Skinny Girl's CEO Bethenny Frankel charters multiple planes to bring supplies to Hurricane Maria survivors
Skinny Girl's CEO Bethenny Frankel charters multiple planes to bring supplies to Hurricane Maria survivors
Bethenny Frankel is turning the full force of her efforts on the disaster in Puerto Rico post Hurricane Maria. As reported by People, the Skinny Girl CEO, B Strong charity spearhead, mother, and...
Bethenny Frankel is turning the full force of her efforts on the disaster in Puerto Rico post Hurricane Maria. As reported by People, the Skinny Girl CEO, B Strong charity spearhead, mother, and Bravo reality star combined a Twitter crowdfunding campaign with her own resources to raise the money necessary to charter four planes full of water, canned goods, diapers, baby food, medical supplies, and more.
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It’s Not Just Low Pay Stressing Out Part-Time Workers
Bill Moyers - July 24, 2014, by Neha Tara Mehta - Besides struggling to make ends meet because of low wages, millions of part-time workers in America also face uncertainty over when they will be...
Bill Moyers - July 24, 2014, by Neha Tara Mehta - Besides struggling to make ends meet because of low wages, millions of part-time workers in America also face uncertainty over when they will be called in to work. Irregular schedules and last-minute notice make it hard for these workers to find other work, go to school and make arrangements for child care or caring for aging parents.
As The New York Times reported last week:
About 27.4 million Americans work part time. The number of those part-timers who would prefer to work full time has nearly doubled since 2007, to 7.5 million. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 47 percent of part-time hourly workers ages 26 to 32 receive a week or less of advance notice for their schedule.
In a study of the data, two University of Chicago professors found that employers dictated the work schedules for about half of young adults, without their input. For part-time workers, schedules on average fluctuated from 17 to 28 hours a week.
“Frontline managers face pressure to keep costs down, but they really don’t have much control over wages or benefits,” said Susan J. Lambert, a University of Chicago professor who interpreted the data. “What they have control over is employee hours.”
According to the National Women’s Law Center, food service workers experience a 70 percent average variation of work hours every month. For retail workers, the variation is 50 percent and for janitors and housekeepers, it’s 40 percent.
Lawmakers across the country are beginning to notice how irregular schedules complicate the lives of part-time workers, and are taking measures to address the problem. Employees of federal agencies now have the right to request work schedule flexibilities. Workers in San Francisco and Vermont can ask for a more flexible or predictable work schedule. In a report released in June, New York City comptroller Scott M. Stringer made a case for a legislation that would give employees the chance to make such requests “without fear of reprisal.”
Congress is swinging into action on this issue as well. On Tuesday, Representatives George Miller and Rosa DeLauro introduced the Schedules That Work Act. Miller admits that the bill may meet with opposition, but thinks that it will highlight “often callous scheduling practices.”
The Guardian reports that another version of the bill is brewing in the Senate:
Senators Tom Harkin and Elizabeth Warren are co-sponsoring of the Senate’s version of the bill. Carrie Gleason, co-founder of Retail Action Project, said [that] Warren will introduce the Senate version in upcoming weeks.
A single mom working two jobs should know if her hours are being canceled before she arranges for daycare and drives halfway across town to show up at work,” said Warren. “This is about some basic fairness in work scheduling so that both employees and employers have more certainty and can get the job done.”
Although some businesses are saying the bills would represent government overreach, the clothing store Zara has already promised to start giving its part-time employees two weeks notice on their work schedules.
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Stitched with Prejudice: Zara USA’s Corporate Culture of Favoritism
This paper reports the findings of our original survey aimed at understanding whether retail workers’ experiences of their opportunities at New York City Zara stores was different based on skin...
