As Wells Fargo is Accused of Fabricating Foreclosure Papers, Will Banks Keep Escaping Prosecution?
Democracy Now - March 21, 2014 - A new internal report says the Justice Department massively overstated its successes in targeting mortgage fraud while in fact ranking it as a low priority for...
Democracy Now - March 21, 2014 - A new internal report says the Justice Department massively overstated its successes in targeting mortgage fraud while in fact ranking it as a low priority for investigation. The Justice Department’s inspector general says despite playing a central role in the nation’s financial crisis, mortgage fraud was deemed either a low priority or not a priority at all. This comes as a recently revealed internal Wells Fargo document appears to guide lawyers step by step on how to fabricate missing documents to foreclose on homeowners. Wells Fargo is the country’s largest mortgage servicer and services some nine million home loans.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A new internal report says the Justice Department massively overstated its successes in targeting mortgage fraud while in fact ranking it as a low priority for investigation. The Justice Department’s inspector general says despite playing a central role in the nation’s financial crisis, mortgage fraud was deemed either a low priority or not a priority at all. In one instance, Attorney General Eric Holder claimed to have filed lawsuits on behalf of homeowner victims for losses totaling more than $1 billion, but the actual amount was 91 percent less, around $95 million.
This comes as a recently revealed internal Wells Fargo document appears to guide lawyers step by step on how to fabricate missing documents to foreclose on homeowners. Wells Fargo is the country’s largest mortgage servicer and services some nine million home loans.
AMY GOODMAN: State and federal regulators are now focusing on the allegations in the lawsuit brought by Linda Tirelli, who joins us now. She’s an attorney representing clients being foreclosed on by Wells Fargo. Earlier this month, she discovered the Wells Fargo manual on how to produce missing documents to foreclose on homeowners. She’s a partner at the Garvey, Tirelli & Cushner law firm in White Plains, New York.
In Minneapolis, we’re joined by Kevin Whelan, campaign director for the Home Defenders League, a national movement of underwater homeowners and allies who organize to keep people in their homes and demand accountability.
Wells Fargo declined Democracy Now!'s interview request, saying they're in a, quote, "quiet period" pending the announcement of their quarterly earnings.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Linda Tirelli, let’s begin with you.
LINDA TIRELLI: Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe this manual, how you got it and what it reveals?
LINDA TIRELLI: Absolutely. The manual that I have, it’s actually entitled the "Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Foreclosure Attorney [Procedure] Manual, Version 1." And it says on it that it’s last published 2/24/2012. Mind you, the national mortgage settlement agreement was announced a week prior, on 2/19/2012.
The way I obtained it, it was actually sitting right there on the Internet, of all things. A colleague of mine, through a Max Gardner’s Bankruptcy Boot Camp, which I am a member, an active member, gave it to me and said, "Hey, I found this online, and I know you’re doing a lot of Wells Fargo cases. Maybe you can use this."
Reading it, my jaw just dropped. As I see it, it’s clearly outlining procedures, not just for the $12-an-hour robo-signers that we’ve heard about all these years, but for the lawyers, who need to be held accountable to a much higher degree. It’s the manual for the lawyers to actually fabricate documents, as I see it, and request that documents that are lacking be fabricated by Wells Fargo. It’s absolutely appalling.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, you know, we’ve had on Democracy Now! a couple of times the Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, Arthur Schack, who raised a campaign over—not only over the robo-signers in many cases that he had before his court, but also over the bank officials and the attorneys who participated in this fraud. And there have been several judges in different parts of the country who have raised these issues. How do you think this advances the whole issue of going after—of having the smoking gun to go after these companies?
LINDA TIRELLI: Well, I think that judges cannot make determinations based on suspicion. OK? This is the first and only internal document that I’m aware of that clearly outlines the fraud. And that’s how I put it in my allegations to the court. And we are very, very fortunate in New York to have a number of proactive judges who get it, but unfortunately, they’re few and far between across the country. My hope is that judges as wonderful as Arthur Schack and as great as many of our federal judges—I do appear mostly in federal courts—that they will be proactive, they will take this seriously and start to question Wells Fargo on their procedures.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read a bit from the Wells Fargo document. In this section called Note Endorsement, it says, quote, "If the blank endorsement is in the file for an original state, execute the endorsement, send the original document to the attorney, and complete the Z02 step." Can you explain what this means?
LINDA TIRELLI: Sure. I take that to mean that if there is actually an endorsement that exists, they need to endorse it. But as the party in—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And by "endorsement," you mean?
LINDA TIRELLI: Sign it over.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Oh.
