Political Attacks, Social Media Trolls and a Dishonest Opponent

I have always been an advocate for the labor justice movement. I, too, have been a victim of unfair employment practices and wage discrimination as a young woman working in the hospitality industry. Last week, Los Angeles Times published an article alleging that I had not paid some employees who worked at my restaurant, Caliente Cantina Lounge, eight years ago. Here are the non-embellished and non-sensationalized facts of the case:

• I am not actually named in the claim.

• I did receive an email on Aug. 5 of this year (2022) regarding the alleged wage claim against the dissolved LLC where I was formerly a partner back in 2014.

• I forwarded the email to an attorney to handle the claim.

What is troubling is that the writer chose to quote McOsker criticizing my commitment to labor justice as if his opinion had anything to do with the case. If the writer really wanted to compare us on labor issues or understand McOsker’s “commitment” to labor, he would have asked McOsker about his lobbying for Trapac to bring automation to its terminals in 2016. Here are the non-embellished and non-sensationalized facts of that case, verified and undisputed:

Tim McOsker was a paid lobbyist for Trapac. Trapac has been the biggest promoter of automation for eliminating ILWU jobs at the terminal for the past 20 years. McOsker was paid during the time that Trapac was pushing for $500 million in port automation funding. McOsker filed

an Ethics Department form stating he was paid by Trapac to lobby the port, the city council and the mayor’s office for terminal modernization.

Last week in a Facebook posting, McOsker attempted to explain away his lobbying activities as helping TraPac with getting into compliance with existing air quality rules in 2016. And that he has never favored automation at the Port of Los Angeles.

Forget McOsker’s phony explanation about what his lobbying tasks were, just examine the facts. There’s only one conclusion to draw: McOsker lobbied for automation just like he stated on the lobbying disclosure statement he filed seven years before he ever thought he would run for office.

To make it even clearer let me offer this: “I will donate $10,000 to the Harry Bridges Institute if McOsker can pass a lie detector test stating his comments to ILWU Local 13 President Ramon Ponce De Leon were truthful.”

If McOsker is telling the truth, then he deserves your support and the Harry Bridges Institute will receive $10,000. Any honest person would gladly take that test and earn $10,000 for that worthy charity. McOsker will not do it. He knows better than anyone he is a liar.

Here’s another fact the ILWU leadership should consider before continuing to support McOsker: according to the Economic Roundtable Report “Someone Else’s Ocean,” roughly 572 jobs have been eliminated by automation and countless millions of dollars lost in our local economy. What is worse than that is the $500 million in public money the port spent on automating Trapac’s terminal did nothing to speed up the terminal or increase the velocity of the containers moving off the ships. Automation did nothing to increase the flow or efficiency of the supply chain. It only made foreign flagged shipping companies more profitable. The port should worry more about our community and the health of our children than the health of some shipping lines balance sheets. Thank Tim McOsker for his part in selling out the union and his neighbors while making himself and MOL (Trapac’s parent company) a little richer.

I wish we could just debate issues. I have a plan for getting the homeless off the streets, bringing better policing, crime prevention and raising millions of dollars for local community benefits. McOsker lacks ideas or a real plan for the district. The next time you see him,ask him about his plan to raise funding for schools, affordable housing, elder care and other community benefits. He doesn’t want to debate. His entire focus is to try to discredit me and misinform people about my support for the police, plans for the district or my ability to govern effectively. They are scared, they fear losing their power, influence and the ability to use public funds for private profit.

I hope to earn your vote on Nov. 8, 2022.