CPD IN THE NEWS

Times Union - August 21, 2014, by Casey Seiler - The Center for Popular Democracy, a labor-backed advocacy group that supports New York's controversial Scaffold Law, wants to see all the drafts of a controversial report authored by SUNY's Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government and paid for by the Lawsuit Reform Alliance, a business-backed organization that opposes Scaffold Law.

The Alliance paid almost $83,000 for the Institute's analysis of the law's economic impacts. That report, made public in February, has been the subject of fierce debate — over both the details of the study as well as larger issues of academic integrity. The Rockefeller Institute, which insists its work was done with independence and integrity, subsequently backed away from the most controversial chapter of the report, which included a statistical analysis that concluded gravity-related accidents fell in Illinois after the state ditched its version.

The law, which places "absolute liability" on employers for gravity-related workplace injuries, is supported by labor unions but opposed by business groups that claim it needlessly drives up construction costs. Opponents would like to see New York follow other states by adopting a "comparative negligence" standard that would make workers proportionately responsible when their actions contribute to an accident.

An initial Freedom of Information Law request from the Center for Popular Democracy resulted in SUNY's release of email communications between Rockefeller Institute researchers and Tom Stebbins of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance — contact that was required by the contract for the report.

On appeal, SUNY released an initial draft copy of the report that had been attached to one of those emails. The Times Union last week offered a side-by-side comparison of the draft and final versions. Changes between the two tended to increase the report's toll of the cost and impact of the law, though the researchers argue those edits represented good-faith efforts to seek the best data. The Center is now requesting to see all interim drafts of the report submitted to the Lawsuit Reform Alliance for review. "Given that the anti-worker groups behind this debunked report are still trying to use its flawed findings to weaken New York's safety laws, SUNY should release all of the drafts that we know exist," said Josie Duffy, a policy advocate with the group.

Source

San Francisco, the country’s premier laboratory for new Internet services, is also used to innovating in municipal regulation.

But in its latest experiment, it’s starting to find that legislating good corporate behavior isn’t as easy as pressing a button on your smartphone.

In July, the city started implementing a first-in-the-nation law aimed at curtailing the trend towards “just-in-time” scheduling, where managers call in employees to work on short notice. The new measure requires large chain retailers— such as Safeway and Walgreen’s — to publish schedules at least two weeks in advance, and to compensate employees with “predictability pay” if they make changes less than a week ahead of time. It also mandates that additional hours be offered to existing employees first before new hires are made, and that part-time workers be paid at the same rate as people who work full-time.

So far, it’s been easier to publish schedules than live up to the spirit of the law.

"The two-week notice seemed to be instituted right away, but the other stuff is lagging,” says Gordon Mar, director of San Francisco Jobs With Justice, a labor-backed group that pushed for the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights” and has been monitoring its implementation.

The sluggish response may be because fines don’t kick in until Oct. 3; the city is still hashing out the rules. But the spotty compliance so far highlights the difficulty of attempts to mandate worker-friendly practices — especially the kind that touch the most fundamental aspects of business operations, rather than those that simply require higher pay and better benefits.

San Francisco employers fought the new ordinance, but couldn’t prevent its passage. Now, they complain it’s impacting service.

“We’re hearing from members in San Francisco that it really is not working well at all,” says Ronald Fong, president of the California Grocers Association. Stores can’t always predict surges in foot traffic, which might be brought on a sunny day, leaving managers without the option to bring in more staff. That was a problem during the heat wave that swept over San Francisco this summer.

"Supplies weren’t able to get out to the shelves,” Fong says. "It just kind of snowballed, and our customers have a bad experience, or the stores lose sales.”

Some businesses don’t mind the rules in principle, but object to the red tape. "Everybody pretty much operates on a predictive schedule,” says Bill Dombrowski, president of the California Retailers Association. “But the process of implementing this, with offering the employees hours in writing and waiting three days for a response, it’s a lot of government intrusion into very minute detail.”

Also, not all industries schedule their workers in the same way. Milton Moritz is president of the National Association of Theatre Owners’ California and Nevada chapter, and says the theater business is by nature unpredictable, making the new law particularly difficult to comply with.

“We might not know until the Monday before the Friday a film shows, and even then we’re hiring, firing, scheduling people based on the business that film’s going to do,” Moritz says. “This ordinance flies in the face of all that. It really complicates the issue tremendously.”

The San Francisco ordinance hasn’t just been irritating for big companies. Some workers grumble the law discourages employers from offering extra shifts on short notice, because they would have to pay the last-minute schedule change penalty — even if workers would be happy for the chance to pick up more hours.

Rachel Deutsch, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Popular Democracy who has been helping local jurisdictions across the country craft fair-scheduling legislation, says that’s something that might change in future iterations.

"I think that’s the thing with any policy where it’s the first attempt to solve a complicated economic problem,” Deutsch says. "It’s been a learning process.”