LINDA TIRELLI: OK. But the question is: Do they have the authority to sign it over? Is it an authorized endorsement? Who’s signing it over? As the lawyer, I would need to know that before proceeding with a foreclosure. If it’s a document that needs to—if it was a note that needed to be endorsed, under a pooling and servicing agreement, which is followed by every securitized trust—and most of these loans, let’s face it, are owned by securitized trusts in some form or another—they should have been endorsed long before the foreclosure was ever started, at the time that it was actually acquired by the trust, or allegedly acquired by the trust.
AMY GOODMAN: So this manual talks about how to fabricate a document—
LINDA TIRELLI: Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: —that you don’t have, that you need.
LINDA TIRELLI: That’s how I’m reading it.
AMY GOODMAN: That Wells Fargo would need.
LINDA TIRELLI: Exactly. That’s—
AMY GOODMAN: To foreclose on the house.
LINDA TIRELLI: Exactly right. That’s exactly how I’m reading it. I’m reading it to say that it’s not just, when there is a blank endorsement, fill in the blank. But sometimes when there—there’s actually a procedure in here, as I read it, for when there’s no endorsement, OK? Go ahead and endorse the note. Just request that the note be endorsed. And that’s what we call, in our area of law, a "tada endorsement." The bank produces a copy of a note, just for example, that has no endorsement on it, and then when we ask about it and say, "Gee, this note is not endorsed to your client. How is it that you’re—you know, you’re bringing foreclosure?" and they say, "Oh, here, use this version. Tada! Now we have an endorsement." And it’s always a rubber stamp, that you or I could go to Staples and purchase for $9.95.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You also, one of your cases, came across a document which was purportedly from an official of Washington Mutual Bank in 2010, but Washington Mutual didn’t exist in 2010, because it had collapsed back in 2008.
LINDA TIRELLI: 2008, that’s right. That document was signed by Mr. John Kennerty in—who works for Wells Fargo, or worked for Wells Fargo at the time. And in this procedure manual, there’s actually a procedure for obtaining what’s called an assignment of mortgage, OK? So, basically, as I’m reading this procedure, it’s saying, "Gee, if you need an assignment, the attorney should request it through the document department, and then, magically, one will appear for you." And that’s exactly what we’re seeing. The people that work for Wells Fargo in these various departments, when they receive a request from an attorney, they take that as permission to actually sign something, without doing any research whatsoever. How is it, as you point out, we had anything assigned from in a company that ceased to exist two years prior? It just simply makes no sense. That document’s fabricated. And in that particular case, I will point out, the judge actually deemed that document to be a fraudulent document on record.
AMY GOODMAN: I remember when Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur was standing on the floor of the House and telling homeowners, "Stay in their homes and demand that they produce the note. Produce the note." I wanted to go to Eric Schneiderman. Last May, the New York attorney—the New York attorney general announced plans to sue Bank of America and Wells Fargo for violating the terms of a settlement aimed at curbing foreclosure abuses. The $26 billion settlement was reached in 2012 between five major banks and 49 attorneys general. It provided basic protections for homeowners, such as requiring banks to notify them about missing documents within a certain time period. But Schneiderman said the banks had violated the terms of the settlement with impunity. At the news conference in May, he lifted a massive sheaf of papers to show the hundreds of complaints issued by homeowners against the banks.
ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN: Two of the participating servicers, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, have flagrantly violated their obligations under the settlement. I’ve sent a letter to the monitoring committee, the body that oversees the implementation of the national mortgage servicing settlement, notifying them of my intention to sue both Wells Fargo and Bank of America for noncompliance with servicing standards spelled out in the settlement. This enforcement action, which is the first taken under the settlement, is based on 339 individual complaints from New Yorkers against these two banks in just the last six months
AMY GOODMAN: Linda Tirelli, can you explain what happened with this case?
LINDA TIRELLI: Yes. Well, first of all, I want to point out, and very much to Mr. Schneiderman’s credit, within four hours of the New York Post writing the article exposing this documents, within four hours, I received not only a phone call, but an email from Attorney Schneiderman’s office, and we had a long discussion about it. I also received the phone call and an email from the New York State Division of Financial Services. So I’m hoping that they are now launching new investigations.
Basically, to put—as I understand Mr. Schneiderman’s point, Wells Fargo was signing off on the national mortgage settlement agreement out of one side of its mouth. Out of the other side, they were republishing their manual to say, "Hey, we’re going to continue business as usual. All right? Throw some money at it. It’s done. Quiet down the homeowners. We’ll just continue business as usual." And that’s what we’re seeing. That’s exactly what we’re seeing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Kevin Whelan, from the Home Defenders League, can you put this in a national context of the mortgage crisis? Here we are now, six years into the home mortgage crisis that crashed the entire economy.
KEVIN WHELAN: Absolutely. Thanks you for having me, very much, today. We hear, every time there is an uptick in real estate prices in some parts of the country, that the foreclosure crisis or the mortgage crisis is over. And certainly, Wells Fargo and the big banks are back to making record profits and feel like everything is great. But foreclosures are still tearing apart many communities, particularly communities of color that were targeted for predatory and subprime lending. And one in five American homeowners is still underwater, meaning they owe more on their house than the house is currently worth.
