Carlos Menchaca: Sunset Park’s Councilman Brings A Voice To The Voiceless
Carlos Menchaca: Sunset Park’s Councilman Brings A Voice To The Voiceless
New York City Council Member Carlos Menchaca loves to grow spices and chilies to add to his home cooked meals — but when it comes to choosing his favorite Mexican food spot in Sunset Park, he...
New York City Council Member Carlos Menchaca loves to grow spices and chilies to add to his home cooked meals — but when it comes to choosing his favorite Mexican food spot in Sunset Park, he doesn’t play favorites.
“That’s a hard one,” Menchaca chuckled. “I always order tacos al pastor with a side of Mexican rice and beans,” he said of his traditional go-to dish. It binds him to his Mexican roots and the vibrant immigrant community that has adopted him as their hometown hero.
“What I love about Sunset Park is that anywhere you go, Bush Terminal Park, the senior center, down 5th Avenue, or even 8th Avenue, you feel at home,” Menchaca, who also represents Red Hook, parts of Bensonhurst and Borough Park, told the Sunset Park Voice. “It’s a neighborhood of families.”
A large majority of those Sunset Park families hail from the neighborhood’s Mexican and Asian immigrant communities — the two largest ethnic groups in New York City, after Dominicans, according to Census data — which stood firmly behind Menchaca during his 2013 run for District 38 council member.
Menchaca made history as the first Mexican-American Democrat elected to serve in the New York City Council. His victory over an incumbent councilwoman signified the rise of Mexican Americans in the political landscape, putting the young trailblazer on the map.
“We grew as a family. They took care of me and I took care of them,” Menchaca said of his constituents.
The 35-year-old Manchaca already knew he wanted to go into politics while growing up in the border town of El Paso, Texas, described himself as a “feisty kid, wanting to know everything” to advocate for his family.
He witnessed his single mother, Magdalena, struggle to raise seven children on her own.
“I don’t know how she did it,” Menchaca said of the hardships the family faced. “We interacted with government all the time, and it made me passionate about understanding how the system could be better.”
The first in his family to graduate from college, Menchaca holds a degree from the University of San Francisco in performing arts and social justice. His experience in political activism led him to New York to join the Coro Fellows Program – where he learned the value of community-government relations.
Since then, he’s made it his mission to bridge communities and as a council member he introduced participatory budgeting in Sunset Park – a democratic process that allows residents to decide how to spend a public budget and where taxpayers dollars go to fund their neighborhoods.
Menchaca’s success at empowering disenfranchised communities through the initiative has garnered write-ups in The New York Times, DNAInfo, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In his first year of PB, two-thirds of the ballots in his district were cast in Spanish and Chinese.
“Whether you live or work here, your voice matters, and what we’ve been able to do through participatory budgeting is bring opportunities to invite everyone to the table no matter their age, sexual orientation, or immigration status,” Menchaca said.
As Chair of the Committee on Immigration and member of the LGBT Caucus, Menchaca sponsored the 2015 launch of IDNYC, a municipal identification card offered to New Yorkers and undocumented immigrants. It gave them an opportunity to have legal identification without fears of deportation, open a bank account, access to public places, among other benefits.
But Menchaca was just getting started.
His next mission: Invest in adult education to help immigrant New Yorkers learn English. Menchaca says he receives daily letters at his legislative office from non-English speaking parents requesting for classes to help them communicate with their children’s teachers.
That’s why he’s advocating for $16 million and calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to fund the Adult Literacy Initiative they way he did with universal pre-kindergarten. A recent report by the Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road New York suggests that these classes could raise immigrants’ wages and reduce income inequality in impoverished communities.
“This is where it gets serious,” Menchaca said. “We think about gentrification and all the things that make us so afraid, because we don’t know what it is. But one thing that’s clear is how we can affect family’s lives through education.”
As our conversation steered towards immigration reform and the importance of ethnic and community media, Menchaca’s calm demeanor turned sympathetic. The 102-year-old El Diario/La Presna, the nation’s oldest Spanish language newspaper, laid off nearly half of its staff due to budget cuts, which shocked its readers, including Menchaca.
“The second I heard those real issues of El Diario, I called for a public hearing,” he said. He calls ethnic and community media a lifeline to many people in the city because it connects them to job postings, news, and immigration issues vital to families.
An hour before the hearing, Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced, via press release, an expansion of the administrations outreach to community and ethnic media companies across the city. In addition, the city created an online directory of 200 media ethnic media outlets, that will be available to city agencies and the city vowed to place more advertising in the ethnic papers.
Aside from the legal and education proposals, gentrification is another issue Menchaca’s community knows all too well. People have seen the factory district west of the Gowanus Expressway redeveloped as Industry City, a home for trendy shops, hip cafes, and markets like the Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg aimed at food fanatics.
