New York to Boost Scheduling Protections for Hourly Workers
New York to Boost Scheduling Protections for Hourly Workers
New York's governor says his administration is implementing new regulations that require employers to pay extra to workers who are called to their jobs at the last minute.
...
New York's governor says his administration is implementing new regulations that require employers to pay extra to workers who are called to their jobs at the last minute.
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“The People’s Fed”: Manufacturing Popular Support for Global Theft
“The People’s Fed”: Manufacturing Popular Support for Global Theft
How does one get invited to attend one of the most exclusive palavers on the planet? Well, if it’s the annual Jackson Hole economic summit sponsored by the Federal Reserve System, it’s virtually a...
How does one get invited to attend one of the most exclusive palavers on the planet? Well, if it’s the annual Jackson Hole economic summit sponsored by the Federal Reserve System, it’s virtually a prerequisite that one belong to that elite fraternity of beings known as central bankers. Or a pointy-headed professor with a certified globalist bent. Or, it seems, a loudmouthed, obnoxious street radical with a Marxist-Leninist “social justice/economic democracy” bent.
So, if you’re a screaming activist with the Center for Popular Democracy, apparently, you have an open door, a welcoming hand, and a place at the table with the Jackson Hole uber-elite.“Federal Reserve officials sought to reassure a group of labor activists that the central bank isn’t going to cool down the economy just as a stronger labor market is reaching a broader swath of Americans,” reported the Wall Street Journal on August 26.
Here is an excerpt from the Journal’s report:
“We’re going to run [the economy] hot, get the unemployment rate down lower,” San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams said at an unprecedented meeting with activists from the Campaign [sic for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign.
The meeting of activists and high-ranking Fed officials took place shortly before the start of the Kansas City Fed’s high-profile policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Central bankers in attendance included Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s two top lieutenants, New York Fed President William Dudley and Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer....
The left-leaning activist group Fed Up publicly met with eight Federal Reserve presidents Thursday to discuss inequality and interest rates during the central bank's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Serious, responsible critics of the Fed of a conservative/libertarian bent would never receive similar cordial treatment, of course. That’s understandable, since they want to restrict the power of the Fed, or abolish it altogether. The left-wing activists, on the other hand, want to expand the power of the Fed, and to use those expanded powers to further socialize our economy and society. That is surprising to many people, but it shouldn’t be; it’s completely in line with Karl Marx’s handbook. The fourth plank in Marx’s 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto calls for “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” Bingo: That’s the Federal Reserve.
So, what is the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and who is supporting it and its Fed Up Campaign? Not surprisingly, one of its major supporters is the Ford Foundation, which has been notorious for funding “progressive,” socialist, pro-communist, and outright communist organizations and individuals for more than seven decades. Also, among the CPD financial angels is the Open Philanthropy Project, which has generously funded CPD’s Fed Up Campaign, it boasts, to the tune of at least $2 million. And it has pledged millions more.
In our previous report on the Fed’s conference last weekend (Jackson Hole’s Gangsters and Banksters: What Are They Planning?) we utilized the Fed’s official list of conference attendees to underscore the fact that the Fed’s top echelon officials and advisers hail almost entirely from that elite cabal of globalist one-worlders, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Moreover, we pointed out, this confirmed a virtually non-stop control of the Fed by CFR members since the Fed’s inception, under the guidance of elite Wall Street banker Paul Warburg, who was also a founder of the CFR.
The same CFR hands are at work in the creation of the Astroturf Fed Up Campaign posing as a grassroots “opposition” force to the Fed. The Ford Foundation and many of the other tax-exempt foundations supporting this faux CPD effort are longtime funding arms for the globalist agenda. Ditto for many of the other controlled opposition groups that CPD/Fed Up list as their “Partners.” Here is a partial list of those CPD partners, most of which would scarcely exist, if not for the activist cash they regularly receive from their globalist paymasters they pretend to oppose:
Arkansas Community Organization
Living United for Change in Arizona
ACCE Institute (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment)
Working Partnerships USA
CASA de Delaware
New Florida Majority
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Good Jobs Now
Neighborhoods Organizing for Change
TakeAction Minnesota
New York Communities for Change
Common Good Ohio
CASA de Pennsylvania
Ohio Organizing Collaborative
Texas Organizing Project
Wisconsin Jobs Now
Clearly, as with #BlackLivesMatter and the many other Astroturf “progressive” organizations funded by billionaire George Soros (a CFR member and CFR President's Circle corporate supporter), the Fed Up Campaign is another example of CFR Insiders providing simultaneous pressure from above and below to effect social/political/economic/moral revolution.
