We also recommended that if its not already inherent and in permits and Business Licenses and in other city regulations, that the board of supervisors should act to authorize city departments to suspend or revoke permit business he that violate wage theft laws. And finally, information showing this is one of the big challenges we discovered, but that some ways for agencies in the city to coordinate data around business data through the interactions of businesses uniformly to violators can be tracked. We have had specific recommendations directed at the agencies that sat on the task force, and most of these recommendations were amazingly generated by the agencies themselves about ways that they could more efficiently participate in the fight against wage theft. Their recommendation was that the City Attorn
Instead of listing each individual contributor the date is given so if you do a fundraising event and responsible for 10 people contributing 500 the event shows 5,000 from the lobbyist to the specific candidate. We believe should should be done and effectuates the policy and not over burden the requirements. The real intent of the law is ensure that the public is aware of any possible undue influence that occurs between a lobbyist and an Office Holder or candidate and that will be clearly shown on a report that shows total sum of money maybe more helpful to have the total sum than what each contractor gave and in addition the report will show. What they gave over 100 and which contributor giving to which candidate is shown and [inaudible] on a lobbyist. A lobbyist will have to know each and every person that contributed on their behalf which is a hard standard to go by and probably discussed later. They will have to get the addresses and the amounts of each contributor and the campaign