Retail and restaurant workers have the worst schedules. Oregon plans to change that.
Retail and restaurant workers have the worst schedules. Oregon plans to change that.
In the next upcoming battle for workers’ rights, activists aren’t asking for more money or more time off. They just...
In the next upcoming battle for workers’ rights, activists aren’t asking for more money or more time off. They just want workers to get a little advance notice about what their schedule will be.
Activists for better working conditions have scored victories lately. This year, 19 states increased their minimum wage — the result of a coordinated state-by-state campaign to take action on an issue that the federal government has basically ignored for a decade. And a handful of cities and states have passed laws requiring employers to offer workers paid parental leave.
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Fed chairman defends interest rate hikes as Trump’s attacks show no sign of working
Fed chairman defends interest rate hikes as Trump’s attacks show no sign of working
Several protesters from the progressive group Fed Up stood outside the conference room where Powell delivered the...
Several protesters from the progressive group Fed Up stood outside the conference room where Powell delivered the speech. Much like Trump, they say raising rates again will harm working people’s chances of getting jobs and better pay. The protesters wore green T-shirts reading “The Fed wants more of us unemployed.
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Líderes del Congreso reanudarán negociación con la Casa Blanca sobre futuro de “Dreamers”
Líderes del Congreso reanudarán negociación con la Casa Blanca sobre futuro de “Dreamers”
Grupos como “United We Dream”, “Women´s March” y “CPD Action” reiteraron hoy que, en las próximas primarias, apoyarán a...
Grupos como “United We Dream”, “Women´s March” y “CPD Action” reiteraron hoy que, en las próximas primarias, apoyarán a candidatos rivales que estén dispuestos a proteger a la comunidad inmigrante, si los demócratas no cumplen su promesa a los “Dreamers.”
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Activist Group Takes Out TV Ad Calling for Trump to Keep Yellen
The Center for Popular Democracy's Fed Up campaign broadcast a 30-second TV spot urging Mr. Trump to offer Fed...
The Center for Popular Democracy's Fed Up campaign broadcast a 30-second TV spot urging Mr. Trump to offer Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen a second term. The ad ran during "Fox & Friends," a morning show the president watches and often reacts to on Twitter.
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Chicago's minimum wage fight officially kicks off with $15 proposal
Crain's Chicago Business - May 27, 2014, by Greg Hinz - Ending months of preliminaries, a group of 10 or more Chicago...
Crain's Chicago Business - May 27, 2014, by Greg Hinz - Ending months of preliminaries, a group of 10 or more Chicago aldermen tomorrow is expected to introduce legislation to bring a $15 minimum wage to Chicago.
But at least for now, the measure faces a very uphill road, with Mayor Rahm Emanuel believed to favor some increase but not one of that size.
News of tomorrow's development came from Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, who in a conference call with reporters today said that the measure raising the rate from the current $8.25 statewide figure would be phased in over time.
Mr. Sawyer did not provide further details but suggested that small businesses might be given more time to adapt than large companies.
He said "about 10" aldermen will co-sponsor the ordinance, most of them members of the City Council's progressive caucus. Another member of that group, Rick Munoz, 22nd, said he believes that, once introduced, the measure eventually will get support "in the high teens."
"In the high teens" is not enough to pass a bill in the 50-member City Council, where 26 votes are needed for a majority.
Mr. Emanuel last week appointed eight other aldermen to a panel that will recommend within 45 days how much to hike the minimum wage.
In announcing that move, the mayor did not say how much the wage should go up, only that it should rise because "Chicagoans deserve a raise." But, given Mr. Emanuel's extensive backing from business as he nears re-election, my suspicion is that he will end up favoring a hike that's less than that pushed by the Sawyer group. That would allow Mr. Emanuel to present himself as a moderate of sorts — someone who's for the working person but not an extremist.
Mr. Sawyer's announcement came at an event at which Raise Chicago, an advocacy group, released a report suggesting that a $15 minimum wage would bring substantial benefits.
Specifically, it said, the hike would boost wages in the city by a collective $1.5 billion, stimulating economic activity that would create 5,300 new jobs and $43 million in new tax revenue, while slashing job turnover rates "as much as 80 percent."
The move for an increase in the Illinois minimum wage is stalled, at least for now, but the issue has become a very hot subject nationally.
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Multiple Arrests In Midtown During May Day Protests Outside Banks
Multiple Arrests In Midtown During May Day Protests Outside Banks
Hundreds of labor and immigrant advocates marched through east midtown early Monday in a demonstration against...
Hundreds of labor and immigrant advocates marched through east midtown early Monday in a demonstration against corporations which they say are profiting from President Trump's agenda—one of a series of May Day protests scheduled to take place throughout the city (and beyond) on Monday.