By William F. Jasper
Source
Starbucks Hasn’t Met Employee Promises, Report Says
Starbucks employees still endure irregular hours, insufficient rest and difficulties taking sick days, according to a new ...
Starbucks employees still endure irregular hours, insufficient rest and difficulties taking sick days, according to a new report, more than year after the company promised to improve labor conditions for its employees.
More than 200 baristas across the country responded to the survey that formed the basis of the report, which was released by the Center for Popular Democracy. About 25% of employees said they had been asked to close a store and open it the following morning, giving them little time to rest between shifts. Almost half said they received their schedule one week or less in advance, giving little time to plan for childcare or other needs. Two in five employees said they faced difficulties taking sick days.
Last year, the company promised to change conditions for its employees, which it calls “partners,” after a New York Times report documenting the struggles faced by many employees.
Source: Time
The Fed should not raise interest rates until wages go up
Shawn Sebastian, Fed Up Campaign co-director, and Marshall Steinbaum, Roosevelt Institute research director, discuss agreeing with Trump about the Fed raising interest rates and why wages haven't...
Shawn Sebastian, Fed Up Campaign co-director, and Marshall Steinbaum, Roosevelt Institute research director, discuss agreeing with Trump about the Fed raising interest rates and why wages haven't risen.
Watch the clip here.
Puerto Rico Is Not Ready for 2018 Hurricane Season, Advocates and Members of Congress Warn
Puerto Rico Is Not Ready for 2018 Hurricane Season, Advocates and Members of Congress Warn
Power 4 Puerto Rico is described as a coalition seeking to push Congress to “put Puerto Rico’s economy on the road to future growth and prosperity.” The Tuesday call was led by former New York...
Power 4 Puerto Rico is described as a coalition seeking to push Congress to “put Puerto Rico’s economy on the road to future growth and prosperity.” The Tuesday call was led by former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, now the coalition’s campaign director and a senior advisor to the Latino Victory Project. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Frankie Miranda, senior vice president for the Hispanic Federation, and Ana María Archila, co-executive director for the Center for Popular Democracy, were also on the call.
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City-issued IDs give immigrants access as Trump tightens rules
New Haven, Conn., was the first city to issue a municipal ID in 2007 following the fatal stabbing of a 36-year-old undocumented immigrant while he cashed a check, according to a 2013 report by the...
New Haven, Conn., was the first city to issue a municipal ID in 2007 following the fatal stabbing of a 36-year-old undocumented immigrant while he cashed a check, according to a 2013 report by the Center for Popular Democracy on municipal ID programs.
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Yellen and Draghi Speeches to Highlight Jackson Hole Conference
Yellen and Draghi Speeches to Highlight Jackson Hole Conference
Central bankers and economists from around the world will gather in the mountain resort of Jackson Hole, Wyo., beginning Thursday for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual economic...
Central bankers and economists from around the world will gather in the mountain resort of Jackson Hole, Wyo., beginning Thursday for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual economic symposium.
The theme of this year's conference, "Fostering a Dynamic Global Economy, " highlights the challenges of boosting economic growth during an expansion that has been marked by poor productivity gains, rising protectionism and demands for greater fiscal austerity.
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Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that would boost the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Steve Chucri...
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that would boost the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association, said Wednesday the campaign against the measure will be based on showing them how much wages in Arizona have gone up since voters enacted the first minimum wage law in 2006.
Prior to that, Arizona employers had to pay only what was mandated in federal law, which was $5.15 an hour. The ballot measure pushed that to $6.75, with a requirement for annual adjustments based on inflation.
That has pushed the current state minimum to $8.05.
"The public will say, 'Enough's enough,'" Chucri said. And he said polls done for the industry in the spring show people believe that $12 is "too much."
The comments come as Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families is planning to submit its petitions for the $12 wage plus required paid leave today to the secretary of state's office.
