Arizona protesters arrested at Flake’s D.C. office in health care rally
Arizona protesters arrested at Flake’s D.C. office in health care rally
WASHINGTON — As calls of “Trumpcare kills” and “health care is a human right” echoed through the halls of Capitol office buildings Monday, Lauren Klinkhamer stood quietly in Arizona Sen. Jeff...
WASHINGTON — As calls of “Trumpcare kills” and “health care is a human right” echoed through the halls of Capitol office buildings Monday, Lauren Klinkhamer stood quietly in Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s office and told staffers, “I don’t want to die.”
The Tucson resident fears she would be among the 22 million Americans, and as many as 400,000 Arizonans, who would lose health care under a bill the Senate is considering to replace the Affordable Care Act. For Klinkhamer, who said she suffers from 16 chronic conditions, losing her coverage would be a death sentence.
Read the full article here.
Activists Push the Democrats for Real Solutions on Climate Change
Activists Push the Democrats for Real Solutions on Climate Change
There might be no issue that splits so neatly along party lines as climate change. While Democrats have all but consensed on the existence of man-made global warming, Republicans have staked out...
There might be no issue that splits so neatly along party lines as climate change. While Democrats have all but consensed on the existence of man-made global warming, Republicans have staked out their place as the party of denial. But with climate-fueled chaos on the horizon, trumping Trump’s climate plan may not be enough to stave off the end of the world as we know it—and progressive activists are looking for more ambition on their side of the aisle.
First, the bad. At this year’s Republican National Convention, the GOP’s drive to drill baby drill toward an “all of the above” energy policy yielded chilling results.
Take the GOP’s climate and energy platform, an extremist document—even for them—that calls for more pipelines, a cancellation of the Clean Power Plan, the United States’ total withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and the end of the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide and just about anything else, morphing it into “an independent [and toothless] bipartisan commission.”
Others fused energy policy with Trumpian law-and-order nationalism: “Every onerous regulation puts American lives at risk,” Harold Hamm, a fracking mogul and Trump’s pick for energy secretary, said Wednesday. “Developing America’s own oil supply is a matter of national security.”
And official RNC proceedings were dotted with panels on energy sponsored by the likes of the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying outfit for the fossil fuel industry. At one such event, Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) voiced a myth popular among her colleagues: “The earth is no longer warming, and has not for the about past 13 years, in fact it has begun to cool.”
Squared with any climate science worth its peer review, the GOP’s plan is a recipe for literal disaster. This year will likely be the hottest on record, and recent research shows that thanks to ramped-up melting, Greenland lost a trillion tons of ice from 2011 to 2014.
Rising temperatures could cost the global economy some $2 trillion by 2030, around the time when coastal cities might become virtually uninhabitable. By stripping the government of its ability to scale back the emissions fueling these trends, the Republican platform might well kill us all—or at least force us inland.
But is the Democrats’ plan much better? When it comes to climate change, there’s precious little time for lesser evils; the physics—as scientists are quick to tell us—has put humanity on a deadline. Next week, thousands will converge on the Democratic National Convention to enforce it.
Articulating climate change as “an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time,” the Democratic platform sets out a series of ambitious goals on climate for the next half-century: a full transition to clean energy by 2050, creating millions of well-paying green jobs, fulfilling the Paris Agreement for a 1.5 degree Celsius global cap on warming, pricing both carbon and methane, and abandoning the “all of the above” stance Democrats wrote into their platform in 2012.
The issue, climate organizers say, is that the plan says next to nothing about how to get there. Though the platform benefitted from input of climate hawks like Bill McKibben, Keith Ellison and Cornel West, many of the strongest environmental protections brought up in the drafting process were struck down. Food and Water Watch National Organizing Director Mark Schlosberg noted that, among other shortcomings, the document failed to ban fracking, reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership or commit to keeping fossil fuels buried.
Not only that, but Clinton’s staffers have made pains to distinguish the party’s plans from her own, which are focused largely on market-based clean energy incentives and a handful of regulations. If the Democrats’ own nominee won’t champion her party’s policy slate, pushing beyond it will be no easy task.