In February, when the mayor proposed the BQX Connector, a streetcar line that would link Sunset Park to Astoria, Queens, some residents feared this new development would accelerate gentrification in their waterfront neighborhood, but the councilman says it can also ease transportation woes in his district.
“We are in desperate need of transportation options and I think the BQX serves as one idea we need to explore,” Menchaca said. “We want to increase the ability for people to travel outside the neighborhood for jobs.”
People have been vocal on fixing the R trains, the extension of bus lines, potentially bringing Citi bike and the ferry into their communities. For now, Menchaca sees the BXQ as an economic development to help community members, but it will only happen if people work together, he noted.
Menchaca confirmed that he plans to embark on a City Council re-election campaign in 2017.
What will his campaign be about? Preserving manufacturing jobs in Sunset Park, protecting immigrants through legal services, and shaping how the police force works with the community, he said.
“No matter the immigration status, you help everybody, and when you do that, you get these beautiful communities that are so diverse,” said Menchaca.
Clarification [June 2, 10am]: An earlier version of the headline misleadingly referred to the councilman as Sunset Park’s hometown hero, although he was not born in New York. We’ve adjusted the headline accordingly.
BY ELIZABETH ELIZALDE
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U.S. job growth surges in July
The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in July, according to government data released Friday morning, surpassing economists' expectations and suggesting the economy continues to thrive after an ...
The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in July, according to government data released Friday morning, surpassing economists' expectations and suggesting the economy continues to thrive after an extended streak of job gains in recent years.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent, compared with 4.4 percent in June, and wages rose by 2.5 percent from the year before to $26.36 in July.
Read the full article here.
Locals protest GOP tax plan
Last week, more than 100 disability rights and health care advocates were arrested in Washington D.C. during a civil disobedience protest of the GOP tax plan. Among them were residents of...
Last week, more than 100 disability rights and health care advocates were arrested in Washington D.C. during a civil disobedience protest of the GOP tax plan. Among them were residents of Peterborough and Temple.
Lisa Beaudoin of Temple, the executive director of ABLE New Hampshire, a grassroots organization that advocates for families that include people with disabilities, said that she sees the tax plan as taking firm aim at some of the most vulnerable populations – including people with disabilities.
Read the full article here.
Bill de Blasio: From Education to Poverty, Leadership by Example
Huffington Post - October 9, 2014, by Richard Eskow - Progressives who are elected to executive office have a unique opportunity to highlight neglected issues and stimulate much-needed debate, by...
Huffington Post - October 9, 2014, by Richard Eskow - Progressives who are elected to executive office have a unique opportunity to highlight neglected issues and stimulate much-needed debate, by taking actions which challenge the "conventional wisdom." They can change the political landscape by employing a principle that might be called "leadership by example."
The mayor of New York City is uniquely positioned to play this role, thanks to that city's prominence, and so far Bill de Blasio has done exceptionally well at it. Two of his actions -- on education and assistance to the poor -- deserve particular commendation, because they challenge the "bipartisan" consensus that has too often strangled open debate and left the public's interests unrepresented.
Action for the Impoverished
1. "Welfare Reform's" Record of Failure
"Centrist" Democrats like Bill Clinton, together with Republicans like Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, have long sung the praises of "welfare reform" -- a set of policies that promised to turn welfare recipients into "productive citizens" through a combination of educational programs, work requirements, and "tough love" that denied benefits to some of them.
Clinton signed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" on August 22, 1996, saying it would "end welfare as we know it and transform our broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work, responsibility, and families." That bill quickly became a symbol of "bipartisan consensus" and a much-touted piece of model legislation for the neoliberal economic agenda.
Unfortunately, we now know that it didn't work. In fact, it backfired. A report from the University of Michigan's National Poverty Center showed that extreme poverty increased in the United States by 130 percent between 1996 and 2013 -- and pinpointed "welfare reform" as the cause.
Despite its documented failure, the myth persists that "welfare reform" succeeded. This belief has so far proved resistant to the mounting evidence against it, perhaps because it serves the personal interests of wealthy individuals and corporations who don't care to be taxed for antipoverty programs.
This "reform" myth also serves to assuage their consciences. Politicians like Cuomo and Clinton are all too happy to help in that effort by assuring wealthy Americans that this policy is smart, even liberal, and that it only coincidentally happens to benefit them personally.
2. The End of Welfare As They Know It
The mayor of New York City cannot supersede a federal law, but a recent executive action will hopefully serve to re-open the debate on welfare "reform." De Blasio ended the policies of his GOP predecessors and eased requirements for welfare eligibility in New York City. New rules will give young people more time to complete their educations, and native speakers of foreign languages time to learn English. He also cut back on some "workfare" requirements (which in some cases amount to little more than ritual humiliation.)
For the first time, allowances will be made for parental duties, travel time, and other obstacles which are faced every day by the poor -- but which are little-understood by prosperous "bipartisans" from either party.