Spokeswoman Suzanne Wilson said organizers have collected more than 250,000 signatures. That is 100,000 more than are needed to qualify for the ballot.
But Chucri said he's not convinced his organization will even have to fight the battle in November. He questioned whether petition circulators, both volunteer and paid, were careful to ensure that those who signed are qualified to vote in the state.
Arizona has become the latest battleground over what can be considered a living wage.
Several states have enacted their own laws, often through legislation. Most recently, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure that will take that state's minimum, now $10 an hour, up to $15 by 2022 for large employers; small companies will get another year to comply.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be to remind voters here that Arizona already has a minimum wage that's higher than what federal law requires.
And that same law requires annual revision. Chucri pointed out that has meant a boost every year except for two when the rate of inflation was too small for even a nickel more, the bare minimum adjustment.
The difference, though, is not great: That $8.05 an hour is just 80 cents more than the federal minimum.
What Chucri also faces is that $8.05, assuming it's a family's sole source of income, translates out to $16,744 a year.
For a single person, the federal government considers anything below $11,880 a year to be living in poverty. That figure is $16,020 for a family of two and $20,160 for a family of three.
That's part of what has driven similar living wage efforts elsewhere in the country. But Chucri said the idea of a $12 minimum won't sell here.
"That is too high of a wage for a place like Arizona,'' he said.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be the argument that higher wages mean fewer jobs.
"Restaurateurs are going to survive,'' he said. But what they will do, Chucri said, is simply hire fewer people.
He pointed out the push toward automation already is underway.
At Panera Bread, customers place their orders through computer screens and then can pick up what they want. And even at more traditional sit-down place like Applebee's, orders can be placed through tablets at each table.
Chucri conceded, though, that is happening even in places where the minimum wage is not going up. What approval of this measure would do, he said, is hasten the day.
"I don't think it's a matter of 'if,' '' Chucri said. "It's a matter of 'when.' ''
He would not say how much his group and other business organizations intend to spend to kill the measure.
The most recent campaign finance reports show campaign organizers have raised more than $342,000. Virtually all of that comes from Living United for Change in Arizona. But Tomas Robles, former executive director of LUCHA, said much of that is from a grant to the organization from The Center for Popular Democracy, an organization involved in efforts to establish a $15 minimum wage nationally.
Another $25,000 came from The Fairness Project which has its own efforts to push higher minimum wages on a state-by-state basis.
By Howard Fischer
Source
Albany Must Keep the Charter Cap
Earlier this year, the New York City Council passed my resolution urging the state legislature to keep the cap on charter schools. That was nothing new: Council Members have long showed their...
Earlier this year, the New York City Council passed my resolution urging the state legislature to keep the cap on charter schools. That was nothing new: Council Members have long showed their opposition to raising the cap. But, with recent efforts by powerful special interests, including more than $13 million spent in lobbying and campaign ads, we need to remind New York why raising the cap is not only unnecessary, but also harmful to our public school children.
First, there is the capacity question. Charter schools have 2,500 unfilled seats in New York City. In addition, current charter agreements could allow for more than 27,000 additional authorized seats. In other words, these charter schools already are not handling their assigned share of students, and that burdens crowded public schools, making it more difficult for those schools to provide quality education.
Second, charter schools are not required to serve students who transfer to or join schools mid-year because of disciplinary measures or because of a family's choice. They also do not serve nearly the same amount of students with special needs as public schools. This means that when the school year starts, charters receive funding for a certain number of students yet actually end up teaching fewer than they are budgeted for. They then pocket the remainder and can boast lower class sizes while public schools again shoulder the burden.
Finally, the Center for Popular Democracy reported that New York stood to lose over $54 million to charter school-related fraud in 2014 alone. Audits can help uncover instances of fraud, mishandling of funds, conflicts of interest within governing boards, and a number of other troubling findings, yet charter schools largely oppose efforts to increase transparency. The State Comptroller's attempt to audit charter schools has already been foiled at every turn, meaning New Yorkers are left in the dark about how exactly our public dollars are spent.
Meanwhile, more than $5 billion in state money is owed to our traditional public schools to provide every child access to a "sound basic education" per the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling. Forty-four percent of all schools in New York City are overcrowded. The City's Independent Budget Office reports that most schools are at 102 percent capacity or more, and 88 percent of the city's charter schools are co-located within a district school, adding to the space crunch.
