Providence Journal - January 27,...
'All hands on deck': protesters to target healthcare bill at rallies across US
'All hands on deck': protesters to target healthcare bill at rallies across US
Activist groups praised John McCain for his promise to vote no on the Lindsey Graham-Bill Cassidy healthcare bill on Friday, but they warned against complacency as they said the fight to protect...
Activist groups praised John McCain for his promise to vote no on the Lindsey Graham-Bill Cassidy healthcare bill on Friday, but they warned against complacency as they said the fight to protect the Affordable Care Act was “not over”.
McCain’s pledge, which means Republicans can only afford to lose one more Senate vote in their quest to repeal the ACA, widely known as Obamacare, was met with celebration on the left.
Read the full article here.
Biggest U.S. Mass Protest & Rally Ever Staged for $15 Wage Set for April
Sky Valley Chronicle - April 1, 2015 - According to organizers, it's going to be huge. Fast food workers across the country, evidently unmoved by the Reagan era inspired...
Sky Valley Chronicle - April 1, 2015 - According to organizers, it's going to be huge. Fast food workers across the country, evidently unmoved by the Reagan era inspired trickle-down theory of economics plan on striking in hundreds of U.S. cities on April 15, tax day in efforts to secure a $15 an hour wage and the right to form unions without retaliation from employers.They say they'll be joined by more than 60,000 people across the country as well as others in 35 countries around the world and that this time workers from new industries will be standing with them – from home care and child care workers, to adjunct professors, to Walmart employees. One report calls the planned action a "series of global labor strikes with protests on college campuses." According to April15.org "Millions of underpaid workers can’t support their families or make ends meet on hourly wages that haven’t kept pace with the bills – or their employers’ profits. On April 15, fast food cashiers and cooks, retail employees, child care workers, home care providers, airport workers, and all of us who believe they deserve better are showing up in cities across the country to say ENOUGH."The April 15 strike action will include rallies and marches on 170 university campuses. CBS News notes that, "Expanding the labor movement to college campuses hearkens back to successful social movements that included pressure from university students, such as the 1980s divestment campaign against U.S. corporations that invested in apartheid-era South Africa. While college students have long served as a vocal social force in American history, though, there's a growing group on campuses seeking higher wages: adjunct professors."The same report quotes Tiffany Kraft, an adjunct professor in Portland, Oregon as saying, "The universities I work for pay me next to nothing and treat me like I'm expendable. I joined the Fight for $15 to demand higher wages and more respect for our role as educators." CBS reported that adjunct professors typically earn about $20,000 to $25,000 per year and get no health benefits or job security, even though "they hold doctorates or other advanced degrees."In many communities brick layers, construction workers and auto mechanics with no college degrees earn that and more.Terrence Wise, a Burger King worker from Kansas City, Missouri, and a national leader for the Fight for $15 push told the Associated Press "This will be the biggest mobilization America has seen in decades," and will feature some 2,000 groups including Jobs With Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy.
SourceYou can find out here where an event near you will take place.
Scam Central: Elizabeth Warren Tells Wells Fargo CEO to Resign and Get It Over With
Scam Central: Elizabeth Warren Tells Wells Fargo CEO to Resign and Get It Over With
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was on the hot seat Tuesday when he faced Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and other angry lawmakers at a Senate Banking Committee hearing designed to investigate...
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was on the hot seat Tuesday when he faced Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and other angry lawmakers at a Senate Banking Committee hearing designed to investigate the bank’s widespread rip-off of its customers.
Warren told Stumpf, who earns $19 million a year: “You should resign... You should be criminally investigated.”
Wells Fargo is the nation’s fourth largest bank by assets and its leading home lender.
Warren’s verbal assault on Stumpf generated considerable publicity. But this issue wouldn’t have surfaced in the first place without the hard work of several grassroots community and labor organizations, especially the Committee for Better Banks, that first brought the scandal to the attention of the media, elected officials and regulators.
Warren demanded both the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission criminally investigate Stumpf for Wells Fargo’s practice of pressuring its low-level employees to create over 2 million unwanted checking and credit-card accounts without consumers’ knowledge or permission in order to grow the bank’s stock price. Warren reminded Stumpf that during the years Wells Fargo engaged in this “scam,” Stumpf’s own portfolio of company stock increased by $200 million.
She urged Stumpf to return the compensation he received while these practices went on.
