After The Storm: Stories of Puerto Rican Resilience
After The Storm: Stories of Puerto Rican Resilience
One year after Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, the island is still feeling the effects of the devastating storm. In this special episode, "After the Storm," Tanzina Vega explores...
One year after Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, the island is still feeling the effects of the devastating storm. In this special episode, "After the Storm," Tanzina Vega explores questions of status, economic resilience and activism at the ground level. What does it mean to be Puerto Rican post Maria? And is Maria the event that could fundamentally change the trajectory of the island? The Takeaway finds out.
Read the full article here.
Communities Lose When HUD Sells Loans to Wall Street
The Hill - October 2, 2014, Rachel Laforest & Keven Whelan -James Cheeseman and his mother, Constance, have lived in their Rosedale, New York home for the past five years. Like many Americans...
The Hill - October 2, 2014, Rachel Laforest & Keven Whelan -James Cheeseman and his mother, Constance, have lived in their Rosedale, New York home for the past five years. Like many Americans, they struggled during the recent economic downturn and have been trying to get a modification on their mortgage.
The bank that held their mortgage JPMorgan Chase, agreed to provide borrowers like them relief under a multi-billion dollar settlement with the Justice Department last year. But the Cheesemans' mortgage was insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). And before they could work out a deal with Chase, the bank had the FHA sell their loan to a new investor as part of a program, called the Distressed Asset Stabilization Program or DASP.
The program is supposed to have a dual purpose. First, the federal agency hopes to be able to use the funds received by DASP to right the balance sheet of the Federal Housing Authority’s mortgage insurance program. Second, the program is intended to “encourage public/private partnership to stabilize neighborhoods and home values in critical markets.”
According to HUD’s own data and reports, DASP is meeting the first objective and failing miserably at the second. Almost all loans sold through the DASP program went to for-profit firms and only a tiny handful (around 3 percent) of families whose loans were sold ended up with deals that kept them in their homes.
For homeowners like the Cheesemans, that failure has real-life consequences. When HUD, through DASP, sold their mortgage to another servicer, the Cheesemans lost their protections under the FHA program mandating an effort to modify the mortgage. Their new servicer, BSI Financial, was under no requirement to consider a mortgage modification. BSI doesn’t even participate in HAMP, a post-bailout program for major banks that facilitates loan modifications to keep families in their homes. The result? The Cheesemans and thousands of other homeowners throughout the country are at serious risk of losing their home.
A recent report, Vulture Capital Hits Home: How HUD is Helping Wall Street and Hurting Our Communities, published by the Right to the City Alliance and Center for Popular Democracy cited serious problems with DASP. First, the current structure of most DASP auctions considers only the highest bid without weighting the bidder’s track record of good outcomes for homeowners and communities. Secondly, the groups found that the current outcome requirements and reporting structure fail to hold purchasers accountable. Third, the current pre-sale certification phase does not ensure that the FHA modification process has been followed.
Organizations called “Community Development Financial Institutions” with a track record of helping consumers stay in their homes stand ready to be a part of an improved version of this program. If a reformed DASP program incentivized it, investors with a social purpose could also make money by negotiating win-win, sustainable mortgage modifications with homeowners.
But community-friendly organizations can’t even get to the table with the auction overheated by well-heeled Wall Street firms and private equity “vulture capital” firms.
When the highest bidder places profits first, homeowners and neighborhoods come last. The result: more and more American homeowners losing their homes to unnecessary foreclosures and more and more corporate landlords leasing homes at rates few of these former homeowners, let alone anyone else, can afford.
All of this is the consequence of a program developed and managed by HUD, a federal agency with a stated mission to advance affordable housing and sustainable communities.
This week, HUD plans to sell off another 15,000 American homes to Wall Street investors. These are 15,000 families, 15,000 neighbors and 15,000 futures. Many if not all of these homeowners will lose their share of the American dream as a result of these auctions.
HUD can and should halt this week’s sale and must implement the necessary reforms that have been proposed by a range of community and advocacy groups.
As we consider the results of the economic collapse and what has been called by some a recovery, it is important to note once again that many neighborhoods, especially in communities of color, haven’t bounced back.
Too often our government has put the interests of Wall Street above the needs of struggling families. HUD can do better by fixing the “Distressed Assets” program now.
Laforest is executive director of the Right To The City Alliance, based in New York City. Whelan is National Campaign director of the Home Defenders League. He lives in Minneapolis.
