Campaign News

EFEUSA – September 17, 2013 -

Nueva York, 17 sep (EFEUSA).- Un grupo de trabajadores inauguró hoy una exposición de pinturas, fotografías y vídeos en la que plasmaron sus experiencias personales como inmigrantes y sus reflexiones sobre el valor de la ciudadanía, con motivo del Día de la Ciudadanía.

La exhibición “¿Qué significa para mi la ciudadanía?” realizada en la sede del sindicato Workers United en la ciudad de Newark (Nueva Jersey), es una mezcla ecléctica de dibujos, pinturas y fotografías en blanco y negro y a color, representativo de la diversidad de los propios miembros, que provienen de lugares tan lejanos como Europa del Este, América Latina, América del Sur y Asia.

Entre éstos está la ecuatoriana Naja Quintero, empleada de una guardería, quien participa con dos pinturas, y en una de ellas plasmó lo que sintió cuando llegó a Nueva York por primera vez, hace 14 años.

“Eran las doce del mediodía cuando llegué al aeropuerto John F. Kennedy y crucé Manhattan a pleno sol. Me deslumbró la ciudad. Creo que a todos nos pasa, es la primera impresión, majestuosa y colorida. Me sentí como una estrella”, dijo a Efe Quintero.

La ecuatoriana pintó a un grupo de inmigrantes de diversos países mirando hacia el agua y al otro lado un barco, la Estatua de la Libertad y de fondo, los rascacielos de Nueva York, entre ellos el imponente edificio Chrysler.

“Pinté un bote porque cuando cruzaba Manhattan veía el agua y a gente contemplando la belleza del paisaje”, agregó Quintero, quien llegó a nueva York para reencontrarse con su madre, a quien no vio ni tuvo contacto con ella durante 38 años.

“Tenía tres años cuando ella vino a Nueva York y me dejó con mis abuelos que luego compraron casa en otro lugar y perdimos el contacto con ella”, recordó Quintero, que localizó a su progenitora a través de amistades con los que ésta mantenía contacto en Ecuador.

La emigrante, que era maestra en su país, destacó además que se esforzó por aprender inglés para tomar su examen de ciudadanía.

“Cuando me informaron que había aprobado el examen me dije ‘Naja, esto es como una gran escalera’ donde el siguiente paso fue obtener la ciudadanía”, destacó Quintero, quien expresó en su segunda obra precisamente esa experiencia.

Para ella, la ciudadanía es una planta y su semilla, es el momento en que los emigrantes llegan a Estados Unidos, explicó mientras agregaba que la ciudadanía también significa poder votar e integrarse a una nueva vida.

“A mi me gusta estar integrada en la política, votar, es un deber cívico. Estudié durante un año para ese reto (para el examen de ciudadanía). Yo decía ‘yo puedo, yo puedo’”, dijo emocionada la ecuatoriana, quien preside el comité de arte del sindicato 32BJ, que representa a empleados de mantenimiento, porteros, encargados de edificios privados de vivienda y de guarderías, entre otros, la mayoría latinos.

“Este proyecto de arte pone un rostro a los 11 millones de inmigrantes indocumentados que son una parte indispensable de nuestras comunidades y que necesitan que el Congreso actúe ahora” (por una reforma migratoria), dijo Kevin Brown, director de la 32BJ en Nueva Jersey.

“Los inmigrantes son los estadounidenses. Son nuestras madres y padres, hermanos y hermanas, socios, hijos, abuelos, compañeros de trabajo, vecinos y amigos. Como miembros de la comunidad creativa, tenemos el compromiso de ver y mostrar la humanidad de la historia de la inmigración”, agregó.

Brown destacó que a través de la música, el teatro, la literatura, el cine, la televisión, la danza y otras expresiones de arte, los “inmigrantes y refugiados artistas visuales han definido y redefinido nuestra cultura estadounidense y la historia. Ellos ayudan a renovar nuestra historia nacional”.