“So, you haven’t resigned, you haven’t returned a single nickel of your personal earnings, you haven’t fired a single senior executive,” Warren told Stumpf. “Instead, evidently, your definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don’t have the money for a fancy PR firm to defend themselves. It’s gutless leadership.”
“You squeezed your employees to the breaking point so they would cheat customers and you could drive up the value of your stock and put hundreds of millions of dollars in your own pocket,” Warren said.
Wells Fargo’s official line is that the employees were acting on their own to skim extra pay from the bogus accounts. Warren questioned Stumpf about the fraudulent accounts, asking how such an operation could have occurred without the knowledge of top management.
Wells Fargo employees say they did so because of what they call the bank’s “sell or die” quota system, which put pressure on employees to engage in these practices in order to keep their jobs. They said it was a routine practice employees referred to as “sandbagging.”
Activists are up in arms over Wells Fargo’s double standard in dealing with its employees. After the scandal was exposed by grassroots advocates, the media, and government regulators, the bank fired at least 5,300 employees and refunded millions of dollars to customers. But bank reform activists are skeptical that so many employees could have acted on their own without the knowledge of higher-up bank executives.
Meanwhile, in July, in the wake of the scandal, Carrie Tolstedt, Wells Fargo’s director of consumer banking, the operation that opened the fake accounts, abruptly left the bank where she had worked for 27 years. She took with her a $124.5 million bonus. After her retirement announcement, Stumpf praised Tolstedt as “a standard-bearer of our culture” and “a champion for our customers.”
Warren criticized Stumpf for failing to withdraw Tolstedt’s bonus (a practice known as a “clawback”) in light of the revelations about her division’s behavior. Stumpf said it was up to the bank’s compensation committee, comprised of board members, to decide whether to rescind Tolstedt’s bonus.
“If you have no opinions on the most massive fraud that’s hit this bank since the beginning of time, how can it be that you get to continue to collect a paycheck?” Warren asked.
Moreover, activists say that the problem goes well beyond Wells Fargo and is an industry-wide scandal.
Ruth Landaverde, a former employee at both Wells Fargo and Bank of America, said the pressure from her supervisors at both banks was so intense she developed a tic in her eye and had trouble sleeping. She told the Associated Press that in order to keep her job she was required to sell four credit cards and four auto loans each week in addition to three home mortgages or refinances.
“I wasn’t going to do something unethical, but the sales pressure was very real,” she said. “I can see why some employees did what they did.”
Landaverde is now a member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a statewide advocacy group that works on housing and banking issues and is a member of the Committee for Better Banks, a coalition of community and labor groups. In an email this week to ACCE members and supporters, she wrote:
“When I worked for Bank of America, I felt uncomfortable when I was given a list of bank customers and told to call them and push new accounts and credit cards that could end up sticking them with unnecessary fees and debt. What’s worse, we were targeting customers in low-income communities of color much more than the customers in more affluent zip codes.”
Landaverde said that “there are still many more banks that have not committed to stop requiring their employees to push unnecessary products in order to keep their jobs. And now, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf is throwing his own employees under the bus rather than accepting responsibility for the outrageous high-pressure sales culture that he and other Wall Street executives are creating!”
“I know first-hand that predatory sales exist across the U.S. banking industry,” said Cassaundra Plummer, a former teller at TD Bank and member of the Committee for Better Banks. “At TD bank, sales goals made it impossible for frontline bank workers to help customers find the financial products best suited to them. My manager would encourage customers to take out home equity lines to go on vacation which is the worst financial advice I’ve ever heard. We need to end predatory sales goals across the industry, not just Wells Fargo.”
Last year the Committee for Better Banks delivered a petition signed by more than 11,000 people to Stumpf, along with a letter noting that workers faced “pressures to meet sales quotas under strict monitoring and threat of losing their jobs, often forcing them to push unnecessary products and fees on to their customers, causing them stress and financial hardship,” and that loan servicing departments have been using similar tactics to push consumers toward riskier products they can ill afford.
The group has now launched another petition asking elected leaders in Los Angeles and other cities around the country to ban all city business with banks that force their employees to meet sales goals for high fee products such as credit cards, new accounts and home refinance loans. They say that these incentive programs create a system where bank workers are forced to engage in predatory practices against their professional and ethical beliefs.
