Pennsylvania Groups Press For Quicker Action on Immigration Reform
CBS – September 5, 2013, by Cherri Gregg - PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — As Congress gets ready to head back to Washington, a...
CBS – September 5, 2013, by Cherri Gregg -
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — As Congress gets ready to head back to Washington, a coalition of Pennsylvania advocates for immigration reform is holding a series of events to send a clear message to area elected officials.
The events include town hall meetings, business roundtables, prayer vigils, and rallies in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Montgomery and other counties.
“This last week of events is just to send them back to Washington with a big push,” says Sundrop Carter, the lead organizer for Pennsylvania United for Immigration Reform. “Now is Congress’ opportunity to do the right thing — to pass comprehensive immigration reforms that provide a pathway to citizenship, workers’ rights, and reunification of families.”
Bucks County resident Celia Sharp came to the United States 40 years ago from Colombia because of civil unrest in her home country. Now a US citizen, she says reforms are necessary — especially in Pennsylvania, where immigrant populations are growing.
“This is a critical human rights matter, a national security issue,” she says.
Some of the upcoming regional events include the following:
Business Roundtable by Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, Partnership for a New American Economy, Center for Popular Democracy, Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians:”Immigration Reform: Growing Pennsylvania’s Economy.” Thursday, Sept. 5, 12 noon, 200 S. Broad St., G. Fred DiBona Jr. Room, Philadelphia, PA Vigil for Immigration Reform and End Deportations Now by Pennsylvania United for Immigration Reform, JUNTOS. Monday, Sept. 9, 6:30pm, at 354 W Elm St, Norristown, PA March and Rally for Comprehensive Immigration Reform by Organizing for Action, Keystone Progress. Thursday, Sept. 12, 1pm, at Delaware Canal State Park, New Hope, PA Community Forum on Comprehensive Immigration Reform by Center for Popular Democracy, Grupo de Apoyo e Integración Hispanoamericano, Muhlenburg College. Thursday, Sept. 12, 7pm, at Muhlenberg College, 2400 W. Chew St, Seegers Union, Allentown PA.Source
Nan Goldin, Activists Bring Sackler Protest to Harvard Art Museums
Nan Goldin, Activists Bring Sackler Protest to Harvard Art Museums
“Protestors threw pill bottles on the floor of the atrium, handed out pamphlets, and held banners and posters with...
“Protestors threw pill bottles on the floor of the atrium, handed out pamphlets, and held banners and posters with phrases like “MEDICAL STUDENTS AGAINST THE SACKLERS,” and “HARM REDUCTION NOW/TREATMENT NOW.” A number of speakers gave speeches about the Sacklers and the opioid crisis in the atrium, including Jennifer Flynn Walker of the Center for Popular Democracy and Goldin, who began organizing against Purdue and the Sacklers, who are major donors to cultural institutions throughout the United States and Europe, following treatment for opioid addiction last year. She said she became addicted after being prescribed OxyContin in 2014 following wrist surgery.
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Don't Raise Rates, Protesters Tell St. Louis Fed
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - March 5, 2015, by Jim Gallagher - About a dozen chilly protesters gathered outside the...
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - March 5, 2015, by Jim Gallagher - About a dozen chilly protesters gathered outside the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on Thursday to complain that the Fed may soon make it harder to find work.
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates later this year, a move intended to prevent inflation in years hence. The protesters complained that higher interest rates can also cut off the jobs recovery.
The Fed represents “the 1 percenters,” said Derek Laney, an organizer with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment. “They are the big banks, the big corporations, and their mandate is to keep inflation low at all costs.”
People at the bottom of the economic ladder would trade some inflation for jobs, he said.
The protesters complained that the Fed has set a target for inflation at 2 percent — slightly above the current inflation rate — but has no target for reducing unemployment.
Rising rates tend to slow an economic rebound eventually, although there is usually a long lag.
