Blog
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Last year, legendary singer, songwriter, and activist, Mr. Harry Belafonte, joined the Board of Directors of The Popular Democracy Movement Center, CPD’s groundbreaking retreat and strategy center in Ossining, New York. Mr. Belafonte announced that The Popular Democracy Movement Center will be the home for his Arts & Social Justice Initiative. In joining its Board of Directors, The Popular Democracy Movement Center refocused its mission as a place where activists, members from our communities, and artists, can gather to plan, reflect, and recharge for our continued fights. Mr. Belafonte stated, “ The Popular Democracy Movement Center will give leaders, from the artist to the activist community, the forum to discuss, debate, and come to concrete actions that will direct national mobilization efforts.”
In honor of this 93rd birthday, we’re joining Mr. Belafonte on March 1 at the Apollo Theatre in New York City to celebrate his life and legacy, and you’re invited! Proceeds will benefit The Popular Democracy Movement Center and various artists will come together to celebrate and perform including Aloe Blacc, Alice Smith, Talib Kweli, John Forté, Gael Faye, The Resistance Revival Chorus and more! You can purchase general admissions tickets by clicking here.
At the start of 2020, CPD affiliate West Virginia Healthy Kids & Families Coalition launched their new name, Our Future West Virginia (OFWV)! OFWV envisions a West Virginia where every child, youth and adult has the justice, dignity and equity needed to thrive. To work towards this vision, we must support West Virginians in tackling a variety of issues on both a local and state-wide level. OFWV is building a grassroots movement to to create and execute plans that address issues of housing, child care, public education, discrimination, voter engagement and 2020 Census participation.
Most recently, OFWV Northern Organizer, Amy Jo Hutschinson testified at a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on poverty to speak about Trump's detrimental policies on children and families, reiterating her community’s support of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's Recognizing Poverty Act. At the end of her testimony, Congressman Mark Meadows asked that Hutschinson return to the sub-committee with three recommendations on what they need from this policy. Amy Jo's video has over 1 million views and is viral on Reddit and Twitter.
Community leaders are coming forth in droves to address poverty in West Virginia. OSWV Housing Justice Organizer, Charkera Ervin, developed a nuisance ordinance toolkit in coalition with other state partners including the West Virginia Coalition to end Homelessness, West Virginia Coalition against Domestic Violence, ACLU and West Virginia’s Landlords Association. The toolkit guides and informs community leaders, renters, magistrates and landlords on how to combat these racist and classist ordinances as they permeate themselves into their local communities. Further, OSWV Eastern Organizer, Liira Raines, organized Morgantown's homeless population, folks in recovery, faith community, domestic violence survivors and city council to overturn the Morgantown nuisance ordinance viciously targeting their homeless and people with substance use disorder. Learn more and get involved with OSWV here.
On Wednesday, January 29, our sister organization CPD Action (CPDA) joined the Poor People's Campaign, Remove Trump, By the People, Demand Justice, and other allies in a mass demonstration in the Capitol demanding a fair trial in the impeachment of President Trump. Over 1,500 people participated in the action, shining a bright light on the corruption and cowardice of this administration and its enablers. The action was covered by The Hill, Common Dreams, and Public Citizen.
The day started with a training at the Episcopal Church, where CPDA Network President & Co-Executive Director Jennifer Epps-Addison led an impassioned discussion on the history and need for civil disobedience at these moments of crisis. Protesters then marched to the Capitol and flooded the atrium of the Hart Senate Office building, where they staged a silent protest to bare witness to the injustice of this sham trial. Afterwards, we marched to the steps of the Capitol, where Reverend William Barber spoke on the importance of this moment in history. Finally, a subset of our group took the steps of the Capitol beyond the police line and engaged in civil disobedience. In total, 44 people were arrested.
Just as the Kavanaugh protests galvanized the country and sparked people to take action, the energy coming from this moment is strengthening our movement to bring people to the ballot box to vote with their values this year. While the Senate ultimately dismissed the trial, the witnesses in the impeachment trial demonstrated the corruption of this administration to the rest of the world.