“Wells Fargo’s action to eliminate sales quotas is a hard-won victory for front-line bank workers who have been denouncing abusive sales goals for over two years,” said Reuben Traite, an organizer with Committee for Better Banks. “The fact that Wells Fargo turned a blind eye is appalling. But these high pressure sales goals are rampant across big banks and we need to end it across the industry.”
Activists with the Los Angeles chapter of ACCE brought the issue to the attention of the Los Angeles Times, which broke the story in 2013. Once it made the papers, Los Angeles City Attorney Michael Feuer conducted his own investigation and then sued Wells Fargo. All that got the attention of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal agency created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank bank reform law.
Last week, CFPB director Richard Cordray, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry, and Feuer announced that they had reached settlements with Wells Fargo over its “major breach of trust.” Wells Fargo agreed to pay CFPB $100 million (the largest fine the agency has ever imposed) in addition to $50 million to the city and county of Los Angeles and $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Wells Fargo did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlements, although it issued an apology to its customers, promised to revise its sales practices, and agreed to refund consumers for fees assessed on checking and credit cards accounts they didn’t authorize.
Activists point out that the fines being levied against Wells Fargo are a drop in the bucket compared with Wells Fargo’s 2015 profits of $20 billion. It is even less than the more than $200 million in company stock that Stumpf owns. He serves on the board of directors of Target Corporation and Chevron Corporation, and until recently, on the board of the Financial Services Roundtable, a powerful industry lobby group.
The bank’s apology and refunds won’t make the issue go away. Many consumers are suing the bank as are former employees who say they were fired (or forced to resign) when they refused to engage in the fraudulent practices in order to meet the bank’s unrealistic sales quotas.
The issue first emerged in 2013 when the Los Angeles Times uncovered Wells Fargo’s illegal practices. In response to the Times story, Feuer initiated his own investigation and sued the bank, alleging it had “victimized their customers by using pernicious and often illegal sales tactics,” including unattainable quotas that pressured bank employees to “engage in fraudulent behavior.”
The CFPB undertook its own investigation and discovered that Wells Fargo employees opened as many as 1.5 million checking and savings accounts, and more than 500,000 credit cards, without consumers’ knowledge or permission.
The LA and CFPB investigations, the resulting media coverage, and Wells Fargo’s attempt to blame its lower-rung employees for the scandal led five Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee — Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jack Reed (R.I.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), and Warren — to push its Republican chairman, Richard Shelby of Alabama, to holdTuesday’s hearings. They sent Strumpf a letter last week expressing concern that consumers and low-level employees will bear the burden of the bank’s misconduct “while senior executives walk away with multimillion-dollar awards based on what the company later finds out are fraudulent practices.”
The San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has long been a target of bank reform activists for its troublesome track record of risky and reckless behavior. For more than a decade, grassroots groups have challenged Wells Fargo’s racially discriminatory lending practices and aggressive foreclosures. They have picketed at the offices and homes of the bank’s top executives, sued the bank for violating laws against racist mortgage lending, and testified before Congress, state legislatures and city councils demanding that they investigate and rein in Wells Fargo’s troublesome practices.
The activists have primarily been bank consumers and residents of neighborhoods harmed by Wells Fargo’s redlining and other practices. But the two-year-old Committee for Better Banks is comprised of bank employees as well as consumers, representing a new and potentially powerful coalition. Not surprisingly, the Committee for Better Banks is now part of the broader movement to raise wages for service-sector employees like bank tellers to $15 an hour.
The CBB is aligned with the Center for Popular Democracy, a national network of local activist groups that work on housing, banking, and workers rights issues. CPD helped set the stage for the current campaign with its study of bank workers. The CPD report revealed that some of the nation’s largest banks, including Wells Fargo and Citigroup, pressure front-line employees to engage in fraudulent practices to keep their jobs. According to the report, the bank employees try to serve customers responsibly, but feel pressure from higher-ups to meet the quotas.
A report last year by the National Employment Law Center on banking industry wages found that almost three quarters (74.1 percent) of U.S. bank tellers and almost half (44.2 percent) of bank customer service representatives earn less than $15 an hour. The median hourly wage for bank tellers is $12.44. A study by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education found that nearly one-third of the families of all tellers are on public assistance. In New York City, the capital of the nation’s banking industry, 39 percent of tellers and their family members are on some form of public assistance program.