Source

A former employee of Forever 21 hit the company with a lawsuit in California state court over its exploitative scheduling practices, just a week after a class action was filed against BCBG Max Azria alleging the same practices.

Raalon Kennedy, who previously worked at Forever 21 as sales clerk, claims the company requires employees to be on call for shifts but doesn’t compensate them with required pay for being made to report to work yet being sent home, as per California law. “In reality, these on-call shifts are no different than regular shifts, and Forever 21 has misclassified them in order to avoid paying reporting time in accordance with applicable law,” he said.

Robynette Robinson’s suit against BCBG seeks class action status on behalf of workers who she alleges were similarly required to report for on-call shifts but not asked to work, yet were not given reporting time pay. “This class action on behalf of BCBG Max Azria Group LLC retail store employees challenge[s] a new form of wage theft — the practice of scheduling employees in retail stores for ‘on-call’ shifts but failing to pay the employees required reporting-time pay,” she said.

Forever 21 and BCBG could not be immediately reached for comment.

Bridgford Gleason & Artinian, the law firm representing both Kennedy and Robinson, told Law 360 that it has also filed similar lawsuits against other retailers that include The Gap and its subsidiaries, PacSun, and Tilly’s, and plans to file four or five more.

California law stipulates that employees be compensated with “reporting time pay” for being required to report to work but only being asked to work less than half of the actual shift. That pay is supposed to come to an employee’s regular rate of pay for half of a day’s work.

Other states have these requirements as well: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC all have similar laws on the books. New York’s law is being put to the test by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who sent letters to 13 large retailers in April looking into whether their scheduling practices run afoul of the law. Since then, four of them have pledged to end on-call scheduling.

Chaotic scheduling is rampant throughout the retail industry, however, and goes beyond being made to be available for a shift without knowing whether there will actually be work. One survey in the service sector found that a third of employees rarely get consistent work schedules, while more than half only find out their schedules a week or less in advance. A different study found that within retail, more than a quarter of workers have irregular schedules that include on-call shifts, two shifts in the same day, or rotating shifts. Forty percent of retail workers in New York City say they have no set hours from week to week, while a quarter have been required to be on call.

These schedules can make it impossible to get by. Without a set minimum of weekly hours, workers may never know week to week whether they’ll earn enough to pay their bills. Without knowing for sure when they’ll be asked to come in, child care or transportation arrangements can fall through. And it makes it extremely difficult to hold down a second or third job to help make ends meet.

Source: ThinkProgress

Philadelphia Inquirer - October 1, 2014, by Martha Woodall - A new report from a trio of activist groups says Pennsylvania charter schools have defrauded taxpayers of more than $30 million because oversight is so lax.

The researchers call for a temporary moratorium on new charter schools, contending agencies are not able to adequately monitor the 186 charters that already exist.

The study by the Center for Popular Democracy; Integrity in Education; and Action United of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was to be released Wednesday.

The report urges the state Attorney General's Office to review all Pennsylvania charters for potential fraud. It asks the legislature to require charters to undergo regular fraud-risk assessments and fraud audits. And it suggests that until the law is changed to require such actions, charters should voluntarily undergo them and make the findings public.

Researchers said most of the $30 million in fraud that has been detected since the state's charter law was passed in 1997 was not uncovered by charter-oversight offices but by whistle-blowers and the media, including The Inquirer. They said the total amount of misspent funds was likely far larger.

"The current oversight system in Pennsylvania falls miserably short when it comes to detecting, preventing, and eliminating fraud," said Kyle Serrette, education director at the Center for Popular Democracy in Washington.

The center receives funding from foundations, including $990,000 this year from the Ford Foundation. It also receives a small amount of support from teachers' unions, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is on the organization's board.

Robert Fayfich, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said that while his group supports accountability, the report makes "sweeping conclusions about the entire charter sector based on only 11 cited incidents in the course of almost 20 years."

