Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's been my dream to work with guests at the front desk to make sure they have the...
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's been my dream to work with guests at the front desk to make sure they have the best experience possible.
As an African-American woman, I knew that lucky breaks weren't going to be handed to me, so I did everything I could to achieve my dreams. I went to school and got my bachelor's degree in hospitality and hotel management in 2000 from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
However, apart from a brief internship after college at the Best Western and a year at the Hilton working at the switchboard, which was almost a decade ago, I haven't been able to find work in my chosen field - a field in which I have a degree.
I've heard people say the recession is over because the unemployment rate is about 5 percent. But I can tell you that things are still really bad in the black community. Currently, unemployment for blacks is about 9 percent.
I've always been politically active and serve as the judge of elections in my voting district. So when I heard about a campaign that calls on the Federal Reserve to ensure that everybody gets decent paying work, including black folks, I was eager to join.
When I got my degree 16 years ago, the economy was in decent shape. Armed with my degree, the internship experience and good recommendations, I didn't expect to have any problems getting a job in a hotel. I applied to two dozen jobs and, after being turned down at all of them, I had to take other kinds of jobs in food service or customer service.
Finally, after many years, I got my switchboard job at the Hilton. Even though I was getting only $10 an hour, I was excited to finally be working at a hotel and thought I would just stay there and work my way up. But the recession hit in 2008, and I was laid off a year later.
That's when things became really tough. The recession hit African-American women, even college-educated ones like me, particularly hard. I've worked on and off since 2008, but finding good work has become almost impossible. At one point, I was traveling two hours each way to get to my job at a state-run liquor store.
I eventually had to quit when I suffered severe medical issues. I was diagnosed with a neurological condition and uterine fibroids, all within a matter of months. A couple of years ago, I was able to work again and joined a job skills program. The program placed me at a job where I work part-time - only 20 hours a week - as a cashier and food server at a university dining hall.
The unemployment rate apparently counts people like me as employed, even though I don't work enough hours to pay my bills. I'm overqualified and underpaid (I earn $11.25 an hour), but since I'm working - even though I'm still on Medicaid and food stamps - I'm used as evidence to say the recession is over.
Involuntary part-time unemployment is a more accurate figure to look at. It's over 15 percent for blacks! That's a whole lot of people who aren't making ends meet, but are still being counted as working.
People need to know that the Federal Reserve has incredible power over the economy and people's lives. It might seem very abstract, but it's not. If the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates low, the economy will continue to grow and people like me will be able to find full-time jobs or better paying work. If it raises rates because it claims the economy is doing well, it will be tougher for everyone to find jobs.
I'm going to Jackson Hole, Wyo., next week to join a protest against the Federal Reserve, which holds a symposium there every year. We want the president of the Philadelphia Fed, Patrick Harker, and the rest of the Fed, to see what regular folks go through beyond the numbers in the headlines.
Every week, I still go online to look for jobs at large hotel chains. I know that one of these days I will work at a hotel again. I just need the economy to give me a fair chance.
Salwa Shabazz lives in Philadelphia and is a member of the Fed Up campaign, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy.
By Salwa Shabazz
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Protesters to Call on Dimon, Schwarzman to Quit Trump Council
Jamie Dimon and Stephen Schwarzman are facing renewed criticism for their ties to President Donald Trump.
Protesters will descend on JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s headquarters in New York on...
Jamie Dimon and Stephen Schwarzman are facing renewed criticism for their ties to President Donald Trump.
Protesters will descend on JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s headquarters in New York on Wednesday with more than 400,000 petitions collected across the U.S., according to a statement from groups including the Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road New York. The groups are calling for Dimon, the chief executive officer of JPMorgan, and Schwarzman, Blackstone Group LP’s CEO, to quit Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum.
Read the full article here.
La campaña anti-Trump señala a empresas que apoyan su política
La protesta popular contra las políticas antiinmigrantes y antitrabajadores de Donald Trump se amplía y desde ayer ha empezado a tener en su objetivo a empresas que hacen posible su agenda con sus...
La protesta popular contra las políticas antiinmigrantes y antitrabajadores de Donald Trump se amplía y desde ayer ha empezado a tener en su objetivo a empresas que hacen posible su agenda con sus inversiones o alineándose con la Administración.