As a de Blasio official explained, "we have the data to show that toughness for the sake of toughness hasn't been effective."
3. Data Driven
Data. That word is anathema to "centrist" politicians and commentators who claim to be technocrats, but who are actually driven by ideology, donor cash, or both. When de Blasio issued his orders the hyperventilation was, predictably, all but instantaneous. "We don't need to guess how de Blasio's welfare philosophy will pan out," wrote Heather McDonald, who is "Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute."
Reihan Salam fulminated in Slate that welfare programs must "rest on a solid moral foundation. And that, ultimately, is what work requirements are all about."
But when the work isn't available, or people have no practical way of obtaining it, it's immoral to make them -- or their children -- suffer. By ending the inhumane but "bipartisan" policies of his predecessors, Bill de Blasio has potentially re-opened the debate on the draconian and failed "welfare reform" concept.
Action on Education
1. Charter Schools Are "Special Interests"
De Blasio's much-publicized struggle with charter school CEO Eva Moskowitz began when he overturned Bloomberg's decision to give her "Success Academy" free space in city buildings. That led her to make a series of false claims about her organization's accomplishments -- claims that were effectively debunked by Diane Ravitch and Avi Blaustein. Success Academy students aren't the best in the state, they aren't the most difficult students in the city -- and the program is so cost-inefficient that it spends over $2,000 per year more per student than other schools serving similar populations.
Bloomberg was generous to Moskowitz because her program suited his predilection for Wall Street-friendly, corporate-cozy ideas -- ideas which appeared on the surface to promote innovation or "reform," but which on further study reveal themselves as a wealth transfer from the many to the few, often at the expense of the public good.
That's exactly what the charter-school movement represents. Sure, it sounds like a good idea: Schools will "compete" for students, and those which offer the best "products" will succeed. As writer and education activist Jeff Bryant says: Everybody loves "choice," right?
But the concept is flawed at its core. Schools aren't failing because students and their parents don't have "choices" in schools. They're failing -- to the extent they are, because even that concept is overhyped -- because they don't have choices in jobs or housing. Schools are struggling because we don't pay teachers well enough, because we underfund our school districts, and because social factors (especially poverty) inhibit the learning process.
2. Rockets to Nowhere
For all the hype and all the money, there's still no evidence that charter schools work. Advocates love to claim that "school choice" offers lower-income children a way out of poverty. But Milwaukee, which the conservative American Enterprise Institute calls "one of the most 'choice-rich' environments in America," remains one of America's 10 most impoverished big cities.
And kids aren't any more educated in Milwaukee than they were before they were given all this "choice." Educator Diane Ravitch reviewed the data and found that, 22 years after the program was implemented, there was no evidence of improvement in students' test scores.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reviewed the "Rocketship" program, which has bid to take over Milwaukee's underperforming schools, and found that it isn't working. They observed that "in 2012-2013, all seven of the Rocketship schools failed to make adequate yearly progress according to federal standards."
Call it "failure to launch."
3. Follow the Money
The EPI also noted that "Blended-learning schools such as Rocketship are supported by investment banks, hedge funds, and venture capital firms that, in turn, aim to profit from both the construction and, especially, the digital software assigned to students."
That might help explain why wealthy Wall Street investors paid Moskowitz's $2,000-plus-per-student cost overruns out of their own pockets. The same hedge funders also happen to have donated at least $400,000 to Andrew Cuomo's reelection campaign. Perhaps coincidentally, Cuomo led the charge against de Blasio after he moved to end Moskowitz's taxpayer-funded privileges.
Charter schools are an ideological and investment opportunity, which explains why enormous sums of money have been expended promoting them. (The latest effort, funded by $12 million from the wealthiest families in the nation, is something called "The Education Post."
Not all charter schools are driven by the profit motive, and some may in fact do a good job. But there is no evidence to support their claims, their operating principles, or the broader "free market" ideology behind them -- an ideology that is founded on hostility to government itself.
4. Breeding Fraud
Ravitch also notes that Washington, D.C., whose "Opportunity Scholarship Program" launched at least one educational celebrity career, was equally unable to demonstrate results. Its final-year report notes that "There is no conclusive evidence that the OSP affected student achievement."
There is conclusive evidence, however, that the charter school movement has produced at least one fairly widespread outcome: fraud. A recent report from the Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education, and ACTION United told the story. The report, titled "Fraud and Financial Mismanagement in Pennsylvania's Charter Schools," showed that the state had failed to properly audit or review its publicly-funded charter schools.
It also uncovered a pattern of abuses so disturbing it makes charter schools look like petri dishes for fraud. The director of one charter school diverted $2.6 million in school funds to rebuild his church. Another stole $8 million for "houses, a Florida condominium, and an airplane." Yet another used taxpayer funds to finance "a restaurant, a health food store, and a private school." A couple stole nearly $1 million for their personal use.
There are more revelations in the report -- and it only covers one state.
