Workers’ groups show candidates that supporting higher wages wins votes
Workers’ groups show candidates that supporting higher wages wins votes
Several worker advocacy groups in swing states are showing senatorial candidates that according to polls, voters...
Several worker advocacy groups in swing states are showing senatorial candidates that according to polls, voters support raising the minimum wage and expanding eligibility for overtime pay.
The groups include the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund and the Working Families Party. They report that when voters learn that GOP incumbent senators oppose raising the minimum wage and expanding overtime pay eligibility, they often switch their support to Democratic challengers.
This might greatly influence the outcome of close U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio, New Hampshire and Arizona.
Forty four Senate Republicans have signed a resolution opposing the overtime pay expansion the U.S. Labor Department plans to implement December 1.
“Voters are fed up with lack of action in Washington on raising wages for working people, and what we’re seeing is that just letting voters know where the candidates stand on these issues can have a significant impact,” Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party, says.
He cited polls that found:
▪ Nationally, voters support expanding overtime pay eligibility by a three-to-one ratio. Just over half of voters say they would oppose a candidate who opposes the expansion.
▪ In Pennsylvania, three-fourths of voters say they support raising the minimum wage. Also, by an 81 to 15 percent margin, they say they approve of expanding eligibility for overtime pay. Fifty seven percent of voters say they will oppose candidates who do not support these goals. (Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Katie McGinty has made raising the minimum wage a key plank in her race against GOP Sen. Pat Toomey.)
▪ In Missouri, voters approve expanding overtime pay eligibility by a 76 to 16 percent margin. If a candidate opposes the idea, 53 percent of voters say it would lessen their support.
▪ In Ohio, voters approve expanding overtime pay eligibility by an 80 to14 percent margin. And if a candidate opposes the idea, 51 percent of voters say they would lessen their support.
“Working women and men should be paid for the time they work, period. The Obama administration’s decision to increase the overtime threshold is an enormous, in many cases life-changing, win for working people, from fast-food, retail and healthcare managers to post-doctoral associates and counselors,” Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry has said.
She continued: “This action will put more money in people’s pockets and boost the economy. It will boost women, African Americans, Latinos, people who are early in their careers and people who have modest education levels – the very people hardest hit by the 40-year assault on working people built on phony trickle-down economics.”
“Raising wages includes lifting national wages, but it’s far broader than that,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has said. “We want earned sick leave and paid family leave. We want full employment, fair overtime rules and fair scheduling so people won’t have to guess whether they’ll get enough hours to pay the rent.”
The Working Families Party, the NELP Action Fund and their allies are working to inform workers about where candidates for office from president down to city councilperson stand on raising wages,” said NELP fund spokesman Paul Sonn.
By Mark Gruenberg
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Battleground Texas: Progressive Cities Fight Back Against Anti-Immigrant, Right-Wing Forces
Battleground Texas: Progressive Cities Fight Back Against Anti-Immigrant, Right-Wing Forces
Sarah Johnson, the executive director of Local Progress, a group that works with Casar and other local politicians on...
Sarah Johnson, the executive director of Local Progress, a group that works with Casar and other local politicians on passing progressive legislation, told Salon that the initiative "brings together the way that policing impacts both immigrant communities and more broadly communities of color that are overcriminalized."
Read the full article here.
Elevated Level of Part-Time Employment: Post-Recession Norm?
Wall Street Journal - November 12, 2014, by Nick Timiraos - Nearly 7 million Americans are stuck in part-time jobs that...
Wall Street Journal - November 12, 2014, by Nick Timiraos - Nearly 7 million Americans are stuck in part-time jobs that they don’t want.
The unemployment rate has fallen sharply over the past year, but that improvement is masking a still-bleak picture for millions of workers who say they can’t find full-time jobs.
Martina Morgan is deciding which bills to skip after her hours fell at Ikea in Renton, Wash. Sandra Sok says she’s been unable to consistently get full-time hours after she transferred to a Wal-Mart in Arizona from one in Colorado.
In Chicago, Jessica Davis is frustrated by her schedule dwindling to 23 hours a week at a McDonald’s even though her location has been hiring. “How can you not get people more hours but you hire more employees?” the 26-year-old Ms. Davis said.
The situation of these so-called involuntary part-time workers—those who would prefer to work more than 34 hours a week—has economists puzzling over whether a higher level of part-time employment might be a permanent legacy of the great recession. If so, it could force more workers to choose between underemployment or working multiple jobs to make ends meet, leading to less income growth and weaker discretionary spending.
