Will Another White Big-Banker Oversee Wall Street?
Will Another White Big-Banker Oversee Wall Street?
“Fed Up, a coalition of community and labor groups, argues in a new report that this homogeneity creates blind spots,...
“Fed Up, a coalition of community and labor groups, argues in a new report that this homogeneity creates blind spots, protecting financial institutions while neglecting those who are still struggling 10 years after the financial crisis struck. Fed Up was formed to highlight how central bankers neglect corners of the economy. Though the Fed is supposed to be independent of politics, its decisions affect everyone, especially vulnerable populations who need support. An economy run for banks, inattentive to black and brown families, will necessarily expand the wide wealth and income gaps. The New York Fed’s district also includes Puerto Rico, which is especially struggling of late.”
Read the full article here.
Workers' next big fight: Fairer scheduling
Workers' next big fight: Fairer scheduling
The Fight for $15 is still being waged, but the movement is adding "Fight for a Fair Workweek" to its agenda. Americans...
The Fight for $15 is still being waged, but the movement is adding "Fight for a Fair Workweek" to its agenda.
Americans at the lowest rung of the wage ladder are looking forward to hourly pay hikes in cities and states including New York and California. Yet there's a troubling and escalating trend of underemployment and scheduling hurdles that make it next to impossible for many workers to get ahead, worker advocates say.
A defining feature of the post-recession recovery has been a surge in part-time workers. And despite an improving labor market, with unemployment at 5 percent, more than 6 million people in the U.S. who would rather work full-time remain stuck in part-time jobs.
California represents a large chunk of that underemployment, with more than 1 million working involuntary part-time jobs. In Silicon Valley, more than four out of every 10 hourly workers are now part-time, according to research due to be released Thursday.
The findings, based on data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and written by the Center for Popular Democracy and Working Partnerships USA, found insufficient and inconsistent hours leave hourly workers struggling in San Jose, where the minimum hourly rate currently stands at $10.30.
Of San Jose's total workforce, 47 percent, or an estimated 162,000, work hourly jobs, with 43 percent of those hourly workers employed part-time or on variable schedules as their main job, up from 26 percent a decade earlier, according to the report.
"Employers have restructured employment so that the work week is shrinking for low-wage workers," Carrie Gleason, director of the Center for Popular Democracy's Fair Workweek Initiative. "The minimum wage is finally catching up, and now we're going to see more and more policymakers pay attention to hours. They recognize $15 isn't enough if you're only working part-time."
What's occurring in San Jose helps relay "an important national story about a very prosperous region with a very low unemployment rate, yet one out of three workers isn't making it every month," said Derecka Mehrens, executive director at Working Partnerships USA. "From what we've seen, the wage fight cannot be separated from the hour fight."
Mehrens' group is gathering signatures to put an initiative on the November ballot that would require employers in San Jose offer more hours to existing qualified part-time workers before hiring new part-time or temporary workers.
Opponents to scheduling mandates include the National Restaurant Association, or NRA, which has lobbied against measures under consideration in state and local legislatures, as well as one proposed in Congress. The trade association says such measures have already caused "confusion" for restaurant owners in San Francisco and could result in fewer workers being hired.
Advocates for workers have a more sympathetic ear, if not a solution, at Starbucks (SBUX), which has drawn its share of negative attention for creating havoc with the lives of its baristas through its scheduling practices. At the company's annual meeting in Seattle last month, barista Darrion Sjoquist asked CEO Howard Schultz about addressing the scheduling issues that he and his colleagues routinely face.
"It's at the top of our list to create some balance between the pressure that exists on some people who are having a difficult time with the schedule and our ability to schedule thousands of people," said Schultz. "We understand the issues and we think they are critical," he said, adding that Starbucks believes a technological tool is needed to address the issues involved with scheduling 300,000 people around the world.
The scheduling issue last week had attorneys general from California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island expanding a probe into the use of unpaid on-call shifts and other scheduling practices in the retail industry.
"On-call shifts are unfair to workers who must keep the day free, arrange for child care, and give up the chance to get another job or attend a class -- often all for nothing," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. "On-call shifts are not a business necessity, as we see from the many retailers that no longer use this unjust method of scheduling work hours."