And yet, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, charter schools continue to be talked up by Bill Clinton, whose recent boosterism was described by Salon's Luke Brinker as "stunning" in its variance with the facts. (Jeff Bryant has more on the reality behind Clinton's disingenuous remarks.)
5. The Ongoing Battle
De Blasio acted wisely in moving to end Bloomberg's gift of scarce New York City school resources to Moskowitz. He was ultimately forced to back down, at least in the short term, after her big-dollar backers won a victory in Albany.
That was no surprise, given the money behind the so-called "reformers." But it's not the end of the story, either. De Blasio's position on charter schools triggered a fierce response -- but it also triggered a long-overdue conversation.
By challenging the conventional wisdom on charter schools, Bill de Blasio has started something their backers didn't want: a genuine debate on their merits. He may have lost a battle, but if the debate continues he's likely to win the war.
Leadership Through Action
By taking actions which challenge the orthodoxy of his own party's corporate wing -- an orthodoxy shared and taken to extremes by the entire GOP -- Bill de Blasio is changing the political landscape. Although he is reportedly close to the Clintons (he managed Hillary's 2000 senatorial campaign), his executive decisions are offering a new political vision for progressives who have felt starved for representation in the two-party system of recent decades.
De Blasio's deeds haven't been limited to education and welfare, of course. As we've discussed elsewhere, he's taken on issues that range from the minimum wage to the environment, and to housing as a human right.
He's made mistakes, and he's all but certain to make more as he navigates difficult political waters. De Blasio's trying to effect change from within the political process, which is always a risky endeavor. But he's made great strides in a short time. His is the sort of leadership which can change the national political landscape even as it improves the quality of life for his constituents.
Bill de Blasio is using his position as mayor of New York to lead -- with action as well as words. And for that he's owed a debt of gratitude.
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The big 2016 minimum wage push just got a powerful new ally
A little over a year out from the presidential election, we already know the states where the fiercest battles will likely be fought. But another electoral map is shaping up too: The states where...
A little over a year out from the presidential election, we already know the states where the fiercest battles will likely be fought. But another electoral map is shaping up too: The states where voters will decide where to raise their minimum wage.
And soon, those pay-boosting ballot measures might have some serious money behind them. A large California union is seed funding an organization aimed at accelerating such campaigns around the country, seizing on growing public support for raising the minimum wage to heights that just one cycle ago would have seemed like total fantasy.
It’s called the Fairness Project, officially launching Thursday, and it’s already focusing on three jurisdictions: California, Maine and the District of Columbia, with potentially more to come as funding becomes available. And the group's main backer, the Service Employees International Union’s 80,000-person strong United Healthcare Workers local in California, says it’s talking with a handful more.
“This is the best value in American politics,” says SEIU-UHW president Dave Regan, who last year laid out a strategy to raise wages through ballot initiatives in the 24 states that allow them. “If you can amass $25 million, you can put a question in front of half the country that simply can’t be moved through legislatures because of big money in politics.”
The organization doesn’t have $25 million yet, just a couple million; Regan declined to specify exactly how much. SEIU headquarters, despite waging its own multi-million dollar “Fight for $15” campaign to raise wages around the country, has yet to pitch in (which may have something to do with the fact that Regan has had a testy relationship with SEIU’s president, Mary Kay Henry; SEIU declined to comment).
But Regan says he hopes that as union locals do their budgets for the 2016 campaigns, they’ll contribute, partly as a way to resuscitate the labor movement’s image. “Most of the discourse around unions is negative,” Regan says. "So the Fairness Project is saying, 'Look, we can win for tens of millions of people, just if we’re committed to doing this.'"
They’ve picked a soft target. According to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, minimum wage measures have been tried 20 times in 16 states since 1996, and all but two succeeded. The earlier victories came in waves, starting with the “living wage” movement in the 1990s. The campaigns even work in conservative states: in 2004, John Kerry lost Florida, but a minimum wage hike passed with 70 percent of the vote.
Even though those measures may not have made it through state legislatures, in combination, they do seem to add momentum for minimum wage hikes on the federal level — Congress responded with legislation in 1997 after a spate of ballot initiatives, and again in 2007 and 2008. Sometimes, just the credible threat of a ballot initiative can spur state houses to action where previously they had no interest, although the final result may end up watered down.
Most recently, in 2014, minimum wage measures passed in Arkansas, Alaska, Nebraska, and South Dakota. This latest wave is even more ambitious than the first and second, says Brian Kettenring, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy — and it benefits from the narrative around inequality that arose during an economic recovery that delivered very little wage growth.
"In some ways the most powerful, because it’s the most visionary in terms of the Fight for $15,” Kettenring says. “What the project hits on that really makes sense is engaging inequality through the ballot initiative.”
Still, there’s no guarantee of success, and credible initiative campaigns do take money. They also have a lot of common needs, like polling, voter targeting, Website design, and message strategy. That’s where Ryan Johnson, the Fairness Project’s executive director, says the group can help.