So we’ve made the banks whole without effectively curbing their abusive practices to give homeowners the runaround, to use falsified documents and to rush toward foreclosure when there’s a perfectly good way to reach a different settlement. And they’ve not done enough to make homeowners whole, including doing principal reduction that they promised to do under settlements.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you respond to this latest news about the attorney general—the office making a low priority or no priority at all going after these mortgage lenders?
KEVIN WHELAN: Yeah, absolutely. The news is no surprise to people that have been fighting foreclosure in communities around the country. We work with 25 community groups in our at-large organization, so people can come find us at HomeDefendersLeague.org and get on a phone call and learn how to start a petition and fight for their homes. And people have been, you know, in cases all over the place, trying to stave off foreclosure.
We had a family in New Jersey last month, Paulette McQueen and her 86-year-old mom, who had missed one mortgage payment in 2010, went to Wells Fargo the next month with both checks in hand, and Wells Fargo wouldn’t take their money and started a three-year campaign to take their house. That was only resolved when people in 13 cities delivered petitions to Wells Fargo’s offices around the country. And they finally got a call back and are going to work out a solution to be able to stay in their home. It was a whole week before a sheriff’s sale.
So, it’s—you know, families that are facing this know both that the housing crisis isn’t over and that nothing has happened that’s on a deep enough or broad enough scale to make the banks fearful or sorry for either the harm they’ve done, or change their behavior in fundamental ways.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, there are some localities, some local governments, that have tried—intervened themselves in trying to beat back the crisis of people being kicked out of their homes. Could you talk about some of those examples?
KEVIN WHELAN: Yeah, there—one thing that’s—we know there’s something to it, because the banks, led by Wells Fargo, are especially panicked and angry about the solution. But in Richmond, California—I think you had the mayor of Richmond, Gayle McLaughlin, on the show before—has been a city that’s led the way—and many more are going to follow—to enact principal reduction, meaning resetting loans to their current market value on the local level. And this is exciting because, while these federal agencies, like the Justice Department, are too often captive of the big banks, people can use democracy and win on the local level sometimes.
The concept for this particular program is that cities would work with other investors to buy the loans at their fair market value on the secondary market, which is pennies on the dollar of what these underwater loans are worth, and help refinance homeowners into new loans that have equity. And this is a concept that has gotten started in Richmond, but people are meeting even today in different cities around the country to spread this. And I think, not so much because it would cost them money as because it’s a chance for people to use the rule of law and democracy to impact the economy and impact banks’ behavior, banks like Wells Fargo have sued, unsuccessfully, and made all kinds of threats about redlining communities in order to try to stop it. People can go to FightingForeclosures.org and learn more about that particular plan and get involved in that campaign.
AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Whelan, you’ve been arrested outside of Attorney General Eric Holder—outside the Justice Department, demanding more action. And yet, Linda Tirelli, we have this latest news that as—that the attorney general claimed to have filed lawsuits on behalf of homeowner victims for losses totaling more than a billion dollars. In fact, it was 91 percent less than this, at $95 million. What do you think should happen? Who gets prosecuted here, and who is let go free?
LINDA TIRELLI: I think that at this point, let’s face it, we’re never going to see a perp walk, as much as we’d like to see one, because this is illegal activity that we’re talking about. At the very least, I think now this document gives the New York attorney general free access to every attorney who’s ever followed this manual and hold them accountable, because it is illegal. And we are held, as attorneys, to a much higher standard. We have to do a certain amount of due diligence, and we cannot knowingly produce false documents and submit them into a court of law. Our entire judicial process is based on integrity. This document, as I read it, OK, is going to bypass the integrity of the entire system, and it becomes now the civil procedure rules according to Wells Fargo. And that’s the rules they’re willing to play by.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And more importantly, the author of that document, right, who approved that document for all these lawyers to use.
LINDA TIRELLI: Exactly right, exactly right. And I want to point out that I actually introduced this document—
AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.
LINDA TIRELLI: —in a motion to reopen discovery after a trial, and my hope is that we will get discovery and get someone to a deposition table and get the answer to that.
AMY GOODMAN: Before Eric Holder was attorney general, he was a senior partner at Covington & Burling. Among the banks they represented, the four largest: Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.
LINDA TIRELLI: No shock there.
AMY GOODMAN: Linda Tirelli, attorney representing clients being foreclosed on; Kevin Whelan of Home Defenders League, thanks so much for joining us.
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Pro-Yellen Ad Hits the Air
Pro-Yellen Ad Hits the Air
The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Derby reports. “The Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign broadcast a 30-second TV spot urging Mr. Trump to offer Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen a second...
