Ana María Archila: Low Wage Workers are Paving the Way to Democracy
GRITtv - February 18, 2014, by Laura Flanders - Bill de Blasio campaigned on ushering in a new era in New York City and actively pursued low-wage voters. Now that he is Mayor, what can the...
GRITtv - February 18, 2014, by Laura Flanders - Bill de Blasio campaigned on ushering in a new era in New York City and actively pursued low-wage voters. Now that he is Mayor, what can the people who elected him do to influence what happens next? It is a question grassroots groups grapple with around the country. On GRITtv this week, Ana María Archila shares a few ideas. Archila was a founder of one of the most effective community groups in New York; now she's heading up a regional initiative that seeks to build popular democracy, not only at the ballot box, but in between elections.
From the school to prison pipeline and stop and frisk to immigration reform and workplace safety regulations, New Yorkers are eager to seize the moment for political change, says Archila. For evidence, consider the crowds that gathered at the Talking Transition Tent which was set up in downtown, immediately following last fall's elections.
Mayor Bill de Blasio seems to be listening. Less than two months into his term he has expanded paid sick leave for hundreds of workers around the city, one of the central demands of low wage workers. But how do people ensure that this momentum continues?
"He is only listening because low wage workers are extremely organized," Co-Executive Director for the Center for Popular Democracy Ana María Archila tells GRITtv. "New Yorkers are demanding more."
In addition to paid sick leave, organizers with Make the Road New York (the community organization that Archila describes as her "organizing home") are campaigning for a raise in the minimum wage and increased work place safety regulations. Organizing locally and creating small scale initiatives, like worker or consumer co-ops, can help engage people and address some immediate needs, but ultimately, low wage Americans need to build political power.
"The biggest co-operative we have is our own government and we need to make sure that it works for us," she says.
For more on ushering in a new progressive era, watch our interview with Joo-Hyun Kang on ending the Stop and Frisk regime.
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Neel Kashkari Named Next Minneapolis Fed President
Neel Kashkari, a former financier who managed the U.S. Treasury’s $700 billion rescue of banks in the 2008 crisis, was named the next president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
...Neel Kashkari, a former financier who managed the U.S. Treasury’s $700 billion rescue of banks in the 2008 crisis, was named the next president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Kashkari’s resume includes stops at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co., and a failed run for governor of California last year. At the Treasury, he was Secretary Henry Paulson’s key aide in overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Kashkari will take over from Narayana Kocherlakota on January 1, 2016, according to a statement Tuesday from the Minneapolis Fed.
“He has a little bit of all the pieces you’d want in a Fed president,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut.
As head of one of 12 regional Fed banks, Kashkari will join the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank’s policy making panel. The Fed is weighing ending a seven-year era of near-zero interest rates, with investors betting it will move next month. Kashkari is not scheduled to vote on policy decisions until 2017. Kocherlakota, as is customary for outgoing FOMC members, will not attend the December meeting.
QE ‘Morphine’
Kocherlakota is one of the Fed’s most dovish policy makers who has argued it should keep rates on hold into next year. Kashkari has offered observations on monetary policy via his twitter feed, without spelling out whether he would favor raising rates or delaying liftoff in the current climate. In an April 2013 comment he likened the Bank of Japan’s asset purchase program to “morphine. makes u feel better but doesn’t cure.”
“I don’t think we know that much” about Kashkari’s views on monetary policy, said Angel Ubide, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “My experience with people who get appointed is whatever they thought before and what they do later doesn’t necessarily correlate.”
Kashkari, 42, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He began his career as an aerospace engineer at TRW Inc. in Redondo Beach, California.
Goldman Sachs
Kashkari’s appointment places another ex-Goldman Sachs banker at the helm of a regional Fed bank. Robert Steven Kaplan at the Dallas Fed and New York’s William C. Dudley are Goldman alums. Philadelphia Fed chief Patrick Harker previously served as a trustee at Goldman Sachs Trust and as a member of the board of managers of Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund Partners Registered Fund.