“There are a lot of very expensive things with ballot initiatives,” Johnson says. “Things that work with presidential campaigns — could we take the lead in investing in those directly and at scale? It saves people a couple grand here, and couple grand there.”
It’s a model that’s worked for other causes, as well, such as marriage equality and medical marijuana. The ballot initiative process has long been used by both conservative and liberal groups, with varying degrees of scale, sometimes with the side effect of driving turnout for Democratic or Republican candidates.
The support will help campaigns that usually lack major corporate financing, and have to sustain themselves with volunteers and small dollar donations. Amy Halsted, of the Maine Peoples’ Alliance, says the organization received unprecedented financial support for its push to raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 by 2020 — it has raised about $150,000.
But it could use help with big-ticket items that are more efficiently provided by a central coordinating body, like consulting and tech support. And besides, a national campaign has a galvanizing effect in itself.
“One of the things we’re excited about is their ability to sustain that energy that exists nationally, and try to create an echo chamber,” she says. "The ability to connect all the movements I think is powerful and exciting, and makes our hundreds of volunteers feel connected to a big national campaign.”
The Fairness Project may not even be the only game in town when it comes to national support for minimum wage campaigns. Seattle billionaire Nick Hanauer, who helped bankroll the successful $15 an hour campaign there, isn’t contributing — he thinks the group has got the wrong message. “The majority of workers want the economy to grow,” he wrote in an e-mail, arguing that high wages are good for business. “Growth sells. Complaining about fairness does not.” (Regan says their initial focus groups responded well to the fairness message.)
But Hanauer may be supporting other campaigns independently — including a ballot initiative in his home state of Washington. “We hope to influence the messaging on a lot of the campaigns that will unfold in ’15 and ’16,” he says.
Ballots will likely becrowded with other measures, too — with more and more state legislatures controlled by Republicans, liberal groups are trying to put gun control and marijuana legalization questions before voters directly.
Facing that popular onslaught, the business community is weighing its options.
In some places, like Maine, the opposition might not be that fierce. Although business groups grumbled when the $12 statewide ballot initiative was introduced, the state’s biggest city — Portland — already passed a law that would raise the wage at least that high by 2018. On top of that, they’refighting a city vote on a local $15 minimum.
“$12 is not out of the question here, as long as it's statewide,” said Toby McGrath, who’s running the campaign against the $15 measure for the Portland Chamber of Commerce.
California, however, will see a more pitched battle. Business groups managed to stall a $13 minimum wage hike proposal in the legislature. Tom Scott, California’s state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, says there's still a lot of time yet to build an employer response to the ballot measure that labor backers say just got enough signatures to qualify.
“There’s going to be a huge coalition opposition a minimum wage increase,” he says. “This is a very long process. And the one thing about ballot initiatives — depending on how it’s worded, if it’s a yes or a no, in California, if I can in 15 seconds create confusion or questions, people will typically vote no.”
But if young people vote in large numbers, Scott worries they could be hard to beat. “I would just be fearful of the voter turnout,” he says, "and the demographics of who’s turning out.”
After publication, SEIU headquarters reached out to add the following statement:
SEIU works directly with our local unions in states to evaluate ballot initiatives on a state by state basis and determine which ones will advance better jobs and better wages for working people.
Source: Washington Post
‘Patriot’ Dimon dodges calls to disavow Trump policies
By Ben McLannahan
Jamie Dimon endured a rough ride at the annual meeting of America’s biggest bank on Tuesday morning, as shareholders repeatedly attacked the JPMorgan Chase chief over his...
By Ben McLannahan
Jamie Dimon endured a rough ride at the annual meeting of America’s biggest bank on Tuesday morning, as shareholders repeatedly attacked the JPMorgan Chase chief over his ties to the administration of Donald Trump.
In December Mr Dimon was named chairman of the Business Roundtable, a group of almost 200 CEOs which is among the most prominent lobbying groups in Washington. Mr Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan for the past 11 years and chairman for 10, is also a member of Mr Trump’s strategic and policy forum, which meets regularly to shape the economic agenda.
At the meeting in Wilmington, Delaware, a succession of shareholders challenged Mr Dimon to publicly disavow some of Mr Trump’s policies, such as his curbs on immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and his building a wall on the border with Mexico. One shareholder noted that users had sent more than 4000 messages to a website, backersofhate.org, urging Mr Dimon to “distance himself from hateful policies of human suffering”.
After staying silent throughout several speeches from the floor, Mr Dimon defended the bank’s record on Mexico, its support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and its funding of private prisons.
Finally, he said of Mr Trump: “He is the president of the United States, he is the pilot flying the aeroplane. I’d try to help any president of the US because I’m a patriot. That does not mean I agree with every policy he is trying to implement.”