Despite its flaws, the Democrats’ platform remains the most ambitious the party has produced to date. But meeting its relatively lofty benchmarks would require rapid cuts to current fossil fuel use, and a virtual moratorium on new pipelines, drilling projects, coal-fired power plants and fuel export terminals—none of which are included to sufficient degree in either the document or Clinton’s own agenda. Even if every national commitment outlined in the Paris Agreement is met, the world is still on track for around 3 degrees of warming. A recent report from Nature, moreover, finds that “the window for limiting warming to below 1.5 C … seems to have closed.” Meeting that now, researchers say, would require the use of some magically efficient (and currently non-existent) technology to suck carbon out of the atmosphere.
The Democrats’ platform, Schlosberg explains, “Contains some good language [on climate change] … and calls for a World War II-scale mobilization to address it. But the rest of the platform doesn’t live up to what is necessary to implement that. …
“We need to put forward an affirmative vision of what [a low-carbon world] should look like,” he adds, “not just what we can bargain for.”
Party platforms, at day’s end, are symbolic documents—more of a temperature gauge on the party’s mainstream than a commitment that it will do what it says. Even the “strongest climate change platform ever,” as the Guardian called the Democrats’ plan, leaves a dangerous gap between science and policy.
That’s part of the reason why—on Sunday—Food and Water Watch, with the support of some 900 sponsoring organizations, is hosting a March for a Clean Energy Revolution through downtown Philadelphia, just hours before the convention is set to begin. Joined by the Center for Popular Democracy, National Nurses United, the Labor Network for Sustainability and others, the march will invite thousands to call for everything from a ban on fracking to keeping fossil fuels underground.
Also on the ground next week will be Nay’Chelle Harris, a member of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) and something called the It Takes Root People’s Caravan. A redux, of sorts, of a delegation of organizers who attended the Paris climate talks back in December, the caravan has been bringing together “grassroots Indigenous, Latin@, Black, Asian, Muslim and working class white organizers from around the country” to plan and support actions in Cleveland, Philadelphia and points in between.
This week they joined the immigrant rights’ group Mijente outside the RNC to “wall off Trump,” and in Philly will participate in actions to shut down an immigration detention center and stop the expansion of a South Philadelphia oil refinery. Like Harris, many “caravanistas” work at the intersections of racial, immigration and climate justice. They kicked off their trip with a Pledge of Resistance “to stand against the racism, misogyny and hateful and xenophobic policies being put forth at the Republican National Convention.” Climate justice, they say, won’t come without victory on other fronts as well.
Having first gotten involved in MORE’s campaign against coal company Peabody Energy as a student at Washington University in St. Louis, Harris started devoting more time to the group after Michael Brown’s killing in nearby Ferguson in the summer of 2014. MORE provided jail support to protesters arrested in Ferguson that summer, and since then has worked on a project mapping out the connections between St. Louis power brokers—including Peabody Energy, headquartered there—and the city’s police department. “Power Behind the Police,” as the project is known, looks to target the “St. Louis 1%” while building out a people’s agenda for a just transition away from fossil fuels and police violence alike.
“We need to confront the GOP, and confront Trump and his rhetoric,” Harris told me by phone from Cleveland. “But we also need to confront the DNC—they have been pushing militarism, they have been pushing market-based, false solutions to climate change. They haven’t shown real dedication to ending violence against black people.” Carbon taxes and trading schemes have been a favorite not just of progressives but also free market ideologues, whose proposed version of the carbon tax would swap corporate regulations for a price on oil and coal. (Former Bush economist N. Gregory Mankiw is a fan of the idea, along with ExxonMobil.) Many in the caravan, on the other hand, see such elite-driven, market-based proposals as a cynical way to stave off the kinds of strong regulations that might actually put a dent in the fossil fuel industry’s business model, and protect communities on extraction’s frontlines.
Schlosberg and Harris each said that taking on such false solutions, and securing a better climate plan, would take more coordination among movements across issues. Harris joins many millennials, too, in her frustration with politics as usual as a path toward that, saying she “doesn’t feel beholden to the Democratic Party.” But she is also part of a tide of grassroots organizers who see electoral fights as a field of struggle in pushing movements’ demands, along with mobilizations and other forms of pressure from outside of formal politics—like demonstrations happening in Philadelphia next week.