Employers added some 3.3 million full-time workers over the past year, but the number of full-time workers in the U.S. is still around 2 million shy of the level before the recession began in 2007. Meanwhile, the ranks of workers who are part time for economic reasons has fallen by 740,000 this year to around 4.5% of the civilian workforce. That is down from a high of 5.9% in 2010 but remains well above the 2.7% average in the decade preceding the recession.
“There’s just less full-time jobs available than there used to be,” said Michelle Girard, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc.
The slow decline in part-time work is particularly acute when broken out by industries. For the retail and hospitality sectors, the number of involuntary part-time workers in October was nearly double its prerecession level. For construction, mining and manufacturing work, by contrast, the share of such part-time labor was just 9% above its pre-recession level.
Other data show that the ability of part-time service workers to find full-time work has been much slower during the current recovery. In goods-producing industries, around two-thirds of involuntary part-time workers in July 2013 had found full-time employment by July 2014, up from 60% in 2009, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. But for service-sector workers, the rate has seen little improvement. Around 48% of involuntary part-time workers in July 2013 had found full-time work one year later, up from around 46% in 2009.
An important question for policy makers now is whether the elevated level of involuntary part-time work is due to cyclical factors, meaning it will fall as the economy heals, or to structural changes that have made employers more inclined to rely on a larger contingent workforce and avoid converting part-time workers to full-time positions.
On one side are economists like Ms. Girard, who say greater economic uncertainty and rising labor costs—from increases in the minimum wage, regulations or health-care expenses stemming from the Affordable Care Act—explain higher levels of part-time work. “There is a structural element to this at the very least,” she said.
The health-care law requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers to offer affordable insurance to employees working 30 or more hours a week or face fines. “Companies are just more inclined to hire part-time workers, not necessarily because of the health-care law, but for business reasons that make it a more attractive option,” Ms. Girard said.
Anecdotal reports have suggested employers have cut hours to prepare for the implementation of the health-care law, but that hasn’t been borne out by economic data.
An analysis by Bowen Garrett of the Urban Institute and Robert Kaestner at the University of Illinois at Chicago found a small increase in part-time work this year, but the increase occurred for part-time jobs with between 30 and 34 hours—above the 30-hour threshold that would be affected by the health-care law.
Other economists say higher levels of involuntary part-time work are mostly cyclical. Businesses don’t appear to be paying part-time workers more than full-time workers; that would be one clear sign of a shift in hiring preferences.
Elevated levels of involuntary part-time work in service jobs may reflect how low-wage employers ramped up hiring earlier in the recovery. More recently, the sector has absorbed those returning to work after long unemployment spells.
Part-time work in service jobs is “a stepping stone for the unemployed and for people out of the labor force,” said Adam Ozimek, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. Labor markets are “improving in just the way you would expect.”
Labor advocates, meanwhile, say technological changes in how businesses schedule employees are at fault. Software allows employers to schedule and cancel shifts rapidly based on business conditions.
Carrie Gleason, the director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, a labor advocacy group, said that could explain why more part-time workers say they want full-time work. “There’s now this persistent uncertainty in the jobs that hourly workers have today,” she said.
“I need to spend some time with my kids,” said Ms. Morgan, 32. “Two jobs? It’s too much.”
Ikea employees are guaranteed a minimum amount of hours every week. Those that can work “during peak times when our customers are in our stores have the opportunity to obtain more hours,” said Mona Liss, a company spokeswoman. The company in June also announced it would raise the average minimum hourly wage in its U.S. stores next year by 17%.
Meanwhile, the structural-cyclical debate has important implications for the Federal Reserve. If the changes are structural, wages might begin to rise sooner than expected, putting more pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates. If they’re cyclical, it would suggest that Fed policy can remain accommodative.
Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen routinely highlights the elevated level of part-time work as a key measure of labor slack. “There are still ... too many who are working part-time but would prefer full-time work,” she said at a press conference in September.
Business surveys conducted by the Atlanta Fed have shown there are more part-time workers because “business conditions don’t justify converting them to full time,” said John Robertson, senior economist at the bank. But other businesses have said their reliance on a larger part-time workforce stemmed from the higher costs of hiring full-time workers.
“It would be wrong to say it’s all cyclical, and it would be wrong to say it’s all structural,” Mr. Robertson said. “We’re somewhere in the middle.”
Ulyses Coatl illustrates how any improvement might unfold. He worked for two years as a stylist at a Levi’s apparel store in lower Manhattan but quit his job in September because the hours had become too unpredictable. His schedule varied from as many as 34 hours a week to four hours, but had averaged around 18 hours in recent weeks, he said.
