City Bar Statement Praising New York City Council’s Efforts to Fund Immigration Public Defender System, and Urging Nationwide Action
New York City Bar - July 19, 2013 - The New York City Bar Association applauds the New York City Council for allocating $500,000 for the “nation’s first public defender system for immigrants...
New York City Bar - July 19, 2013 - The New York City Bar Association applauds the New York City Council for allocating $500,000 for the “nation’s first public defender system for immigrants facing deportation,” as the New York Times described it. The Council’s effort is a model for what Congress should enact nationwide, to support justice, economic fairness and efficient administration of the courts.
The City Bar salutes the City Council’s commitment to fund lawyers for New York’s low-income immigrants through the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. Research by a study group convened by Second Circuit Judge Robert Katzmann has demonstrated the inability of immigrant detainees to represent themselves, with only three percent of them achieving success in their cases without counsel. Lenni Benson, the chair of the City Bar’s Immigration and Nationality Committee, and Lynn Kelly, the Executive Director of the City Bar Justice Center, are participants in Judge Katzmann’s efforts.
Congress should build upon New York’s model and provide appointed counsel to indigent non-citizens in immigration proceedings nationwide. In its position letter and in continued meetings with Congressional members and staff, the City Bar, through its Immigration & Nationality Committee, has emphasized that a right to counsel advances fundamental American values of fairness and due process. As the letter stated, “There is no citizenship test for counsel in America.” The familiar words “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you” do not include “only if you are a citizen.”
City Bar President Carey R. Dunne said, “When you consider that Congress, with bipartisan support, has granted a right to counsel to sex offenders and Al Qaeda suspects in detention hearings, and that 76 percent of Americans support a right to counsel for immigrants facing deportation, it’s hard to see why appointed counsel is still denied to non-citizen residents facing detention and deportation.”
Counsel also provides economic and social benefits that outweigh its costs. Appointing counsel in these cases pays for itself by reducing costly detention, increasing court efficiency, and reducing societal costs due to the splitting up of families and the resulting abandonment of children. “Increasing access to justice by funding legal services for the City’s poorest residents actually benefits the entire City’s economy,” said Dunne. The City Bar’s 2013 Policy Recommendations for New York City’s Next Mayor sets out these benefits in more detail, and the City Bar’s Immigration & Nationality Law Committee is currently preparing a report to more specifically articulate these benefits in the immigration context.
The City Bar’s efforts to expand the right to counsel in immigration proceedings follows its decades of advocacy to provide lawyers to those unable to adequately represent themselves when liberty and basic needs are at stake. In 1959, the City Bar’s groundbreaking report Equal Justice for the Accused advocated appointed counsel for criminal defendants as reflecting society’s interest in “fundamental human rights,” and provided support for the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963’s Gideon v. Wainwright decision. In 2006, the City Bar co-sponsored the American Bar Association’s resolution supporting a right to appointed counsel in civil proceedings. In 2009, the City Bar’s Immigration & Nationality Committee released a report arguing for a right to appointed counsel for detainees in immigration removal proceedings.
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Activists Deliver Climate Plan for Just Transition to EPA Offices Nationwide
On January 19, activists at each of the Environmental Protection Agency's 10 regional offices issued their own corrective on the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. Days before the end of the...
On January 19, activists at each of the Environmental Protection Agency's 10 regional offices issued their own corrective on the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. Days before the end of the federal comment period, the Climate Justice Alliance's Our Power Campaign - comprised of 41 climate and environmental justice organizations - presented its Our Power Plan, which identifies "clear and specific strategies for implementing the Clean Power Plan, or CPP, in a way that will truly benefit our families' health and our country's economy."
Introduced last summer, the CPP looks to bring down power plants' carbon emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels within 15 years. The plan was made possible by Massachusetts vs. EPA, a 2007 Supreme Court ruling which mandates that the agency regulate greenhouse gases as it has other toxins and pollutants under the Clean Air Act of 1963. Under the CPP, states are each required to draft their own implementation plans by September of this year, or by 2018 if granted an extension. If they fail to do so, state governments will be placed by default into an interstate carbon trading, or "Cap and Trade," system to bring down emissions.
Michael Leon Guerrero, the Climate Justice Alliance's interim coordinator, was in Paris for the most recent round of UN climate talks as part of the It Takes Roots Delegation, which brought together over 100 organizers from North American communities on the frontlines of both climate change and fossil fuel extraction. He sees the Our Power Plan as a logical next step for the group coming out of COP21, especially as the onus for implementing and improving the Paris agreement now falls to individual nations.