The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Derby reports. “The Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign broadcast a 30-second TV spot urging Mr. Trump to offer Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen a second term. The ad ran during 'Fox & Friends,' a morning show the president watches and often reacts to on Twitter.” The group is behind Twitter ads bashing Kevin Warsh, another candidate for the chairmanship, that have popped up in my feed over the past couple of weeks, too.
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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Families, Lawmakers to Speak at Rally in Washington, DC on Six-Month Anniversary of Hurricane María
Families, Lawmakers to Speak at Rally in Washington, DC on Six-Month Anniversary of Hurricane María
“Protesters will gather for a rally at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and then march towards several congressional offices to voice their demands. The event is...
“Protesters will gather for a rally at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and then march towards several congressional offices to voice their demands. The event is organized by Power 4 Puerto Rico, a coalition made up of the Hispanic Federation and Center for Popular Democracy, among other community organizations.”
Read the full article here.
Workers, Advocates and Employers Weigh in on Fair Scheduling Practices
Workers, Advocates and Employers Weigh in on Fair Scheduling Practices
Minimum wage rates across the nation differ from state to state. As employees fight to raise rates, they are now being faced with another issue, scheduling practices. So how does this affect...
Minimum wage rates across the nation differ from state to state. As employees fight to raise rates, they are now being faced with another issue, scheduling practices. So how does this affect employees both locally and nationally?
"What we're seeing is a rise in part time hourly workforce that frankly doesn't have the type of stability in their scheduling that's needed to earn enough to survive," said Derecka Mehrens, Executive Director at Working Partnerships USA.
According to an article by CBS News, there are over 6 million people who are stuck in part time position who want to be working full-time. Workers advocates say that even if pay were to increase, hours still matter.
"Every hour counts when you're getting paid by the hour. If you don't get [enough], you know maybe it could be that you got five fewer hours in a week that could mean paying rent or not, [or] eating or not," said Carrie Gleason, Director of The Center for Popular Democracy's Fair Workweek Initiative.
As of January 1st our state minimum wage rate increased to $8.75. While working full time at that rate would place an individual above the poverty line, for families with three people or more it does not. Still local business owners say the number of hours they can offer is dependent upon business.
"More hours is just totally dependent on how much business your business is doing. You know it's not really the employees decision. It's rather or not, you know the business has a demand to bring on another employee or increase someone's hours," said Eric Leaseberg, owner of The Bluebird.
One solution that workers advocates believe could resolve this, is for employers to offer part time employees more hours before hiring new employees. They believe not doing so will continue to keep employees behind.
"The impact of this practice of not offering your hours to existing employees before hiring new employees is hurting families and hurting our communities," said Mehrens.
Most local business owners 5 News spoke with say they would have no problem offering full time hours if the person is a hard worker. As for workers advocates they are now working with state policy makers across the nation to have workplace protection policies put in place to insure fair scheduling practices.
Written by Cydney Cooper
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Charter Schools Are Failing and Our Democracy Pays the Price
Charter Schools Are Failing and Our Democracy Pays the Price
Taxpayer dollars are filling the bank accounts of those who manage charter schools which is evident as research by In the Public Interest and the Center for Popular Democracy that exposed the...
Taxpayer dollars are filling the bank accounts of those who manage charter schools which is evident as research by In the Public Interest and the Center for Popular Democracy that exposed the financial fraud and corruption running rampant in these schools. In California, $6 billion of public funding has been funneled into charter schools and their respective management companies leaving public schools starved for required public monies.
Read the full article here.
Progressive New Yorkers Launch “13 Bold Progressive Ideas for NYC In 2013”
NEW YORK, NY
Progressive Council Members Rally with Broad Coalition of Community Groups, Grassroots Leaders, Policy Experts and Labor Unions
...
NEW YORK, NY
Progressive Council Members Rally with Broad Coalition of Community Groups, Grassroots Leaders, Policy Experts and Labor Unions
Today, the Progressive Caucus of the City Council, in partnership with over 30 endorsing organizations, launched “13 Bold Progressive Ideas for NYC in 2013.” This policy platform, available at the interactive website www.13boldideas.org articulates a progressive vision for New York City in the new legislative session. By uniting around this shared agenda, New York’s major progressive organizations will inform the debate in the upcoming elections and push for key priorities such as police accountability, low-wage worker organizing, paid si ck days, and equitable Hurricane Sandy recovery.
“It’s time to restore New York City’s place as a beacon for equality, compassion, and democracy,” said Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Brad Lander. “ In this important election year, the City Council’s Progressive Caucus is proud to stand united with NYC’s labor, community, and civil rights organizations in pursuit of these 13 Bold Ideas for the investments, policies, and reforms that our city so badly needs.”