El Center for Popular Democracy y Make the Road New York han lanzado una campaña contra nueve empresas entre las que están JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Disney, Goldman Sachs, IBM, Uber, Blackstone y Boeing. Algunas están en la lista por hacer donaciones a la inauguración de la actual presidencia o estrechar relaciones con la Administración. Otras por ser inversores en las empresas que construyen y operan cárceles privadas para inmigrantes.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
The Health-Care Industry Is Sick
I have ALS, a deadly, incurable neurological disease that is paralyzing my whole body, including my diaphragm. This makes it difficult for me to breathe while lying flat in bed. This month, my...
I have ALS, a deadly, incurable neurological disease that is paralyzing my whole body, including my diaphragm. This makes it difficult for me to breathe while lying flat in bed. This month, my doctor prescribed me a Trilogy breathing-assistance machine, which would solve the problem (at least for now). Yet my insurance, Health Net, denied coverage, calling it “experimental.”
Read the full article here.
National advocacy groups are backing the sick-leave effort in Texas
National advocacy groups are backing the sick-leave effort in Texas
National advocacy groups based mostly in Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, N.Y., were responsible for $1.8 million of the $2.5 million contributed and loaned to the political action committee...
National advocacy groups based mostly in Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, N.Y., were responsible for $1.8 million of the $2.5 million contributed and loaned to the political action committee leading the effort to mandate paid sick leave for workers in Texas...The other major outside donors include...$95,000, Center for Popular Democracy, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Read the full article here.
Toys 'R' Us and the Death of Retail
When Debbie Beard found out the company she'd worked at for 29 years, Toys R Us, was closing down, she was shocked--she knew the company had been having financial difficulties for a while, but...
When Debbie Beard found out the company she'd worked at for 29 years, Toys R Us, was closing down, she was shocked--she knew the company had been having financial difficulties for a while, but didn't realize it was that bad. The more she learned, though, about the way the company had been looted by private equity firms Bain Capital and KKR, the more she determined that no one else should have to go through this. Debbie and other Toys R Us workers are organizing to demand severance pay from the company, and beyond that, organizing to stop the kind of leveraged buyouts that saddle viable companies with unsustainable debt. She joins me along with Carrie Gleason of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy to explain what can be done.
Read the full article here.
America's Worst Employer Pageant Launches Today
America's Worst Employer Pageant Launches Today
Today, Center for Popular Democracy launches the first-ever Worst Employer Pageant asking America to help crown the nation’s worst employer based on how abominably it treats its employees. By...
Today, Center for Popular Democracy launches the first-ever Worst Employer Pageant asking America to help crown the nation’s worst employer based on how abominably it treats its employees. By pitting the two worst employers within four different sector against each other, the site asks visitors to cast their votes in each of the following categories – banks, supermarkets, drug stores, and pizza chains.
The Worst Employer Pageant has gathered extensive information on the companies, allowing voters to make their decisions based on such bad behaviors as a poor CEO to median worker pay ratio, failure to pay minimum wage and overtime, worker lawsuits against companies, or forcing workers to work through breaks, among other egregious practices.
“America’s most recognizable brands are some of our biggest employers and we want to highlight their poor treatment of employees,” said JoEllen Chernow, Director of Economic Justice at Center for Popular Democracy. “Consumers are no longer just judging companies on how much they like their products or the efficiency of their services. In 2016, customers care about how companies treat their workers full stop. Yup, it’s a thing.”
The companies nominated for becoming the Worst Employer are:
· Bank of America
· Wells Fargo
· Sam’s Club
· Whole Foods
· CVS
· Walgreens
· Papa John’s
· Yum! Brands, Inc. (Pizza Hut)
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www.populardemocracy.org
The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda
‘Inflation Dynamics’ With the Fed as Ringmaster
In the center ring, Federal Reserve brass will be gathering for the closed-door conference that is hosted annually by the Kansas City Fed. Janet Yellen is skipping the event, as chairs of the...
In the center ring, Federal Reserve brass will be gathering for the closed-door conference that is hosted annually by the Kansas City Fed. Janet Yellen is skipping the event, as chairs of the board of governors occasionally do. The town, though, will be full of her critics.
On the right, the American Principles Project will host a separate parley on the need to reform the monetary system by restoring the gold standard as the best route to full employment.
In the left ring, a third group, called Fed Up, will argue for placing a priority on job creation. The Washington Post reports that the organization’s “teach in” will cover “income inequality, efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and whether the Fed should invest in municipal bonds.”