Mr Dimon has long been the most outspoken of the big-bank chiefs in the US, often using his shareholder letter as a platform for taking positions on matters of public policy, and for challenging the regulatory framework put in place since the 2008 crisis.
In the weeks after the presidential election, the 61 year old was approached by members of Mr Trump’s transition team to serve as Treasury secretary but declined, saying he was unsuited to the role, according to people familiar with the discussions.
As hostile questioning resumed after his remarks at the Tuesday meeting, Mr Dimon tried to lighten the mood, saying “you’re starting to hurt my feelings”. The shareholder admonished him by saying that just by hearing him out, the chief executive would earn more than $100.
“I hope it’s worth it!” said Mr Dimon, who was paid $28m last year.
“This is not a laughing matter,” the shareholder replied.
The meeting stood in contrast to the peaceful gathering at the Goldman Sachs building in Jersey City at the end of last month, when chief executive Lloyd Blankfein faced just two questions from the floor, both of them friendly. Mr Blankfein, who is also chairman of the board, closed the meeting within just 24 minutes.
Mr Dimon wrapped up Tuesday’s proceedings by saying the entire board “takes this feedback seriously”.
Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said after the meeting that until Mr Dimon takes a stronger stand her organisation would continue to associate JPMorgan Chase with Mr Trump’s “anti-immigration” agenda.
Ms Archila arrived in America 20 years ago to reunite with her father, who had fled political violence in Colombia.
“I don’t think we have a plan to really inflict economic damages on the bank just yet,” she said. “But what we do have a plan for, is to force them to clarify whose side they’re on.”
Protesters disrupt Senate hearing on health care bill that may be dead
Protesters disrupt Senate hearing on health care bill that may be dead
WASHINGTON — The Republican bill to replace Obamacare appears all but dead in the Senate, but the chamber’s Finance Committee proceeded with a hearing on it anyway Monday afternoon.
Finance...
WASHINGTON — The Republican bill to replace Obamacare appears all but dead in the Senate, but the chamber’s Finance Committee proceeded with a hearing on it anyway Monday afternoon.
Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch asked by a reporter what chance the bill has of passing, replied “Zero. ... I don’t think it has much chance. The Democrats aren’t going to support it. They’re too interested in demagoguing it.”
Read the full article here.
Immigrants, Advocates Rally For New York State Citizenship
CBS New York - June 16, 2014 - They are not U.S. citizens, but a plan is in the works to allow undocumented New Yorkers to become citizens of the state.
Chanting “New York is my home” and...
CBS New York - June 16, 2014 - They are not U.S. citizens, but a plan is in the works to allow undocumented New Yorkers to become citizens of the state.
Chanting “New York is my home” and with the Statue of Liberty in the background, immigrants and their advocates rallied for New York state citizenship in Battery Park on Monday, WCBS 880′s Peter Haskell reported.
The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, D-Bronx, said the legislation would grant state citizenship if “someone can demonstrate proof of identity, live here for three consecutive years, pay taxes for three consecutive years.”
Assemblyman Karim Camara, D-Brooklyn, said state citizenship would allow 2.7 million immigrants to legally drive, vote in state and local elections and receive tuition aid.
“We have the opportunity now to step in where the federal government has not and make New York stronger by strengthening the rights of new immigrants,” Camara said.
The bill is not likely to pass, but is being called a conversation starter, Haskell reported.
“We deserve to receive the aid necessary for us to go to college,” said Antonio Alarcon, 19. “We deserve to vote. We deserve to drive.”
Source
Zara Latest ‘Cool’ Retailer in Hot Water for Alleged Discrimination
Spanish fashion chain Zara is among several “hip” retailers making headlines recently for alleged discrimination against employees.
Ian Miller, a former attorney for the mega-...
Spanish fashion chain Zara is among several “hip” retailers making headlines recently for alleged discrimination against employees.
Ian Miller, a former attorney for the mega-retailer, claims he was harassed and discriminated against for being Jewish and gay. In his $40 million lawsuit against the company, which is owned by Inditex SA, Miller alleges that he was excluded from meetings, given smaller raises than other employees and subjected to discriminatory remarks.
In addition, the Center for Popular Democracy released a survey of New York–based Zara employees, titled “Stitched with Prejudice: Zara USA’s Corporate Culture of Favoritism.” The report found that black employees are more dissatisfied with their hours than white employees, are reviewed more harshly by management and are least likely to be promoted.
When it comes to people who shop at Zara, black customers are seven times more likely to be targeted as potential thieves than white customers, the report found.
A spokesperson for Inditex refuted the claims in the Center for Popular Democracy report in a statement to FOXBusiness.com.
“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. Zara USA believes that the claims made in the report are completely inconsistent with the company’s true culture and the experiences of the over 1,100 Zara employees in New York City and over 3,500 in all the US,” said the spokesperson.
