I would like to know why the Sun failed to edit last week’s Ross Mayfield cartoon. It draws an ugly picture of Bernie Sanders, with yellow teeth and a yellow button calling himself crazy. It quotes Bernie as saying he won’t pay his staff the same $15 an hour he is fighting to get for all Americans, or provide free health care to his workers because it doesn’t pencil out.
Not only did Bernie never say those words, but before press time in Santa Maria, his campaign negotiated with and agreed to pay even his young interns a $15 minimum wage. He also took on 100 percent of the health care burden for all workers earning less than $60,000 a year. Bernie Sanders, the first candidate to unionize his workers.
Jonathan Williams, a spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 said, “Both the campaign staff and management have engaged in this process in good faith and to achieve a mutually agreed upon outcome. This is what democracy in the workplace looks like.”
The Sun has a responsibility for accuracy regardless of its political viewpoint. Bashing an honest man with lies is not what we expect from the Sun.
Gale McNeeley,
Santa Maria
This article appears in Aug 1-8, 2019.