“We can’t depend on the political system,” Harris told In These Times. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use every avenue for change we have at our disposal.” She referenced two local St. Louis politicians—Democrats Megan Green and Rasheen Aldridge—as examples of what it looks like for officials to run on platforms and govern on platforms that are accountable to activists. Green, an alderwoman, and Aldridge—now running for Democratic Committeeman in the city’s fifth ward—have each used their campaigns to push for demands brought forth by the movement for black lives and Fight for $15.
“I don’t think anyone should consider a party to be their savior,” Harris added, whether it’s the Democrats or the Green Party. “What matters now is people power.”
By KATE ARONOFF
Source
‘Shut This Office Down’: 128 Arrested As Anti-Kavanaugh Protesters Visit Republican Senators
‘Shut This Office Down’: 128 Arrested As Anti-Kavanaugh Protesters Visit Republican Senators
The Women’s March and the Center for Popular Democracy spearheaded a mass arrest action to kick off a week of protests in support of Dr. Ford, whose allegations against the Supreme Court nominee...
The Women’s March and the Center for Popular Democracy spearheaded a mass arrest action to kick off a week of protests in support of Dr. Ford, whose allegations against the Supreme Court nominee have sparked turmoil.
Read the full article here.
New Report Details Fundamental Flaws in Long Island Workforce Housing Act
For Immediate Release: May 14, 2015
Contact: Ricardo A. Ramírez, rramirez@populardemocracy.org, 202-464-7376
Read the report here: /documents/long-island-workforce-housing-act-report-2015-05112015pdf
Seven years after New York State passed landmark legislation to increase affordable housing on Long Island, a new report finds that not only does the affordable-housing crisis persist, but the legislation has fundamental flaws that prevent it from paving the way to affordable homes for Long Island’s families.
The Long Island Workforce Housing Act, enacted in 2008, sets affordability too high for working families, has loopholes for developers, and doesn’t require that towns report relevant information to the state, according to the report, commissioned by the Long Island Community Foundation and written by the Center for Popular Democracy, a national group dedicated to equity issues.
“There is much more work to do before our state and local laws foster a community where all working families can find affordable housing,” said Amy Carroll, Chief of Staff of the Center for Popular Democracy, who released the report. “While the Long Island Workforce Housing Act was a first step to tackle the crisis of affordable housing on Long Island, the data is clear: Seven years later, the difficult housing market is failing to provide options for Long Islanders who need affordable housing – from seniors to young professionals and working families. Worse still, the lack of affordable housing exacerbates segregation in the region, and disproportionately impacts Long Island’s working families, residents of color, and immigrant communities.”
“This truly is a crisis -- Long Island is losing large employers to other regions that are more hospitable to employers and workers,” said David Okorn, of the Long Island Community Foundation. “We’re failing to meet the needs of our elders, young professionals and working families, and Long Islanders continue to live in segregated communities.”
“After fighting for affordable housing in Garden City for more than 10 years, NYCC members know that blatant discrimination is alive and well on Long Island,” said Diane Goins, President Long Island Chapter New York Communities for Change. “When the Long Island Workforce Housing Act was passed, many low- and moderate-income residents in Nassau and Suffolk hoped that it would lead to more inclusive, mixed-income communities. CPD’s report clearly shows that this law is flawed and has failed to provide real affordable housing in our communities on Long Island, continuing the pattern of segregation that has plagued us for decades.”
"As the Assembly sponsor of the original version of this legislation, I fully support efforts to examine whether the Long Island Workforce Housing Act is working and helping Long Island families. The Center for Popular Democracy has put forth recommendations that should be considered as more efforts are needed to tackle the shortage of affordable housing on Long Island," said New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
“Long Island’s housing policies, by design and by default, have failed to meet the housing needs of diverse populations; diverse racially, by income levels, by family composition, and the like,” said V. Elaine Gross, president of ERASE Racism. “Regrettably, the Long Island Workforce Housing Act has not been the hoped for solution. Now is the time to reject housing policies that concentrate poverty and segregate racially, and create policies that support racially and economically integrated communities where all residents can thrive.”