The protest was timed for release of a report by three national advocacy groups, including the Economic Policy Institute, the Center for Popular Democracy and Fed Up: The National Campaign for a Stronger Economy.
The report complained that the boards of the Fed's 12 regional banks, which influence national decisions, are heavy on banking and business executives, but light on representatives of other citizens, such as labor and clergy.
The boards also don't fully reflect their community's racial mix, the report said. For instance, the St. Louis Fed's board is 10 percent black while its multi-state region is 17 percent black, according to the report.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis did not immediately provide a comment.
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First meeting of Trump’s voting commission makes clear that suppression is the goal
First meeting of Trump’s voting commission makes clear that suppression is the goal
Vice President Mike Pence claimed during the first meeting on Wednesday of the White House’s Commission on Election...
Vice President Mike Pence claimed during the first meeting on Wednesday of the White House’s Commission on Election Integrity that the group will go about its work with “no preconceived notions.” Just minutes later, commissioners took turns insisting there is mass fraud across the country that could influence elections.
Kansas Secretary of State and commission co-chair Kris Kobach claimed in his introduction that as many as 18,000 non-citizens could be registered to vote in Kansas, without mentioning the shady math and questionable studieshe used to arrive at that number. The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky insisted that massive fraud is occurring across the country. And even New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Garder, a Democratic commissioner, argued against making voting easier, saying it doesn’t require a massive amount of fraud to influence elections.
Read the full article here.
Think The Minimum Wage Will Be Safe Under Labor Secretary Puzder? Not So Fast.
Think The Minimum Wage Will Be Safe Under Labor Secretary Puzder? Not So Fast.
This year was supposed to be a good one for America’s workers. After all, nearly 12 million workers won higher wages in...
This year was supposed to be a good one for America’s workers. After all, nearly 12 million workers won higher wages in 2016, the result of sustained and coordinated efforts around the country. There’s a catch though: if these wages aren’t enforced, American workers will never even see them.
And despite widespread support, state and local lawmakers and business communities have already begun threatening to not comply with the wage hikes. In Maine, Governor Paul LePage ordered his administration to stop enforcing a minimum wage hike that 60 percent of his state’s residents voted for, telling employers who violate the law that they would be off the hook.
At the other end of the country in Flagstaff, Arizona, 54 percent of city residents backed a $15 minimum wage in elections last year, but business groups are fighting to move enforcement from a local authority to a state commission, which would likely delay the processing of claims. The state as a whole has backed higher wages, approving a proposition to raise the state’s minimum to $12 by 2020 last year.
In the face of such attacks at the city and state level, it’s imperative to have a federal Labor Department committed to ensuring that workers aren’t cheated out of their wages - wages not only earned through hard work but also guaranteed by law.
This won’t be the case if Andy Puzder becomes Labor Secretary. As chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, Puzder consistently flouted basic labor standards.
Puzder, whose confirmation hearing has already been put off multiple times, could easily fail to enforce the wage increases that prevailed in referendums throughout the country, and he’s likely to put even the existing protections we have in jeopardy - including the minimum wage, which currently stands at a paltry $7.25.
It’s the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, a term that we seem to be asserting with every cabinet appointee, but that rings even more true with Puzder.
Just last week, CKE Restaurants was hit with nearly two dozen charges of stealing wages. Multiple workers said they had worked for weeks without seeing a paycheck. One was only paid after he stopped coming to work in protest.
CKE has also come under fire for paying employees with pre-paid debit cards that incur fees on certain ATMs, in effect shorting employees their full paycheck.
If Puzder runs the Labor Department like he runs his company, these kinds of abuses will be allowed to flourish nationwide – and workers will lose one of their most important outlets for addressing their concerns.
