Campaign News

How much stronger could the economy be if everyone who wanted a job could find one—regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender?

To inform the Fed UP campaign, PolicyLink and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) estimated the potential economic gains of full employment for all. The following 13fact sheets illustrate what the United States economy—and the economies of the metropolitan regions where each Federal Reserve office is located—could look like with true full employment for all.

For additional information about Fed Up: The National Campaign for a Strong Economy, visit http://whatrecovery.org.

Download the full report here

THE KANSAS CITY Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, attracts central bankers, economists and the global elite. The past two years, some new faces came to Jackson Hole: low-wage workers who object to the Fed raising interest rates when too many at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder still struggle.

This year, somebody appears to be ensuring that ordinary people won’t disrupt the party.

The Fed Up campaign, a coalition that brought the workers to Jackson Hole in 2014 and 2015, has filed a formal complaint with the departments of Justice and the Interior, along with the National Park Service, because their hotel reservations for this year’s conference were mysteriously canceled.

Despite paying in advance for spots at the 385-room Jackson Lake Lodge, the Grand Teton Lodge Company told the campaign July 26 that their reservations would not be honored, citing a “computer glitch.” Grand Teton operates the lodge, a publicly owned facility, under a contract with the National Park Service.

Thirty-nine members of the coalition planned to attend this year, but the lodge said computer glitch resulted in overbooking its rooms by 18. Instead of spacing that out among all Jackson Lake lodge guests, the company cancelled all 13 of the Fed Up campaign’s rooms. So nearly three-quarters of the cancelled reservations belonged to the Fed Up group, even though they were told when they booked that 100 rooms were still available at the lodge.

“There is no legitimate explanation for the company’s decision,” wrote Fed Up campaign chair Ady Barkan in the complaint, which alleges possible violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly. “This is egregious and disparate treatment.”

The coalition’s reservations were made in the names of staffers for three of its member organizations – the Center for Popular Democracy, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Economic and Policy Research – using work email addresses.

In an email statement, Alex Klein, vice president and general manager of Grand Teton Lodge Company, said: “This summer we encountered an error with our booking system that resulted in our Jackson Lake Lodge property being oversold by 18 rooms for three peak nights in August. We worked proactively and diligently with guests to relocate them to our nearby Flagg Ranch property, and offered to keep them on a wait list for available rooms should there be cancellations at the Jackson Lake Lodge. We regret inconveniencing any of our guests.”

The Jackson Hole symposium takes place from August 25-27. The event typically features a highly anticipated speech by the Federal Reserve chair – Janet Yellen is expected this year.

In 2014 and 2015, Fed Up brought unemployed workers and local activists to Jackson Hole to highlight how the economy has left behind communities of color and to urge the Fed to hear their voices. Last year, they held an alternative conference in Jackson Hole lodge conference rooms, featuring economists like Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

This year, Fed Up planned to hold a teach-in outside of the lodge, and secured permits for a protest. They still expect 120 members, their largest contingent ever, to attend the proceedings, but they will have to stay in alternative accommodations that are a 20- to 30-minute drive away, separate from symposium guests and the press.

The majority of Fed Up members planning to attend the conference are African-American and Latino, which is why the campaign wants the Justice Department to investigate the matter as a violation of laws ensuring nondiscriminatory treatment in public accommodations. They also want to know if the Kansas City Federal Reserve was at all involved with the decision.

Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George has consistently drawn criticism from the Fed Up coalition for wanting to raise interest rates and slow down the economy.

The lodge’s general manager told Fed Up that their reservations were pulled because they were booked in a group of 13, making it easier to cancel them. This, the campaign believes, also violates First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly.

“I recognize that our presence is not desired by either the company or the organizers of the symposium,” Barkan wrote. “But the physical and virtual segregation of Federal Reserve decision-makers far away from the voices and opinions of working class people of color is precisely what the Fed Up coalition is trying to dismantle.”

The incident comes at a sensitive time for the Federal Reserve, which has already been criticized by 127 members of Congress for a lack of diversity among its leadership, which is disproportionately white, male, and either current or former executives of large corporations and financial institutions. Activists believe this homogeneity in race, gender, and background drives central bank decisions that cater to the wealthy and neglect communities of color.

Barkan’s letter to Justice and the Interior concludes: “Once again, the voices and faces of working class people of color have been marginalized … and an opaque, inaccessible, and incredibly powerful quasi-governmental institution has received a bit more insulation from the opinions of the people over whose lives it has so much power.”

The Intercept has reached out for comment to the Justice Department, the Interior Department, and the National Park Service, but did not immediately hear back.