“The Act may have caused some municipalities to become more aware of their housing needs; however, it did little to stimulate the creation of affordable homes on Long Island as was its stated intent,” said Jim Morgo, Suffolk County’s first Commissioner of Economic Development and Workforce Housing. “Revisions in the law and especially state incentives would help additional municipalities meet the varied housing needs of low- and moderate-income Long Islanders.”
“Developers are ready to be part of the solution to address Long Island’s affordable housing crisis. Our members are eager to build quality, affordable homes,” said Mitch Palley, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute. “We need local governments to work with us to change the zoning and other regulatory barriers that stand in our way.”
The report highlights significant flaws in the Act that have hampered its implementation and stresses that fixing these problems requires state policymakers to reimagine public policies that truly ensure access to affordable, quality housing for working families and foster diverse, mixed-income communities.
Flaws with the Long Island Workforce Housing Act:
Sets affordability too high and out of reach for working families in Long Island, targeting families making $140,000 per year.
Includes loopholes, such as allowing developers to build affordable units off-site, that could exacerbate racial segregation
Includes no requirements that towns keep or report information about affordable housing construction to the state to facilitate analysis of compliance with the Act;
Includes no enforcement mechanisms to allow residents or the state to hold towns or developers accountable for violations and no public education on its requirements; and
Has significant drafting and technical problems that complicate interpretation and application of the law
The report urges leaders in Long Island and New York State as a whole to take a comprehensive, holistic approach to tackling the crisis of affordability. Recommendations include:
Requirements and/or incentives for jurisdictions to accommodate their share of the regional affordable housing need;
Targeting affordability for families across the income spectrum, including those at 50% of area median income and below;
Promotion of inclusive, mixed-income communities, and steps for municipalities to affirmatively further fair housing goals;
Investment in high-poverty areas to ensure revitalization, and protections against displacement of existing low-income communities; and
Effective government oversight and enforcement, including adequate record-keeping and reporting by local governments about their efforts to address affordability and fair housing issues.
Read the report here: /documents/long-island-workforce-housing-act-report-2015-05112015pdf.
About LICF:
Since 1978, the Long Island Community Foundation has been the home of charitable Long Islanders who share a passion and commitment to improve their communities. LICF supports an array of effective nonprofits that help make Long Island a vital and secure place to live, learn, work, and play, while building permanent resources for the future. The Foundation has made more than $150 million in grants from hundreds of funds established by individuals, families, and businesses. LICF is a division of The New York Community Trust, one of the country’s oldest and largest community foundations. To learn more about LICF, go to www.licf.org.
About the Center for Popular Democracy:
CPD works to create equity, opportunity and a dynamic democracy in partnership with high-impact base-building organizations, organizing alliances, and progressive unions. CPD strengthens our collective capacity to envision and win an innovative pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda. For more information, go to www.populardemocracy.org.
Puerto Rican Activists Reject Debt Restructuring Agreement
02.10.2020
San Juan,...
02.10.2020
San Juan, Puerto Rico -- In response to the new debt adjustment deal announced by the Financial Management and Oversight Board (FOMB) on February 9th, the co-director of community dignity campaigns at Center for Popular Democracy, Julio Lopez Varona, shared the following statement:
“The FOMB’s latest proposal should be seen as an insult to the people of Puerto Rico. This agreement ensures lofty payments to hedge funds and corporations who paid cents on the dollar on bonds that were in some cases emitted illegally. These payments will be funded by cutting pensions and imposing even more taxes, despite the struggle to recover from ongoing earthquakes and the impact of Hurricane Maria. No payments to Wall Street should be made while Puerto Rico struggles to recover. It is imperative that we reject this agreement and demand the cancellation of the debt as the only way to a fair recovery.”
Despite Puerto Rico’s unsustainable debt undergoing renegotiating deals for the last few years, the FOMB’s proposal has barely reached a consensus on a plan that does more than benefit Wall Street and bondholders. The proposal would give bondholders more than a 70% rate of recovery, retrieving that by raising local taxes and sustaining an 8.5% cut to pensions.
###
New York Now Largest City With Paid Sick Days
ThinkProgress - June 27, 2013, by Bryce Covert - In an early morning session on Thursday, the New York City Council voted to override a veto from Mayor Michael Bloomberg on paid sick days...