On February 15, Make the Road Action and Make the Road Nevada (MRNV) were joined by Senator and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a rally in Las Vegas to launch their comprehensive housing justice campaign. Surrounded by over 500 Make the Road members and their allies, the campaign pledged to fight for expanded tenant protections and the decriminalization of homelessness.
Over the past year, MRNV has knocked on doors across Las Vegas to learn about the issues that matter to people who live there. As rents continue to rise, affordable housing was identified as a key issue community members worried about most. MRNV quickly moved into action, creating a committee on housing justice to end homelessness and the criminalization of homelessness in Nevada. The committee will advocate for rent control and tenant protections, work to reign in speculators and corporate landlords, and to deeply fund affordable and safe housing.
Since launching its Housing Justice Committee, MRNV and allies organized for and won eviction protections state-wide leading to a decrease in evictions by 7%. Further, when a historic African American community was going to be bulldozed for warehouses, MRNV members stood alongside the community, fought back, and won. When the Las Vegas City Council passed laws to criminalize homelessness, MRNV members and their allies have been out in the streets to demand #HomesNotHandcuffs.
After the rally, hundreds of Nevadans took to the streets to demand a #HometoThrive, #HomesNotHandcuffs, and the #FreedomtoRemain. As Diana Diaz, MRNV’s Housing Justice Leader who has experienced homelessness in Las Vegas said at the rally “We will continue to fight for our freedom to stay in our communities in Las Vegas.” MRNV launched their Housing Justice Campaign to demand tenant protections, rent control, and an end to homelessness in Las Vegas, and across the state of Nevada, and will keep organizing until this vision becomes our reality. If you are interested in getting involved, please reach out to Felipe Silva here.
The rapid rise of forced arbitration is a serious threat to hard-won workplace rights including minimum wage, earned sick leave, fair workweek laws, and anti-discrimination protections. Forced arbitration clauses are buried in the fine print of many employment contracts and strip workers of their right to join together in court to fight and expose corporate abuse and illegal practices. In short, forced arbitration is secretive, biased, and expensive. Because corporations set the rules and stack the deck against workers in arbitration, an estimated 98 percent of employment cases are abandoned by workers before they’re ever brought to court.
CPD affiliates and partners are advancing new mechanisms to enforce workplace rights and fight forced arbitration. This month, we released a new video which breaks down how corporations use forced arbitration to avoid justice when they violate workers' rights. Workers forced into arbitration are more likely to be struck by lightning than win against big corporations.
Further, we worked with the UCLA Labor Center and Partnerships for Working Families to release a brief about about successful models to deter corporate wrongdoing illustrating the powerful record of California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) in addressing corporate lawbreaking and generating significant revenue for enforcement (in 2019 the agency collected over $88 million in PAGA penalties). Critically, PAGA also empowers workers to enforce their rights despite forced arbitration. The brief was covered by the San Francisco Chronicle and you can download and read it on our website.
Click here to learn more about our work on Forced Arbitration.
CPD affiliate, Make the Road New Jersey (MRNJ), kicked off 2020 with a number of significant victories for immigrants, workers, and education justice! On December 19, after a five year fight, MRNJ along with coalition partners at Let's Drive NJ, won their campaign to expand access to drivers licenses to all, regardless of immigration status, making New Jersey the 15th state to do so. Governor Phil Murphy signed the bill into law in MRNJ's office in Elizabeth, surrounded by members of MRNJ and other partners in a raucous celebration. Watch Governor Murphy's powerful signing statement here!
Two summers ago, MRNJ members stood shoulder to shoulder with Toys R US workers as a wave of bankruptcies and mass layoffs hit retail workers across the country. Wall Street billionaires' greed and recklessness left thousands of families in economic crisis while CEOs and private equity firms received million-dollar bonuses. MRNJ members joined together with CPD, and laid off and current workers from Toys R US, Sears and Payless, organized by United for Respect, to demand justice and hold Wall Street accountable. In January, Governor Murphy signed the historic Guaranteed Severance Bill (S3170 & A5145) making NJ the first state in the country to mandate that employers provide one week of severance pay for each year of service for their workers when more than 50 employees are laid off.