American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), Uniqlo, Aéropostale (ARO), Payless ShoeSource (PSS), Coach (COH), and the Disney Store (DIS) are among the 15 retailers sent letters asking about their use of on-call shifts, which can involve mandating workers to be available for work without a guaranteed shift. The practice is a potential violation of state reporting pay laws, which require employers give workers minimum pay when a shift is canceled or shortened.
Maryland, Minnesota and Illinois don't have reporting pay laws, but they've signed onto the letters to express concern about the impact of on-calling scheduling on workers and their families.
The inquiry follows a similar one by Schneiderman last year that resulted in six brands including the Gap (GPS), Victoria's Secret (LB) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) ending on-call scheduling, a move impacting a quarter million workers.
Scheduling protections were adopted last year in San Francisco and Santa Clara County, while conversely, Indiana and Alabama are among the states that have preemptively passed legislation prohibiting cities within their borders from enacting such measures.
In Seattle, which has passed paid sick-time standards and a higher minimum wage, the city council is considering legislation that would require companies offer workers more livable schedules.
By KATE GIBSON
Source
Peralta pushing to pass Carlos’ Law
Peralta pushing to pass Carlos’ Law
“Citing a 2013 report by the Center for Popular Democracy, Peralta said that between 2003 and 2011, three out of four...
“Citing a 2013 report by the Center for Popular Democracy, Peralta said that between 2003 and 2011, three out of four victims in fatal construction accidents in the United State were immigrants or U.S.-born citizens of Latino heritage.“Among the cases investigated by [the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration] in New York state that number is 60 percent,” Peralta said. “In New York City it’s 74 percent. And in Queens it’s 88 percent.
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Lingo still a barrier to relief
Times Union – August 7, 2013, by Jimmy Vielkind - Immigrant advocacy groups say it remains difficult to get access to...
Times Union – August 7, 2013, by Jimmy Vielkind - Immigrant advocacy groups say it remains difficult to get access to government services in languages other than English — nearly two years after Gov. Andrew Cuomo decreed that written and oral interpretation would be available the state’s six most-spoken foreign languages.
Cuomo signed an executive order that took effect last October mandating state officials to offer language assistance for speakers of Spanish, French, Italian, French Creole, Russian and Chinese. But the order’s scope was necessarily limited to state agencies, even though state-funded services like food stamps, driver’s licenses and unemployment benefits are administered by New York City or other counties.
The groups — including Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy and the Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities at the University at Albany — visited government offices and surveyed people with limited English proficiency to develop a measure of compliance. In a report released earlier this week, they found that less than half the people who needed language assistance were able to receive it.
According to Nisha Agarwal, deputy director of the Center for Popular Democracy, the survey found 63 percent of citizens using state-operated facilities that are explicitly covered by the order were not successful in their quest to gain language assistance.
“The governor’s team has been very engaged on implementation, and we’re sympathetic to the challenges of getting an entire state apparatus to change,” said Agarwal. “That said, the results are by no means satisfactory, and we were quite disappointed that the state took the position that county-run agencies for state services were not within the ambit of the order. We feel it’s a pretty big gap.”
The Cuomo administration responded by saying that all covered state agencies are in compliance with this executive order
“This report paints an inaccurate picture of reality by relying on visits to county-run agencies that by law fall outside the executive order,” said Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi. “Everyone should have the same access to their government, and we encourage counties to follow the state’s lead.”
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Albany Must Keep the Charter Cap
Earlier this year, the New York City Council passed my resolution urging the state legislature to keep the cap on...
Earlier this year, the New York City Council passed my resolution urging the state legislature to keep the cap on charter schools. That was nothing new: Council Members have long showed their opposition to raising the cap. But, with recent efforts by powerful special interests, including more than $13 million spent in lobbying and campaign ads, we need to remind New York why raising the cap is not only unnecessary, but also harmful to our public school children.
First, there is the capacity question. Charter schools have 2,500 unfilled seats in New York City. In addition, current charter agreements could allow for more than 27,000 additional authorized seats. In other words, these charter schools already are not handling their assigned share of students, and that burdens crowded public schools, making it more difficult for those schools to provide quality education.
Second, charter schools are not required to serve students who transfer to or join schools mid-year because of disciplinary measures or because of a family's choice. They also do not serve nearly the same amount of students with special needs as public schools. This means that when the school year starts, charters receive funding for a certain number of students yet actually end up teaching fewer than they are budgeted for. They then pocket the remainder and can boast lower class sizes while public schools again shoulder the burden.