Top photo: National Park Rangers stand silhouetted inside the lobby of Jackson Lake Lodge during the Jackson Hole economic symposium in August 2015.

By David Dayen

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Several dozen demonstrators, organized by progressive groups and chanting in Spanish, brought the cause of the Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status refugees—both groups targeted for eviction from the U.S. by Donald Trump—to the doorstep of the GOP president and his Republican backers on the evening of Feb. 1.

Read the full article here.

Although she was hired on as a full-time employee at Domino’s Pizza, Crystal Thompson had a schedule that became erratic and unreliable shortly after she began working there in 2009. One day she’d start at 9 a.m. and work until 9 p.m.; and then she’d get a call asking her to work the morning shift the next day.

“It’s so hard trying to plan your life.”

The single mother of three relied on the job to pay over $1,200 a month in rent, utilities, food, and child care, but during the most volatile weeks, she was lucky if she got even 20 hours in shifts. Moreover, it was difficult to find a babysitter or make doctor’s appointments when she sometimes received her schedule only a day in advance. At a loss, Thompson moved one of her children into the living room and found a roommate to shoulder the part of the rent that she couldn’t afford.

“It’s crazy,” Thompson says about her schedule. “It’s so hard trying to plan your life.”

But thanks to an ordinance passed in Seattle last month, Thompson and other workers in the service and retail industries will finally have the freedom to think more than one day ahead. The new law, known as “secure scheduling,” will take effect in July 2017 and will impact large retail, service, and drinking establishments with a minimum of 500 workers globally, as well as full-service restaurants with more than 500 workers and 40 or more locations.

The measure requires that employers post work schedules at least two weeks in advance, offer additional hours to existing workers before hiring new employees, and provide at least a 10-hour break between closing and opening shifts. Thompson says that anything less than that doesn’t leave enough time to rest, shower, care for her children, and be alert enough to work another shift.

The Seattle measure comes on the heels of similar legislation passed in San Francisco in 2014, which labor activists call a game changer for the labor movement. It provides that hourly workers have the ability to better budget their expenses, take on second jobs, and plan for education and family time.

Workers in the service and retail industries will finally have the freedom to think more than one day ahead.

Working Washington, a Seattle-based labor advocacy organization that led the efforts, attests that, much like legislation for a $15 minimum wage that passed in Seattle in 2014, predictable schedules will likely spread to other cities and states too. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that he and other city officials plan on drafting legislation to ensure secure scheduling for fast-food workers.

Thompson’s plight is common for workers in the service and retail industry nationally, as shown in a report co-authored by associate professor Susan Lambert at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. About 3 out of 4 early-career adults in hourly jobs report fluctuations in the number of hours they’ve worked in a month, and nearly half of part-time workers said that their employers gave them a week’s notice or less when their schedules changed.

Photo courtesy of Working Washington.

The problem is especially severe among African Americans and Latinos in Seattle. Another study, this one commissioned by the city itself in July, revealed that the two groups were the most likely to receive their schedules with less than a week’s notice, be required to be on-call, or to be sent home during slow shifts. They also reported higher rates of having difficulty attending classes and working second jobs because of their schedules.

Sejal Parikh, executive director of Working Washington, says that erratic scheduling has proliferated in the past two decades with the advent of scheduling software programs. After her group pushed for a $15 minimum wage and won, a campaign for secure scheduling seemed like a natural next step, she says. “The $15 minimum wage is about money, and the secure scheduling campaign is really about power.”

A stable schedule allows workers to spend time with their families, have hobbies, and further their careers.

But the measure is not immune to opposition. The advocacy group Washington Retail Association issued a press release in August stating that the measure undermines the fluctuating nature of business and would lead to layoffs. But Parikh counters that companies are already staffing leanly and that there’s usually not an excess of workers during one shift. A secure schedule simply allows a barista who lives an hour away from work to get eight hours of sleep at home instead of sleeping inside of the coffee shop, she contends.

It’s important that the more than 75 million people who work hourly jobs nationally have some say in their own schedule, says Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy. A stable schedule allows workers to spend time with their families, have hobbies, and further their careers. Gleason adds that the legislation “ensures that Seattle workers can have a voice” in determining how many hours they work, which is something she hopes catches on in other cities.

In Seattle, Thompson is already planning out the time she’ll enjoy once she has a more predictable schedule. She is now working part time because she’s caring for her 9-month-old baby, but Thompson says she plans on going back to school to get a degree in Spanish and to become an interpreter. The new ordinance will also allow her to figure out child care and to budget for the rent in her new Section 8 housing, which takes 30 percent of her income.

More than anything, Thompson says she’s looking forward “to more peace of mind.”

By Melissa Hellmann

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