Perhaps even more high profile is a discrimination case involving Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), which made its way to the Supreme Court. The preppy retailer known for its presence in American malls was sued by Samantha Elauf, a young Muslim woman who wore a headscarf to a job interview at the company seven years ago.
“Ms. Elauf never informed Abercrombie before its hiring decision that she wore her head scarf, or ‘hijab,’ for religious reasons,” the ruling stated.
The Supreme Court recently overturned that decision.
A spokesperson for Abercrombie & Fitch told FOXBusiness.com in a statement that although the Tenth Circuit decision was overturned by the Supreme Court, it was not determined that the company discriminated against Elauf.
“We will determine our next steps in the litigation, which the Supreme Court remanded for further consideration. A&F remains focused on ensuring the company has an open-minded and tolerant workplace environment for all current and future store associates. We have made significant enhancements to our store associate policies, including the replacement of the 'look policy' with a new dress code that allows associates to be more individualistic; changed our hiring practices to not consider attractiveness; and changed store associates' titles from 'Model' to 'Brand Representative' to align with their new customer focus. This case relates to events occurring in 2008. A&F has a longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion, and consistent with the law, has granted numerous religious accommodations when requested, including hijabs,” the spokesperson said.
Nasty Gal, a self-described “global online destination for fashion-forward, free-thinking girls,” is being sued for illegally firing Aimee Concepcion and several other employees either before taking or during maternity/paternity leave.
The lawyer for the former employee that filed the suit, who will represent three other female ex-employees in arbitration hearings, said “they were the only pregnant females who provided notice of maternity leave before being terminated, and …their jobs were taken over by other employees.”
"The accusations made in the lawsuits are false, defamatory and taken completely out of context,” a Nasty Gal spokesperson told FOXBusiness.com. “The layoffs in question were part of a larger restructuring of departments we completed over nine months ago. The lawsuits are frivolous and without merit."
When it comes to the likelihood of this case succeeding in court, it is worth looking to similar prior verdicts for perspective.
“Shortly before they filed the Nasty Gal lawsuit, a $7.7 million verdict in favor of a pregnant (at the pertinent time) Price is Right model was affirmed by a California appellate court,” said Jeff Trexler, associate director at Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute.
On the flip side, “If Nasty Gal can show that it actually provided the requisite notices, offered reasonable accommodation to her (Concepcion’s) pregnancy, wasn't motivated to fire her because of her pregnancy, and did not treat pregnant women differently from other employees in similar positions, there's a substantial possibility that the company will prevail,” said Trexler.
Retail stores have also received flack in recent months for selling discriminatory merchandise. Urban Outfitters (URBN) was condemned by organizations including the Human Rights Campaign and the Anti-Defamation League for a gray- and white-striped tapestry imprinted with a pink triangle that was sold at a store in Boulder, Colorado. The groups said the item projected Holocaust imagery, specifically of the uniforms gay men were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps. Calls for comment to Urban Outfitters were not returned by the time of publication.
Despite the extent of public outcry over the merchandise, Urban Outfitters is technically allowed to sell whatever it wants.
“Designs evocative of Nazi imagery may be offensive, but they're no more illegal than the Confederate flag; ultimately, the decision to stop selling designs with either image comes down to ethical and reputation management concerns,” said Trexler.
In recent weeks, several retailers including Wal-Mart (WMT), Sears (SHLD) and Amazon (AMZN) announced they would stop selling Confederate battle flag merchandise following the mass shooting in June at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
No stranger to controversy, Zara was also accused of selling discriminatory merchandise. A 2014 white-and-blue striped shirt, which featured a six-pointed star, came under fire for its resemblance to uniforms worn by Jewish prisoners at Nazi concentration camp. The “sheriff shirt” was pulled from the retailer’s site after it issued an apology.
So, is outcry over discrimination becoming more common in the retail industry, or is it simply that intense media scrutiny is making it seem like it is?
“Allegations of discrimination are nothing new in fashion, as with any business, but what's particularly noteworthy now is their potential to have a substantial negative impact on a brand,” said Trexler. “One could say that the way people characterize discrimination is shifting from incident to identity, and in this fashion reflects a broader cultural trend that has emerged alongside advances in communications technology.”
When asked if changes in the law are making discrimination lawsuits easier to file, Trexler said that enforcement has shifted “in ways that arguably encourage people to take legal action.”
Most notably, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has worked to make pregnancy discrimination an enforcement priority, and a Supreme Court decision also raised awareness on the issue.
“Acts that might have gone unchallenged in years past now might be more likely to spark a lawsuit,” said Trexler.
Source: Fox Business
Occupy the Minimum Wage: Will Young People Restore the Strength of Unions?
The Guardian - January 26, 2014, by Rose Hackman - Alicia White, 25, defied the odds of a poor background by attending college on a partial scholarship and going to graduate school. While she...
