Our brothers and sisters who work at the East Bay Regional Park District recently won a historic wage increase with their new contract, showing that park workers deserve the same respect and pay as people doing similar jobs in the Bay Area.

By organizing and demanding that the park district pay them fairly—and by bringing thousands of people from the community into their campaign—they got a 9 percent raise and a new three-year contract, and they made a strong case for why the park district should continue to pay them higher wages in the coming years.

Isaias Lona, a hazardous materials inspector, may appear to be a laid-back, patient guy, according to his co-worker Jennifer Rojero, but he’s no pushover. You can’t be when the safety of your community is at stake, and when you’re part of a team whose responsibilities are as broad as Lona’s.

Whether it’s conducting fire inspections, hazardous waste inspections, wastewater treatment inspections or any of the safety checks that Lona performs to ensure that the businesses in Gilroy, are operating safely, being patient yet rigorous with clients are hallmarks of Lona’s approach.

When Fran Krugen’s late husband was first diagnosed with diabetes, his insulin cost about $35 a bottle.

But Krugen, an AFSCME retiree from Arizona, will never forget the day when she and her husband went to the drug store to pick up his insulin and the pharmacist told them it now cost $900 a bottle.

“This was medication he needed to live, and we had insurance,” she said at a press briefing earlier this month. “We looked at each other and had to ask ourselves: Do we make the house payment? Do we buy food? Or do we pay for his medication?”