The Fed and its critics will be gathering as a bill to establish a Centennial Monetary Commission goes to the floor of the House. The bill would establish a commission to examine the Fed as it begins its second century.
At the Fed’s conference—the theme is “Inflation Dynamics”— one speaker will be the Fed’s vice chairman, Stanley Fischer. Earlier this month, in an interview with Bloomberg News, he seemed to suggest that the dollar wasn’t losing value fast enough for the Fed’s taste.
MarketWatch headlined the interview as suggesting that a rate hike in September is “not a done deal.” The collapse of stock markets around the world in recent days, says USA Today, gives the Fed a “new excuse” not to raise interest rates.
No doubt Fed Up, part of the Center for Popular Democracy, will make the most of it. In addition to pressing for keeping interest rates near zero, the group is lobbying for more labor and consumer advocates on boards of regional Federal Reserve banks. Fed Up also wants easy money. “Fed policy has been too tight for the past 40 years,” Fed Up Director Ady Barkan emails me. “The commitment to keeping inflation low at all costs is what has led to the elevated levels of unemployment.”
The focus of the American Principles Project—with its gathering of economists, political leaders, bloggers and activists— will be less on what the Fed should do and more on whether central banks are the problem and how Congress should use its powers for reform.
I wonder whether there might be surprising convergence between the left and right camps. American Principles is also focusing on employment but sees as critical to job creation the return to a dollar that is an honest unit of account defined in law and backed by gold.
One of the group’s presenters, Marc Miles, is likely to report on a new study showing that higher interest rates correlate to job creation. Has the Fed pursued the wrong policies as it has used its mandate, legislated in 1978 with the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, to boost employment?
When the law created the Fed’s so-called dual mandate by obliging the central bank to aim for full employment in addition to maintaining price stability, even the New York Times called the measure a “cruel hoax.” Considering whether to end the dual mandate is one of the questions that would be taken up by the Centennial Monetary Commission on which the House is preparing to vote.
So would the question of whether a rules-based system, such as that proposed by economics professor John Taylor, could solve the problem of fiat money that is not defined in law. Congress has already started looking at these matters.
Fed Chair Yellen has bridled at such ideas. Earlier this year she suggested that she would oppose any rule of monetary policy making. At Jackson Hole three years ago, then-Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress to, as the Drudge Report headlined it, “butt out” of interest-rate policy discussions.
The fear at the Fed is that Congress will politicize the formation of monetary policy. That strikes me as a weak line. The Constitution, which all Fed chairmen swear to support, grants monetary powers to Congress, precisely to the most political branch of the government.
We are approaching the end of a presidency that has been hobbled by an underperforming economy. No wonder the Fed’s most celebrated annual gathering is now bracketed by competing conferences that seek political reform of monetary policy. The big question is whether Congress and the presidential candidates are listening.
Source: Wall Street Journal Asia
Zara stores in NYC accused of discriminating against black employees and customers
According to a new report published by the Center for Popular Democracy, ZARA’s New York City...
According to a new report published by the Center for Popular Democracy, ZARA’s New York City locations have a serious problem with discrimination.
Study author Chaya Crowder writes that Zara has a “documented history of racial insensitivity in its designs, discriminatory treatment of its employees, and prejudice agains its customers.” Zara, as you may remember, is the company that caught flack for items like a bag with a swastika on it, a striped shirt with a gold star that looks very much like what Jews were forced to wear in concentration camps during the Holocaust, and a T-shirt bearing the phrase “white is the new black.” Charming stuff!
So it’s hard to be completely shocked by the report’s conclusions—after surveying employees at six of Zara’s NYC stores (for context, eight of the Spanish retailer’s 53 U.S. locations are in the city), Crowder found that most employees feel workers with lighter skin are treated better. From the report:
Employees of color agreed most strongly that ‘managers show favoritism.’ Many of the employees interviewed felt that favoritism is based on race. One employee stated ‘Managers definitely show favoritism to the Europeans.’ Another employee asserted, ‘The favoritism goes to those that are not African American or Latino’… In general, employees with a longer tenure at Zara identified favoritism, especially race-based favoritism, as an issue.
And, employees say that customers are treated with bias, as well. According to Crowder, Zara workers say that that the code “special order” is used as a way to trail suspected shoplifters in the stores. The people trailed, say employees, are disproportionately black:
A preponderance of employees surveyed mentioned a practice of labeling customers as ‘special orders,’ a security code for suspected shoplifters. Employees overwhelmingly felt that the Zara practice led to Black customers being disproportionately labeled as special orders upon entry to Zara stores.