The Guardian - January 26, 2014, by Rose Hackman - Alicia White, 25, defied the odds of a poor background by attending college on a partial scholarship and going to graduate school. While she spends her days applying for jobs, the only work she has found so far is face-painting at children’s birthday parties.
“By going to college and graduate school, I thought I was insulating myself from being broke and sleeping on friends’ couches and being hungry again. The big, scary part is that I am going to end up where I was, but now I am going to be in that awful situation with $50,000 of debt,” White says.
White’s story is no exception. One in two college graduates are now either unemployed or underemployed. Millennials – even those from the middle class – are experiencing income inequality and America’s failed dream of upward mobility first-hand. The mismatch of college-educated young workers with low-wage, unskilled, precarious jobs is creating a new face of the once-dwindling American labor movement: young, diverse, led by millennials in their twenties and thirties, and fighting what they see as an unfair labor market. Their modest cause? Pushing for a higher minimum wage.
Because of too many young people interested looking for work, these millennials reason that the labor movement is the only way to address large-scale poverty and income inequality – starting with their own.
The "Fight for 15" movement is the most visible of these. Designed by the SEIU to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour, the effort has been driven by young activists. Last fall, the movement claimed its first legislative victory with residents in SeaTac, Seattle’s airport carrying suburb, voting to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“There’s more enthusiasm than there has been probably in our lifetime for this,” says Ady Barkan, a 30-year-old Yale Law graduate and staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy in New York, indicating that the "Fight for 15" movement is picking up where Occupy Wall Street left off. He calls it “part of a similar cultural moment”.
It doesn't hurt the movement that the difference in pay between unionized and non-union jobs is pronounced. The median weekly earnings of union members in 2012 was $943, compared to $742 for those not in a union, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its recently released annual survey of labor.
“The dismal prospects for young workers are underscoring the fact that you can’t rebuild an economy on low-wage jobs and that inequality has reached a point where it really is an existential crisis for America,” says Annette Bernhardt, UC Berkeley's visiting sociology professor, whose work has focused on the low-wage economy and inequality.
Demographically, even the modest interest millennials have shown in the labor movement recently is a reversal of decades of disinterest. Unions have been ageing out of the economy along with their members, with nearly one in six union members aged 55-64, according to the BLS. Amid other trends – offshoring, automation, the growth of a service-centered economy – the share of national income that comes from labor unionshas been steadily falling since the 1970s. Union membership is at its lowest point in recent memory, with only 11.3% of Americans in unions. Critics, including the Center for American Progress blame those trends for the decline of the middle class.
Membership in unions is low for millennials – with only 11% of union members falling in the 25-34 age group, compared to 16% for workers between 55-64 – but their political views tend to align with the labor movement. A Pew poll this June showed 61% of Americans 18-24 in favor of unions, with strongest support coming from women and minority groups.
Diversity is more evident in the newer labor movement among millennials, reflecting the dominance of black and hispanic workers in unions nationally.
Jose Lopez, 27, is an organizer who works with Make the Road New York, mobilizing fast food and car wash workers. His previous work within the same organization involved pairing up young community members and artists with local businesses to paint storefronts, raising awareness about police brutality and stop-and-frisk. Lopez plans on bringing the same type of creativity to mobilize people around issues of inadequate income and wage theft, he said.
Protestor Janah Bailey, 21, of Chicago, currently works two fast food jobs: one full-time at Wendy’s, which she says pays $8.25 an hour, and one part-time at McDonald’s, which pays $8.40. On one day last year, Bailey walked out on both jobs for strikes against low pay. She says $15 an hour would change her life “tremendously”, expecting she would only have to work one job to make ends meet and help support her family, and spend her newly acquired spare time on studying to open up her own business.
The persistence of low wages is also mobilizing millennials who have never known a healthy job market. David Meni, 20, says he has held down a plethora of unpaid positions, internships and temporary jobs since his sophomore year of high school. His George Washington University chapter of the Roosevelt Institute’s Campus Network recently joined other local organizations in successfully pressuring the Washington DC city council to vote for an increase in the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour by 2016 from its current level of $8.50 an hour – despite the opposition of large corporations including Walmart.
That is not to say that young people will revolutionize the labor movement immediately. Millennials have an uphill battle in turning around the decline of labor. Studies show that while millennials support unions, until now, they have rarely joined them, perhaps in the belief that their low-paying jobs were temporary.
That perception may be changing as it becomes evident that lower wages are likely to be the norm for a long time.
Many economists predict that low wages are likely to continue into 2014, as pressure continues from corporate executives eager to return profits to their shareholders – namely by keeping a lid on expenses like pay. In a research report this week, influential economist Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs directly ties the 6.5% rise of corporate profits to the nearly inert 2% growth of US wages.
"The bottom line is that the favorable environment for corporate profits should persist for some time yet, and the case for an acceleration in the near term is strong," Hatzius wrote. "Eventually, the pendulum will swing back in the direction of lower profit margins and higher wages, but this still looks fairly distant."
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