Finally, the Center for Popular Democracy reported that New York stood to lose over $54 million to charter school-related fraud in 2014 alone. Audits can help uncover instances of fraud, mishandling of funds, conflicts of interest within governing boards, and a number of other troubling findings, yet charter schools largely oppose efforts to increase transparency. The State Comptroller's attempt to audit charter schools has already been foiled at every turn, meaning New Yorkers are left in the dark about how exactly our public dollars are spent.
Meanwhile, more than $5 billion in state money is owed to our traditional public schools to provide every child access to a "sound basic education" per the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling. Forty-four percent of all schools in New York City are overcrowded. The City's Independent Budget Office reports that most schools are at 102 percent capacity or more, and 88 percent of the city's charter schools are co-located within a district school, adding to the space crunch.
Co-located charter schools, by the way, are an exercise in inequality: privately run schools, with access to both private and public funds, that are taking resources from underfunded district schools. What does this mean for the social climate in these schools? Many students feel, and rightfully so, that district schools and their students are not valued the way they should be.
It is sensible to provide the money and attention owed to our public schools to keep them strong. Charter schools already divert resources from the majority of students, who attend public schools. Charter schools do not serve our children, especially the most needy, with enough accountability to justify increasing their share of funding.
All children deserve an education system that celebrates their potential by giving them the space and funding necessary to achieve educational excellence. The raising of the charter cap would be damaging to our public school system in terms of morale, space, funding, and overall quality. Leaders in Albany should finish their legislative session without altering the cap. Instead, it is time to ensure a feasible means of success for public schools by giving them the focus they need and not investing in a private enterprise that has yet to fulfill its promise to New Yorkers.
***Daniel Dromm is the Education Committee Chair of the New York City Council.
Source: Gotham Gazette
Election 2016: Measure E — Opportunity to Work
Election 2016: Measure E — Opportunity to Work
Hiring workers might get a little more complicated for San Jose businesses come 2017. Measure E is a South Bay Labor...
Hiring workers might get a little more complicated for San Jose businesses come 2017.
Measure E is a South Bay Labor Council-backed San Jose initiative aimed at giving part-time workers access to more hours.
If passed, businesses with more than 35 employees would have to offer additional hours to existing part-time workers before hiring new employees, including temps. Part-time workers would have the option to decline the hours, and employers would not be required to offer hours that result in overtime.
The City of San Jose would enforce and set guidelines for the regulation, and grant hardship exemptions for some businesses.
If approved, the law would take effect 90 days after the vote is certified.
Measure E is opposed by the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, San Jose Downtown Association and California Restaurant Association.
Opponents argue the measure will lead to a decrease in part-time jobs, burden employers with another layer of bureaucracy and hurt businesses and nonprofits (who are not exempt) that rely on seasonal and part-time labor.
Derecka Mehrens of Working Partnerships USA, a labor-aligned think tank, said the measure is necessary to address a “crisis of underemployment” in Silicon Valley. The initiative, she said, will also help people working multiple jobs, with the accompanying lack of benefits, to be able to work only one job.
Passage requires a majority vote. An October phone poll of 300 likely voters commissioned by supporters of Measure E found 62 percent supported the measure, 30 percent opposed and 8 percent undecided. The chamber declined to share its polling.
Supporters of the measure have a huge advantage in terms of money raised. As of Sept. 24, the Yes on E campaign had raised $481,700, more than eight times the $59,200 raised by the opposition San Joseans for Jobs campaign.
Chamber President and CEO Matt Mahood took a shot at the large amount of money the Yes on E campaign has raised from outside groups, which includes $250,000 from the Brooklyn-based Center for Popular Democracy.
Mehrens responded by saying that Working Partnerships is a member of CPD, and that the measure is part of a national campaign. In September, Seattle passed a “secure scheduling” law that included a provision requiring food and retail businesses with more than 500 employers to offer additional hours to part-time workers before hiring new employees.
By Bryce Druzin
Source
Celebs, supporters of Dream Act face off with anti-DACA protesters
For many DREAMERS, or undocumented young immigrants fighting to stay in the country, their battle could depend a lot on...