Additionally, through an innovative partnership with Elizabeth Public Schools (EPS), MRNJ recently launched New Jersey’s first Student Success Center (SSC), a peer-to-peer training and support network which aims to increase college applications by 20% in EPS's lowest-performing school and increase financial aid application district-wide by 15% in its first year. Read more about this initiative here.
Since late December, a series of major earthquakes shook the southwest area of the archipelago of Puerto Rico causing an island-wide blackout, leaving thousands homeless, and causing structural damage to hundreds of buildings, schools, and roads. To this day, in the towns of Guanica, Peñuelas, Guayanilla, Arroyo, Yauco, Guayama, Ponce and others, an estimated four thousand people are housed in shelters, and thousands more have pitched tents in their backyards.
In the aftermath, CPD quickly mobilized with the Maria Fund, to move rapid response funding to an initial 6 community groups. On the Island, CPD affiliate Taller Salud is helping to channel much needed resources in the south. You can support these efforts by donating here.
Organizers knew that even more action was needed to make sure Puerto Rico received every resource it could to rebuild. On January 8, CPD affiliates and allies mobilized in Washington DC, Philadelphia, and New York City to demand the federal government release recovery funds. CPD affiliates involved include CASA, CUFFH and Make the Road PA who mobilized members to take action in their communities. CPD also released an OP-ed demanding that $8.7 billion destined to debt payments be released and used for the reconstruction of the island.
A week later, CPD project Contruyamos Otro Acuerdo, raised demands to protect pensions for retirees. To support the diaspora, CPD hosted a digital Cacerolazo – a form of popular protest which consists of a group of people making noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention – that was joined by affiliates and national partners in solidarity with the actions happening on the island. In moments like these, it is the people and our networks of solidarity that take action and make a difference.
In 2018, Local Progress launched Reform/Transform: A Policing Policy Toolkit, a resource designed to help elected officials, policymakers, and organizers evaluate the strength of policing policies, based on a set of standardized criteria and best practices. In December 2019, Local Progress worked with its members to follow up with an analysis of policing policies in 12 cities on four of the toolkit’s policy areas: ICE collaboration, use of force, independent oversight, and police spending versus other priorities.
The findings showed that, across the four policy areas, all 12 cities can and must do more to strengthen police accountability. However, this work is also very dynamic –– even as we publish these results, policy changes and budget negotiations are underway across the country. Several cities have won policy victories in recent months. For example, Washington, DC recently restricted its already-limited cooperation with ICE “detainer requests.” Durham and Minneapolis have allocated money slated for policing into urgent community needs like higher wages and violence prevention.
While police reform does not fully tackle the structural challenges of over-policing, hyper-criminalization, or mass incarceration, the toolkit offers practical, actionable resources, designed specifically to support local elected officials in their ongoing efforts to enact progressive policing policy reform. Local elected officials hold a unique power and responsibility to advocate for that transformation while driving meaningful reform to reduce harm, protect civil liberties, and ensure existing systems face stringent oversight and accountability. The toolkit aims to contribute some immediate policy reforms, while we continue to engage in the larger grassroots movement to dismantle the current criminal legal system and redefine conceptions of public safety. Check out and share the toolkit here!
In December 2019, CPD and the Economic Policy Institute, published a report "Still Terrible at Two: The Trump Tax Act Delivered Big Benefits to the Rich and Corporations But Nearly None for Working Families." On the two year anniversary of Trump's tax act, the report uses government data to show there has been no increase in wages for working people and no increase in business investment--all while corporate revenues have plummeted and corporate stock buybacks have soared. Overall, the paper finds that the TCJA - one of the largest overhauls of the tax system in the last 50 years - enacted sweeping changes to benefit corporations and wealthy individuals while the interests and priorities of working families were ignored.
The TCJA has failed to boost American workers’ wages or to deliver broad prosperity for low-income communities or communities of color. The report features powerful stories from member leaders at United for Respect who have faced stagnant wages while working at companies that have spent billions in corporate stock buybacks, rather than investing in their workforce. In addition, the report profiles small business owners and members of the Main Street Alliance who found Trump's so-called "small business tax cuts" remained elusive. The report was released in tandem with a week of action coordinated by the Tax March. Download and read the full report here.