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AIDS Activists Among #KillRepeal Protests and Arrests in DC - Video
AIDS Activists Among #KillRepeal Protests and Arrests in DC - Video
Republican Senators recently failed in their efforts to repeal and replace the nation’s current health care plan, but AIDS activists say the battle is not over. So they joined hundreds of health...
Republican Senators recently failed in their efforts to repeal and replace the nation’s current health care plan, but AIDS activists say the battle is not over. So they joined hundreds of health care workers, advocates and other people with preexisting conditions as they occupied the offices of all Republican U.S. senators to send them the message to “Kill the Bill,” “Kill Repeal” and “Protect Our Care.”
The massive manifestation of civil disobedience was held Wednesday afternoon, July 19, following a town hall meeting about health care held at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC. As images and videos of the actions were shared on social media, it was reported that arrests were being made. On July 10, about 80 people were arrested while protesting the Senate health care bill in DC.
Watch the video and read the full article here.
Report Calling for More Oversight to Prevent Charter School Fraud Draws Rebuke
LA Times - March 23, 2015, by Zahira Torres - California lawmakers must strengthen financial oversight of charter schools to stem cases of fraud and mismanagement that have already cost taxpayers...
LA Times - March 23, 2015, by Zahira Torres - California lawmakers must strengthen financial oversight of charter schools to stem cases of fraud and mismanagement that have already cost taxpayers $81 million, according to a new report from several advocacy groups.
The report by the Center for Popular Democracy, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Institute and Public Advocates Inc., said state and local leaders rely too heavily on self-reporting through whistleblowers or audits paid for by charter school operators. Local leaders also lack the staff and training to monitor charter schools and identify fraud, according to the report.
But the California Charter Schools Assn. offered a swift rebuke of the report in a two-page statement that said the authors offered dated examples of fraud and did little to prove that systemic problems exist.
The report pointed to cases that revealed $81 million in misused funds at charter schools over the last two decades, but said those do not reflect the true cost to taxpayers because weak financial controls allow fraud and mismanagement to go undetected.
Last year, the Los Angeles County Board of Education revoked the charter for Wisdom Academy of Young Scientists after auditors found that administrators funneled $2.6 million to the former director, her family and close associates.
“Given the rapid and continuing expansion of the charter school industry and the tremendous investment of public dollars, California must act now to reform its oversight system," the report said. "Without reform, California stands to lose millions of dollars as a result of charter school fraud, waste and mismanagement.”
The report said more focus must be placed on the state's 1,000-plus charter schools which received $3 billion in public funding last year.
Charter schools are publicly-funded but privately managed.
The California Charter Schools Assn. released a two-page statement Tuesday questioning the accuracy of the report and the authors' intentions. The group said it agreed that public dollars should be used appropriately, but argued that the report offered few examples of fraud.
In those cases, charter schools closed or made large-scale changes that helped prevent fraud in the future, according to the association.
"While we don't presume to understand the motives behind this report, we do know that California is a state where the charter school sector, authorizers and legislators have come together to put into place real solutions," the group said in the statement.
Recommendations in the report include mandating audits that would be specifically geared toward preventing fraud; requiring charter schools to set up internal risk management programs that would conduct annual fraud risk assessments; ranking charter audits by level of fraud risk and denying requests for new charter schools that do not commit to fraud controls.
The report did not study oversight policies or make recommendations for traditional public schools.
"To assume that there is greater risk at charter schools than school districts, particularly in light of all the real time oversight on financial reports, is simply unfounded," the charter school association said in its statement.
Kyle Serrette, director of education at the Center for Popular Democracy, said many public school systems employ internal auditors and have developed policies to help prevent fraud. But he said public schools should face the same scrutiny.
“There is no proactive system to monitor for fraud, waste and abuse,” Serrette said about the charter schools studied in the report. “California set up a system that prosecutes fraud rather than prevents it.”
He added, "We want to be able to detect the sheep from the sheep in wolves' clothing.”
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New Report: Raise Chicago
Raise Chicago
Increase the wellbeing of workers, their neighborhoods, and Chicago’s economy
A Report by the Center for Popular Democracy and Raise Chicago
...
A Report by the Center for Popular Democracy and Raise Chicago
Click here to download the report.