“The 2013 elections provide a unique opportunity to promote a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda in New York City and to unify around key progressive policy issues, such as police accountability, low-wage worker organizing, paid sick days, and equitable Sandy recovery,” said Andrew Friedman, Executive Director, Center for Popular Democracy. “The Center for Popular Democracy is honored to support the Progressive Caucus’ work to build a more just New York City.”
“We are proud to have the support of so many organizations and unions as we unveil our vision of building a more livable, affordable, and sustainable city,” said Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Melissa Mark-Viverito. “When low-wage workers thrive, all New Yorkers are better off. That’s why improving the lives of these workers is such a central component of our policy agenda. Whether it’s paid sick time, boosting wages or defending the right to organize, we in the Caucus stand ready to improve working conditions for this vital sector of our economy.”
“Bold and progressive are words long associated with this great city,” said Hector Figueroa, President of 32BJ SEIU. “This platform offers an exciting – and attainable – vision for a livable, affordable and sustainable city. We’re ready for new ideas and new energy, and have a unique opportunity in 2013 to rebuild our infrastructure, recommit to responsible development, confront climate change, and make New York City the most immigrant and working family-friendly city in the world.”
“Though the New York Civil Liberties Union can only address portions of this progressive agenda, we share the commitment to a New York City where all people are treated fairly, equally and with dignity,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director, NYCLU. “That’s why we welcome the Progressive Caucus’ bold ideas to ensure that all children have the opportunity to get a decent education, in a respectful and supportive environment, and to ensure equal justice for all — fair and just policing , meaningful accountability and oversight of the NYPD, protection for immigrants and government transparency. These bold ideas are a significant part of the progressive agenda and will enhance the lives, liberty and dignity of New Yorkers and help make New York a fairer and more just city.”
“I am excited to be a part of the 13 Bold Ideas that will transform our City in a positive and progressive direction,” said Council Member Jumaane Williams. “This mission statement is a blueprint for ensuring that every New Yorker is able to live up to their potential. Action items like greater police accountability, reforming local government and ensuring a quality education for our children are issues we can all rally around in the coming year.”
“I am proud to lend my voice to help articulate a progressive vision for New York City,” said Council Member Margaret S. Chin. “Our vision is a City where prosperity is shared among all New Yorkers – not just the very wealthy; where all of our civil rights are upheld; where a hard day’s work is rightfully compensated; and where all New Yorkers have access to quality public education, health care, and childcare. Now is the time for change. I want to thank all the organizations that have pledged to support a more sustainable, more equal and fairer New York City.”
“We are thrilled to be part of this effort to make New York City a truly progressive city,” said Sherry Leiwant, Co-President, A Better Balance, “and we are delighted that paid sick days which we have been trying to pass for almost four years is a major part of this agenda.
“We applaud the Progressive Caucus and their Council Members for the launch of 13 Bold Ideas,” said Javier H. Valdes, Co-Executive Director of Make the Road Action Fund. “The elections of 2013 provide us with the opportunity for us to come together and create a collective vision for a more equitable New York.”
“The diversity of the groups represented in the Progressive Caucus is a symbol of what we are trying to achieve across the city — to provide a voice for ALL New Yorkers,” said Council Member Stephen Levin. “By launching 13 Bold Ideas we stand together to move New York City forward.”
“These 13 bold ideas will help cement a solid agenda within the New York City Council that will help us to continue toward building a city that is affordable and sustainable for all,” said Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer. “There is no opportunity like the present to shed light on issues which are close to New York City’s working class. I stand by my fellow progressives in pushing to implement these initiatives which I believe will strengthen and develop our City’s middle class. Together we will build a coalition of partnerships that will continue to enact equal justice for all and enhance our government in an effort to provides results for all people.”
“New York City — one of the most economically unequal cities in the nation — desperately needs bold ideas like these,” said Dave Palmer, Executive Director of the Center for Working Families.
“The Local 1180 motto is ‘We make New York work for all New Yorkers,’” said Arthur Cheliotis, President, Local 1180. “It reflects our belief that the work the members do in our complex government facilitates government services to all New Yorkers. These 13 Bold Progressive Ideas will help make our government work for all New Yorkers. It offers a vision and plan of a city government that will act in the interest of New Yorkers in every walk of life by offering an equal opportunity to excel and contribute to the common good. These 13 Bold Progressive Ideas offer concrete proposals to ensure that our government protects us from intimidation, manipulation and exploitation by the rich and powerf ul. They move us closer to a transparent, accountable and effective government, by and for all the people, which is at the core of the democratic principles we cherish as New Yorkers and Americans. We must make these 13 Bold Progressive Ideas the bulwark of New York City’s Government.”
“This is a bold platform for a more just city,” said Bill Lipton, Working Families Party. “The City Council will see tremendous turnover this year. A platform like this will help the voters know which candidates share a vision for a city that works for all of us.”