So far, fair scheduling laws aren’t spreading as quickly as minimum wage and paid sick leave laws. A statewide bill in California failed a couple weeks ago, and no other local ordinances have passed besides San Francisco’s, though there are active campaigns in several cities including Minneapolis and Washington D.C.

Meanwhile, several companies have acted on their own to curb some of the practices that workers have found most disruptive, like on-call shifts, where workers have to be available even if they aren’t ultimately asked to work. But in some cases — like that of Starbucks, which committed to eliminating many of those practices — those voluntary changes haven’t been any more effectivethan government mandates.

Erin Hurley worked at Bath & Body Works and campaigned for an end to on-call shifts. After she left the job, parent company L Brands said it would stop the practice at Bath & Body Works as well as another of its chains, Victoria’s Secret. But Hurley says she’s heard from current workers that managers are still doing effectively the same thing, by asking employees to stay a little longer.

“On-call shifts were replaced with shift extensions,” says Hurley. “Basically what L Brands did was change the name of the practice.” Keeping people on-call is very convenient for employers, and letting it go can be easier said than done. (L Brands did not respond to a request for comment.)

Still, advocates in San Francisco think the Retail Workers Bill of Rights has already done some good, and will be more effective when the city’s enforcement kicks into high gear — just like overtime rules did, when companies got used to obeying them.

Take Michelle Flores, 21, who has worked part time at Safeway for two years to support herself while in going to college. Unpredictable schedules made that difficult: She would only know her shifts a few days beforehand, which sometimes didn’t leave her enough time to hit the books.

"I would study from midnight until 5, 6 a.m., sleep for two or three hours, and then go to the exam,” says Flores, 21, who attends San Francisco State. This year, she expects that to change. "If I know that I have a shift scheduled, I’ll just study another day,” Flores says.

Also, the law came with some funding for community organizations to make employees aware of what workers are entitled to. That has ancillary effects — like getting people interested in joining a union, which can be better equipped to make sure companies are following the rules.

“It just creates an opportunity to talk to more workers about their rights under the law, and that leads to conversations about other issues in the workplace,” says Gordon Mar, of Jobs with Justice. “And that could lead to getting organized.”

Source: Washington Post

According to a new report published by the Center for Popular Democracy, ZARA’s New York City locations have a serious problem with discrimination.

Study author Chaya Crowder writes that Zara has a “documented history of racial insensitivity in its designs, discriminatory treatment of its employees, and prejudice agains its customers.” Zara, as you may remember, is the company that caught flack for items like a bag with a swastika on it, a striped shirt with a gold star that looks very much like what Jews were forced to wear in concentration camps during the Holocaust, and a T-shirt bearing the phrase “white is the new black.” Charming stuff!

So it’s hard to be completely shocked by the report’s conclusions—after surveying employees at six of Zara’s NYC stores (for context, eight of the Spanish retailer’s 53 U.S. locations are in the city), Crowder found that most employees feel workers with lighter skin are treated better. From the report:

Employees of color agreed most strongly that ‘managers show favoritism.’ Many of the employees interviewed felt that favoritism is based on race. One employee stated ‘Managers definitely show favoritism to the Europeans.’ Another employee asserted, ‘The favoritism goes to those that are not African American or Latino’… In general, employees with a longer tenure at Zara identified favoritism, especially race-based favoritism, as an issue.

And, employees say that customers are treated with bias, as well. According to Crowder, Zara workers say that that the code “special order” is used as a way to trail suspected shoplifters in the stores. The people trailed, say employees, are disproportionately black:

A preponderance of employees surveyed mentioned a practice of labeling customers as ‘special orders,’ a security code for suspected shoplifters. Employees overwhelmingly felt that the Zara practice led to Black customers being disproportionately labeled as special orders upon entry to Zara stores.

A Zara spokesperson told the Guardian that “Zara USA vehemently refutes the findings,” adding that Crowder did not try to reach the company.

Zara’s parent company, Inditex, reiterated to Fusion in an email that Zara USA refutes the accusations, adding that the report “was prepared with ulterior motives,” and that “it fails to follow an acceptable methodology for the conduct of a credible objective survey on workplace practices, and instead appears to have taken an approach to achieve a pre-determined result which was to discredit Zara.”

But Zara is currently being sued by a former employee who says he was harassed and later fired because he’s gay, Jewish, and American.

This, of course, is not the first time a major retailer has been accused of discrimination. Back in 2013, sources at Barneys said racism against black customers was part of the culture at the luxury department store.

Zara’s parent company, Inditex, reiterated to Fusion in an email that Zara USA “vehemently refutes the claims,” adding that the report “was prepared with ulterior motives,” and that “it fails to follow an acceptable methodology for the conduct of a credible objective survey on workplace practices, and instead appears to have taken an approach to achieve a pre-determined result which was to discredit Zara.”

Source: Fusion

Global Shock

It's true that many of the causes of the recent stock market turmoil are global, rather than domestic. But those distinctions are becoming less important in a world of unfettered capital flow. Regional markets, like regional ecosystems, are interconnected.