Introduction
The recession appears to be safely in the rearview mirror for corporations, whose profits and stock prices have rebounded. However, the jobs recovery has been fueled by the proliferation of jobs paying low wages. An earlier study by Action Now and Stand Up! Chicago found that low-wage jobs made up 21% of all jobs lost during the Great Recession, while constituting 58% of jobs created during the recovery.[i]
This trend has exacerbated already increasing wealth and income inequalities in the US[ii] and Chicago. In 2012, Chicago had the 8th highest level of inequality by some measures.[iii] Economists suggest that too much inequality may threaten not only economic growth but economic stability as well, in part because inequality slows consumption for most people.[iv]
On March 18, 2014 Chicago voters voted overwhelmingly – by 86% – to support a referendum raise the minimum wage to $15 for Chicago workers at firms with $50 million in annual receipts and their subsidiaries and franchisees. This initiative allows Chicago to enable workers to get a toehold on the rockface to the middle class, rather than wait on state and federal government action. It offers the opportunity for the city to stimulate and strengthen its economy in the near term. It promises to enable individuals to invest more deeply in themselves, their families, and their communities.
In this paper, we find that the targeted $15 minimum wage will:
Increase wages: $1,472 million in new gross wages Stimulate Chicago’s economy: $616 million in new economic activity and 5,350 new jobs Increase city revenues: Almost $45 million in new sales tax revenues Decrease labor turnover: as much as 80% less annual turnover Modestly increase consumer prices: 2% price hikes at covered firms and franchisesIn accordance with the principles of a well-tuned, consumer-driven local economy, this proposed measure would enable Chicago’s economy to perform better while increasing opportunity and wellbeing for more of the city’s low-wage residents.
Download the full report here.
[i] Action Now and Stand Up! Chicago, “A Case for $15: A Low Wage Work Crisis,” 2012.
[ii] Associated Press, “Top 1% Took Record Share of US Income Last Year,” 2013.
[iii] Alan Berube, “All Cities Are Not Created Unequal,” 2014.
[iv] Jonathan Rauch, “Inequality and Its Perils,” National Journal, 2012.
This report, uploaded on 5/30/14, contains a small correction from an earlier version.
Kashkari says Fed has ‘luxury’ of keeping rates low to spur job growth
Kashkari says Fed has ‘luxury’ of keeping rates low to spur job growth
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said Wednesday that he doesn’t see much inflationary pressure building, arguing that means the central banks has the “luxury” of keeping...
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said Wednesday that he doesn’t see much inflationary pressure building, arguing that means the central banks has the “luxury” of keeping rates low to help boost continued job growth.
The comments came at a meeting between Kashkari and black community activists in Minneapolis, Minn. to discuss economic disparities between black and white communities. “When I look at the data, I don’t see much inflationary pressure, so we have the luxury of taking time to let the economy keep creating jobs,” Kashkari said to the group. “Everybody at the Fed wants the job market to keep healing and we would love to see more people getting back to work.”
Kashkari isn’t a member this year of Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, which has kept rates near zero since the financial crisis. Since raising its benchmark federal-funds rate to between 0.5% and 0.25% at the end of 2015, the central banks has held rates steady. Its next meeting is Sept. 20-21.
The event was organized by Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, part of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up coalition, which advocates for keeping interest rates low to help boost employment in low-income communities.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
By SHAYNDI RAICE
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Gov. Cuomo Signs New Legislation Making it Easier for Workers and the State Labor Department to Fight Wage Theft
New York Daily News - January 4, 2014, by Albor Ruiz - It feels good to be able to write about something positive for New York workers in my first column of 2015. After all, measures that benefit...
New York Daily News - January 4, 2014, by Albor Ruiz - It feels good to be able to write about something positive for New York workers in my first column of 2015. After all, measures that benefit them and rein in abuses by their bosses are as rare as snow in August.
It took a long time but on Monday Gov. Cuomo gave a last-minute Christmas gift to hundreds of thousands of low-wage laborers across the state by signing legislation making it easier for workers and the state Department of Labor to fight wage theft, which in New York has been an epidemic for many years.
“I am tired of waiting,” said Marcos Lino, who filed a complaint with the Department of Labor in 2008 after enduring four years of being shortchanged by his boss in a small Flushing grocery store. Six years have passed and his case is still unresolved.
Hopefully now Lino — and thousands more who, like him, have waited far too long to recover what is rightfully theirs — will finally get some justice.