This paper reports the findings of our original survey aimed at understanding whether retail workers’ experiences of their opportunities at New York City Zara stores was different based on skin color or race. Zara, the world’s largest fashion retailer, has faced several complaints about racially insensitive designs over the years.This report finds that employees of color in Zara’s New York City stores face unequal conditions within the company:
Black employees are more than twice as dissatisfied with their hours as white employees. Darker-skinned employees report that they are least likely to be promoted. Employees of color state that they are reviewed with harsher scrutiny from management than white American and European employees. Of workers in the lower prestige back-of-store roles, 68 percent have darker skin.While Zara employees report experiencing discrimination in the workplace, they have also witnesseddiscriminatory practices against Zara customers of color.
According to surveys across Zara’s New York City workforce, Black customers are 7 times more likely to be targeted as potential thieves than white customers.In order to address problems of discrimination, this report recommends that Zara recommits itself to non-discrimination in employment, promotion, and service in New York City.
We recommend the following steps:
Institute a practice for workers to have access to a neutral, third-party arbiter to address their grievances, particularly relative to color and race discrimination. Recognize and respect workers’ basic labor rights, including regular and reliable schedules regardless of race, equal opportunity to be promoted, and a living wage. Allow New York City Zara employees to choose to represent themselves in grievances through real bargaining agents, such as labor unions, without interference.Down the full report here:
Contractors and Workers at Odds Over Scaffold Law
New York Times - December 17, 2013, by Kirk Semple - In 1885, as new engineering inventions were ushering in the era of the skyscraper, lawmakers in New York State...
New York Times - December 17, 2013, by Kirk Semple - In 1885, as new engineering inventions were ushering in the era of the skyscraper, lawmakers in New York State enacted a law intended to safeguard construction workers who were finding themselves facing increasing dangers while working at ever-greater heights.
That measure, which became known as the Scaffold Law, required employers on building sites to ensure the safety of laborers working above the ground. Since then, some form of the legislation has remained on the books despite repeated attempts to repeal it.
But a lobby of contractors, property owners and insurers has in recent months renewed a campaign against the law, arguing that no less than the future of the state’s construction industry is at stake.
They argue that the law is antiquated and prejudicial against contractors and property owners, and essentially absolves employees of responsibility for their own accidents, leading to huge settlements. The payouts, they contend, have in turn led to skyrocketing insurance premiums that are hampering construction and the state’s economic growth.
On Tuesday, a coalition of contractors, including a newly formed alliance of firms owned by women and minorities, announced the start of an advertising and lobbying blitz in Albany and New York City. But a counter-lobby of unions, workers’ advocates and trial lawyers is pushing back just as fiercely. The law, they argue, is essential to ensuring the safety of workers in some of the world’s most dangerous jobs, particularly those employed by shoddy contracting firms that cut corners to save money. The law, they say, holds developers and contractors accountable for keeping job sites safe.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo this week acknowledged the politically loaded atmosphere surrounding the Scaffold Law, but suggested that he was open to the possibility of modifying the law.
The law states that contractors and property owners are responsible for ensuring that scaffolds, hoists and other devices that enable aboveground building construction and repair “shall be constructed, placed and operated as to give proper protection to a person so employed.”
When injuries result from a violation of those terms, the law says, contractors and owners are liable. There is no mention of worker responsibility. Under the law, however, the plaintiff still must show that a violation of the law’s standards occurred and that the violation caused the injury.
But those seeking to change the law want to incorporate a standard of “comparative negligence.” This amendment — described in a state bill submitted earlier this year — would require a jury or arbiter to consider whether the liability of the defendants, and thus the amount of damages, should be reduced for cases in which the worker’s negligence or failure to follow safety procedures contributed to the accident.
Opponents argue that the amendment would reduce the incentive for the property owner and contractors to take necessary safety precautions.
“This law protects both union and nonunion workers and creates a sense of accountability on these job sites,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, an umbrella group for unionized construction workers. “If the law was modified, the workers would lose their voice.”
But those seeking to alter the law say the amendment would not eliminate the owners’ and contractors’ motivation to keep their workplaces safe because they would still face the possibility of shouldering large payouts, even if they were found only partly responsible for an accident.
“The notion that a contractor or owner would want to do anything to undermine the safety of the worker on the job doesn’t make sense,” said Pamela Young, associate general counsel of the American Insurance Association.