The specific targets of this action, according to organizers from Make The Road New York, are the Wall Street banks that help finance private prisons and immigrant detention centers. To that end, organizers said twelve protesters were arrested for peaceful civil disobedience while blocking the entrances outside of JPMorgan Chase, which is one of the companies named in Make The Road's and the Center for Popular Democracy's Backers Of Hate campaign.
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Let’s Be Real Episode 6: We’re Fed Up!
Let’s Be Real Episode 6: We’re Fed Up!
This episode, we take a look at a campaign that focuses on the Federal Reserve System and its impact on working people...
This episode, we take a look at a campaign that focuses on the Federal Reserve System and its impact on working people and people of color. We take you to a rally in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where we spoke with two protesters about how the Fed impacts their communities. Then, we sit down with the Director of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up! Campaign to hear about the fight to put working people and communities of color at the center of the Fed’s decision-making process.
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When Work Creates Insecurity
Many of us think that any employment, even part time, provides a measure of security. This is not the case for the...
Many of us think that any employment, even part time, provides a measure of security. This is not the case for the millions of low-wage workers who are subject to unstable work schedules. In an effort to minimize labor costs (and with an egregious fixation with statistical models), businesses are hiring part time and using scheduling software that attempts to dynamically match labor hours with demand. This practice, known as ‘just-in-time’ work scheduling, shifts business risk to some of the most vulnerable workers and has serious consequences for families.
Store managers say that they prefer to hire workers with open availability, so employment is essentially contingent on open availability with no minimum guarantee of hours. Applicants are compelled to conceal outside commitments, including caregiver duties and their own medical needs. Workers who desperately need more hours are unable take a second job, since anything less than full availability is responded to punitively with reduced shifts. Workers are sometimes sent home early or without clocking in at all.
Unpredictable schedules means workers are unable to improve their future earnings through school or training. Over the long term, career trajectories are negatively affected because part-time workers receive lower hourly wages, less training, and fewer opportunities for job promotion. This structural barrier to economic mobility has the potential to create a permanent underclass of worker.
Volatile work schedules also mean volatile incomes, and added uncertainty in daily life. “The amount of hours and days I work changes on a weekly basis so I never know how much my check will be,” a worker testifying for the Fair Workweek Initiative explains. “That means I don’t know how much I can contribute to rent and bills, how much food I can buy for my daughter, or whether I can even afford to do laundry that week.”
Last fall, The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) presented an audio conference to discuss updates to the social safety net to better accommodate volatile work schedules. During the conference, Jessica Webster from the Legal Services Advocacy Project in Minnesota related a story about a mother of one-year-old twins who was working as a security guard while receiving TANF. An unexpected drop in work hours caused interruption in her subsidized childcare, resulting in job loss and homelessness.
Called the “next new human right” by American Prospect, the issue of fair work schedules has gained a lot of traction over the past year. In 2014, a federal bill to address abusive scheduling practices died in committee and was reintroduced by Senator Warren in 2015 with substantially more sponsors. Advocates are not waiting for action from Capitol Hill, however. In 2014, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the Retail Workers Bill of Rights, the first sweeping reforms addressing on-demand scheduling and part-time work in the country. In 2015, several jurisdictions introduced legislation designed specifically to address fair work scheduling.
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) maintains a repository for information pertaining to unstable work schedules and the University of Chicago hosts the Employment Instability, Family Wellbeing, and Social Policy Network (EINet), a group of academics and policymakers who are working to address these issues. The NationalWomen’s Law Center has presented testimony to congress and compiled fact sheets that spell out legal provisions as well as the effects on female-headed households.
Perhaps as a result of increased media coverage, some retailers announced an end to on-call shifts, with mixed results. In December, Kronos, one of the largest software developers in the work scheduling space, announced a partnership with the Center for Popular Democracy to build in features that take worker preference into account. Even more encouraging, some business leaders and academics are questioning whether minimizing labor costs is actually beneficial to the bottom line. Researchers at the Center for WorkLife Law assert that it is possible to improve scheduling efficiency, while considering the needs of workers.
What Community Groups Can Do While the fight for a fair work week continues, it is likely that many constituents of community organizations are facing this kind of uncertainty with both schedule and income. This may impede the work of community groups in many ways, from making it more complicated to determine appropriate affordable rent based on income to making it harder for residents to regularly show up for trainings, appointments, or organizing meetings.
Some of CLASP’s recommendations for adapting social service agencies to this new work environment can apply to community organizations as well. They include:
1. Offering blocks of call-in time, rather than specific appointments.
2. Using sliding fee schedules so that a temporary change in income doesn’t disqualify a family for services.
3. Estimating incomes over a longer time horizon or projecting future income with variability in mind.
4. Lengthening re-qualification periods for services.
5. Developing education and job-search tools that can be accessed intermittently online rather than holding workshops
6. Offering childcare with extended hours and vouchers that permit hours to be purchased in blocks of time that can vary from week to week.