“The groundbreaking legislation signed today will protect both workers from abuse, and law-abiding businesses from being undercut by employers who turn a profit by breaking the law,” said Andrew Friedman, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy.
It should also help reduce the backlog at the Department of Labor.
The legislation, sponsored by Bronx Democratic Leader and now Assembly Labor chair Carl Heastie and state Sen. Diane Savino, improves on the landmark Wage Theft Prevention Act (WTPA), also sponsored by them and signed in 2010 by then-Gov. Paterson. The WTPA strengthened penalties for wage theft and protections for workers who report it.
“Mugging employees out of pay not only hurts families, it hurts communities. It makes honest employers less competitive,” Savino said when the WTPA was signed into law . “Businesses that are good citizens and pay their employees exactly what is owed them and on time, as is required by law, should not be at a disadvantage to companies that are illegally withholding wages from their workers.”
The New York Coalition to End Wage Theft supports the new legislation, which also has the backing of labor, community and religious groups, and law-abiding employers. It improves on retaliation protection for workers, transparency provisions to help advocates and workers identify cases of wage theft and helps facilitate wage theft policing.
But as Deborah Axt, co-executive director of Make The Road New York, warns, the new law is no panacea.
“Much remains to be done,” she said, “to eliminate the scourge of wage theft that still victimizes working families and responsible businesses alike.”
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Failing the Test: Searching for Accountability in Charter Schools
Failing the Test: Searching for Accountability in Charter Schools
The original concept of charter schools emerged nationally more than two decades ago and was intended to support community efforts to open up education. Albert Shanker, then president of the...
The original concept of charter schools emerged nationally more than two decades ago and was intended to support community efforts to open up education. Albert Shanker, then president of the American Federation of Teachers union, lauded the charter idea in 1988 as way to propel social mobility for working class kids and to give teachers more decision-making power.
“There was a sense from the start that they would develop models for the broader system,” John Rogers tells Capital & Main. Rogers, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, is director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access. He adds that charter schools were to be laboratories where parents and educators would work together to craft the best possible learning environment and to serve as engines of innovation and social equity.
But critics of today’s market-based charter movement say monied interests have turned those learning labs into models for capital capture in the Golden State and beyond–“the charter school gravy train,” as Forbes describes it. Charters are publicly funded but privately managed and, like most privately run businesses, the schools prefer to avoid transparency in their operations. This often has brought negative publicity to the schools – last month the Los Angeles Daily News reported that the principal of El Camino Real Charter High School charged more than $100,000 in expenses to his school-issued credit card, many of them for personal use.
See More Stories in Capital & Main’s Charter School Series
“Information belongs to the public,” says Daniel Losen, who conducts law and policy research on education equality issues. “To the extent that you think choice should benefit parents—good choices are made with good information.” Losen co-authored a March, 2016 report about charter schools’ disciplinary policies, produced by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.
Billions of taxpayer dollars have flowed into expanding America’s privately-run charter school system over the past two decades, including $3.3 billion in federal funds alone, reports an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy. California has the nation’s largest number of charter schools, with most of them located in Los Angeles County. But in an age when words like “accountability” and “transparency” dominate political discourse, the financial mechanics of charters receive less oversight and scrutiny than the average public school bake sale.
Charter schools were originally intended to support community efforts to open up education.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools candidly spells out the Golden State’s laissez faire rules of the game on its website: “California law provides that charter schools are automatically exempt from most laws governing school districts.”
The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) has explicitly opposed state legislation that would clearly define the existing transparency laws and codes for charter schools — standards charters can now avoid despite their use of public funds.
“Charters don’t have to disclose budgets,” says Jackie Goldberg, a long-time Los Angeles school teacher and former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board president, who also served in the California State Assembly. “Once a charter is written, it’s not subject to the Brown or the Public Records acts.”
The CCSA opposes several bills currently progressing through the state legislature that would bring charter school transparency requirements into line with those expected of public schools. One measure spells out the expectation that charters would follow the same standards as public schools when it comes to the Public Records Act that guarantees access to public records; CCSA argues that most charter schools already voluntarily comply—so the law is therefore unnecessary.
Below are several of areas of concern often cited by charter school critics.
Open Meetings
California public schools are required to follow the Ralph M. Brown Act that requires regular meetings with notices posted in advance, along with public testimony and the availability of agendas and minutes. Open meetings guarantee the right of local parents, teachers and taxpayers to participate in discussions about policy, funding, disciplinary standards—all the heated issues that arise in local schools or that go before school boards.