“We’re disappointed that yet another former Goldman Sachs insider has been elevated to a regional president position,” said Jordan Haedtler at the Center for Popular Democracy in Washington.
Such appointments need “more transparency and public input,” said Haedtler, who’s deputy campaign manager at Fed Up, a national coalition that’s calling for changes at the central bank and wants to keep rates low to boost employment.
Kashkari worked at Goldman in the early 2000s before accepting a post at the Treasury in 2006. He joined Pimco, then led by bond fund manager Bill Gross, in 2009 to help oversee an expansion into equities, an attempt to reduce the firm’s heavy dependence on the fixed-income market. When he left in 2013, the company’s equity unit had attracted $10 billion in assets, or less than 1 percent of the firm’s total assets at the time.
Bank Bailout
TARP, approved by Congress in October 2008, remains one of the more controversial measures taken during the financial crisis. It authorized the government to purchase up to $700 billion in troubled assets from financial institutions, in an effort to bolster global credit markets. The government ultimately used $475 billion, including $250 billion to stabilize banks, $82 billion to bail out auto makers and $70 billion to save insurer American International Group Inc., according to the Treasury’s website.
“Mr. Kashkari is an influential leader whose combined experience in the public and private sectors makes him the ideal candidate to head the Minneapolis Fed,” said MayKao Hang, incoming chair of the Minneapolis Fed’s board of directors and co-chair of the search committee.
Kashkari, a Republican, was defeated by incumbent California Governor Jerry Brown in November 2014, getting 43 percent of the vote to Brown’s 57 percent.
Presidents of the 12 regional Fed banks are appointed by a portion of their respective boards of directors, subject to the approval of the Fed Board in Washington. Reserve bank boards typically consist of nine members, including three bankers. The banking members are excluded under Dodd-Frank from participating in the selection of presidents.
Source: Bloomberg Business
Illinois Legislature Passes Landmark Automatic Voter Registration System
06.01.2016
CHICAGO – Last night, the Illinois legislature passed Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), setting the state on a path to be the fifth state in the country with such a policy. The legislation, which passed both the Senate and House with bipartisan support, now goes to Governor Bruce Rauner for his signature. If Governor Rauner signs the bill, the law would automatically register eligible Illinois citizens when they do business at the Department of Driver’s Services and other designated state agencies, adding as much as two million eligible voters to the rolls.
The legislation passed Tuesday will create one of the most comprehensive AVR programs in the country. It includes best practices for enacting and implementing an AVR system that will register the most eligible citizens and aims to reduce the disparities in registration and participation among communities of color, immigrant communities and young citizens.
The legislation builds off the successful model pioneered in Oregon, which automatically adds eligible voters to the state’s registration database by determining eligibility using information the state agencies already collects – birthday, address, citizenship – and giving individuals the option to opt-out of registration. It expands AVR to a variety of state agencies beyond Driver’s Services, which expands the system’s reach to a more diverse set of eligible individuals. The legislation creates a more accurate and secure system, removing non-eligible individuals from the registration process. A number of states have also passed Automatic Voter Registration in recent months, including Vermont and West Virginia.
The introduction and passage of this groundbreaking legislation owes its success to the extensive organizing work of the Just Democracy Coalition and the leadership of its steering committee of organizations, including Center for Popular Democracy’s state partners Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Action Now. The Center for Popular Democracy worked with its state partners and the Just Democracy Coalition to support the bill’s passage.
Emma Greenman, Director of Voting Rights and Democracy at Center for Popular Democracy, released the following statement:
“With this vote, Illinois sets the bar for voter registration systems in this country. The legislation will create one of the most inclusive, modern voter registration systems and move closer to the goal of eliminating registration as a barrier to voting and participation in elections. It will bring an estimated two million citizens into the democratic process in Illinois. And it gives other states a model of an inclusive policy that truly reduces the registration and participation disparities of communities of color, low-income communities and young people. It is clear that proactive measures to expand access to voter registration are catching fire around the country, and we will continue to fight until all eligible Americans can exercise their right to register and vote.”