Co-located charter schools, by the way, are an exercise in inequality: privately run schools, with access to both private and public funds, that are taking resources from underfunded district schools. What does this mean for the social climate in these schools? Many students feel, and rightfully so, that district schools and their students are not valued the way they should be.
It is sensible to provide the money and attention owed to our public schools to keep them strong. Charter schools already divert resources from the majority of students, who attend public schools. Charter schools do not serve our children, especially the most needy, with enough accountability to justify increasing their share of funding.
All children deserve an education system that celebrates their potential by giving them the space and funding necessary to achieve educational excellence. The raising of the charter cap would be damaging to our public school system in terms of morale, space, funding, and overall quality. Leaders in Albany should finish their legislative session without altering the cap. Instead, it is time to ensure a feasible means of success for public schools by giving them the focus they need and not investing in a private enterprise that has yet to fulfill its promise to New Yorkers.
***Daniel Dromm is the Education Committee Chair of the New York City Council.
Source: Gotham Gazette
Do Black Lives Matter to the Federal Reserve?
O’Neal is one of dozens of activists and policy experts traveling to Jackson Hole this week to urge the Fed against raising rates. The campaign, called Fed Up, includes some two-dozen unions,...
O’Neal is one of dozens of activists and policy experts traveling to Jackson Hole this week to urge the Fed against raising rates. The campaign, called Fed Up, includes some two-dozen unions, community groups, and think tanks, from the AFL-CIO to the Working Families Party. In Jackson Hole, organizers will deliver a petitiondemanding that the Fed rethink its plan to raise interest rates until the recovery can reach more Americans. Fed Up also plans to hold a series of teach-ins exploring questions like “How Do We Build a Fed that Works for Us?” and “Do Black Lives Matter to the Federal Reserve?”
While there’s only so much the Fed can do when spending on public investments and social programs is well below where it should be, the absence of fiscal support makes monetary policy that much more critical to promote a broadly shared recovery. At its core, the Fed Up campaign is about answering two questions, said Ady Barkan of the Center for Popular Democracy during a press call previewing the upcoming meeting: “Whose recovery is this?” and “Whose Federal Reserve is this?”
“I don’t think that those at the Fed know how life is here in south DeKalb County when they say that the economy is recovering,” O’Neal said during the call. O’Neal makes $8.50 an hour at the daycare center she works at in Atlanta. That’s not enough, she says, to cover rent, food, and utilities for her household, let alone the medication she needs to treat asthma and high blood pressure. “Our life is a constant struggle,” she says. “We have to decide whether, you know, are we going to buy meat, or are we going to buy medicine, or are we going to pinch off the electric bill this month?”
But, she emphasized, she’s hardly alone. “It’s also my neighbor. It’s also the person down the hall, my neighbor next door, around the corner. The whole community is suffering.”
The Atlanta area has been particularly hard hit by the financial crisis and weak economic recovery. In 2009, the Pew Hispanic Center named Metro Atlanta one of a handful of “distinct epicenters” of the nationwide foreclosure crisis. According to their report, less than 300 U.S. counties had foreclosure rates of more than 1.8 percent, and 19 of those counties, including DeKalb, are in Metro Atlanta. As elsewhere, the crisis had a particularly severe impact on black communities: All of the 19 counties Pew singled out as centers of the crisis are majority-black.
Since then, the weak recovery has in some ways only worsened inequities like this. In 2011, the unemployment rate for blacks in the Atlanta area stood at 14.4 percent, or twice the rate of their white neighbors. Three years later, black unemployment had dropped to 13.7 percent, but because joblessness among whites in Atlanta had fallen much faster, blacks were now nearly three times as likely to be jobless as whites. Today, DeKalb County has a poverty rate of 19 percent, well above the average for Georgia and the nation as a whole. And most of that poverty has been concentrated on the county’s majority-black south side.
But among black communities nationwide, DeKalb has actually fared relatively well. The area was hit hard by the downturn, but it remains the second-most affluent black-majority county in the country. By contrast, in Washington, D.C., a majority-minority city, black unemployment is a staggering 15.8 percent, more than five times the rate for whites, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Nationwide, after hitting its highest levels since the 1980s, black unemployment remains about double the rate for whites. The mortgage crisis and subsequent downturn destroyed a full 47 percent of black families’ wealth, and that wealth is far from recovered.