A Levi’s spokeswoman said the company is “always looking at ways to improve retail productivity, including store labor models and processes” that conform to “industry best practices.”
Wal-Mart says the majority of its workforce is full time, and the share of part-time workers has stayed about the same over the past decade. A spokeswoman said store employees can view all of the open shifts in their store, and that there are full-time positions available in the store at which Ms. Sok works.
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No hike: Fed keeps benchmark rate near zero
WASHINGTON--Not yet. Citing global economic weakness and financial market turmoil, the Federal Reserve agreed Thursday...
WASHINGTON--Not yet.
Citing global economic weakness and financial market turmoil, the Federal Reserve agreed Thursday to keep its benchmark interest rate near zero despite the rapidly improving U.S. labor market.
But Fed policymakers' forecast indicates they still expect to bump up the federal funds rate this year for the first time in nearly a decade, with meetings scheduled for October and December. Their projections, however, show they expect to raise it even more gradually over the long-term than they previously signaled.
Richmond Fed chief Jeffrey Lacker was the lone dissenter.
The decision capped the most dramatic run-up to a Fed meeting in recent memory, with economists split on whether the central bank would raise its key rate, which has been near zero since the 2008 financial crisis and affects borrowing costs for consumers and businesses across the economy.
"An argument can be made for a rise in interest rates at this time," Fed Chair Janet Yellen said at a news conference.But she added, "We want to take more time to evaluate the likely impact on the United States" from the overseas slowdown and market gyrations.
She said Fed policymakers also want to see if further improvement in the labor market "will bolster our confidence that inflation will move back" to the Fed's annual 2% target over the medium term..
In a statement after a two-day meeting, the Fed said, "Recent global economic and financial developments may restrain economic activity somewhat and are likely to put further downward pressure on inflation in the near-term."
Fed policymakers now expect just one rate hike this year that would push the funds rate to 0.375% from the current 0.125%, according to their median forecast. They also expect a slower rise that would leave the rate at 2.625% by the end of 2017 and a longer-run normal rate of 3.5%, down from their previous estimate of 3.75%.
The central bank said "the labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment." It said consumer spending and business investment have advanced moderately while the housing market "has improved further." But amid the overseas troubles, it said exports have been "soft."
With the U.S. economy rebounding more strongly in the second quarter after a slowdown early in the year, the Fed raised its median forecast for economic growth this year to 2.1% from 1.9% in June. But after the recent global and market troubles, it lowered its projection for 2016 to 2.3% from 2.5% in June.
And with the 5.1% unemployment rate already below the Fed's previous year-end forecast, it now expects the jobless rate to be 4.8% by the end of 2016, below its June forecast of 5.1%.
Yet the central bank also expects a more modest rise in inflation, providing it more leeway to nudge up rates gently. It slightly lowered its inflation forecast to 1.7% in 2016 and 1.9% in 2017, leaving it below its 2% annual target even in two years.
Supporting the case for a Fed move was a 5.1% unemployment rate that's already at the central bank's long-run target, average monthly job gains of 212,000 this year and healthy economic growth of 3.7% at an annual rate in the second quarter. "The economy has been performing well and we expect it to continue to do so," Yellen said.
Waiting too long to act might force the Fed to hoist rates more rapidly when currently meager inflation eventually heats up, a move that could destabilize markets. Yellen said that could be "disruptive to the real economy." "I don't think it's good policy to have to slam on the brakes," she said
Yellen said she continues to expect tepid inflation to pick up as low oil prices and a strong dollar stabilize, but she said it will take "a bit more time" for those effects to dissipate.Some economists say the 5.1% unemployment rate already heralds a coming surge in wages and prices as employers compete for fewer available workers.
But annual pay growth has been stuck near a sluggish 2% pace, possibly reflecting an excess labor supply that includes part-time workers who prefer full-time jobs and discouraged Americans resuming job searches after years on the sidelines. If that's the case, the Fed may want to keep rates low longer to stimulate the economy so more of those workers can find full-time jobs.
Yellen told reporters the unemployment rate likely "understates the degree of slack in the labor market."
Meanwhile, recent news of China's economic slowdown, and the resulting turmoil in global and U.S. stocks, prompted Fed officials to temper expectations for a rate hike this week.
"The outlook abroad appears to have become more uncertain of late and heightened concerns about growth in China and other emerging market economies have led to notable volatility in financial markets," Yellen said.
She added, "We don't want to respond to market turbulence," but the volatility is prompting the Fed to investigate its cause in the global economy.While U.S. exports to China comprise less than 1% of the nation's gross domestic product, Chinese trade with other countries could have stronger ripple effects on the U.S. economy.