The finances of charter schools receive less oversight than the average public school bake sale.
But a group called the Charter Schools Development Center provides advice and wiggle room to attorneys representing charter schools on Brown Act requirements. Charters are frequently run by a nonprofit whose board members are chosen and named by previous board members. The CSDC’s Guide to the Brown Act pointedly raises the question of whether governing structures fit the profile of “local legislative bodies” required to comply with the Brown Act and recommends charter school boards “cover their bases” and follow at least the spirit, if not the precise requirements, of the Brown Act.
Disciplinary Protocols and “Counseling Out”
The California Education Code stipulates that a public school student undergoing the drastic disciplinary measure of expulsion is entitled to a due process hearing that includes district administrators and the principal, and allows the student and parents to present arguments and information.
That doesn’t apply to California charter schools, according to a 2013 state Court of Appeals ruling that holds charters can “dismiss” a student without due process. The ruling differentiates between expulsion and dismissal. Following a dismissal, a student is then sent back to the public school system. (The UCLA report that Daniel Losen co-authored found national suspension rates at charter schools were 16 percent higher than those of public schools.)
Charter schools depend on their reputations for teaching students who hit high test-score marks. The practice known as “counseling out” is used to winnow out difficult students, and extends beyond California—the New York Times has detailed incidents in a high-achieving charter school in Brooklyn.
Counseling out can happen for a variety of reasons, not just disciplinary. Jackie Goldberg says she personally witnessed a counseling out session at a South Los Angeles charter, where a student’s mother was simply told by a school staff member that her son was better off finding “a school that meets his needs.”
Public schools, on the other hand, cannot “counsel out” challenging students.
Conflicts of interest
Public school governments are required to follow California Government Code 1090, which states that officials can’t vote on issues or contracts wherein they have a vested interest. Charter decision-makers are not subject to the conflict-of-interest code.
Veteran educators and administrators interviewed by Capital & Main have expressed deep concern about the disparities between transparency requirements for public schools and publicly funded charter schools.
Most California charters are run by educational management organizations (EMOs), which are described by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado as “private entities [that] may not be subject to the same financial or other document/records disclosure laws that apply to state-operated entities and public officials.”
Steve Zimmer, the current LAUSD school board president and a former high school teacher and counselor, has been critical of the lack of oversight of charter funding.
“You don’t have to go through a procurement process, you don’t have to follow labor standards,” he says. “This is playing out on a multiplicity of levels.”
Audits are not routinely required in the California charter system. It was only in 2006—some 14 years after California became the second state in the nation to pass legislation to create charter schools—that the state Charter Schools Act was amended to allow local school officials to request a state audit of a charter school’s financial transactions when they suspect something is amiss.
It took a state audit—triggered by a request from the Los Angeles County Office of Education—to uncover $2.6 million in payments that went to Kendra Okonkwo, the founder of Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists charter school, and to her close family members—with no oversight from the governing board of the nonprofit running the South Los Angeles school.
Another audit uncovered an Oakland charter school founder directing $3.8 million to companies he owned. American Indian Model Schools founder Ben Chavis is presently under IRS and FBI investigations related to his dealings with the school district.
More recently, a San Jose Mercury News investigation of California Virtual Academies, an online charter school chain run by the Virginia-based, publicly traded company K12 Inc., found that not even half of its enrollees graduated with a high school diploma and even fewer—almost none—were qualified to attend a California state university. The online chain, launched by former Goldman Sachs banker Ronald Packard, with seed money from Larry Ellison, cofounder of tech giant Oracle, and former junk bond purveyor Michael Milken, has collected more than $310 million in state funds over a dozen years. (An April 12 statement from K12 Inc. criticized the investigation as incomplete.)
A study commissioned by the Center for Popular Democracy calculates the lack of oversight has cost California $81 million.
Jason Mandell, Director of Advocacy Communications at the California Charter Schools Association, says that charter school opacity is changing. “There’s an increasingly thorough review process. If a charter school isn’t meeting standards, the charter can be shut down. When you know you’re going to be scrutinized and people are watching, you better perform. [Charters] have more autonomy in exchange for greater accountability.”
