CPD IN THE NEWS

Capital NY - June 16, 2014, By Nidhi Prakash - With just four remaining days in the state legislative session, sponsors of a new bill to grant citizenship rights to undocumented immigrants said they hope to begin building momentum for next session.

“First of all, this is obviously not something that is going to pass by the end of this week," said State Senator Gustavo Rivera, at a press conference in Battery Park City. "This was never about this particular legislative session. We’ve been working on it for almost two years, it’s a bold idea and we wanted to make sure it was thought out."

The bill, titled the New York is Home Act, would make it legal for undocumented immigrants in New York State to vote in local and state elections, get professional and drivers' licenses, and make them eligible for state-funded Medicaid and financial aid for higher education.

“What we’re doing today is we’re starting a conversation not only in New York, but hopefully across the country,” said Rivera, who was joined at the press conference by representatives from the Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road New York.

Senator Rivera said he was choosing this moment to introduce the bill, despite nearing the end of the legislative session, partly because of a lack of movement in Washington on immigration reform. He pointed to the defeat last week of Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor by a Tea Party candidate who criticized Cantor's support for limited immigration reform.

But some progressives have also balked at provisions in the proposed bill. Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for municipal ID cards for undocumented immigrants, but said last year he's "not comfortable" with the idea of noncitizen voting.

“We are certainly asking for everyone in the Senate and the Assembly as well as in other sectors—the mayor and the governor—to support it, and we will have conversations with them going forward," Rivera said. "We are just starting the conversation."

Assembly Member Karim Camara, the bill’s sponsor in the Assembly, said the broad scope of the bill could help other stalled measures, like the Dream Act and a bill to allow undocumented immigrants access to drivers' licenses.

“We’re hoping that by looking at this big picture, and this is probably one of the most ambitious efforts over at least the last decade or two, maybe those smaller pieces now seem like they’re not that big of a deal,” said Camara.

Camara said he hoped the bill would create momentum for other immigration reform initiatives by the start of the next legislative session.

“We didn’t break it into priorities in this bill, but we’re hoping that by looking at this overarching bill it’ll perhaps make those other smaller bills easier—drivers' license, Dream Act, et cetera,” he said.

Camara blamed the balance of power in the Senate for those bills being unsuccessful in the past, and said if that was to change there may be more hope for immigration reform on a state level.

“The Republican-led Senate has been a main challenge," he said. "We would have passed it this year if it was not for that. So of course there is that elephant in the room, that political dynamic that we can’t avoid, and if that’s not the case then we’ll appeal to individuals’ reason."

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The Huffington Post - November 21, 2013, by Ana María Archila - As progressives, we need to dramatically increase our scale and reach to win. With the merger of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and the Leadership Center for the Common Good (LCCG) in January 2014, we are poised to do just that. The stakes are high. The crisis in American society is severe: Inequality is now at the highest level ever recorded. In 2012, the top 1 percent of U.S. households received 19.3 percent of all household income.

The income gap between white and non-white America is growing even faster. Between 2005 and 2009, median white wealth declined by 16 percent, while median black wealth dropped by 53 percent and Latino wealth declined by 66 percent. Increasing economic inequality is being matched by increasing political inequality. Our democracy and the political participation of people of color, young people and the elderly are being eroded by state legislatures, with the tacit support of the Supreme Court.

All this would be much worse of course, if not for the work of the progressive organizations and movements that have fought inequality and racism for decades.

We can, and must, go farther and faster to fight inequality, the erosion of democracy and racial injustice. There is a growing opportunity to challenge the status quo and to build a society characterized by opportunity, equality and inclusion. Increasingly strong and assertive community organizations across the country are stepping up to demand better. Immigrant organizations, worker centers, progressive unions, elected officials and people of faith are envisioning and creating more inclusive and equitable cities and states, even in spite of our failed national politics.

The most successful community campaigns present a new vision for change, a creativity and fearlessness to promote policies many have thought unachievable, as well as a canny understanding of how to navigate local political forces.

My organization, the Center for Popular Democracy, works at the center of this emerging new politics, working to build the capacity and resilience of rooted, democratic, community-organizing institutions. We feel the urgency to grow our movement, to build new strength, to share organizing models and strategies more broadly, and to replicate campaigns and tactics that work to confront racial and economic inequality.