Before the release of the Fed's statement to reporters, a coalition of worker advocacy groups called Fed Up gathered outside holding signs such as, "Whose recovery?" and chanting, "Don't raise the interest rates!"
"The Fed should not make a decision to slow down the economy without hearing from the people it will affect," said Ady Barkan, the head of the group.
Source: USA Today
Activists: US Justice Department Response to Baltimore Police Racism Falls Short
Activists: US Justice Department Response to Baltimore Police Racism Falls Short
The response by the US Department of Justice to exposing Baltimore Police Department (BPD) violations of citizens’...
The response by the US Department of Justice to exposing Baltimore Police Department (BPD) violations of citizens’ constitutional rights falls short of addressing the systemic problem of racism in US policing, activists said.
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ACORN-linked Center for Popular Democracy aims for big GOTV operation
ACORN-linked Center for Popular Democracy aims for big GOTV operation
A left-wing nonprofit called the Center for Popular Democracy is working with the ACORN-tainted Working Families...
A left-wing nonprofit called the Center for Popular Democracy is working with the ACORN-tainted Working Families Organization in a more than $7 million get-out-the-vote operation in battleground states in the upcoming presidential and U.S. Senate elections, reports Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon.
The WFB reports:
Documents detailing those efforts shed new light on how the left’s organizing apparatus is collaborating with prominent progressive groups such as MoveOn.org, labor unions, and foundations to build a campaign apparatus that can win short-term policy victories and translate those victories into a lasting political operation.
The nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy and its 501(c)(4) dark money arm, the Center for Popular Democracy Action, work with 42 partner organizations—including labor unions, community organizing groups, and other left-wing nonprofits—in 30 states to advance its goals.
The group’s $14 million budget supports a staff of more than 60 employees. In 2015, it sub-granted more than $7 million to its partner organizations. Those partners boast more than 400,000 members, 800 state-based staffers, and combined budgets of roughly $85 million.
That organizing power is diffused throughout the states, but a document obtained by the Free Beacon reveals that efforts have been underway since December to centralize decision-making in committees that represent both CPD and its local and state partners. […]
By MATTHEW VADUM
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Which States Have Most to Lose From DACA Elimination
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday the end of an Obama-era program that has allowed almost 800,000...
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday the end of an Obama-era program that has allowed almost 800,000 undocumented young people temporary relief from deportation and the ability to work.
“We are people of compassion, and we’re people of law—but there’s nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration law,” Sessions said in a speech that emphasized the argument that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was put in place through executive action in 2012, was an instance of executive overreach. “The nation must set and enforce a limit on how many immigrants we accept each year, and that means all cannot be accepted.”
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Former CPD Deputy Director Profiled in NY Daily News
New York Daily News - April 15, 2014, by Erica Pearson - Nisha Agarwal, the new city commissioner for immigrant affairs...
New York Daily News - April 15, 2014, by Erica Pearson - Nisha Agarwal, the new city commissioner for immigrant affairs, will rely on her experience at the Center for Popular Democracy and as an advocate for language access in hospitals and pharmacies to help implement City Council and Mayor de Blasio’s push for a municipal ID card.
THE CITY’S new commissioner of immigrant affairs has been on the job for just weeks — but she’s been tackling the biggest issues on her office’s agenda for years.
“It’s such a gift to be in this role, given what I’ve done before,” said Nisha Agarwal, 36, a public-interest lawyer and the daughter of Indian immigrants.
“A lot of people have been asking me, ‘What’s it like working in government?’ because this is the first time I’ve ever done that actually, and the reality is the issues are very similar, and the perspectives on those issues, philosophically, are the same,” said Agarwal, who grew up in upstate Fayetteville and lives in Brooklyn.
She was appointed in February.
As the City Council and Mayor de Blasio move to create a municipal ID card open to all residents, regardless of immigration status, Agarwal will use her own research about identity cards across the nation, collected while she was deputy director of the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy.
“It’s really exciting to be in a place of actually implementing them,” she said.
“In order to have an effective municipal ID program, it certainly cannot be focused only on immigrant communities. It has to engage a broad range of city agencies and it has to appeal to a broad range of communities within New York.”
Agarwal will also draw on her past as she works to create an immigrant report card of sorts to track how well city agencies are including the newest New Yorkers — especially those who struggle to speak English.
“I started my first campaign as a young lawyer working on language access in hospitals and pharmacies,” said Agarwal, who directed New York Lawyers for the Public Interest’s Health Justice Program and was the primary drafter of the city Language Access in Pharmacies Act.