Workers’ advocates argue that erosion of the Scaffold Law would have a disproportionate impact on minority and immigrant laborers, who, the advocates say, are more likely to work for nonunion companies that may not provide proper safety training and equipment.
Immigrants, the advocates said, are less likely to speak the same language as their bosses on a job site and more likely to fear being fired if they demand a safer workplace.
From 2003 to 2011, federal safety regulators investigated 136 falls “from elevation” that killed workers on construction sites in New York, according to a recent report by Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group. Of those workers, about 60 percent were Latino, foreign-born or both. That rate rose to 88 percent among fatal falls in New York City.
Some trial lawyers have been effective at using the law to secure large settlements. Of the 30 largest settlements in 2012, at least 14 were in cases brought under state labor laws and most of those involved falls from ladders or scaffolding, according to The New York Law Journal. The awards ranged from $3 million to $15 million.
Weislaw, a Polish immigrant, was the plaintiff in a liability case that was settled last month. (He spoke on the condition that his surname not be used in this article, out of concern for his privacy.) He had been part of a crew repairing the roof of a one-story public school building in Long Beach, on Long Island. While he was working on the roof one spring day in 2010, he was concentrating so hard on his task that he lost track of the edge of the roof and fell, he said, suffering multiple fractures.
“I will most likely never be able to return to work,” he said.
Weislaw filed a lawsuit under the Scaffold Law arguing that he had not been provided with proper protection, such as a safety line or a spotter.
The case settled for $2.7 million, said David Scher, a lawyer from the firm that represented him.
Critics of the Scaffold Law say the way it is written makes these sorts of cases easy to win.
“It’s a gold mine for the plaintiffs’ bar,” said Mike Elmendorf, president and chief executive of Associated General Contractors of New York State. “When you get one of these cases, it’s largely about how much it’s going to cost.”
These high payouts, he and others contend, have driven up insurance rates, knocking smaller contractors, particularly those run by minorities and women, out of business and forcing others to suspend work, costing thousands of jobs.
They argue that the impact is as high on government projects as it is on private ones, and that the soaring cost of liability insurance is forestalling the repair and construction of public works projects, such as schools, bridges and roads. The New York City School Construction Authority said in a statement on Monday that its liability insurance costs for 2014 would be nearly as much as those for the three-year period from 2011 to 2013.
But in recent weeks, the law’s defenders have employed a new gambit, demanding that the insurance companies open their accounting ledgers to prove whether the Scaffold Law is, in fact, responsible for the rate increases. Insurance executives have vowed to fight any demands to disclose proprietary information that might somehow undermine their competitive advantages.
State Assemblyman Francisco P. Moya, a Democrat who represents a heavily immigrant and Latino area of Queens, said he planned to submit a bill that would expand reporting requirements for insurance companies and help lawmakers assess whether the Scaffold Law needed to be changed.
“Show us how much the payouts are,” Mr. Moya said. “Once we see that, we’ll have a better understanding.”
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A Democratic Contender For Florida Governor Appears To Own Millions In Puerto Rican Debt
A Democratic Contender For Florida Governor Appears To Own Millions In Puerto Rican Debt
“If you are running to represent Puerto Ricans, and potentially harming Puerto Ricans through investments, then Puerto Ricans will hold you accountable,” said Julio López Varona of the Center for...
“If you are running to represent Puerto Ricans, and potentially harming Puerto Ricans through investments, then Puerto Ricans will hold you accountable,” said Julio López Varona of the Center for Popular Democracy, one of the leading activist groups on the Puerto Rican debt crisis. “There’s a question about what are those investments, and if that question is not answered that is extremely concerning.”
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Want To Change The Face Of Politics? Help Teens Register To Vote.
Want To Change The Face Of Politics? Help Teens Register To Vote.
In a recent Center for Popular Democracy report, we detailed examples of youth-focused campaigns for high school registration around the country. In Phoenix, organizers at Living United for Change...