"Fundamentally," he said, "we need to transform our economy and rebuild our communities. We can't address the climate crisis in a cave without addressing issues of equity."
The Our Power Plan, or OPP, is intended as a blueprint for governments and EPA administrators to address the needs of frontline communities as they draft their state-level plans over the next several months. (People living within three miles of a coal plant have incomes averaging 15 percent lower than average, and are eight percent more likely to be communities of color.) Included in the OPP are calls to bolster what CJA sees as the CPP's more promising aspects, like renewable energy provisions, while eliminating proposed programs they see as more harmful. The CPP's carbon trading scheme, CJA argues, allows polluters to buy "permissions to pollute," or carbon credits, rather than actually stemming emissions.
The OPP further outlines ways that the EPA can ensure a "just transition" away from fossil fuels, encouraging states to invest in job creation, conduct equity analyses and "work with frontlines communities to develop definitions, indicators, and tracking and response systems that really account for impacts like health, energy use, cost of energy, climate vulnerability [and] cumulative risk."
Lacking support from Congress, the Obama administration has relied on executive action to push through everything from environmental action to comprehensive immigration reform. The Clean Power Plan was central to the package Obama brought to Paris. Also central to COP21 was US negotiators' insistence on keeping its results non-binding, citing Republican lawmakers' unwillingness to pass legislation.
Predictably, the CPP has faced legal challenges from the same forces, who decry the president for having overstepped the bounds of his authority. Republican state governments, utility companies, and fossil fuel industry groups have all filed suit against the CPP, with many asking for expedited hearings. Leading up the anti-CPP charge in Congress has been Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who hascalled the plan a "regulatory assault," pitting fossil fuel industry workers against the EPA. "Here's what is lost in this administration's crusade for ideological purity," he wrote in a November statement, "the livelihoods of our coal miners and their families."
Organizers of Tuesday's actions, however, were quick to point out that the Our Power Plan is aimed at strengthening - not defeating - the CPP as it stands. Denise Abdul-Rahman, of NAACP Indiana, helped organize an OPP delivery at the EPA's Region 5 headquarters in Chicago, bringing out representatives from Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, National People's Action and National Nurses United.
"We appreciate the integrity of the Clean Power Plan," she said. "However, we believe it needs to be improved - from eliminating carbon trading to ensuring that there's equity. We want to improve CPP by adding our voices and our plan, and we encourage the EPA to make it better." Four of the six states in that region - which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin - are suing the EPA.
Endorsed by the National Domestic Workers' Alliance, Greenpeace and the Center for Popular Democracy, among other organizations, yesterday's national day of action on the EPA came as new details emerged in Flint, Michigan's ongoing water crisis - along with calls for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's resignation and arrest. The EPA has also admitted fault for its slow response to Flint residents' complaints, writing in a statement this week that "necessary [EPA] actions were not taken as quickly as they should have been."
Abdul-Rahman connected the water crisis with the need for a justly-implemented CPP. "The Flint government let their community down by not protecting our most precious asset, which is water," she said. "The same is true of air: we need the highest standard of protecting human beings' air, water, land."
Source: Truthout
Do Hedge Funds Make Good Neighbors?
Nearly eight years after the start of the global financial crisis, hedge funds and private equity firms have...
Nearly eight years after the start of the global financial crisis, hedge funds and private equity firms have found yet another way to make big profits: distressed housing assets. Often, the very same corporate actors that precipitated the housing crash in the first place are buying and selling off delinquent mortgages and vacant houses that are a product of the crash.
Together, these Wall Street entities have raised over $20 billion to buy the notes for as many as 200,000 homes in the United States. The newly consolidated single-family rental market is a lucrative business. A 2014 study estimated that the four largest holders of these assets have seen as much as a 23 percent rate of return on the properties they purchased in the last three years.Meanwhile, low-income communities of color across the country have suffered. Millions of Americans lost all the equity in their homes or experienced the hardship of foreclosure during the housing crisis and have not recovered from losing their greatest source of wealth.
This new report, co-authored by CPD and the ACCE Institute, reviews the track record of the HUD and FHFA single-family loan sale programs. It explores the troubling record of four of the top buyers of the loans, corporations who are benefitting from the way the loan sales are currently conducted.
Read the report here
Retail workers celebrate scheduling law. Requirements will bring change to national chains.
Retail workers celebrate scheduling law. Requirements will bring change to national chains.
Lisa Morrison loves her job in the floral department at Safeway on U.S. Highway 20 in Bend, but she said the company’s practice of giving three days’ notice of work schedules has created a lot of...