Europe is struggling because of a misguided attachment to growth-killing austerity policies. Like Republicans in this country, Europe's leaders are focused on unwise government cost-cutting measures that hurt the overall economy.

China's superheated markets have experienced a sharp downturn, and its devaluing of the yuan is likely to affect American monetary policy. Many of the so-called "emerging markets" are in grave trouble, their problems exacerbated by an anticipated interest rate hike from the U.S. Fed.

Plunging crude oil prices are a major factor in the events of the last few days. But questions remain about the underlying forces affecting those prices. Demand is somewhat weaker, and Saudi officials are refusing to cut production. But there is still some debate about whether these and other well-reported factors are enough to explain the fact that the price of a barrel of oil is roughly half what it was just over a year ago, in June 2014.

American Turmoil

Talk of recovery here in the U.S. has been significantly dampened by events of the last several days. The now-interrupted stock market boom had been Exhibit A in the case for recovery.

Exhibit B was the ongoing drop in the official unemployment rate. There, too, signs of underlying weakness can be found. The labor force participation rate remains very low for people in their peak working years, as economist Elise Gould notes, and has only come back about halfway from pre-2008 levels. Jared Bernstein notes that pressure to raise wages, which one would also expect in a recovering job market, also remains weak.

All this argues for a rational and coordinated policy, one in which the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government act together to restore a wounded economy. What would that look like?

It would not include raised interest rates -- something that nevertheless continues to be a topic of serious discussion. As Dean Baker points out, China's currency devaluation alone should have been enough to take that idea off the table. What's more, as Baker rightly notes, such a move would only make sense if the Fed "is worried that the U.S. economy was growing too quickly and creating too many jobs."  That's a notion most Americans would probably reject as absurd. Most are not seeing their paychecks grow or their job opportunities multiply.

Anxiety about inflation, while all but omnipresent in some circles, is not a rational fear. A slow rise in prices (0.2 percent in the 12 months ending in July, as opposed to the Fed's recommended 2 percent per year) tells us that inflation is not exactly looming on the horizon.

Now what?

"Everything is going to be dictated by government policy," the chief investment officerof a well-known investment firm said this week. In that case, isn't it time for a national conversation about that policy?

Another investment strategist told the Wall Street Journal that today's challenges come at a time when "global central banks have exhausted almost all their tools ... It's difficult to see how central banks come in to support markets."

If they've exhausted all their commonly-used tools, it may be time to develop new ones -- not to support "markets," but to promote jobs and growth for everyone.

First, do no harm. The Fed needs to hold off on any move to raise interest rates. But inaction is not enough. It was given a dual mandate by Congress: to stabilize prices and keep employment at reasonable levels.

Activist groups like the "Fed Up" coalition, led by the Center for Popular Democracy (and including the Campaign for America's Future), are working to move the Fed toward that second objective. They've been pushing to change its governing boards, which are heavily dominated by big banks and other major financial interests, and have called for policies that focus on improving the economic lives of most Americans.

Those policies could take a number of forms. One idea comes from Jeremy Corbyn, the populist politician who's on track to become the next leader of Great Britain's Labour Party. Corbyn's economic plan includes "quantitative easing for people instead of banks." Corbyn proposes to grow the financial sector in a targeted way, by giving the Bank of England (the UK's version of the Fed) a mandate to "invest in new large scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects."

A headline on the website of the Financial Times says (with apparent surprise) that "Corbyn's "People's QE" could actually be a decent idea."

Corbyn also proposes to "strip out some of the huge tax reliefs and subsidies on offer to the corporate sector." The added revenue would go to "direct public investment," including the creation of a 'National Investment Bank' to "invest in the new infrastructure we need and in the hi-tech and innovative industries of the future."

Qualitative Easing

Call it "qualitative," rather than "quantitative," easing. It would increase the money supply, but for money that is to be invested in the real-world economy -- the one that creates jobs, lifts wages, and creates broad economic growth.

Could something like Corbyn's plan ever happen here? There's no reason why not. The Federal Reserve wasn't created by bankers, nor is it there to serve bankers -- although a lot of people inside and outside the Fed act as if it were. (The choice of a former Goldman Sachs executive for its latest major appointment won't help change that.)

The Federal Reserve was created by the American people through an act of Congress. Its governors and its policies are there to protect and serve the public. The Fed should use its oversight capabilities to ensure that banks don't behave in a reckless manner or help private funds and other unsupervised institutions to behave recklessly.

We are still paying the price for allowing big-money interests to dominate both lawmaking on Capitol Hill and monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. That must change. Congress and the Fed, acting together, should ensure that our nation's policies benefit the many who are in need of help, not the few who already have more than they need.

Richard Eskow is a writer and editor with the Bernie 2016 campaign, the host of The Zero Hour radio program, and a Senior Fellow with the Campaign for America's Future. The opinions expressed here are his own.

Source: Huffington Post