In a recent Center for Popular Democracy report, we detailed examples of youth-focused campaigns for high school registration around the country. In Phoenix, organizers at Living United for Change in Arizona regularly go door-to-door registering eligible students in the 27,000-student Phoenix Union High School district. They also work with school district officials to integrate voter registration in high schools.
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Arpaio Meets Virtually No DOJ Criteria for a Pardon
Arpaio Meets Virtually No DOJ Criteria for a Pardon
President Donald Trump’s unorthodox, dysfunctional behavior and decision-making may lead him to violate a whole slew of new norms if he announces a pardon Tuesday night, as he has said he might,...
President Donald Trump’s unorthodox, dysfunctional behavior and decision-making may lead him to violate a whole slew of new norms if he announces a pardon Tuesday night, as he has said he might, for former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Legal analysts and Dept. of Justice guidelines reviewed by TYT suggest that granting a presidential pardon to the controversial former sheriff would go against virtually every recommended criteria the DOJ has for appropriate pardon candidates.
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Lobbyists Know the Fed Has Political Power
Lobbyists Know the Fed Has Political Power
Your editorial is exactly right about the lack of impartiality with “The Federal Reserve’s Politicians” (Aug. 29). While created by Congress, the Fed continues to act as though it is completely...
Your editorial is exactly right about the lack of impartiality with “The Federal Reserve’s Politicians” (Aug. 29). While created by Congress, the Fed continues to act as though it is completely unaccountable to the people’s representatives.
As I pointed out to Chairwoman Janet Yellen during a congressional hearing last year, her own calendar reflects weekly meetings with political figures and partisan special-interest groups. Even more troubling, there is a long history of Fed chairs or governors serving as partisan figures in the Treasury or the White House before their appointment. So while the Fed is quick to decry any attempts at congressional oversight, it cannot credibly claim to be politically independent.
We need a rules-based monetary policy that doesn’t leave the Fed with the potential to push an ideologically driven agenda. To make the Fed truly free from politics, the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act of 2015, which my colleagues and I have passed through the House, should be signed into law. The American people deserve transparency at the Fed and market-driven monetary policy that can finally restore confidence in our economy.
Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.)
Glen Rock, N.J.
Your editorial accuses Fed Up, a group representing low-income black and brown communities, of politicizing the Fed, when big banks have always had undue access and influence over the Fed’s policies.
In fact, commercial banks literally own the Federal Reserve. Unlike nearly every other central bank in the world, the Fed isn’t a public institution but instead operates as a joint venture with the banking sector. It is not true that as long as this status quo of Wall Street domination continues, then the Fed is “independent,” but when the Fed Up campaign’s low-income people of color dare to join the monetary-policy conversation, then the Fed’s “independence” has been compromised.
You mention that retirees living off their retirement plans are suffering from a decade of near-zero interest rates. Presumably this refers to retirees who might have a hundred thousand or two tucked away for retirement. This is already far more than the low-wage workers who have joined our campaign will be able to accrue over a lifetime of working.
But let’s take the argument at face value. Even if the Fed were to raise interest rates up to 2%, that’s a mere $2,000 on $100,000 savings over a year. That won’t make much of a difference to how well a middle-class retiree lives, but hiking rates to that level prematurely could cut off struggling families—who are disproportionately people of color—from the added jobs and higher wages they so desperately need.
Shawn Sebastian
Fed Up Campaign
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Lobbying the Federal Reserve as if it is a legislature began with the Humphrey-Hawkins legislation and the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977. The chair of the Fed became politicized and conflicted as the act included mandated congressional grilling of the Fed chair, who is now required to stabilize prices, moderate long-term interest rates, while at the same time delivering low unemployment. These lofty goals can’t necessarily be simultaneously executed, as Paul Volcker showed so well when he attacked inflation, effectively saying that employment would rise with a solid economy that had price stability.
Mr. Volcker had the courage to take the abuse and address his critics as he followed a logical path and publicly explained it, but successive chairs have gradually focused more on pleasing the president who appointed them.