ThinkProgress - June 27, 2013, by Bryce Covert - In an early morning session on Thursday, the New York City Council voted to override a veto from Mayor Michael Bloomberg on paid sick days legislation. The bill, which now becomes law, requires any company with more than 15 employees to provide five days of paid leave a year and any company with fewer employees to offer five days of unpaid leave. This means that more than 1 million New York City workers will now have access to paid sick leave who didn’t have it before.
New York City joins four other cities — Seattle, Washington; San Francisco, California; Washington, DC; and Portland, Oregon — and the state of Connecticut in the group of places that have mandated paid sick days. However, New York’s legislation is not as strong as that in the other cities, which require companies with five or more employees to offer paid leave.
The city’s law will be implemented over a slow timeline, not taking effect until 2014 and only applying to companies with more than 20 employees for the first year and a half.
Despite initial concerns from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the objections raised by Mayor Bloomberg that the bill will put too large a cost burden on businesses, studies of laws in other places show either a neutral or positive effect. A recent audit of Washington, DC’s law found no negative impact on businesses, while a study of San Francisco found little negative impact and strong support among businesses and another of Connecticut found a small cost with big potential upsides. In fact, San Francisco’s law was found to have spurred job growth.
Even with these laws in place around the country, most workers don’t have access to paid leave. Forty percent of private workers and 80 percent of low-income workers can’t take a paid day off if they or their family members get sick.
Meanwhile, a rash of preemption bills, which bar cities and localities from enacting paid sick days legislation, have also been implemented across the country, the latest of which was signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott (R). They have also cropped up in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Mississippi. These bills have been sponsored by big businesses and local chambers of commerce and are part of a national effort backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing group that coordinates conservative laws across states.
Source
Activists launch #BackersOfHate to call out major companies with ties to Trump
Activists launch #BackersOfHate to call out major companies with ties to Trump
Activists are fearlessly taking on some of the biggest corporations in the U.S., calling them out for their ties to President Donald Trump.
A newly launched website called BackersOfHate.org...
Activists are fearlessly taking on some of the biggest corporations in the U.S., calling them out for their ties to President Donald Trump.
A newly launched website called BackersOfHate.org breaks down how nine major corporations are affiliated with the Trump administration and the ways they will gain from the Trump agenda. The website also outlines current company policies that already negatively impact people of color, immigrants, Indigenous communities, and low income populations — similar to critiques of the Trump agenda.
Read the full article here.
Scarlett Johansson, Her "Avengers" Co-Stars And The John Gore Organization Raise $500,000 For Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief Efforts
Scarlett Johansson, Her "Avengers" Co-Stars And The John Gore Organization Raise $500,000 For Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief Efforts
"We are deeply grateful to Scarlett Johansson, Kenny Leon and everyone involved in the production of this play for stepping up and contributing their talent to help towards the equitable and just...
"We are deeply grateful to Scarlett Johansson, Kenny Leon and everyone involved in the production of this play for stepping up and contributing their talent to help towards the equitable and just rebuilding of Puerto Rico," explained Xiomara Caro, Director of New Organizing Projects for the Center of Popular Democracy and coordinator of Maria Fund. "This event demonstrates the importance of collective solidarity and responsibility and how powerful it is when we come together to help our communities."
Read the full article here.
Fatal Inequality - The Report
Fatal Inequality
Workplace Safety Eludes Construction Workers of Color in New York State
The construction industry is full of dangerous jobs. Smaller companies often have...
The construction industry is full of dangerous jobs. Smaller companies often have particularly unsafe workplaces – they tend to be non-union and lack the necessary training, proper equipment, and respect for workers’ reports about unsafe conditions. Workers of color disproportionately face construction dangers because they work in construction in relatively high numbers, they are concentrated in smaller, non-union firms, and they are over-represented in the contingent labor pool.
Our review of 2003-2011 OSHA investigations of construction site accidents involving a fatal fall from an elevation revealed that Latinos and immigrants are disproportionately killed in fall accidents.
Download the full report here.
Executive SummaryThe construction industry is full of dangerous jobs. Smaller companies often have particularly unsafe workplaces – they tend to be non-union and lack the necessary training, proper equipment, and respect for workers’ reports about unsafe conditions. Workers of color disproportionately face construction dangers because they work in construction in relatively high numbers, they are concentrated in smaller, non-union firms, and they are over-represented in the contingent labor pool.