A Zara spokesperson told the Guardian that “Zara USA vehemently refutes the findings,” adding that Crowder did not try to reach the company.
Zara’s parent company, Inditex, reiterated to Fusion in an email that Zara USA refutes the accusations, adding that the report “was prepared with ulterior motives,” and that “it fails to follow an acceptable methodology for the conduct of a credible objective survey on workplace practices, and instead appears to have taken an approach to achieve a pre-determined result which was to discredit Zara.”
But Zara is currently being sued by a former employee who says he was harassed and later fired because he’s gay, Jewish, and American.
This, of course, is not the first time a major retailer has been accused of discrimination. Back in 2013, sources at Barneys said racism against black customers was part of the culture at the luxury department store.
Zara’s parent company, Inditex, reiterated to Fusion in an email that Zara USA “vehemently refutes the claims,” adding that the report “was prepared with ulterior motives,” and that “it fails to follow an acceptable methodology for the conduct of a credible objective survey on workplace practices, and instead appears to have taken an approach to achieve a pre-determined result which was to discredit Zara.”
Source: Fusion
Black leaders in Pittsburgh echo frustration voiced across nation
Black leaders in Pittsburgh echo frustration voiced across nation
Pittsburgh could easily become the next Dallas as frustrations in poor black neighborhoods continue to mount over perceived economic inequalities and mistreatment by police officers, black...
Pittsburgh could easily become the next Dallas as frustrations in poor black neighborhoods continue to mount over perceived economic inequalities and mistreatment by police officers, black community members said Friday.
They condemned the attacks in Dallas that left five officers dead and seven officers and two civilians wounded.
They attributed the shootings to escalating frustration over socio-economic conditions in poor neighborhoods and repeated incidents across the nation in which officers were caught on video using deadly force to subdue minorities.
“These things will fester and grow and grow and grow,” said Connie Parker, president of the Pittsburgh branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “It's Texas right now, but it can be Pittsburgh next week.”
T. Rashad Byrdsong, president and founder of Community Empowerment Association, a Homewood-based nonprofit, said police officers have become a whipping post for deep-rooted problems beyond their control.
“The real problem is the inability of our public officials to sit down and come up with some comprehensive plan on how to include everybody in this democratic process,” Byrdsong said.
Pittsburgh has had its share of high-profile incidents. The most recent in January — the fatal shooting by Port Authority police of Tyrone Kelly Jr., a 37-year-old homeless man who fatally stabbed a police K-9 dog — drew protests. Police killed Kelly while attempting to arrest him for drinking beer on Port Authority property after he stabbed the dog.
In April 2009, Officers Eric G. Kelly, Stephen J. Mayhle and Paul J. Sciullo II were killed by Richard Poplawski while responding to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance at his Stanton Heights home
Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay was in Washington for a conference when news of the Dallas shootings broke Thursday night. He and his command staff returned to Pittsburgh immediately to begin reaching out to community leaders. He said he was worried about the mood he'd find when he returned to the city Friday morning.
“I expected to find the atmosphere more tense,” he said, adding that city officers remain positive. “I'm really, really proud of them.”
Officers across Allegheny County said that it was impossible not to react emotionally to the massacre in Dallas. A Pittsburgh officer directing traffic Downtown called the mood somber but professional.
Malik Bankston, executive director of the Kingsley Center in Larimer, praised McLay and Mayor Bill Peduto for initiatives to improve relations between police and residents.
“To me, that's sort of the heart of the challenges we have right now, this whole idea of building trust,” Bankston said. “That's very unglamorous, thankless work that's only going to be realized over time, but there has to be a commitment from the highest level.”
Tim Stevens, chairman of the Black Political Empowerment Project in the Hill District, said Dallas is a pivotal moment for the nation to begin bridging a racial divide.
He said the majority of black people are horrified by violence directed toward police, but they also feel the justice system is weighted against them. He called on political and community leaders and residents to unite in an effort to find solutions.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
Greensburg police on its Facebook page said that “no police officer wakes up in the morning wandering who they can shoot today. Realize that none of us are perfect, but we certainly strive to be the best that we can.”
By Bob Bauder & Megan Guza
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5 days ago
5 days ago