7. Providing information on off-hours public transit options and income-based transportation fees, like those offered by the city of Seattle. Sincepoverty is now growing fastest in the suburbs, those living outside of urban centers have fewer transportation options, especially for non-standard shifts. Logistics can quickly get out of hand for those who commute to multiple part-time jobs or need pick up children from day care at a specific time.
Community-based organizations might also consider taking on an advocacy role with public agencies. When it comes to public benefits, just-in-time scheduling creates an irony that borders on the absurd: while unstable work hours compel many families to rely on public benefits, this same volatility often prevents access to those benefits. A small, temporary increase in income or decrease in work hours can trigger automatic sanctions or program disqualification.
Though under federal funding, accommodations would be allowed under the sorts of circumstances just-in-time scheduling creates, Webster noted that state agencies often fail to exercise this discretion, and clients and administrators alike are often not aware it is possible. State and local agencies can and should realign their processes to address this. But there is also an opportunity for those outside of public agencies to make a difference by organizing to inform recipients of their benefits rights. These efforts would save money by reducing “churn” (i.e., people kicked off benefits only to be put back on them again), improve outcomes for recipients, and remove disincentives to work. CLASP notes that these ideas have broad political support, which could be encouraging news for enterprising community practitioners who would like to develop a role in this area.
Fundamentally, we need to advance legal and cultural recognition that, especially for those who are resource-constrained, time is tremendously valuable, and that human needs are not nearly as scalable as mathematical models imply.
Source: Rooflines
Police lay out security approach for People's March in wake of Dallas shootings
Police lay out security approach for People's March in wake of Dallas shootings
A scheduled protest march by a host of progressive advocacy groups as part of the Still We Rise convention downtown...
A scheduled protest march by a host of progressive advocacy groups as part of the Still We Rise convention downtown came with an added dose of tension and scrutiny a day after a protest in Dallas culminated in the shooting of five police officers.
The “People’s March” scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Friday is part of the opening festivities for Still We Rise, a convention organized by the Center for Popular Democracy that’s brought 1,500 people to the city to gather over various causes such as workers' rights, climate change, criminal justice reform and many others.
They’re causes that overlap with the protest march in Dallas over recent police shootings in Minnesota and New Orleans. At that march Thursday, snipers targeted police officers, killing five and wounding seven others, according to various reports.
The People’s March is expected to protest against UPMC, Bank of New York Mellon and Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in a parade that will trail from the David L. Convention Center hosting Still We Rise to the U.S. Steel Tower, headquarters for UPMC, then to One Oxford Centre and across the Smithfield Street Bridge to the Pittsburgh office of Pat Toomey.
A spokesman or BNYMellon declined comment on the event. A representative for UPMC did not return a call seeking comment.
A statement by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police laid out the public safety strategy and acknowledged calling on law enforcement resources beyond Pittsburgh.
“The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police is committed to keeping people safe during this afternoon’s planned People’s Convention March that begins at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. There will be a visible presence of uniformed officers along with a not-so-visible presence of plain clothes officers,” reads the statement, quoting the event organizers’ intention of protesting growing inequality and “a toxic atmosphere of hate.”
“Officers will exercise extreme caution to ensure the safety of both our officers and the public,” continued the statement. “The Public Safety Department has been and will continue to be in communication with the FBI. The Police Bureau will work closely with law enforcement agencies on the federal, state and local levels.”
The event otherwise marked a modest convention event for the city, in which the 1,500 attendees represent 2,587 room nights at downtown hotels such as the Omni William Penn, the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown, the Westin Convention Center and others.
The Still We Rise proceedings come on the same weekend that the city of Pittsburgh is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its incorporation as a city, including a Bicentennial Parade scheduled for Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m., just one of what’s expected to be more than 100 affiliated events throughout the city in the coming weeks.
Yet the city’s celebration of its birthday has been overshadowed by the shootings in Dallas and by the police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota that helped to trigger them.
Anticipating the anger and sadness from the shootings, on Friday Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, working with Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald, called for “communitywide peace summit” to be held sometime next week.
“We are all affected by the violence in our communities – whether it be here in Pittsburgh, in Dallas, or so many other cities – and we all must do everything we can to stop it,” he said in a prepared statement. “Pittsburgh is a strong and resilient place, and our bonds are even stronger when all of us in the city work together.”
Peduto announced the plan for the summit without a determined date at a meeting today of Local Progress, a national network of progressive elected officials and other organization leaders from throughout the country.
By Tim Schooley
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Transcript: Netroots Annual ConfeCPD and Local Progress Mentioned in C-Span during Netroots Conventionrence
Transcript: Netroots Annual ConfeCPD and Local Progress Mentioned in C-Span during Netroots Conventionrence
...codirector of Local Progress, a national group that unites progressive local officials and allied organizations. It...
...codirector of Local Progress, a national group that unites progressive local officials and allied organizations. It is run by the Center for popular Democracy...
Read the transcript here.
5 days ago
5 days ago