Our review of 2003-2011 OSHA investigations of construction site accidents involving a fatal fall from an elevation revealed that Latinos and immigrants are disproportionately killed in fall accidents.
In 60% of the OSHA-investigated fall from an elevation fatalities in New York State, the worker was Latino and/or immigrant, disproportionately high for their participation in construction work. In New York City, 74% of fatal falls were Latino and/or immigrant. Narrowing further, 88% of fatal falls in Queens and 87% in Brooklyn involved Latinos and/or immigrants. 86% of Latino and/or immigrant fatalities from a fall from an elevation in New York were working for a non-union employer.In 2011 focus groups, Latino construction workers reported fearing retaliation as a key deterrent to raising concerns about safety.
The primary protection for construction workers’ safety, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), is ineffective. Understaffed because of inadequate funding, OSHA is unable to inspect a significant number of construction, demolition, and building rehabilitation sites active at any one time in the state. And, when OSHA does inspect a construction site, the monetary penalties imposed for violations are so small that employers can see them as just an incidental cost of doing business. Further, OSHA almost never pursues criminal penalties, even for egregious and willful violations that are directly linked to a worker’s death.
New York State offers supplemental protection through the Scaffold Law (Labor Law §240), which requires owners and contractors to provide appropriate and necessary equipment, such as safe hoists, ladders, and scaffolds. The law holds owners and contractors fully liable if their failure to follow the law causes a worker to be injured or killed.
The construction and insurance industries are proposing an amendment to the Scaffold Law that would shift responsibility for workplace safety from owners and contractors, who control site safety, to workers, who do not. The change will have a disparate impact on construction workers of color, which makes the preservation of the current Scaffold Law a civil rights issue.
Construction workers’ safety should be improved by:
Appropriately funding, staffing and empowering OSHA to effectively prevent dangerous worksite conditions and punish preventable and foreseeable accidents; Ensuring that all construction owners, contractors, and workers receive proper safety training; and Protecting and enforcing the New York State Scaffold Law.
Last-Minute Schedule Changes? Some Cities Say Employers Must Pay
Last-Minute Schedule Changes? Some Cities Say Employers Must Pay
Dec. 1 — More than a dozen states and cities in the past year considered legislation to require retail stores and restaurants to provide extra pay to employees for last-minute work schedule...
Dec. 1 — More than a dozen states and cities in the past year considered legislation to require retail stores and restaurants to provide extra pay to employees for last-minute work schedule changes. Thus far only a handful of cities have enacted such measures into law.
These predictive or predictable scheduling proposals, also called fair workweek measures, were “very popular” in 2016, John S. Hong, an employment law attorney with Littler Mendelson in San Francisco, recently told Bloomberg BNA.
“But they died on the vine in a lot of states,” Hong said.
In addition to providing “predictability” pay, these measures would require employers to notify workers about their schedules a certain number of weeks in advance under predictive scheduling proposals. They also include “access to hours” provisions that require employers to offer newly available hours to part-time staff before hiring new workers or using contractors or staffing agencies.
Worker advocacy groups praise these measures as providing secure, clear and stable scheduling for workers. But employers counter that these requirements remove the flexibility needed for retailers and restaurants to operate their businesses effectively.
Predictive Scheduling Is ‘The Next Fight.’
Predictive scheduling bills this year were withdrawn or never went to a vote in California, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Rhode Island.
Similar bills or provisions died in Connecticut, Illinois, Maine and Oregon in 2015.
Washington, D.C., also tabled a predictive scheduling proposal this year, while a court rejected a ballot initiative on the issue in Cleveland, Hong said.
Still, employee advocates said the number of jurisdictions that have considered scheduling laws is encouraging.
Introduction of the bills initiates public conversations among workers, employers and policy makers about the issue, they said.
“They begin the legislative process, which can take multiple years,” Elianne Farhat, deputy campaign director of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative.
Predictive scheduling is “the next fight,” following the success of the “Fight for $15" minimum wage initiative, Farhat told Bloomberg BNA Nov. 30.