For many DREAMERS, or undocumented young immigrants fighting to stay in the country, their battle could depend a lot on what happens in the next few weeks in Congress.
Supporters and protestors of those DREAMERS clashed in West LA Wednesday in front of Senator Feinstein's office.
Read the full article here.
Unpredictable Work Schedules: As Companies Shave Costs With Just-In-Time Scheduling, Workers, Regulators Fight Back
Unpredictable Work Schedules: As Companies Shave Costs With Just-In-Time Scheduling, Workers, Regulators Fight Back
Brianna Roy-Rankin, 23, is just the kind of worker Target would like to retain and promote. She says she loved her job...
Brianna Roy-Rankin, 23, is just the kind of worker Target would like to retain and promote. She says she loved her job at the retailer's store in Champaign, Illinois. She had great bosses, got along well with her co-workers and enjoyed the employee discounts. But last week, after two years as a sales associate, Roy-Rankin quit her job.
“I couldn’t really plan. I was at the mercy of the scheduling system,” she says. “Otherwise, I honestly, probably, would’ve stayed.”
Roy-Rankin went to college nearby, at the University of Illinois. Before she graduated in May, she says it was a constant challenge to balance her studies and social life with her part-time job -- usually around 20 hours a week at just under $10 an hour.
Target has an unforgiving scheduling system. Roy-Rankin says she would have to submit requests to take time off for spring break or visit her parents weeks, if not months in advance -- otherwise she’d be slotted to work without recourse. She would learn about her weekly work schedule three weeks in advance, which wasn’t too bad. But then her hours would fluctuate drastically. One week, she’d be scheduled for a 8 a.m.-to-noon shift on a particular day; the next, it might be a 5 p.m.-to-11 p.m. closing shift. Eventually, it became too much to juggle.
Roy-Rankin's situation is hardly unique.
A Common Trend
Nearly three in 10 hourly workers in the United States say they rarely get consistent work schedules, according to a study released Tuesday by WorkJam, a firm that specializes in workforce scheduling technology.
What’s more, an astounding 56 percent say they get their schedules a week or less in advance. Both trends run rampant in the fast-growing service sector, especially in low-wage fields like retail and fast food. And while policies of this sort save companies money by allowing them to tailor schedules to an expected flow of customer traffic, workers say it's the source of headaches.
Joshua Ostrega, chief operating officer and co-founder of WorkJam, admits the 56 percent figure came as a bit of a shock. “I think it’s extremely high,” he says. “We were actually quite surprised.”
Workers Employed in the Retail Trade Industries (Seasonally Adjusted) | FindTheData
An especially harsh practice among retailers is what’s known as just-in-time or on-call scheduling. Under this system, workers are required to be “on call” to come in and work on a particular day even if they’re not scheduled to do so.
The industry’s profit margins are tight, says Ostrega, and companies are looking to extract savings however they can. Software-based scheduling systems do the trick by linking labor supply to consumer demand. When store traffic is low, the system calls for fewer employees; when the system projects more patrons, it demands more workers. Employers like it because it keeps them from racking up unnecessary labor costs.
Now, unpredictable scheduling is increasingly drawing the interest of public authorities.
'The Pressure's Mounting'
In April, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent letters to major retailers that inquired about their on-call scheduling and asked whether their policies violated state law. Like seven other states and the District of Columbia, New York has so-called reporting-time laws that require employees to be paid when they report to work, even if no work is provided.
Since the letters went out, a number of high-profile companies have announced changes to their policies. The Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch, which both received the notices, said they would end the practice of on-call scheduling. And Starbucks promised last year to provide more consistent scheduling to baristas. But as a recent story in the New York Times revealed, the cafe chain has failed to do so.
Robert Hiltonsmith, senior policy analyst at Demos, a progressive think tank, expects the positive trends to continue -- even if Tuesday’s survey suggests employers overall aren’t relenting on tough and irregular scheduling demands. “I think it’s a slow burn, but the pressure’s mounting,” he says.
It’s in part a question of economic self-interest, Hiltonsmith says. Burned-out workers tend to quit their jobs fairly quickly, and high turnover is expensive. That’s one of the reasons why Walmart, the nation’s largest private-sector employer, and its top competitors voluntarily hiked wages earlier this year, according to Hiltonsmith. In fact, when Walmart announced it was boosting starting pay to at least $9 an hour, it also promised to notify workers of their schedules at least two and a half weeks in advance.
