CPD IN THE NEWS

Braving the rain, threats of violence and uncertainty over police permits, dozens of civil rights activists set out on the sixth day of their 118-mile trek from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Washington, D.C., on Saturday to protest the white supremacist ideas that inspired deadly violence in Charlottesville a few weeks ago.

The 10-day journey, which organizers from progressive and faith organizations are calling a “March to Confront White Supremacy,” began on Monday with a rally in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park and is due to conclude this coming Wednesday with nonviolent civil disobedience in the nation’s capital.

Read the full article here.

While Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) CEO and founder Howard Schultz barnstorms America with one new program to help Americans after another, a new report shows his company continues to treat many of its employees badly.

According to research released by experts at the Center for Popular Democracy:

A 2015 nationwide survey of Starbucks workers reveals that the company is not living up to its commitment to provide predictable, sustainable schedules to its workforce. Starbucks’ frontline employees bear the brunt of the management imperative to minimize store labor costs, which takes precedence over attempts to stabilize work hours, provide healthy schedules, and to ensure employees have real input into their working conditions.

Also:

Many Starbucks scheduling policies fail to reflect the company’s human-focused values, while other policies designed to promote sustainable schedules have been implemented inconsistently.

According to a recent report from 24/7 Wall St. titled Companies Paying Americans the Least:

Coffee giant Starbucks employs roughly 141,000 people in the United States at more than 7,300 locations. Because the coffee chain offers some benefits not commonly offered in low-paying jobs, it has long been considered the ideal job for young students supporting themselves or even single parents. However, an increasing number of reports suggest the famous Seattle company makes life difficult for its employees. Of particular note is the company’s increasing use of complicated and inconsistent scheduling, a practice also used by many other major retailers. This practice means that baristas’ hours may be posted with little notice, preventing them from making other plans, and therefore nearly denying them the ability to earn extra income from other sources.

The work hours, benefit problems and low pay challenges face many employees at large food chains and major retailers, but none of those places has a chief executive who publicly advocates the right of many of America’s most economically challenged people. Among the most recent was Schultz’s effort to support hiring the underprivileged in Phoenix:

“Chicago marked an important milestone in our efforts to put America’s underserved youth on a pathway to employment,” said Howard Schultz, chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks and co-founder of the Schultz Family Foundation. “As we look ahead to Phoenix, where one in five youth is not in school or employed, we have a critical opportunity to accelerate our collective hiring efforts and create meaningful lifelong opportunities for all. I truly believe that these young men and women represent the most significant untapped source of productivity and talent for our economy, and America’s leading companies are ready to hire them.”

If one of these young people gets a job at Starbucks, the “meaningful lifelong opportunities” may not be much of an opportunity at all.

Source: 247WallSt.com

ABC News - November 14, 2014, by Martin Crutsinger - A coalition of community groups and labor unions are "fed up" with the Federal Reserve.

More than two dozen activists demonstrated outside the Fed and then met with Chair Janet Yellen on Friday as part of a new campaign seeking policy reforms and a commitment to keep interest rates low until good jobs are plentiful for all workers. Although the labor market has steadily strengthened this year, wages have remained stagnant.

During the hour-long discussion with Yellen and three other Fed board members, coalition representatives discussed problems their communities were facing with high unemployment and weak wage growth.

Ady Barkan, one of the organizers of "Fed Up: The National Campaign for a Strong Economy," said Yellen and the other Fed officials listened but made no commitments about future Fed policy.

"It was a very good conversation," said Barkan, an attorney with the Center for Popular Democracy in Brooklyn. "They listened very intently, and they asked meaningful follow-up questions."

Fed officials confirmed that the meeting took place but declined to comment on the issues raised at the meeting.

The Fed's outreach to community activists was the latest move by Yellen to focus attention on lingering problems from the Great Recession. Wearing green tee-shirts with the phrase "What Recovery?" the group had protested outside of the Fed's headquarters on Constitution Avenue under the watchful eye of nine Fed security officers.

Members of the group, some of whom had demonstrated at a central bank gathering in August in Jackson Hole, Wyoming said it was important that Fed officials not be swayed by arguments that it needs to move quickly to raise interest rates to make sure inflation does not become a threat.

"The banks are the ones that crashed the economy ... but they're the ones who got the bonuses and the bailouts while workers and homeowners like me were left to drown," said Jean Andre, 48, of New York, who said he was having a tough time finding full-time work.

In addition to Yellen, the Fed officials who took part in the meeting were Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer and Fed board members Jerome Powell and Lael Brainard.

Members of the coalition said about half of the meeting was taken up by their members telling stories about the difficulty in finding jobs, particularly in disadvantaged groups and communities dealing with unemployment much higher than the 5.8 percent national average.

The Fed officials also were presented a petition signed by 5,000 people around the country urging the central bank to keep interest rates low until the country reaches full employment.

The group also pushed for a more open process in the selection of presidents of the Fed's 12 regional banks. They say the current process is too secretive and dominated by officials from banks and other businesses with little input from the public. The regional presidents, along with Fed board members in Washington, participate in the deliberations to set interest rates.

Source

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