“Hurricane Sandy exacerbated many long-standing economic and social inequities – making worse homelessness, unemployment, and health disparities for many low-income New Yorkers,” said Brian Pearson, Community Organizer, VOCAL-NY. “Yet this tragedy also presents an opportunity to rebuild in a way that is equitable and just. We must build back a better, more sustainable New York where all New Yorkers have access to affordable housing, good jobs, and quality health care.”
“The 13 Bold Ideas are a rallying cry for progressive New Yorkers,” said Alex Low, President, New Kings Democrats. “This is a blueprint for creating a more just, fair and equitable New York City, and for ushering in real democracy to the New York City Council.”
“This is a strong policy agenda built on justice, fairness, and a high quality of life and would make New York a model for cities around the world,” said Té Revesz, Chair of Citizen Action of New York City. “If implemented, these ideas would allow all residents the opportunity for success, revitalizing the concept of the American dream.”
“To move New York City forward in a meaningful and fair way, our elected officials must address key issues facing our city such as police accountability, paid sick leave for all workers and improving the quality of mass transit and public education,” said Aliya Quraishi, Board Member, Greater NYC for Change. “13 Bold Ideas sets out to bring these issues to the City Council and I strongly support this initiative.”
“Demos is proud to support the Progressive Caucus’ 2013 agenda,” said Amy Traub, Senior Policy Analyst, Demos. “These principles and policies are essential to building a New York where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy.”
“The 13 Bold Ideas advance good jobs that provide sustainable wages, strengthen the social safety net, further the call for permanent affordable housing, and build a stronger and more direct democracy,” said John Medina, a member-leader of Community Voices Heard Power. “ In this important and historic year, these Bold Ideas would move New York to be a beacon in the fight for the working poor and for those unable to work. We are proud to unite with the Progressive Caucus and the other organizations supporting the 13 Bold Progressive Ideas because this is the year for action.”
“2013 is a unique opportunity for young people to help shape New York City to truly realize its progressive potential: for many young voters, it will be the first time they will elect a new Mayor, a new Comptroller, a new Public Advocate, a new Borough President and a new City Council Member,” said Stefan Ringel, President, Brooklyn Young Democrats. “The Brooklyn Young Democrats represent the voice of students, young professionals and activists all across Kings County; we are the current and future stakeholders in our communities. By advancing legal and economic equality, investing in our youth and creating sustainable and affordable neighborhoods, the 13 Bold Ideas will ultimately change the Borough for the b etter for years to come. The Brooklyn Young Democrats will continue work to see that progressive ideas don’t just remain ideas, but become successfully implemented and ensure that the future for all Brooklynites – young and old – is a bright one.”
“For a fully functionally 21st Century economy, New Yorkers need a government that fosters connectivity, educates them for the future, and supports an innovative economy,” said Noel Hidalgo, Open NY Forum / Code for America’s NYC Brigade. “Through Local Law 11 of 2012 and BigApps, all New Yorkers are starting to take advantage of participatory, transparent and innovative government. With further public and private collaboration, we can build a New York for all New Yorkers.”
Endorsing Partner Organizations 1199 SEIU 32BJ SEIU 350.org A Better Balance Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development ALIGN Barack Obama Democratic Club Brooklyn Movement Center Brooklyn Young Democrats CAAAV Center for Popular Democracy Center for Working Families Citizen Action of NY – NYC Chapter Civic Engagement Table Coalition for the Homeless Community Service Society Community Voices Heard Power CWA Local 1180 Demos FUREE Greater NYC for Change Hell’s Kitchen for Change Hotel Trades Council Lambda Independent Democrats Make the Road Action Fund Metropolitan Council on Housing NEDAP New Kings Democrats New York Communities for Change Professional Staff Congress CUNY South Bronx Unite UnitedNY Urban Justice Center VOCAL-NY Working Families Party
Charters’ exorbitant fees hinder efforts to obtain public info
Public records requests made to 10 publicly funded Boston charter schools have been thwarted by demands for fees totaling $91,440 from seven of the schools, according to Russ Davis, director of...
Public records requests made to 10 publicly funded Boston charter schools have been thwarted by demands for fees totaling $91,440 from seven of the schools, according to Russ Davis, director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance.
The requests for information were made on behalf of the MEJA, a coalition of labor, faith and social justice organizations, and concerned whether information on parents of charter school students was provided to two pro-charter advocacy organizations.
“The demands for absurdly high fees to comply with our requests underscore an appalling lack of transparency on the part of these publicly funded Commonwealth charter schools,” said Davis.
This issue underscores problems that would be addressed in a public records access bill that Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo told the State House News Service may come to the floor for a vote next week.
Kyle Serrette, the director of education justice campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy, who has issued similar requests to both public school districts and to charter schools in other states, said that schools typically charge very little or no money to respond to public information requests.