Last year, however, Governor Jerry Brown, himself a charter school founder, passed on a chance to tighten that accountability. He vetoed a bill approved by both houses of the legislature that would have made it explicit that schools should be subject to the Brown and Public Records acts.
David Tokofsky, a former member of the LAUSD Board of Education who has also worked for a charter school operator, cautions that the push for charter schools has been framed in terms of “education reform,” although the movement behind these schools, he says, is really one for deregulation of financial oversight and management.
“Deregulation was supposed to be about curriculum,” Tokofsky says, allowing teachers and parents more freedom to craft education and programs to fit the students. “It has become deregulation about every aspect of the school.”
“We know,” he adds, “when deregulated banks fail; we know when deregulated airplane doors fail. Do we know when deregulated schools are hurting your kids?”
By Bobbi Murray
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Promueven petición contra Wells Fargo y JPMorgan por “financiar el dolor” de inmigrantes
Promueven petición contra Wells Fargo y JPMorgan por “financiar el dolor” de inmigrantes
La petición cuenta con el respaldo de más de 70 organizaciones bajo el paraguas de la coalición #FamiliesBelongTogether, que incluye a Presente.org, la Unión de Libertades Civiles de EEUU (ACLU),...
La petición cuenta con el respaldo de más de 70 organizaciones bajo el paraguas de la coalición #FamiliesBelongTogether, que incluye a Presente.org, la Unión de Libertades Civiles de EEUU (ACLU), MoveOn.org, Amnistía Internacional, la Alianza Nacional de Trabajadoras Domésticas, MomsRising, Center for Popular Democracy, y Make the Road New York, entre otras.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
States Expand Inquiry Into On-Call Scheduling
States Expand Inquiry Into On-Call Scheduling
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies, asking a group of national chains to provide detailed information on their use of...
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies, asking a group of national chains to provide detailed information on their use of the controversial practice.
On-call shifts, where a worker must be available to work a shift that can be cancelled at the last minute without compensation, has become popular in retail. But the practice wreaks havoc on the lives of low-paid hourly workers trying to plan plan around child care, schooling, or second jobs, as a BuzzFeed News investigation found last year.
At the time, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent a letter to 14 chains (published below), inquiring about their use of on-call scheduling and warning it may be illegal. Since then, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Workers, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and Gap have committed to ending the practice.
“On-call shifts are not a business necessity, as we see from the many retailers that no longer use this unjust method of scheduling work hours,” said Schneiderman in a statement.
A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the lowest income workers receive the most irregular schedules, with unpredictability leading to increased stress.
“It’s heartening to see more and more policymakers and regulators take action,” said Carrie Gleason, Director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group.
On Tuesday, the offices of the Attorneys General in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island sent a letter requesting employee handbooks, schedules, and payroll information.
In these states, the Attorneys General warn, the practice may be a violation of a law mandating a minimum of four hours of pay for employees who report for work.
The following retailers received the letter: Aéropostale, American Eagle, BCBG Max Azria, Carter’s Inc., Coach, DavidsTea Inc., Walt Disney Co., Forever 21 Inc., Ascena Retail Group Inc.’s Justice, Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., Payless ShoeSource, Tilly’s Inc., Uniqlo, VF Corp.’s Vans, and Zumiez Inc.
Spokespeople from Uniqlo and Coach told the Wall Street Journal that the companies don’t use the practice. BuzzFeed News has reached out to the companies listed for comment and will update the post with responses.
UPDATE
A spokesperson for American Eagle Outfitters said in a statement, ““American Eagle Outfitters is committed to providing our associates with a positive working environment. We decided in November 2015 to cease the use of ‘on-call shifts’ and advised our stores. We are taking steps to reinforce and assure adherence to this policy across our store fleet.”
A spokesperson for Forever 21 said, “Contrary to published reports, Forever 21 does not permit on-call scheduling nor do we have a company policy around doing so.”
A spokesperson for Vans said the company does not use on-call scheduling and will comply with the request for information.
A spokesperson for Uniqlo said that Uniqlo has received the letter and that on-call scheduling is not a Uniqlo practice or policy.
A spokesperson for Payless ShoeSource says the company does not engage in on-call scheduling, has received the inquiry and will respond accordingly.
A spokesperson for Zumiez said, “It is our practice to cooperate with any request from the attorney general or other state agencies and we will do so in this case as well.” Apr. 14, 2016, at 10:21 a.m.
By Cora Lewis
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4 days ago
4 days ago