Other groups involved in the better banking campaign include Move On, the Communication Workers of America, New York Communities for Change, ACCE, Jobs with Justice, Make the Road, and Americans for Financial Reform, a DC-based watchdog group.
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has called for dismantling nearly all of the Dodd-Frank reforms. In contrast, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton last week touted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's “forceful response” to the Wells Fargo scandal, adding that it was “a stark reminder of why we need a strong consumer watchdog to safeguard against unfair and deceptive practices.”
Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, a DC-based watchdog group that has played an important part in defending the CFPB from its opponents, said, “The current Wells Fargo scandal reveals why we need a strong regulatory agency that has the backs of bank consumers as well as employees.”
“Wells Fargo’s action to eliminate sales quotas is a hard-won victory for front-line bank workers like me who have been coming together in the Committee for Better Banks and working to end to high-pressure sales goals that hurt our families and communities,” said Julie Miller, a former Wells Fargo branch manager and a member of the Committee for Better Banks.
“Wells Fargo got into this scandal because it turned a deaf ear to the alarms sounded by consumers and its own workers, and its experience proves that these sales goals have no place in the consumer banking industry,” Miller said. “Predatory sales goals are rampant at big banks across the country, and we will keep on working and organizing to make sure Wells Fargo makes good on its word and that other banks follow suit by implementing fair business practices for workers and customers.”
By Peter Dreier
Source
Maggie Bulmer: Pause Charter School Expansion
Providence Journal - January 27, 2015, by Maggie Bulmer - Does supporting two parallel school systems make sense?
Did The Providence Journal editorial board research thoroughly before deciding to support the expanding of charter schools in Rhode Island (“Expand R.I. charters,” editorial, Jan. 25)?
There are several reliable studies that advocate caution before jumping into support for charters schools. The studies have uncovered waste, fraud and abuse totaling over $100 million in taxpayer loss in 15 large charter markets: Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Texas.
My notes, from the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education, indicate that half of the $100 million was spent on federal prosecution of charter school officials and staff.
The Center suggests pausing charter school expansion until problems are addressed. I agree. Inadequate oversight hurts kids and taxpayers. Let’s not plunge into the newest privatizing idea without studying the data and getting the facts.
Maggie Bulmer
Middletown
Source
The Women Who Confronted Jeff Flake In An Elevator Spoke Up About Why They Did It
The Women Who Confronted Jeff Flake In An Elevator Spoke Up About Why They Did It
In a viral moment that could potentially change the course of U.S. history, two women confronted Sen. Jeff Flake in an elevator on Friday and challenged him on his recently-announced support for...
In a viral moment that could potentially change the course of U.S. history, two women confronted Sen. Jeff Flake in an elevator on Friday and challenged him on his recently-announced support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who's been accused of sexual assault. The exchange is nothing short of riveting, and in several interviews, the women who confronted Flake explained why they did so, and what the experience was like.
Read the full article here.
Newark, NJ Passes Earned Sick Days Bill by 5-0
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 28, 2014
NEWARK CITY COUNCIL PASSES PAID SICK DAYS BILL
...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 28, 2014
NEWARK CITY COUNCIL PASSES PAID SICK DAYS BILL
IN 5-0 VOTE, NEWARK BECOMES 2ND CITY IN NJ TO GUARANTEE SICK DAYS
Passage of sick day laws in NJ’s two largest cities back to back spells major momentum for the issue statewide
The following statement can be attributed to Andrew Friedman, Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy:
“The rapid spread of paid sick days from city to city across the country shows that the public is strongly supportive of policy that improves the lives of working families. Progressive coalitions are leading the way, hand-in-hand with elected officials who are committed to a robust economy that creates good jobs and expands our country’s middle class.”
Contact:
TJ Helmstetter, the Center for Popular Democracy 973.464.9224, tjhelm@populardemocracy.org
Rob Duffey, NJ Working Families Alliance (973) 273-3363, rob@njworkingfamilies.org
Background:
In a move to protect Newark’s public health and bolster its economy the City Council adopted an ordinance that would allow all private-sector workers to earn paid sick days. The legislation passed by a vote of 5-0, and if signed by Mayor Luis Quintana the ordinance will make Newark the 2nd city in New Jersey and the 7th city in the nation to enact an earned sick days law.