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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.
Contact:
Asya Pikovsky, apikovsky@populardemocracy.org, 207-522-2442
Anita Jain, ajain@populardemocracy.org, 347-636-9761
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.
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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US jobless claims at 40-year low: Is the labor market getting better?
The number of Americans applying for new unemployment benefits last week dropped to its lowest point in more than 40 years, signaling that the labor market may be stronger than many economists had...
The number of Americans applying for new unemployment benefits last week dropped to its lowest point in more than 40 years, signaling that the labor market may be stronger than many economists had predicted. But the positive labor numbers do not mean that wage stagnation for those workers who do have a job is likely to end anytime soon.
Initial jobless claims fell last week to a seasonally adjusted 255,000, which is the lowest level since November 1973, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
Summer is a volatile time for reliable unemployment numbers because it is generally the season that some large car assembly plants close for annual retooling. Because such stoppages don't affect all companies, it's more difficult for the Labor Department to accurately adjust its numbers.
Even with that caveat, Thursday's report points to a growing downward trend of unemployment that indicates a strengthening labor market.
The four-week moving average, which is less subject to weekly fluctuations and a better measure of labor market trends, fell 4,000 to 278,500 last week. The average level of claims has been near that mark since early April.
The numbers are being released as the movement for raising the minimum wage gains ground nationally. With the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, American cities including Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the past year have moved to raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour.
On Wednesday, the District of Columbia authorized a petition drive that could put the $15-an-hour minimum wage on the ballot in November 2016 elections. At the same time, a New York panel recommended that fast-food workers at chain restaurants statewide have their wages raised to $15, a move widely expected to be approved by the state's acting labor commissioner.
But that doesn't mean you should immediately march into your bosses' office and demand a raise.
While job growth has picked up and unemployment is continuing its seven-year downward trend, it has not been matched by corresponding wage increases, indicating that the labor market is still predominantly skewed to employers and not workers. Wages have only risen about 2 percent during the past 12 months.
"As an economist watching the economy, we're somewhat surprised that wages pressures have been so muted to this point," IHS Economics senior director Jim Diffley told Reuters. "We do expect an acceleration and in fact think it necessary to continue the recovery."
According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, the majority of Americans have faced wage stagnation for the past 35 years, and it is a major factor the rise of family income stagnation and income inequality. Furthermore, the failure of wages to grow highlights gender and racial wage gaps.
United States Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said that shifting wages out of its stagnation is still a major part of the “unfinished business” of the nation’s economic recovery from the Great Recession.
“The rising tide of this economic wind at our back has to lift more boats,” he told The New York Times.
Optimistic signs of labor market growth have been tempered with a note of caution from the Federal Reserve, which is monitoring labor market conditions, including wage stagnation, to determine whether to raise short-term interest rates.
”While labor market conditions have improved substantially, they are ... not yet consistent with maximum employment,” Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen told members of Congress last week.
Labor groups are calling on the Fed to hold off on rate hikes and focus on pursuing full employment in order to boost both job and wage growth.
“Raising interest rates too soon will slow an already sluggish economy, stall progress on unemployment, and perpetuate wage stagnation for the vast majority of American workers. This harm will be disproportionately felt by women and people of color, who are concentrated in the most vulnerable strata of the workforce,” said a report released by the Center for Popular Democracy and a coalition of labor groups.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
How Can We Combat Wage Theft And Protect Immigrant Workers?
How Can We Combat Wage Theft And Protect Immigrant Workers?
Every year, millions of workers suffer from wage theft when employers or companies do not pay them what they are owed.
...
Every year, millions of workers suffer from wage theft when employers or companies do not pay them what they are owed.
Read the full article here.