Reforms like this and others -- shifts that are scheduled the same time every week -- could prevent retailers from losing employees like Roy-Rankin, the kind of people who are otherwise content at work.
There’s also mounting political pressure, which stems from growing public concern over the livelihood of service-sector workers. Hiltonsmith attributes this to the “seismic shifts in the labor force” -- the decades-long decline of manufacturing and growth in service-sector employment.
Contrary to the popular image, retail workers are not teenagers looking to make a quick buck. The median age of a retail trade employee is 38, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“I think people had less concern when it wasn’t people trying to support their families,” Hiltonsmith says. “For better or worse, the service economy is the economy of the country’s future.”
Source: International Business Times
‘Working Moms and Dads Are Juggling a lot’ – Series of Bills Aim to Help Working Families
FOX CT - March 5, 2015, by Katie Harris - A series of bills were introduced at the Legislative Office Building ...
FOX CT - March 5, 2015, by Katie Harris - A series of bills were introduced at the Legislative Office Building Thursday, aimed at helping the “Women’s Economic Agenda.”
“We need an economy that works for everyone,” said Lindsay Farrell, Executive Director of Connecticut Working Families. “That simply isn’t the case right now, especially for women. The bills in the Women’s Economic Agenda give workers the chance to balance their jobs and caring for their families.”
The group says that for too many people, our economy isn’t working, and women face additional disparities. Women make just seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man earns. Women make up two-thirds of the minimum wage work force, and over seventy percent of servers. Women are far more likely to have the primary responsibility to care for children, and represent more than two-thirds of adults providing substantial assistance to elderly parents.
The bills in the Women’s Economic Agenda include:
HB 6932 which would establish a paid family and medical leave insurance style program for workers to care for new-born or adopted children, treat and recover from serious illnesses, or care for family members.
HB 6784, which would expand Connecticut’s groundbreaking and successful paid sick days program to workers who are currently not covered. It would include workers at businesses with 10 or more employees and workers in any employment category so more workers can take a day off when they are sick or have to care for a sick family member.
HB 6933, which establishes fair scheduling guidelines that will give workers input into, and advanced notice of, their work schedule.
SB 858, which eliminates the tip credit that allows businesses to pay tipped workers $5.78 an hour, so that every worker earns the same minimum wage.
HB 6791, which charges large corporations a fee for each employee they pay poverty wages to help offset the cost of state aid programs the workers are forced to rely upon.
SB 1037, SB 106, and SB 914 that protect workers from wage theft.
“In the early 1990s, the Family and Medical Leave Act was a landmark bill to help workers and their families take leave when they needed it” said Catherine Bailey, Legal and Public Policy Director, Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund and chair of the CT Campaign for Paid Family Leave. “However, this law needs to be updated to catch up to the needs of modern American families, who shouldn’t have to choose between their health or caring for a family member and staying financially afloat. Now is the time for Connecticut to be a leader on policies that truly support family values.”
Director of Organizing and Capacity Building at the Center for Popular Democracy “Working moms and dads are juggling a lot – like doctor appointments, child rearing, and caring for aging parents. Fair scheduling legislation would go a long way to establishing basic standards that allow hardworking families to not just get by, but to get ahead.”
The Everybody Benefits Coalition was originally created to push for paid sick days. In 2011, the coalition successfully passed the first-in-the-nation statewide paid sick days program. Now, it aims to expand that program and make even more progress on family-friendly workplace policies.
Source
Major Impact Seen from Mayor’s Carve-Out of Deportation Defense Program
Major Impact Seen from Mayor’s Carve-Out of Deportation Defense Program
When families are brought into the court-room at Varick Street Immigration Court, they see their loved ones seated side...
When families are brought into the court-room at Varick Street Immigration Court, they see their loved ones seated side-by-side on a bench with other detainees, clad in orange jumpsuits, hands shackled.
As those detainees are called one by one to have their cases heard, they are seated across the table from an attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security. DHS attorneys will be prepared with documentation and arguments meant to portray the detainee as a flight risk—someone liable to skip further hearings if released—and a danger to society. They will discuss prior convictions, residences, details on family members’ citizenship and criminal history.
Read the full article here.
6 days ago
6 days ago