“Tonight is a tremendous victory for 38,000 workers who will never again have to choose between their paycheck and their health or the health of their family,” said Kevin Brown, State Director of SEIU 32BJ. “By extending the right to earn sick days to every single worker in the city, Newark’s earned sick days law will be one of the most comprehensive in the nation. Lawmakers in Trenton and around the state should take notice.”
The Newark bill will allow private-sector workers to earn 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked. Those that work in businesses with 10 or more employees can earn 5 paid sick days per year; workers in businesses with nine or fewer employees would be eligible to earn 3 paid sick days per year. In addition, employees directly in contact with the public would be eligible to earn 5 sick days regardless of company size, and the days can be used to care for themselves or family members.
“When I caught the flu last winter I knew I couldn’t go to work and risk infecting my clients,” said Tamika Hawkins a professional home health care provider who lives in Newark and a member of New Jersey Communities United. “But without pay I fell behind on my bills and even received a shutdown notice from the electric company. This law will make a big difference for me and other hard-working people in Newark, and I’m proud that our city is now a leader in this fight.”
Nearly one quarter of adults in the US have been fired or threatened with job loss for taking time off to recover from illness or care for a sick loved one, and the absence of paid sick days disproportionately affects low-income individuals. For a low-income family without paid sick days, going just 3.5 days without wages is the equivalent to losing a month’s groceries.
As of 2010 Newark's poverty rate exceeds 30%.
“Through our community organizing work we are actively engaging residents on the issues they care most about and workplace issues frequently rise to the top of community concerns,” said Trina Scordo, executive director of NJ Communities United. “We have found that low-wage workers in particular fear losing their jobs if they call in sick to take care of themselves or their children. Passing earned sick days is especially important for residents working in direct care, retail, fast food, or any other industry where workers are in frequent contact with the public. There’s no question that paid sick days improves the lives of working families and the fabric of our communities.”
Health professionals praised the legislation for including special public health protections, including ensuring that workers in regular contact with the public are able to earn a full five sick days.
“By passing this legislation, Newark will join Jersey City as a city in our state that looks to protect workers, consumers, families, and the community as a whole from the spread of contagious illness and from ensuing health care costs,” said Elmer, RN and President of the Health Professional and Allied Employees Local 5089. “Providing earned sick days is a modest policy that will have a big impact."
Advocates also touted the economic benefits of the legislation. Last week the Time to Care Coalition delivered a letter from over 20 New Jersey economists to the Newark Council urging them to support the law, saying it will bring tangible benefits to the local economy. On Tuesday a report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research confirmed that the city and local businesses will actually save money because of the legislation. Studies of earned sick days laws passed in San Francisco and Seattle showed no negative impact from earned sick days on local economies, and both cities outpaced neighbors that lacked earned sick time protection.
“Workers coming to work sick actually costs our nation $160 billion annually, far more than the cost of workers staying at home to recover,” said Karen White, Director of the Working Families Program at the Rutgers Center for Women and Work. “When sick workers stay home, the spread of disease slows and workplaces are healthier and more productive. And by letting workers earn sick days businesses put money in the pockets of low-income workers who go out into the marketplace and spend it on goods and services. It’s a win-win for workers, employers, and local economies.”
Support for the law has been overwhelming. The New Jersey Working Families Alliance delivered 10,000 postcards from Newark voters urging the City Council to pass the law, and earlier today New Jersey Citizen Action delivered a letter from over 60 organizations around New Jersey in support of the legislation. A September poll from Rutgers-Eagleton showed a commanding 82% of Essex County residents supported the policy.
“Working families are looking to their elected officials to show leadership in this fight for what should be a basic worker’s right, and today the Newark City Council stepped up,” said Bill Holland, executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance. “After tonight’s vote there’s no denying it: the national momentum for earned sick days laws has broken through to New Jersey in a big way.”
The legislation comes just two months after Jersey City passed the first earned sick days law in New Jersey. Five other cities – Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Seattle; New York City; and Portland, Oregon – have taken action to help boost the economy by making sure workers can hang on to critical income when ill. On Tuesday Washington, D.C. expanded their existing paid sick days laws to cover all workers. In New York City, paid sick days legislation was a powerful determinant in the outcome of this month’s Democratic primary for mayor, as voters were less likely to vote for Speaker Christine Quinn after she blocked action on paid sick days for three years. Campaigns for statewide sick days laws are moving forward in Vermont, Massachusetts, Oregon and elsewhere.