“The issue will continue to pick up steam and move forward,” she said.
Two Cities Join San Francisco
Two cities this year enacted predictive scheduling laws. Seattle and Emeryville, Calif., followed in the footsteps of San Francisco, which passed the nation’s first ever predictive scheduling law in late 2014
Rules implementing San Francisco’s ordinance went into effect in March 2016. They apply to businesses that have 20 or more employees in the city and at least 40 retail sales establishments worldwide.
Seattle and Emeryville’s laws take effect in 2017.
Seattle’s law applies to retail and quick or limited food-service establishments with more than 500 employees worldwide and full-service restaurants with more than 500 employees and 40 full-service locations worldwide.
Emeryville’s law applies to businesses with more than 55 employees worldwide.
New Hampshire, San Jose Also Pass Laws
On the predictive scheduling periphery are San Jose, Calif., and New Hampshire, which passed narrower laws in the past year.
San Jose voters approved a ballot initiative in November that focused only on access to hour protections for part-time employees, meaning they would be given extra hours prior to hiring others.
New Hampshire in June didn’t quite enact a predictive scheduling law. Instead, it required employers to consider employee requests for flexible working arrangements and prohibited employers from retaliating against workers who made those requests.
The New Hampshire law is “minimal, but still important,” Liz Ben-Ishai, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg BNA.
Farhat added that Washington, D.C. passed a law guaranteeing a 30-hour minimum workweek for building service workers, although it tabled its broader predictive scheduling law.
Depending on the needs of a particular locality, some cities or states will pass broader scheduling laws, while others pass narrower provisions.
“They’re all part of updating our work hour standards,” Farhat said.
Looking Ahead to 2017
Predictive scheduling bills are pending in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Hong said. But the latter “may die for lack of action” before the end of the year.
A measure also is pending in Minnesota, according to CLASP data, but it may share the same fate as the Massachusetts bill.
Asked if the issue of predictive scheduling will continue to crop up in 2017, Hong said more cities and states may consider such measures. But “ultimately they may die on the vine,” he said.
Ben-Ishai provided a more optimistic outlook for predictive scheduling.
“I think it’s a promising area moving forward,” she said.
State and local lawmakers in Oregon could consider predictive scheduling measures next year, she said. In 2015, a state predictive scheduling bill died in committee, but legislators preempted scheduling ordinances at the local level only until 2017.
Portland, Ore., already has passed a resolution to study and eventually establish workweek principles for city contractors, Farhat said.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in September announced that the city is developing legislation that would require predictable work schedules for about 65,000 hourly fast-food employees in the city.
Predictive scheduling is expected to come back in Washington, D.C. next year “in a very serious way,” Farhat said. And California may onceagain consider a statewide measure, she added.
Don’t Forget About State Preemption Laws
Hong observed that several states have preemption laws that prevent cities, towns and counties from passing workplace laws that conflict with state or federal law.
About 22 states so far have expressly preempted localities from adopting such laws, like those that would raise minimum wages, provide leave benefits or expand workplace anti-discrimination protections. Most of these state have enacted the laws within the last five years., Lawmakers in about 11 other states have introduced similar bills so far in 2016.
At least five states—Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas and Michigan—have laws that could preempt local predictive scheduling laws, Hong said.
Preemption laws don’t necessarily indicate that legislatures are against fair scheduling, he said. “They don’t want local governments doing something potentially inconsistent with state law,” Hong said.
But Ben-Ishai contended that preemption laws can be a strategy taken by lawmakers who “are not friendly to workers’ rights.”
Federal Predictive Scheduling Law?
A federal predictive scheduling bill known as the Schedules That Work Act ( H.R. 3071, S. 1772) was introduced in both houses of Congress in July 2015.
The identical bills were sponsored by democrats and have remained stalled in committee. They are unlikely to be considered for a vote before the year ends.
Ben-Ishai said she expects the bills’ sponsors, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), will reintroduce the legislation in the next Congress.
But given Republican control of both Congress and the White House, Ben-Ishai said, “I don’t think we’re super optimistic about it moving forward.”
Predictive scheduling will have a better chance at seeing “more movement” at the state and local levels, she said.
By: Jay-Anne B. Casuga
Source
7 days ago
7 days ago