“Exorbitant requests for fees like this by large school companies limit transparency and reduce public trust in these schools,” Serrette said.
MATCH Charter Public Middle School demanded the most for the information: $36,015 (click here to see letter). Roxbury Preparatory Charter School quoted the second-highest fee estimate, $12,500. To date, Boston Renaissance Charter Public School and Boston Preparatory Charter Public School have failed to respond.
UP Academy Dorchester, an in-district Horace Mann charter school, was the only one to respond with the information requested, providing its student records policy free of charge and stating that it has not engaged in any of the actions for which information was requested.
“These fee estimates from seven of the eight schools that responded are exorbitant and beyond our capacity to pay,” said Davis. “These charges violate the spirit and letter of our public records law.”
The MEJA requests were made in an attempt to determine the relationship between these Boston charter schools and two charter advocacy organizations —Families for Excellent Schools and the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. Specifically, the coalition is trying to determine whether the schools had any contracts with these groups, any policies related to providing outside groups with contact information for students’ families, and any record of providing these two outside groups with that contact information.
“We were concerned about reports that the charter schools may have been giving these corporate-backed, pro-charter organizations parent contact information so that parents could be enlisted to lobby on behalf of the charter school agenda,” said Davis. “If that has been going on, we believe the public has a right to know. Charter schools are publicly funded. We do not believe that public funds should be used to persuade parents to lobby on behalf of the private charter school industry.”
Families for Excellent Schools is a New York-based organization that supports Unify Boston and Great Schools Massachusetts, both of which are pro-charter advocacy groups. FES has received millions of dollars from corporate foundation groups, including the Broad Foundations and the Walton Family Foundation.
This chart indicates when the charter schools queried responded to the request for information, which was made in a letter dated Aug. 20, 2015. It also lists the fee estimate from each school and the name of the law firm, if any, that responded to the request.
School Response Date Records Produced Fee Estimate Firm Boston Collegiate Charter 21-Aug-15 $7,250 Krokidas & Bluestein KIPP Academy Boston Elementary and Middle 28-Aug-15 $9,560 Krokidas & Bluestein Brooke Roslindale Charter 28-Aug-15 $7,500 Krokidas & Bluestein Neighborhood House Charter 28-Aug-15 $8,615 Krokidas & Bluestein Excel Academy - East Boston 28-Aug-15 $10,000 Krokidas & Bluestein UP Academy Charter - Horace Mann 01-Sep-15 04-Sep-15 $0 None Roxbury Preparatory Charter 22-Sep-15 $12,500 None Match Charter Public Middle 25-Sep-15 $36,015 Krokidas & Bluestein Boston Renaissance Charter Public Boston Preparatory Charter Public
Excerpts from guidance from the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office on what fees may be charged for providing public records:
“In the interest of open government, all records custodians are strongly urged to waive the fees associated with access to public records, but are not required to do so under the law.” “A records custodian may charge and recover a fee for the time he or she spends searching, redacting, photocopying and refiling a record. The hourly rate may not be greater than the prorated hourly wage of the lowest paid employee who is capable of performing the task. A records custodian may not recover fees associated with record organization.”Public Records Request made by the service Muckrock on behalf of MEJA on Aug. 20.
Dear Records Officer:
Pursuant to Massachusetts Public Records Act § 66-10 et seq., I am writing to request the following records:
Copies of all communication, including email, between your organization and Families for Excellent Schools, a/k/a Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy, or any agent thereof, inclusive of all attachments and memoranda. For purposes of manageability, you may limit this request to only those communications from the previous 24 months. Copies of all communication, including email, between your organization and Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, or any agent thereof, inclusive of all attachments and memoranda. For purposes of manageability, you may limit this request to only those communications from the previous 24 months. Copies of any contracts between your organization and Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., and/or Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy, Inc., if applicable. Copies of any contracts between your organization and Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, if applicable. Copies of any policies relating to the transmission of student records to a third party, promulgated since 2012, including revisions. Copies of any school policies relating specifically to the disclosure of student “directory information” to third parties promulgated since 2012, including revisions. Copies of any parental notifications regarding transmission of student information to Families for Excellent Schools, Inc., and/or Families for Excellent School Advocacy, Inc., if applicable. Copies of any parental notifications regarding transmission of student information to Massachusetts Charter Public School Association if applicable. Documentation of any payments made to Families for Excellent Schools, Inc. and/or Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy Inc. in the previous two years, if applicable. Documentation of any payments made to Massachusetts Charter Public School Association in the previous two years, if applicable.Source: Massachusetts Teachers Association
Freedom To Thrive: Criminalization, Policing, and Mass-Incarceration: Interview with Jennifer Epps-Addison - Audio
Freedom To Thrive: Criminalization, Policing, and Mass-Incarceration: Interview with Jennifer Epps-Addison - Audio
Listen to a discussion with Jennifer Epps-Addison about The Center for Popular...