Wells Fargo: California Leader in Predatory Lending and Heartless Foreclosures
San Diego Free Press - March 13, 2012, by Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment - When it comes to foreclosing on Californians, it looks like Wells Fargo may take the prize. According...
San Diego Free Press - March 13, 2012, by Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment - When it comes to foreclosing on Californians, it looks like Wells Fargo may take the prize. According to a report released today, Wells Fargo is responsible for more homes in the foreclosure pipeline in California than any other single lender.
Wells Fargo is servicing the most loans, but they are providing less principal reduction to struggling borrowers than either Bank of America and Chase – who themselves should be doing more! The recent report from the Monitor of the multi-state Attorneys General settlement with the five big mortgage servicers showed that Wells Fargo trails behind Bank of America and Chase when it comes to the amount of principal reduction given as part of first lien loan modifications.
This is the very same Wells Fargo that just had its most profitable year ever in 2012, with earnings of $19 billion.
The report, California in Crisis: How Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Pipeline Is Damaging Local Communities, by ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), the Center for Popular Democracy and the Home Defenders League, shows the harm coming to homeowners, communities and the economy unless Wells Fargo reverses its course and averts some or all of the impending foreclosures.
Click here to download the report.
The report uses data from Foreclosure Radar to look at loans currently in the foreclosure pipeline in California – meaning loans that have a Notice of Default or Notice of Trustee Sale. Of the 65,466 loans in the foreclosure pipeline, close to 20% of them are serviced by Wells Fargo.
If Wells Fargo’s 11,616 distressed loans go through foreclosure, California will take a next $3.3 billion hit: Each home will lose approximately 22 percent of its value, for a total loss of approximately $1.07 billion; homes in the surrounding neighborhood will lose value as well, for an additional loss of about $2.2 billion; and government tax revenues will be cut by $20 million, as a result of the depreciation.
And not surprisingly, African American and Latino communities will be particularly hard-hit. The report includes maps for seven major cities showing minority density and dots for each of Wells Fargo’s distressed loans. In city after city, they are heavily clustered in neighborhoods with high African American and Latino populations.
“My community has been absolutely devastated by the foreclosure crisis, and I put a lot of the blame at the doorstep of Wells Fargo,” says ACCE Home Defenders League member Vivian Richardson. “Wells Fargo’s heartless and unfair foreclosure practices are sending far more homes into foreclosure than is necessary.”
San Francisco Supervisor David Campos released a statement of support: “Our communities and our entire State are still reeling from the housing crisis, and will be for years to come. As this report shows, the numbers of homes still facing foreclosure is enormous. Principal reduction is clearly a critical strategy for saving homes and stabilizing the economy. Wells Fargo and the other major banks should be doing more of it.”
The report recommends:
Wells Fargo should commit to a broad principal reduction program.This means that every homeowner facing hardship should be offered a loan modification, when Wells has the legal authority to do so. The modification should be based on an affordable debt-to-income ratio, achieved through a waterfall that prioritizes principal reduction and interest rate reductions. Junior liens must also be modified.
Wells Fargo should report data on its principal reduction, short sales, and foreclosures by race, income, and zip code.Wells Fargo must be more transparent about its mortgage practices. The bank has an egregious history of harming California’s African American and Latino communities through predatory and discriminatory lending. To show the public that it has reformed, Wells Fargo must make this data available. The people of California need to know that Well Fargo is no longer discriminating against people of color and is fairly and equitably providing relief to homeowners and to the hardest hit communities.
Wells Fargo should immediately stop all foreclosures until the first two demands are met.In the event that it takes a few months to set up a fully functioning principal reduction program, Wells Fargo needs to immediately stop all foreclosures. Wells Fargo has done enough harm. It’s time to stop. California deserves a break.
ACCE is waging a campaign to push Wells Fargo to be a leader in California, their home state, in saving homes – beginning with their performance to comply with the Attorneys General Settlement and with the Homeowner Bill of Rights, but not ending there.
Click here to sign on to a letter to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf to support to campaign demands.