The city law requires chain pharmacies to translate prescriptions into New Yorkers’ primary language — so that they don’t make dangerous dosage mistakes.
It was transformative for her to be a part of developing the new law.
“I’ve always believed that local government is such a site for innovation and progressive change. To actually have a small role in that, it changed my career trajectory. That felt like, now I can see what the city can do,” Agarwal said.
Now, she’s in the position to answer a different question:
“How do we make those laws and policies really stick and go deeper across city government?” Agarwal said.
Before de Blasio picked her to head his Office of Immigrant Affairs, Agarwal developed a new program called the Immigrant Justice Corps, which offers fellowships to new law school graduates so that they can work as immigration lawyers based with New York City community groups.
Agarwal, who has a passion for social justice, said she’s also planning to have her own advocacy agenda — and spoke alongside activists and religious leaders last week at a Foley Square immigrant rights rally.
Her interest in fighting injustice was sparked early — and shaped by her relatives, said Agarwal, whose grandfather marched with Mahatma Gandhi.
When neighbors put up a new swing set but wouldn’t allow everyone to play on it, a young Agarwal was furious.
“That was my earliest memory of injustice, I thought it was terrible. But my response at the time was just to sort of throw rocks and to get really angry,” she said.
“My parents sat me down and said, ‘First of all, maybe you shouldn’t do that. We appreciate your instinct to fight injustice but throwing rocks is not the way to do it. Let us tell you about this man, who is from the country that we come from, who is Gandhi, and he believes in nonviolence.'”
“I think from the earliest stages of my life through my parents and other role models I have had this sense of wanting to do social justice work,” she said.
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Poor People’s Campaign Training Attacked by Pepper Spray
Poor People’s Campaign Training Attacked by Pepper Spray
You can help. Donate so organizers can hire peace monitors to protect their meeting spaces. The Center for Popular...
You can help. Donate so organizers can hire peace monitors to protect their meeting spaces. The Center for Popular Democracy has agreed to raise the money on their behalf all proceeds from this Crowdrise will go to support Alaska Grassroots Alliance.
Read the full article here.
Rick Kriseman, Karl Nurse urge presidential pardons to keep immigrant families together
Rick Kriseman, Karl Nurse urge presidential pardons to keep immigrant families together
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and City Council member Karl Nurse on Wednesday joined a national letter from local...
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and City Council member Karl Nurse on Wednesday joined a national letter from local elected officials to President Barack Obama calling on him to protect hundreds of thousands of immigrant families by issuing a pardon for lawfully present immigrants with years-old or low-level criminal offenses.
The letter is signed by 60 local elected officials. It kicks off a week in which the president’s legacy on immigration will be at stake, with confirmation hearings and a national day of action that will highlight his record of both deportation and protection, and potentially show just how much could be dismantled by the incoming administration.
The White House has rejected previous calls for pardons for undocumented immigrants, asserting that a pardon cannot be used to grant people lawful immigration status. However, for legally present immigrants who already have status, but who face the risk of deportation based on minor and old convictions, a presidential pardon could provide durable protection against deportation that could not be undone by any future president.
Many of those who would be affected by the pardon were convicted of minor offenses, such as jumping a turnstile. In many cases, the offenses occurred decades ago. The letter joins Local Progress members with over 100 immigrant rights groups who made the same request to the president late last month. Forgiving all immigration consequences of convictions would guarantee that individuals can stay with their families and in their communities. Local Progress is a network of progressive local elected officials from around the country united by our shared commitment to equal justice under law, shared prosperity, sustainable and livable cities, and good government that serves the public interest. Local Progress is staffed by the Center for Popular Democracy.
As local elected officials, the signers of the letter see the impacts of a broken immigration system up close and in their communities, every day. Indeed, localities are often forced to deal with the consequences of deportation, be it in a family, business, child or broader neighborhood.
“As an immigrant who legally came to this country as a child, I have a brother and a sister who could be deported if they had committed a misdemeanor anytime in the last 58 years. So this is personal,” Nurse said.
Kriseman added: “I applaud Councilman Karl Nurse for joining this effort and offer my enthusiastic support. I trust President Obama will do the right thing for our immigrant families in his remaining days in office.”
There is a significant historical precedent for this type of presidential pardon.
Categorical pardons have been used to grant clemency to broad classes of people in the past by presidents ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Jimmy Carter, the latter of whom issued a pardon to approximately half a million men who had broken draft laws to avoid serving in the Vietnam War.
dons to keep immigrant families together
By ANNE LINDBERG
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5 days ago
5 days ago