Looking forward, advocates pointed to a statewide bill introduced this spring by Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt and Senator Loretta Weinberg that would cover all of New Jersey’s 1.5 million workers who currently lack paid sick days. The bill is being championed by the statewide Time to Care Coalition.
“While tonight’s vote is a huge victory for working families, there are still over a million New Jerseyans who lack the basic security that earned sick days provide,” said Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, Executive Director of New Jersey Citizen and spokesperson for the Time to Care Coalition. “In the coming year we’re going to build on the momentum from our victories in Jersey City and Newark and make New Jersey a leader in this nationwide fight for fairer, healthier, and more prosperous communities.”
Coalition members that supported earned sick days in Newark and Jersey City include the Time to Care Coalition, Center for Popular Democracy, SEIU 32BJ, the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, New Jersey Communities United, the ACLU of New Jersey, the Committee of Interns and Residents SEIU, the New Jersey NAACP, Health Professionals and Allied Employees, AFT, New Jersey Citizen Action, CWA District 1, and AFSCME Council 1.
Additional reaction to Earned Sick Days Passage:
"A healthier and more productive workforce benefits everyone. This Newark ordinance is a win -win for employees, businesses, and our whole economy," said Corinne Horrowitz, business representative of the New Jersey Main Street Alliance.
"Paid sick days is a human rights issue. Families must be able to take care of their love ones without thinking about how they will pay their bills for taking a sick day off," said Virgilio Oscar Aran, Executive Director of Laundry Workers Center.
"This is a proud day for Newark," said Udi Ofer, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey. "No one should be forced to choose between protecting their health and their job. This new requirement of paid sick days will give Newarkers fundamental protections to keep their families healthy and their jobs secure. We commend Councilman Anibal Ramos for his leadership and the Newark Municipal Council for its passage of this critically important policy. We look forward to continuing to work with allies and lawmakers across the state to ensure all New Jerseyans have the basic protections Newark workers will now have."
“Low income workers should have the same worker benefits as others," said Raymond Ocasio, executive director of La Casa de Don Pedro. "We all can get sick, and having sick days through the Newark Earned Sick Days Ordinance and access to health care under the Affordable Care Act will only make us all better off.”
“This is a great day for Newark and for its working caregivers. We know that nearly 2 out of 3 workers ages 45 to 74 have caregiving responsibilities for an aging or other adult relative. And caregivers without earned sick days have historically been forced to make some really hard choices. Now, as a result of this measure, if they or one of their close family members get sick, they won’t have to choose between keeping their jobs or taking the time to get well or care for loved ones,” said Dave Mollen, AARP New Jersey State President.
"This Earned Sick Time ordinance is designed for my patients who must choose between taking care of themselves and preventing the spread of viruses or making sure they don't lose a day's wages or even their job," said Dr. Ahmed Yousaf, Vice President for the Committee of Interns and Residents-SEIU. "Because of the realities of urban life, the health of one can very quickly affect the health of all of us. By moving this bill forward, the Council is standing up for the health of all Newarkers."
"Newark's passage of paid sick days reflects a turning point for these policies in this country," said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values @ Work, the national network of 21 city and state coalitions, including the Time to Care Coalition in New Jersey, working on these issues. "In 2013 alone, the number of cities who have passed paid sick days has more than doubled, underscoring the overwhelming public support and momentum for common-sense policies that value families at work. We applaud our member coalition in Newark, which moved quickly to implement legislation that will grant 38,000 workers with access to paid sick days, including 'carving in' workers involved in direct service food, home care and child care, and which will pave the way for similar victories in Trenton and beyond."
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Activists: US Justice Department Response to Baltimore Police Racism Falls Short
Activists: US Justice Department Response to Baltimore Police Racism Falls Short
The response by the US Department of Justice to exposing Baltimore Police Department (BPD) violations of citizens’ constitutional rights falls short of addressing the systemic problem of racism in...
The response by the US Department of Justice to exposing Baltimore Police Department (BPD) violations of citizens’ constitutional rights falls short of addressing the systemic problem of racism in US policing, activists said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — "[The Department of Justice] is being forced to look like it is responsive, so to speak, but it also can’t deal with the systemic nature of things," Pan-African Community Action activist Netfa Freeman told Sputnik.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department released a report concluding that the BPD systematically engaged in conduct that violates the US Constitution, and disproportionately targets African-Americans. In response, the Justice Department entered into a consent agreement with the BPD to reform the latter.