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Martin Luther King, institutions and power
Martin Luther King, institutions and power
Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the new book 'The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting...
Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the new book 'The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth and Prosperity.'
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gestures during a speech at a Chicago Freedom Movement rally at Soldier Field in Chicago on July 10, 1966. (Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)
When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis, supporting striking sanitation workers. By that time in his crusade for racial justice, he had elevated full employment to a key plank in his platform. The full name of the March on Washington was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A common placard held up that day read, “Civil Rights Plus Full Employment Equals Freedom,” a powerful economic equation indeed.
In my experience, too few people remember this aspect of King’s movement, instead emphasizing his stirring spiritual commitment to racial inclusion. But King was of course thoroughly versed in the reality of the institutional barriers blocking blacks and his unique genius was to combine deep spiritual awareness with an equally deep understanding of the role of power in economic outcomes. That’s one reason he was in Memphis, supporting the union.
In 1967, King called for “a radical redistribution of economic and political power.” He particularly understood the power, for better or worse, of American institutions, most notably of course, the institution of racism, which so successfully blocked African Americans from decent homes, jobs, schools and opportunities.
But countervailing institutions existed within his vision as well, including the church and the union, and, if it could be forced to live up to its promise, the government. Even the institutions of the consumer economy and the job market could, with the right force and strategy, including boycotts that flexed black consumer muscle and equal opportunity laws, be nudged in the direction of racial justice.
To some readers, this “institutional” framework may be confusing. What do I mean by referencing the consumer or job markets or racism or unions, as “institutions”? This certainly doesn’t square with the classic economic explanation of how the economy works: profit-maximizing individuals achieving optimal social welfare by each individual pursuing their goals.
The institutional framework, with its emphasis on historical, legal and cultural practices (norms) embedded in economic systems, stands in stark contrast to the market forces framework. Surely no one could question whether the legal system or the housing market black people faced in King’s time, not to mention our own, promoted objective, blind justice. Discrimination in schools, the economy, and almost every other walk of life could not and cannot possibly be viewed as a fair or merit-based system.
Honoring King’s vision and legacy thus requires not simply remembering his most well-known dream: a racially inclusive society very different from the one that existed in his, or sadly, our own time. It requires recognizing the need to redistribute the power from the oppressive, exclusionary institutions, many of the same ones — housing, schools, criminal justice, the economy — he fought for until the day he was taken from us.
What does honoring that vision mean today?
Although I certainly don’t advocate giving up on President-elect Donald Trump’s administration before it has started, all signs suggest that it and the Republican-led Congress will hurt, not help, the economically less advantaged. Republican budgets threaten to undermine the safety net, Trump’s proposed tax policy squanders fiscal resources on tax cuts for the rich, undermining opportunities for those stuck in places without adequate educational or employment opportunities. There’s talk among Republicans of trying to get more states to pass “right to work” laws that undermine unions and cut workers’ pay. Listening to Ben Carson’s hearing for secretary of housing and urban development quickly disabuses one of hope that he’ll tackle the legacy of segregated housing that remains a serious problem. As far as reforming the institutionalized racism the remains embedded in our criminal justice and policing systems, again, it’s awfully hard to be hopeful.
There are, however, many levels of institutional norms, laws and practices. The Fight for Fifteen has been immensely successful in raising minimum wages at the state and sub-state levels. I can’t prove this, but I’d bet that without Black Lives Matter, there would be no “blistering report” from the Justice Department on the racial practices of the Chicago Police Department. The activist group “Fed Up” has had great success elevating the issue of economic justice as regards Federal Reserve policy, a policy area that even liberal presidents have avoided getting into.
As I recently wrote regarding “ban the box,” a policy designed to give job-seekers with criminal records a fairer shot at employment:
Nineteen states and over 100 cities and counties have already taken similar action for government employees, and seven states (Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island) plus Washington, DC and 26 cities and counties have extended ban the box policies to cover private employers. Some private businesses, including Walmart, Koch Industries, Target, Starbucks, Home Depot, and Bed, Bath & Beyond, have also adopted these policies on their own.