For working Americans, it could be a disaster of epic proportions
And CKE is far from the only chain that regularly skirts labor laws. In fact, wage theft runs rampant across the restaurant industry, as well as retail and other low-paying service jobs. A National Employment Law Project study found that more than two-thirds of low-wage workers in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles had experienced wage theft in the previous workweek. The Economic Policy Institute in 2014 calculated that wage theft cost Americans as much as $50 billion every year
Some states, realizing the scope of the problem, have taken steps to improve oversight in recent years. In New York, 2010 workers won the strongest protections against wage theft in the country. After passage of a significantly higher minimum wage last year, Governor Cuomo followed up with a 200-person task force to ensure wages are being paid.
Yet state action can only do so much. The Department of Labor sets standards for wage enforcement around the country and is the front-line agency for filing many wage theft cases. A 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that weak oversight during the Bush years had left thousands of workers stranded with nowhere to turn.
We have made too much progress to turn back now. Taking the teeth out of oversight hurts workers and hurts the overall economy. Members of Congress need to make clear that Puzder’s persistent record of wage theft disqualifies him from the job of Labor Secretary – and, if Puzder is confirmed, states must show that they are willing to stand up for workers on their own.
By JoEllen Chernow
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Ady Barkan launches new campaign asking everyone to “Be A Hero”
Activist Ady Barkan, who is fighting ALS, is starting a new fight - to get people to vote. He’s asking people to “Be A...
Activist Ady Barkan, who is fighting ALS, is starting a new fight - to get people to vote. He’s asking people to “Be A Hero” and vote for candidates who protect healthcare. Ady tells Ali Velshi that with all the challenges he faces that if he can get out and vote, everyone can.
Watch the video here.
Immigrants need sanctuary — and lawyers
Ali, a green card holder and father of three young daughters in Baltimore, was driving his friend home when they were...
Ali, a green card holder and father of three young daughters in Baltimore, was driving his friend home when they were pulled over by police in a routine traffic stop. Ali's friend, who was undocumented, had a baggie of marijuana in his possession, and Ali, wanting to save his friend, took the blame. Ali believed his own immigration status would protect him even if convicted of possession. But a year later, he was threatened with deportation. He was arrested and, lacking a lawyer, detained for months, keeping him away from his family. Without a breadwinner, his wife, who was undocumented and unable to work, and children were evicted from their home.
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NYC and Seattle seek 'fair workweek' legislation for fast-food workers
NYC and Seattle seek 'fair workweek' legislation for fast-food workers
Municipal leaders and labor activists nationwide who fought for a $15 minimum wage now want to serve up a “fair...
Municipal leaders and labor activists nationwide who fought for a $15 minimum wage now want to serve up a “fair workweek” and steady hours for fast-food workers.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio set a plan in motion last week to give 65,000 hourly workers in the city's fast-food industry more stable work schedules by requiring a two-week notice for employee shift assignments. City Council members have vowed to introduce the legislation in the coming weeks.
In Seattle, the City Council on Monday gave its unanimous approval to a similar ordinance, which will affect well-known retail and food service establishments, as well as certain full-service restaurants. Mayor Ed Murray is scheduled to sign the ordinance into law by next week.
While supporters of such proposals – called “secure scheduling” in Seattle – say working families need protection against erratic work schedules, some retail organizations argue these concerns have been blown out of proportion. The Washington Retail Association said the Seattle ordinance would make work schedules less flexible.
“The effects of the law threaten to reduce available work hours for retail employees, reduce hiring opportunities and impose burdensome bookkeeping and fines on retailers deemed to be in violation of the law,” the retail association said in a news release.
Other business groups, however, don’t see the scheduling legislation as a major burden for employers. Mark Jaffe, chief executive officer of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, told AMI Newswire that the proposal is fair and that it wouldn’t cause fast-food eateries to go out of business.
“How hard is it to schedule people two weeks in advance?” he said.
A number of citywide initiatives, from affordable housing to reasonable transportation options, have helped New York City maintain a productive workforce, Jaffe said, and the Fair Workweek legislation would do the same. “We don’t believe it’s an unreasonable burden on the employer,” he said. “This is a no-brainer.”