Rep. Kevin Brady’s idea for a commission to rethink the idea of the Fed is a good start. We now have about 40 years of increasing monetary, fiscal and employment messes, with a paralyzed Fed, unsustainable deficits and underemployment because politics tramples economic common sense.
Larry Stewart
Vienna, Va.
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Report: In MN, Jobless Rate for Blacks is Nearly 4 Times Higher than Whites
Bring Me the News - March 5, 2015, by Adam Uren - Minnesota has the third-highest unemployment gap between white and black people in the country – with the jobless rate among blacks almost four...
Bring Me the News - March 5, 2015, by Adam Uren - Minnesota has the third-highest unemployment gap between white and black people in the country – with the jobless rate among blacks almost four times higher than among whites.
The figures come from a new study by the Center for Popular Democracy, which shows that the unemployment rate in Minnesota among black resident is 3.7 times higher compared to white people.
This is second only to the District of Columbia (5.6 times) and Wisconsin (4.6 times).
The gap in Minnesota has lessened since 2007 however, when 3.85 times
It also found that the jobless rate among Hispanic people is more than two times greater than for white people.
A rally will be held Thursday, WCCO reports, which will “draw attention to the racial differences between wages and jobs available” in the Twin Cities and Minnesota as a whole.
It is being organized by representatives of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC), the Center for Popular Democracy and the Economy Policy Institute, and held at the NOC offices in W. Broadway Ave., Minneapolis, starting at 3 p.m.
Unemployment falling, gap still wide
The significant disparity between black and white unemployment remains, even though overall unemployment has dropped in recent years thanks to the recovery of Minnesota’s economy since the financial crisis.
The unemployment rate among black people across the state fell to 11.9 percent in 2014, compared to 15.4 per cent in 2007.
However, the rate among white people stood at just 3.2 percent in 2014, down from 4 percent in 2007. The report also found that the unemployment rate among Hispanics stood at 7 percent in 2014, almost the same as it was in 2007.
The unemployment gap is even worse in the metro area, with the graph above showing that the black unemployment rate is 3.89 times higher than white.
The report features a case study of 23-year-old Minneapolis resident Tyrone Raino, who told the Center for Popular Democracy the only full-time job he could find is 40 minutes outside the city, and he works there 40 hours a week while taking a further 20 hours of classes every week.
Disparity is nothing new
Minnesota regularly features among the worst states for racial unemployment gaps.
In 2013, Minnesota was second only to Wyoming according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Star Tribune reports, when the black unemployment rate was triple the white rate.
And in 2011, MPR reported on a study by the Economic Policy Institute, which found the Twin Cities along with Memphis had the biggest white-black unemployment gaps out of the nation’s 50 biggest metropolitan areas.
When The Atlantic ran a piece last month lauding the metro area for its winning mix of affordability, opportunity and wealth, several publications responded by highlighting the gaps that suggest not everything is rosy in the Twin Cities.
It’s not just with unemployment either. WalletHub found Minnesota has the second-worst wealth gap between white people and people of color in the United States, as well as one of the biggest gaps for home ownership levels.
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US lawmaker welcomes plan to aid Caribbean immigrants
Guardian - July 22, 2013 - Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette D Clarke has welcomed a plan by New York City (NYC) to aid undocumented Caribbean immigrants. NYC officials say the city will...
Guardian - July 22, 2013 - Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette D Clarke has welcomed a plan by New York City (NYC) to aid undocumented Caribbean immigrants. NYC officials say the city will spend US$18 million to help undocumented Caribbean and other immigrants find jobs. City council speaker Christine Quinn, a mayoral candidate, said the money will fund adult education classes and legal services that the US federal government requires immigrants to take to qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme.
The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project will provide free legal services to immigrants threatened with deportation who are unable to represent themselves in proceedings. “New York has always been a city of immigrants within a nation of immigrants,” said Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn.
“Under this programme, thousands of immigrants in Brooklyn and other parts of the city will finally have an opportunity to challenge the deportation proceedings that separate families and weaken communities,” she said.
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14 hours ago
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