Lisa Morrison loves her job in the floral department at Safeway on U.S. Highway 20 in Bend, but she said the company’s practice of giving three days’ notice of work schedules has created a lot of stress in her life.
So, she made two trips to Salem this year with representatives of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 to lobby legislators on the workplace scheduling bill that passed June 29 with bipartisan support.
Read the full article here.
Coalition Calls for Fed Focus on Full Employment, Higher Wages
The Dallas Morning News - March 4, 2015, by Sheryl Jean - A coalition of community and labor groups in Texas is calling for the Federal Reserve to focus on full employment and higher wages for...
The Dallas Morning News - March 4, 2015, by Sheryl Jean - A coalition of community and labor groups in Texas is calling for the Federal Reserve to focus on full employment and higher wages for blacks and others in poor neighborhoods who have been left behind in the economic recovery.
The group also wants the board of the Fed’s regional bank in Dallas to keep that in mind as it searches for a replacement for Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher, who will retire March 19.
Liberal activists across the country on Thursday plan to protest outside seven Fed regional banks, including New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis, to highlight high unemployment among minority groups and to urge officials not to raise interest rates yet and instead focus on full employment and higher wages. A demonstration also was planned at the Dallas Fed’s office on the edge of downtown, but was canceled due to a forecast for bad weather.
Still, activists in Dallas plan to call attention to a new report showing that the nation’s economic recovery hasn’t reached many minority communities. Falling jobless rates maskhigh black and long-term unemployment and racial inequality in wages in Texas and across the country.
The 84-page report by the Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute shows that Texas’ average jobless rate was 5 percent in 2014, but it was 9.5 percent for blacks. In the Dallas metro area, the average rate was 5.1 percent last year, but it was 9.6 percent for blacks. Nationally, the black jobless rate was 10.3 percent, compared with a national average of 6.2 percent.
Wages also lagged. Texas’ median wage grew 3.9 percent from 2000 to 2014, but it rose 8 percent for whites and declined 0.8 percent for blacks, according to the report. Nationally, wages have been stagnant for most workers since 2000.
“If the Fed raises [interest] rates to banks, then our rates go up, but wages aren’t going up,” said Danny Cendejas, senior organizer in Dallas for the Texas Organizing Project, one of the groups in the coalition. “It’s something that is very concerning for most of our community. In the black and brown communities, where we know the unemployment rates are higher, how do we expect those people to pay their loans back?”
The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since 2008 to help spur business lending to create jobs and boost the economy.
Coalition members in Texas want a more open search process for Fisher’s replacement with more involvement by the community. Fisher, who was in El Paso on Wednesday, has been one of the most vocal advocates of raising interest rates sooner than later.
“Look around at all the construction cranes in Dallas,” said Becky Moeller, president of the Texas AFL-CIO. “I think the lower interest rates are spurring businesses to do work and then they’re hiring people. We just don’t want an interest rate policy that isn’t good for workers in the state.”
Moeller was among a group of 10 community leaders who met with three Fed representatives — general counsel John Buchanan; Alfreda Norman, head of community development and public affairs; and spokesman James Hoard — for about 90 minutes in January to discuss the search process for a new president, the timeline and the qualifications sought.
“We had a good conversation and thought we answered their questions,” Hoard said. The Dallas Fed put the name of the search firm and its email address on its website for anyone interested in nominating a candidate, he added.
Moeller has a different view of the meeting.
“We don’t have a candidate, but we felt like we had some input we wanted to share,” she said. “We don’t want it to be someone who wouldn’t be good for jobs in the future. We wanted to make sure they were looking at the economic factors that relate to real people in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. We have low-wage workers who can’t get their head above water. We have folks who are long-term unemployed.”
In addition to the Texas AFL-CIO, the groups that met with the Dallas Fed were the American Federation of Teachers, Communication Workers of America, Dallas Central Labor Council, Fort Worth Building Trades and Ironworkers, Harris County Central Labor Council, Jobs With Justice, Texas Organizing Project and Workers Defense Project.
Coalition members last summer protested the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyo., forum and met with Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen in November.
Yellen and three other Fed officials met with about 30 workers and activists, including some from Texas, for an hour to hear their plights of being long-term unemployed and struggling to make a living. As a result, the Fed created the Community Advisory Council in January to provide different perspectives on the economy, especially the needs of low- to moderate-income families.
“She listened very carefully and was very engaged and was grateful to us for requesting the meeting,” said Ady Barkan, staff lawyer for the Center for Popular Democracy, who was at the meeting. “It’s the kind of response we would like to see from others.”
