Wall Street Journal - March 3, 2015, by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa - A network of liberal activists is planning a series of small demonstrations outside of several Federal Reserve district banks Thursday, intending to highlight elevated unemployment among minority communities and urging officials not to raise interest rates any time soon.

Fed officials have indicated they plan to lift their benchmark short-term interest rate from near zero, where it has been since late 2008, sometime this year if the economy continues to strengthen as expected.

The activists say the nation’s 5.7% jobless rate understates the underlying weakness of the labor market, pointing to high long-term and black unemployment as symptoms of an economy that is still ailing. The unemployment rate for blacks was 10.3% in January.

“The Federal Reserve has the power–and responsibility–to foster stronger economic conditions that create opportunity for all communities,” the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington think tank backing the demonstrations, said in a statement.

The activists are planning actions outside the regional Fed banks of New York, San Francisco, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Charlotte, N.C. (home to a branch of the Richmond Fed) and Dallas.

The Labor Department releases its February employment report on Friday.

Becky Moeller, president of the Texas AFL-CIO, said she and other community leaders have been frustrated by what they see as an opaque process for selecting the next Dallas Fed president. The current chief, Richard Fisher, is set to step down March 19.

Ms. Moeller said instead of getting a meeting with members of the Dallas Fed’s board of directors, which is in charge of the search, she and her delegation met with the bank’s general counsel in a session she described as not very helpful.

“This has been a comedy of pass the buck,” she said. “We don’t have a candidate—we’re just trying to talk processes.”

The Dallas Fed said it had recently met with the following groups regarding the search for a new bank president: Texas AFL-CIO, Texas Organizing Project, Jobs With Justice, Fort Worth Building Trades and Ironworkers, Workers Defense Project, Communication Workers of America, Dallas Central Labor Council, Harris County Central Labor Council and American Federation of Teachers.

“We had a productive conversation with representatives from these groups,” said James Hoard, a spokesman for the Dallas Fed. “We were interested in hearing their views on the selection of a new Dallas Fed president, and hope we were able to provide useful information to them, as well.”

The Center for Popular Democracy and the Fed Up Coalition, the umbrella groups coordinating the protests, expressed dismay at the lack of transparency in the selection of Patrick Harker as the new Philadelphia Fed President.

“Despite repeated requests from community, consumer, labor and academic organizations and public officials within the region, the Philadelphia Fed refused to create any mechanisms for engagement with the public,” said Kendra Brooks of Action United in Philadelphia.

“Instead, the process was entirely opaque: nobody outside of the Federal Reserve knew who the candidates were or what the criteria were for selection. This process did a disservice to the Federal Reserve System and the people of the Philadelphia region.”

The Philadelphia Fed said in response: “Several of our staff members did meet with members from Action United to hear their concerns. The Philadelphia Fed also provided them the opportunity to provide names of potential candidates to our executive search firm.”

The same group of activists showed up at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium last summer and held a meeting with Janet Yellen at the Fed in November.

Last week, Ms. Yellen met with a group of conservative activists who argued the Fed’s low-rate policies were hurting rather than boosting employment.

The Great Recession has brought increased political scrutiny on the Fed, with prominent Republican and Democratic politicians calling for various changes in the central bank’s governance.

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