"We know it is not just Baltimore and it’s not just ‘bad apples’," Freeman said. The report is still "treating things like they are isolated incidents, not like it is a systemic problem or an epidemic," he said of anti-black police misconduct.
In a forum hosted by the Institute for Policy Studies, policy advocate at the Center for Popular Democracy, Marbre Stahly-Butts, said that while it was "important" for the federal government to articulate the problem of police abuses, Justice Department's actions did not go far enough.
An anti-terrorism rehearsal is held targeting a possible bomb attack during the Olympic Games at the main bus station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on May 12, 2016
Stahly-Butts argued the Justice Department should leverage the findings of the report to cut off funding to local law enforcement caught violating federal law.
"If we find… that you are violating the basic human rights of people in this city, we, as the government, will not give you taxpayer money to do that," Stahly-Butts said.
The Justice Department report covered police misconduct that took place from January 2010 through May 2015. The investigation was launched in 2015 following the widely publicized death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American who died from wounds he sustained while in BPD custody.
Source
Loan market shrugs off prison financing protests
Loan market shrugs off prison financing protests
Advocacy groups in New York gathered Wednesday near JP Morgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s apartment, calling on the bank to stop lending to private prison and immigration detention...
Advocacy groups in New York gathered Wednesday near JP Morgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s apartment, calling on the bank to stop lending to private prison and immigration detention companies, according to the Center for Popular Democracy, one of the protest organizers.
Read the full article here.
Banks on the Run (Continued)
The Nation - April 30, 2013 - You can’t talk about poverty without talking about the practices of the big banks, including their continuing refusal to stem the foreclosure crisis through mortgage...
The Nation - April 30, 2013 - You can’t talk about poverty without talking about the practices of the big banks, including their continuing refusal to stem the foreclosure crisis through mortgage principal reductions.
Consider this: Latinos lost 66 percent of their household wealth after the housing bubble burst, and African-American households lost 53 percent. Nearly 12 million families—disproportionately people of color—have either lost their homes or are currently in foreclosure, and another 16 million are underwater, owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
Communities are decimated by boarded up houses and vacant lots, declining property values and the consequent loss of state and local revenues, and fewer opportunities to weather and recover from financial hardship. A new study from the Urban Institute indicates that white families now average six times the wealth of African-American and Latino families.
So when US Bank executives fled Minneapolis two weeks ago to hold their annual shareholders meeting in what they believed would be friendlier confines in Boise, it was important that activists from Minnesota and Oregon traveled to join Idahoans in an effort to hold the bank accountable. Then last week, Wells Fargo bankers traveled from San Francisco to Salt Lake City for their shareholders meeting, and activists again weren’t deterred—they came from California, Colorado and New York to stand with local groups and protest the bank’s practices.
“Wells Fargo moved the shareholders meeting to Salt Lake because last year there were 3,000 people in the streets in San Francisco,” said Maurice Weeks, campaign coordinator for the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), which had fifteen members make the eleven-hour trip to Utah. “We wanted them to know that they can’t hide from us.”
ACCE members attended the shareholders meeting as legal proxies. They were joined by members of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP) from New York, the Colorado Student Power Alliance and local groups from Salt Lake City that were focused on Wells Fargo’s investments in private prisons and the impact on communities of color.
Several ACCE members in attendance were facing immediate foreclosures and welcomed the opportunity to tell Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf—who was paid $22.87 million last year, more than any other banker—that they hadn’t been given a fair shake.
“We’re talking about folks who could pay their mortgages and stay in their houses with a modification, and Wells refuses,” said Weeks. “We’ve had situations where a HUD counselor tells our members that they qualify and Wells still denies a modification.”