Just as our movement needs more power and reach, so do we. That's why we are merging with the Leadership Center for the Common Good to create a newly powerful Center for Popular Democracy on January 1, 2014. Our organizations' sister c4 organizations, Action for the Common Good and Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund will also merge to create a newly powerful Action for the Common Good. Part campaign center, part capacity builder, part policy shop, our merged and expanded organizations will work together to more effectively build the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda. From recent successes, we have a sense of what is possible when working communities are well organized, resourced and equipped to demand change. In New York, coalitions of community groups, progressive unions, and faith networks came together this year to secure a raft of impressive victories, from a raise in the state's minimum wage, to the adoption of paid sick days' legislation in New York City to the passage of pro-immigrant language access initiatives in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. And, in the face of fierce opposition from outgoing Mayor Bloomberg, CPD and our allies secured passage of new laws to stop the discriminatory policing tactics of the NYPD -- Stop and Frisk. CPD brought our policy expertise, strategy insights, and coalition coordination experience to these fights -- helping drive them to victory.

The New York victories mirror the work we are engaged in across the country -- in 27 states with more than 90 partners nationally. Through strategic and sustained local and state victories, driven by strong community and labor partners, and supported in important ways by CPD, we can secure tangible improvements in working people's lives and generate the upward pressure and momentum necessary to refocus national policy on furthering values of equity, opportunity and democracy for all.

Strong local organizations with a clear vision and an appetite for bold action are well able to scale up to win national victories when strategic opportunities present themselves. Last May, for example, the Home Defenders League, a project of LCCG and many close allies, staged a dramatic week of action which included civil disobedience by foreclosed homeowners at the Department of Justice as well as at other sites. Their actions tied together the simmering public outrage over the lack of prosecutions of Wall Street banks with a need to find relief for the hard hit families and communities. Five months later, reports of a pending $13 billion federal settlement with JPMorgan Chase suggest the long fight may be about to yield results.

The launch of the merged and expanded Center for Popular Democracy and Action for the Common Good is our ambitious move to help increase the strength, scale and reach of community organizing. Together, we are stronger. Together, we can build the power we need to win.

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Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has somehow convinced himselfthere is public desire for him to be president, took a moment at yesterday’s board meeting to deliver some pious criticism of America’s unusually rancorous political season.

“Dysfunction and polarization have worsened,” the coffee entrepreneur said. Deep in a bout of Bloombergitis, Schultz warned of the failure of the American dream: “Sadly, our reservoir is running dry, depleted by cynicism, despair, division, exclusion, fear and indifference.”

“What is the role and responsibility of all of us, as citizens?” Schultz asked.

His employees have one answer: They want him to keep Starbucks’ promise to set their schedules at least 10 days in advance, and stop making them work consecutive shifts closing a location and then returning to open it early the next morning. So-called “clopening” shifts can entail working until 11pm and then starting again at 4am.

The scheduling problems have been an issue since at least 2014, when a New York Times investigation exposed how scheduling practices can be as problematic for workers as low pay or abusive treatment. The problem is especially difficult for parents, who must find a way to care for their children without knowing their work responsibilities more than a few days in advance.

The problem seems especially galling because the company uses scheduling software to match employee availability with the predicted demand. Experts suggest that this software could be used to provide more predictability for workers. Starbucks has repeatedly said it will remedy these issues, but interviews with employees suggest they remain. The Center for Popular Democracy, a union-backed organization that runs advocacy campaigns for workers rights, published a survey of 200 workers (pdf) in September 2015 that found half received their schedules less than a week in advance and one in four worked the “clopening” shift.

Grant Medsker, who worked at a Starbucks in Seattle for about a year before quitting in January, told Quartz that managers often don’t follow dictates from headquarters. “Everyone runs their ship their own way, regardless of company policies,” he said.

Some franchise managers attribute the lack of follow-through on the company’s promise on schedules to pressure from higher-ups to keep labor costs down, which leads to chronic understaffing. Meanwhile, Starbucks earnings per share more than doubled between 2011 and 2015; in fiscal 2015 it had an operating income of $3.6 billion. Quartz reached out to Starbucks but has not received a response. In the past, the company has noted that many of its employees see a flexible schedule as a perk, rather than a hindrance. The company also provides its part-time employees with access to health insurance and educational benefits that it says are more generous than comparable companies. But given the company’s history of dubious social responsibility campaigns, it’s hard to see this failure to implement corporate policy as an accident. This is, after all, the executive who announced a personal boycott of political spending even as his company spent millions on lobbying.

“It’s not enough to talk about it, it’s not enough to say, ‘oh that’s really bad, I hope that changes,'” said Medsker, who volunteers with the labor-rights group Working Washington. “We have an obligation to change what is wrong with our society.”

“It’s not about the choice we make every four years,” Schultz said yesterday. “This is about the choices we make every day.”

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