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Struggle and the State
Today's Dig is a very good and somewhat unusual Dig: Dan’s got two interviews with two different people. First, journalist Eric Blanc on the teacher strike wave that he's been covering for Jacobin...
Today's Dig is a very good and somewhat unusual Dig: Dan’s got two interviews with two different people. First, journalist Eric Blanc on the teacher strike wave that he's been covering for Jacobin. Then comes the Center for Popular Democracy's Xiomara Caro Diaz on last week's May Day demonstrations against austerity in Puerto Rico.
Listen to the episode here.
Immigrants, unions march on May Day for rights, against Trump
NEW YORK — Immigrant and union groups will march in cities across the United States on Monday to mark May Day and protest against President Donald Trump's efforts to boost deportations.
...
NEW YORK — Immigrant and union groups will march in cities across the United States on Monday to mark May Day and protest against President Donald Trump's efforts to boost deportations.
Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies are expected to rally in cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. Demonstrations also are planned for dozens of smaller cities from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Portland, Oregon.
Read full article here.
Starbucks Employees Treated Badly
While Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) CEO and founder Howard Schultz barnstorms America with one new program to help Americans after another, a new report shows his company continues to treat many...
While Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) CEO and founder Howard Schultz barnstorms America with one new program to help Americans after another, a new report shows his company continues to treat many of its employees badly.
According to research released by experts at the Center for Popular Democracy:
A 2015 nationwide survey of Starbucks workers reveals that the company is not living up to its commitment to provide predictable, sustainable schedules to its workforce. Starbucks’ frontline employees bear the brunt of the management imperative to minimize store labor costs, which takes precedence over attempts to stabilize work hours, provide healthy schedules, and to ensure employees have real input into their working conditions.
Also:
Many Starbucks scheduling policies fail to reflect the company’s human-focused values, while other policies designed to promote sustainable schedules have been implemented inconsistently.
According to a recent report from 24/7 Wall St. titled Companies Paying Americans the Least:
Coffee giant Starbucks employs roughly 141,000 people in the United States at more than 7,300 locations. Because the coffee chain offers some benefits not commonly offered in low-paying jobs, it has long been considered the ideal job for young students supporting themselves or even single parents. However, an increasing number of reports suggest the famous Seattle company makes life difficult for its employees. Of particular note is the company’s increasing use of complicated and inconsistent scheduling, a practice also used by many other major retailers. This practice means that baristas’ hours may be posted with little notice, preventing them from making other plans, and therefore nearly denying them the ability to earn extra income from other sources.
The work hours, benefit problems and low pay challenges face many employees at large food chains and major retailers, but none of those places has a chief executive who publicly advocates the right of many of America’s most economically challenged people. Among the most recent was Schultz’s effort to support hiring the underprivileged in Phoenix:
“Chicago marked an important milestone in our efforts to put America’s underserved youth on a pathway to employment,” said Howard Schultz, chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks and co-founder of the Schultz Family Foundation. “As we look ahead to Phoenix, where one in five youth is not in school or employed, we have a critical opportunity to accelerate our collective hiring efforts and create meaningful lifelong opportunities for all. I truly believe that these young men and women represent the most significant untapped source of productivity and talent for our economy, and America’s leading companies are ready to hire them.”
If one of these young people gets a job at Starbucks, the “meaningful lifelong opportunities” may not be much of an opportunity at all.
Source: 247WallSt.com
38 Triangle area leaders now urge ‘No’ vote on all 6 constitutional amendments
38 Triangle area leaders now urge ‘No’ vote on all 6 constitutional amendments
More than three dozen Triangle area mayors and council members now publicly oppose six constitutional amendments on the ballot Nov. 6. Thirty-eight leaders from Apex, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham...
More than three dozen Triangle area mayors and council members now publicly oppose six constitutional amendments on the ballot Nov. 6. Thirty-eight leaders from Apex, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner, Hillsborough, Holly Springs, Morrisville, Raleigh, Chatham County, Orange County and Wake County governments have signed a letter criticizing the amendments’ “potentially damaging impact.” The letter was released Thursday by Local Progress and Common Cause NC.”
Read the full article here.
Jessica Biel Throws Shade, Meryl Streep, Mila Kunis & More
Alyssa Milano and Ady Barkan attend the Los Angeles Supports a Dream Act Now! protest on Wednesday.
...
Alyssa Milano and Ady Barkan attend the Los Angeles Supports a Dream Act Now! protest on Wednesday.
See the picture here.
4 days ago
4 days ago