The proposal was directed toward fast-food workers because that’s where most of the scheduling concerns originate, Jaffe said. Many of those employees need to map out their schedules in advance because they often work more than one job, he said.
The New York State Restaurant Association expressed concern about the proposed legislation but hopes it can work with city officials to reduce the burden to its members.
“It’s troubling that fast-food restaurants, which are really a local franchisee-run small business, have been singled out yet again when these restaurants are already being subjected to greater regulations than any other industry,” said the restaurant association’s chief executive officer, Melissa Fleischut, in a prepared statement. “Labor costs for quick-serve restaurants are skyrocketing, and under state law the hospitality industry is already subject to call-in pay and extra pay for a longer-than-10 spread of hours in a single day.”
In addition to providing employees a two-week notice on work schedules, the New York City proposal would force employers who make last-minute schedule changes to pay extra compensation to affected workers. The plan would also place restrictions on the practice of what’s called “clopening” – when an employee is required to work a closing shift followed by an opening shift.
“We will regulate that practice and require that there be at least 10 hours between a closing shift and an opening shift that a worker has to perform,” de Blasio said during a public announcement last week.
The mayor dismissed anticipated concerns about layoffs resulting from the proposal, saying that he heard the same rumblings when the city was moving to expand paid sick leave for workers. “Guess what happened?” de Blasio said. “This city has added 290,000 private-sector jobs.”
Jan Teague, chief executive officer of the Washington Retail Association, said in a prepared statement that the Seattle proposal could limit the ability of businesses to take part in the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program and make it more difficult for college students to find temporary jobs over the summer and during holidays.
Teague has also expressed concern that employers would end up paying higher “predictive pay” to workers in order to fill shifts resulting from a worker calling in sick or quitting abruptly.
“Any way you slice it, this ordinance will make the workplace less flexible to meet the needs of employees and employers,” Teague said during the debate over the Seattle measure. “Sadly, this ordinance will reduce the number of hours available for many retail and restaurant employees – and they cannot afford to see their incomes go down.”
In addition, she took issue with the idea of discouraging time allotments between shifts of less than 10 hours. Some workers want to have shifts close together during part of the week to free up time later for second jobs or helping to care for a family member, Teague said.
The National Retailers Association took a similar position. “Government intervention in the scheduling of employees through a one-size-fits-all approach intrudes on the employer-employee relationship and creates unnecessary mandates on how a business should operate,” the association said in a statement on its website.
Despite such concerns, the pro-worker advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy predicted that the victory for secure scheduling in Seattle would encourage other cities to follow suit.
“Those working in Seattle’s retail, restaurant and coffee chains will no longer have to turn their lives upside down just to earn enough hours to survive – and they will finally gain a greater voice in how much and when they work,” the center’s director of the Fair Workweek Initiative, Carrie Gleason, said in a prepared statement. “We can expect the vote in Seattle will inspire other cities to act.”
By Michael Carroll
Source
Man with ALS confronts Flake on plane over tax bill vote
A progressive activist who identified himself as diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (...
A progressive activist who identified himself as diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on an airplane this week over Flake's vote on the GOP tax-reform bill.
Activist Ady Barkan, a staffer at the Center for Popular Democracy, questioned Flake on Thursday after the Arizona Republican voted in favor of the GOP tax-reform bill that passed the Senate in a late-night session last week. Videos of the 11-minute conversation were posted on Twitter.
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Milwaukee faces historic opportunity to transform schools. Here’s how.
Milwaukee faces historic opportunity to transform schools. Here’s how.
Milwaukee spends a greater fraction of its general fund on policing than many other major cities. A 2017 report from...
Milwaukee spends a greater fraction of its general fund on policing than many other major cities. A 2017 report from the Center for Popular Democracy, Law for Black Lives, and Black Youth Project 100, compared 11 other cities and found they devoted 25 to 40 percent of their general fund expenditures to policing — Milwaukee spent 47 percent, or nearly $300 million.
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