More broadly, ACCE was there to demand that Wells commit to pursuing principal reductions—reducing the amount owed on a mortgage so that it reflects the fair market value of the property—wherever they are legally able to do so. A recent report from ACCE, the Center for Popular Democracy and the Home Defenders League suggests that foreclosing on the more than 11,600 California homes currently in Wells’s foreclosure pipeline—which are concentrated in poor and non-white communities—would cost the state approximately $3.3 billion due to the decreased value of the foreclosed properties, decreased value of homes in the surrounding communities and lost tax revenues. In contrast, a comprehensive program of principal reduction would stabilize households, increase tax revenues and boost the economic vitality of distressed communities. (Modifications also happen to be better for the investors who hold the mortgage, but unfortunately banks that service the mortgages—like Wells Fargo—can often make more money by foreclosing.)
A second key demand by ACCE members was that Wells Fargo report its data on principal reductions, short sales and foreclosures by race, income and zip code. Last year, the bank reached a $175 million settlement with the Department of Justice for allegedly charging African-American and Latino borrowers higher rates and fees and steering them into subprime loans when they should have qualified for regular loans.
“Our members want to make sure Wells isn’t still preying on communities of color,” said Weeks.
NEDAC presented a resolution for an independent investigation of Wells Fargo’s business practices in order to ensure that they don’t violate any fair lending or fair mortgage laws. Although the resolution was voted down, Weeks said it received more discussion than any other resolution presented to the shareholders.
“ACCE members—but also people we didn’t know—were all voicing concerns about Wells Fargo’s mortgage practices,” said Weeks.
According to Weeks, when Stumpf tried to move onto “business as usual,” Makayla Major, an ACCE member from East Oakland, stood up and shouted, “John Stumpf, you’re a liar and a crook. You are stealing too many homes in my neighborhood!” Weeks said that the room was lined with “forty or fifty” security guards and that “six or seven” immediately moved in to “make her be quiet.”
Then ACCE member Manuela Alvarez—who has been trying unsuccessfully to modify her subprime loan since her husband was injured on the job—said, “You are trying to steal my home, like you’ve stolen the homes of tens of thousands of other hard-working families. It’s time for you to be held accountable!”
She, too, was quickly surrounded by security.
ACCE member Melvin Willis then began reading a “Citizens Arrest Warrant” for Stumpf for “the following crimes: illegally foreclosing on millions of homeowners nationwide; intentionally targeting communities of color with predatory, high-cost loans; and gouging students with predatory student loans—usury.”
“He was immediately swarmed and at that point we were all escorted out of the room and the hotel,” said Weeks. “But John Stumpf and the shareholders definitely heard our message, and we made it clear that they can’t ignore these issues.”
Wells Fargo made $19 billion in profits last year and record profits last quarter. None of this would have been possible without the bank bailout and continued borrowing of taxpayer money at zero percent interest from the Federal Reserve (which Wells Fargo and the other big banks then turn around and loan to state and local governments at much higher rates).
ACCE and its allies showed up in Salt Lake City to take a stand against a wealth-stripping machine. There will be more actions ahead against Bank of America (May 9), Sallie Mae (May 30) and Walmart (June 7). Sign up to stay informed here.
“The message from the banks is that the foreclosure crisis is over, and a lot of the general public is hearing that,” said Weeks. “But we see on the ground that that’s far from true, and that Wells Fargo continues to profit at the expense of our communities. That’s why we’re keeping up the pressure of this campaign. We’re going to fight for our communities as hard as we possibly can.”
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EXCLUSIVE: City Offices Fail to Meet Law Requiring Them to Help New Yorkers Register to Vote
New York Daily News - October 21, 2014, by Erin Durkin - City agencies are failing to do their part to make voter registration easier — even though they’re required to by law.
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New York Daily News - October 21, 2014, by Erin Durkin - City agencies are failing to do their part to make voter registration easier — even though they’re required to by law.
Legislation passed in 2000 mandates that 18 agencies give voter registration forms to visitors. But the Center for Popular Democracy found that 84% of those visitors were never offered a chance to register, according to a report to be released Tuesday.
In fact, 60% of the agencies didn’t even have forms in the office. And 95% of the clients were never asked if they wanted to register to vote.
“This is an urgent problem which is leading to the disenfranchisement of many thousands of low-income New Yorkers,” said Andrew Friedman, the group’s co-executive director.
The group found that 30% of people who visited the city offices weren’t registered to vote, higher than the national average.
Mayor de Blasio’s spokesman Phil Walzak said Hizzoner has ordered agencies to step up their compliance with the law.
Advocates say having city agencies help out with voter registration is especially important because most people nationwide sign up to vote at motor vehicle departments, but many city residents don’t drive.
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