Lawfare Also Works the Other Way

don't worry, we can fix this

The courts can be very cruel, or they can be very restrained — if you’re someone who merits the restraint, having chosen the correct team. And Corey Jackson is definitely on the correct team.

Jackson is a miraculous figure, so exquisitely stupid that he stands out even in the California legislature. He’s quite proud to say that he doesn’t always wear a eurocentric suite to the floor of the Assembly:

I’ve written about Dr. Jackson several times — describing, for example, the dozens of pages of the dissertation in an online program that made him an extraordinarily distinguished doctor of social work — and I’ve discussed his incredibly dangerous focus, as a childless middle-aged man, on the destruction of families and the parent-child connection. Dr. Jackson imagines himself as a warrior, standing atop the ramparts to fight off the wave of white nationalism that so urgently threatens California:

Jackson is, like every California Democrat, firmly connected to the delivery system that pours union money into the state’s politics; he easily picks up half a million dollars in every election cycle, despite running against Republican challengers who campaign on the equivalent of lunch money.

So he’s a friend of labor, lavishly supported by unions.

As I’ve written before, he’s also the former CEO of a social services organization, Sigma Beta Xi, which now faces a class action lawsuit that alleges a wide range of abusive labor practices during the period when Jackson ran the thing:

1. Failure to Pay All Minimum Wages,

2. Failure to Pay All Overtime Wages,

3. Failure to Provide Rest Periods and Pay Missed Rest Period Premiums,

4. Failure to Provide Meal Periods and Pay Missed Meal Period Premiums,

5. Failure to Maintain Accurate Employment Records,

6. Failure to Pay Wages Timely during Employment,

7. Failure to Pay All Wages Earned and Unpaid at Separation,

8. Failure to Indemnify All Necessary Business Expenditures,

9. Failure to Furnish Accurate Itemized Wage Statements, and

10. Violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 17200–17210).

The lawsuit was filed in January, and Sigma Beta Xi was served in February. Typically, the plaintiffs would file a complaint, which they’ve done, and then the defendant would file a response — a public document, easily available for download on the court’s website — about a month later. The contest would begin with each side providing a very basic outline of their positions, and the defendant would identify the claims they concede and the claims they wish to challenge.

So here’s what’s happening with the lawsuit alleging a long list of abusive labor practices in an organization that was run by a dear friend of organized labor:

Nothing. Nothing is happening, and lots of it. The case has been parked out back, behind the motor pool, somewhere out of sight. Stipulation for the extension of time, stipulation for the extension of time, stipulation for the extension of time. A few days from June, the defendant hasn’t filed an initial response to a lawsuit that was filed in January. Just a…few more…extensions of time…and…hey, whaddya know, the election is over.

The newspaper of record in Jackson’s district, the Riverside Press-Enterprise, knows about the lawsuit, as do the newspapers and news websites in Sacramento — I have the emails — but no one in the mainstream press has been rude enough to mention it. And the court isn’t producing a paper trail that might advance the allegations beyond the merest opening outline, so there’s little need to worry that the story will break open by November.

So a wonderfully progressive pro-labor Democrat is safe from voters or union contributors taking notice of the claim that he ran an organization that abused its employees. My bet is that we get a notice of settlement without ever seeing a response from Sigma Beta Xi.

Membership has its privileges.