". . . Fraud and fiscal mismanagement are wrong and cannot be tolerated, but to highlight them in one sector and ignore them in another indicates a motivation to target one type of public school for a political agenda," he said in a statement.

Pennsylvania school districts paid $1.5 million to charters that enrolled 128,712 students in 2012-13. More than 67,000 Philadelphia students attend 86 city charters.

Sabrina Stevens, executive director of Washington-based Integrity in Education, said: "With over $1 billion going to charter schools in Pennsylvania, it's time for charter schools to be held to the same standards of transparency and oversight that public schools are held to."

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said it's "good that they put this together," adding that Serrette's group had testified at a charter-oversight hearing his office held in March. "To me, the more voices on this, the better. I think in the next term in the legislature, there is going to be a charter-reform bill move forward."

City Controller Alan Butkovitz said the report echoed concerns he raised in 2010, when his office released its own oversight study that highlighted several problems his office found at city charters.

"We certainly agree with the need for greater oversight and auditing," Butkovitz said. "That's been one of our constant themes."

The instances of fraud cited in the new report include cases where charter officials were indicted or pleaded guilty and instances uncovered in state audits.

Examples include Nicholas Trombetta, founder and former CEO of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Midland, who is awaiting federal trial in Pittsburgh on charges that he diverted $8 million in school funds for personal use.

The tally also includes $6.3 million that federal prosecutors allege Dorothy June Brown defrauded from the four Philadelphia-area charters she founded.

But the authors give special attention to another recent case involving a city charter: New Media Technology Charter School in the city's Stenton section. The former CEO and founding board president went to federal prison in 2012 after admitting they stole $522,000 in taxpayer money to prop up a restaurant, a health-food store, and a private school they controlled, and for defrauding a bank.

From 2005 to 2009, when the crimes were occurring, third-party auditors hired by New Media failed to spot the fraudulent payments.

"Fraud detection in Pennsylvania charter schools should not be dependent upon parent complaints, media exposés, and whistle-blowers," the authors wrote. Rather, they urged, the system should be proactive and use forensic accounting methods.

According to the report, Pennsylvania's charters are vulnerable to fraud and financial mismanagement because school districts and state offices charged with overseeing them lack resources and staff.

For example, although the cash-strapped Philadelphia district has about half of the state's charters, it has only two auditors and a small office to monitor 86 schools, the report said.

"We agree in the need of greater oversight and a deeper look into the health of charter schools," district spokesman Fernando Gallard said, "and we have taken steps to do so."

Although the district's charter office at times had only two or three staffers, Gallard said, it now has six and is seeking an executive director.

Researchers also said that charters lack strong internal fiscal controls and that their boards have not adopted strict management policies.

And even though the charters are required to have annual audits performed by outside firms, researchers said, those audits rely on general accounting techniques and are not designed to detect fraud.

"The current system of oversight relies heavily on information provided by charter schools themselves and traditional audits that are designed to check accuracy rather than detect and prevent fraud," the report said.

The report said taxpayers cannot afford to lose another $30 million in misspent charter funds. "While the reforms proposed will require additional resources," the authors said, "they represent a smart investment in our communities and in our future."

Researchers said the study was the first in what would be a state-by-state investigation of oversight of charters in the 42 states that have them.

Serrette said researchers decided to begin with Pennsylvania because the timing seemed right. He pointed out that both DePasquale in Harrisburg and Butkovitz in Philadelphia have highlighted the fraud risks in charter schools. And State Rep. James R. Roebuck Jr. (D., Phila.), minority chairman of the House Education Committee, introduced a bill last year to tighten charter controls.

Said Serrette: "The stars are aligning."

Source

Fed Up Field Director Shawn Sebastian with the Center for Popular Democracy joins us to talk about their campaign pushing the Federal Reserve to adopt pro-worker policies, keeping interest rates low, and how they re getting public support to build a better economy.

CHARLES SHOWALTER AND SHAWN SEBASTIAN 

Source