This last part about the private businesses is instructive. The Selma bus boycott was, of course, in no small part an economic action: Black people would not pay for discrimination. Regarding full employment, King realized that at high levels of unemployment, it’s costless to discriminate against a significant swath of potential workers. But when the job market tightens up, discriminating against a needed worker means leaving profit on the table.
Especially in the age of Trump, when so many Americans feel as if representative democracy is seriously on the ropes, it seems a no-brainer to channel King and once again tap the power of boycotts and leaning on businesses to do the right thing. It makes no sense at all to cede this field to Trump as he nonsensically claims (and gets) credit for job creation that already was happening.
My intuition is that many businesses, as in the ban-the-box example, would be willing to help push back on the institutional injustices that persist. Higher and more equal pay scales, implementation of the updated, higher overtime threshold that was wrongly blocked by a Texas judge (in fact, many businesses, to their credit, have gone ahead with this change), not blocking collective bargaining if their workers want to exercise that right, flexible scheduling policies that help parents balance work and family — there’s no reason for progressives not to fight for these ideas at the sub-national level and the private sector.
Although these sub-national fights are more likely where the action is for the next few years, meaningful action is developing at the national level as well. King would have easily recognized the Trump phenomenon as the work of exclusive institutions once again grabbing the power and would have organized accordingly and effectively. As we speak, many of us are trying to block the repeal of health-care reform in this spirit. The Indivisible Movement and the Women’s March would also have been highly familiar to Dr. King.
But on whatever level or in whatever sector the fight takes place, as we celebrate King’s indelible contributions, let us recall his understanding of power, the institutions that power supported and his admonitions to us not to rest until much more of that power lies in the hands of those who still command far too little of it.
By Jared Bernstein
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Massive Fraud In PA Charter Schools Under Corbett's Leadership
Crooks and Liars - October 2, 2014, by Karoli - What could $30 million lost dollars mean to students in Pennsylvania? Maybe more teachers, more textbooks, better classrooms? Well, forget about it...
Crooks and Liars - October 2, 2014, by Karoli - What could $30 million lost dollars mean to students in Pennsylvania? Maybe more teachers, more textbooks, better classrooms? Well, forget about it, because at least that much is in the pockets of corrupt charter school operators.
The waste and fraud in Pennsylvania charter schools is even worse than I thought. It was bad enough when Nicholas Trombetta created a nice pyramid to skim off millions in public education money to fund his own fun, but it seems he was more the rule than the exception.
Philly.com:
The instances of fraud cited in the new report include cases where charter officials were indicted or pleaded guilty and instances uncovered in state audits.
Examples include Nicholas Trombetta, founder and former CEO of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Midland, who is awaiting federal trial in Pittsburgh on charges that he diverted $8 million in school funds for personal use.
The tally also includes $6.3 million that federal prosecutors allege Dorothy June Brown defrauded from the four Philadelphia-area charters she founded.
But the authors give special attention to another recent case involving a city charter: New Media Technology Charter School in the city's Stenton section. The former CEO and founding board president went to federal prison in 2012 after admitting they stole $522,000 in taxpayer money to prop up a restaurant, a health-food store, and a private school they controlled, and for defrauding a bank.
From 2005 to 2009, when the crimes were occurring, third-party auditors hired by New Media failed to spot the fraudulent payments.
"Fraud detection in Pennsylvania charter schools should not be dependent upon parent complaints, media exposés, and whistle-blowers," the authors wrote. Rather, they urged, the system should be proactive and use forensic accounting methods.
But that would mean Tom Corbett couldn't make his sweet deals with the charter operators! Perish the thought.
What we have here is the sale of our public schools by Republicans to for-profit concerns who are perfectly content to take taxpayers' money to pad their own bottom lines while making sure our children 'isn't learning.'
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6 days ago
6 days ago