Despite that, the Federal Reserve seems perilously close to raising interest rates, possibly as soon as next month—a change that could have a disastrous effect on the already-weak recovery.
“We shouldn’t mince words,” said Barkan. “When the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, it is doing so in order to slow the economy down in order to prevent the economy from creating more jobs.” A slowdown like that would not only make it harder for the labor market to recover, but it also has a good chance of widening the gap in unemployment between blacks and whites. Historically, the joblessness gap between black and white workers tends to grow when the economy slows down.
But Fed officials remain stubbornly committed to a rate hike, even as instability grips the stock market this week. In a speech on Monday, following another day of market volatility, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart sought to allay suspicionthat the Fed’s plans to raise rates this year had changed. In June, 15 out of 17 senior Fed officials indicated that they’d like to see a rate hike this year, echoing a similar statement from March. As Lockhart put it in another speech on August 10, “The economy has made great gains and is approaching an acceptable normal.” Nowhere in his speech did Lockhart mention the poverty and racial inequality gripping communities just a few miles from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank he chairs.
For O’Neal, places like south DeKalb are very far from an acceptable normal. “When the Fed says that the economy is recovering and they want to raise the interest rates,” she said, “I look around and I don’t see recovery in my community.”
Unfortunately, plenty of Fed leaders don’t seem to think an unequal recovery is their responsibility to address. In testimony before Congress last month, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said that while black unemployment remains very high, “there really isn’t anything directly the Federal Reserve can do to affect the structure of unemployment across groups.”
But Barkan begs to differ. “We think that’s really a mistake,” he said. “A strong economy—more job growth and more wage growth—has a disproportionately positive effect on African Americans because of the racial disparities that exist in our labor market.” Keeping interest rates low is far from the only solution to racial inequality in the job market (and not even the only thing the Fed can do by itself), but it’s a good start.
Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, another Fed Up signatory, agrees.Because low-wage workers and workers of color tend to feel changes in unemployment much more dramatically, he said, keeping unemployment low should be the Fed’s first priority. “A policy that lets the unemployment rate get as low as it can possibly go without sparking inflation is one that’s going to have disproportionate benefits to workers of color,” he added.
Unfortunately, Barkan said, Fed officials have a long history of overlooking issues like racial gaps in unemployment and wealth. A big part of the problem is the central bank’s leadership, which is heavily skewed toward the banking sector. By law, 72 out of 108 directors of the Fed’s 12 regional banks must represent workers. But currently, just two officially do, compared with 91 who come directly from banks and financial institutions. “Of course when you have leadership like that you get policies that don’t advance the needs of American working families,” Barkan said.
Which is exactly why Fed Up plans to confront the central bank’s leadership today in Jackson Hole. In doing so, the coalition will help connect monetary policy and policymakers to the people and communities it most impacts.
And demanding that interest rates stay low is just a first step. During the conference, Fed Up will also present a report from PolicyLink on what a more equitable recovery would look like. The report explores how genuinely full employment—which has long been a core policy mandate for the Federal Reserve—would reshape our economy. The report defines full employment as no more than 4 percent unemployment for all groups and a labor-force participation rate no lower than 75 percent for men and 60 percent for women. (Currently, labor-force participation remains stuck at 69 percent for men and 56.7 percent for women, the lowest levels in decades.)
As Barkan and Bivens emphasized, a change like that would have a particularly dramatic impact on communities of color. In Atlanta, black unemployment would drop 10 percent while average household income would increase by 11 percent for black families. A full 175,000 people would be lifted out of poverty and the local economy would grow by $24 billion. Nationwide, the change would be just as dramatic. Genuine full employment would cut black unemployment by two-thirds and lift more than nine million people out of poverty.
It’s this kind of recovery that the Fed needs to begin thinking seriously about, said Barkan. The first step, he added, is to rethink how monetary policy is formulated and who gets a seat at the table.
Correction: In a previous version of this article, Dawn O'Neal's name was mispelled as O'Neil.
Source: The American Prospect
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