Listen to a discussion with Jennifer Epps-Addison about The Center for Popular Democracy's new report, Freedom To Thrive: Criminalization, Policing, and Mass-Incarceration.
Retailers Discover That Labor Isn't Just a Cost
For the past couple of decades, retailing in the U.S. has -- with some notable exceptions -- been a vast experiment in minimizing labor costs.
At the 2009 annual...
For the past couple of decades, retailing in the U.S. has -- with some notable exceptions -- been a vast experiment in minimizing labor costs.
At the 2009 annual convention of the National Retail Federation, though, Charles DeWitt noticed the beginnings of a shift. "Retailers started coming up to me and saying, 'We can't get any more out of this cost stone,'" recounted DeWitt, vice president of business development at workforce-management-software maker Kronos.
Since then, this change in attitude has become the stuff of business headlines. Most notably, Wal-Mart, the retailer that set the cost-cutting tone in the 1990s, has been raising wages and spending more on training. There's surely a cyclical element at work here -- as the unemployment rate drops, it's harder for retailers to find workers. There's also a political element -- bad press and minimum-wage campaigns must have some effect on corporate behavior.
But the really intriguing possibility is that retailers, in their technology-driven rush to optimize operations during the past two decades ("rocket science retailing," one Wharton School operations expert dubbed it) were actually failing to optimize labor. Their systems measured it only as a cost, and didn't track the impact of low wages, part-time work and unpredictable work schedules on sales and profits. Now some retailers are trying to fix that.
One big set of targets are the scheduling systems that have allowed retailers to ever-more-closely match staffing to customer traffic, but in the process wrought havoc with many workers' lives by making their schedules so unpredictable. Jodi Kantor gave a face to this last year with a compelling New York Times account of the chaotic life of a single-mom Starbucks barista.
Kronos supplies Starbucks' scheduling software, and DeWitt was quoted in the Times article describing its workings as "like magic." So it was a little surprising to see him on stage last week at O'Reilly Media's Next:Economy conference, nodding pleasantly and occasionally chiming in as a Starbucks barista, a labor activist and a journalist described the horrors inflicted by scheduling software.
When I told him afterward that I was surprised he wasn't more defensive, DeWitt said, "I'm more of a math guy, an optimization guy. This is a parameter to be optimized." It's also a business opportunity. "We are in early-stage investigations with very big customers," DeWitt went on. "The plan is to go in and suck all these things out of the database and work with them to customize metrics."
The idea is to figure out how dynamic scheduling and other labor practices affect metrics such as absenteeism, turnover and sales. Right now a lot of retailers just don't know. Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy and the labor activist who shared the stage with DeWitt, recalled a conversation she had with an executive at a big retailer at last year's National Retail Federation convention. "I said, 'These schedules cost you in terms of turnover.' She said, 'I’m in operations. That’s HR.'"
That's not true everywhere. Here's Stuart B. Burgdoerfer, chief financial officer of L Brands, the retailer that includes the Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works chains, speaking at the company'sannual investor day this month:
As we looked at the data, we just had too many people working too few hours per week. And the trouble with that or the opportunity with that is how well can they really know your business, how invested are they in us, or we in them, if they're only working a few hours per week and their turnover rate is very high?
And so we see the opportunity to have a more knowledgeable, more engaged, more effective and productive associate. When she's working, typically she is working more hours per week. So that's the opportunity. And we think it's a significant one. Really do.
Recent academic work backs this up, to a point. Researchers such as University of Chicago social psychologists Susan Lambert and Julia Henly and Pennsylvania State University labor economist Lonnie Golden have been documenting the extent and social costs of irregular scheduling. Meanwhile, operations experts at business schools have been trying to identify labor practices that maximize sales and profits.
The best known of these is probably the "good jobs strategy" outlined by Zeynep Ton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, first in a2012 Harvard Business Review article and then in a 2014 book. Ton studied low-cost, high-wage retailers such as Costco, Trader Joe's, Oklahoma-based convenience-store chain QuikTrip and Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona and concluded that they operated in a virtuous cycle in which highly trained, autonomous, full-time employees working with a limited selection of products drove high performance.
There's a tendency, upon hearing accounts such as Ton's (she also spoke at the Next:Economy conference), to wonder why every retailer doesn’t do that. One reason is that the limited-selection approach can't work for everybody. Another is that, as my Bloomberg View colleague Megan McArdle wrote last year, if every retailer paid like Costco, many of Costco's labor advantages would disappear. And finally, while some retailers surely have hurt themselves in their zeal to optimize labor, the move away from full-time retail jobs and toward staffing that's closely matched to customer demand hasn't been totally irrational.
In one recent study, Saravanan Kesavan, Bradley R. Staats and Wendell Gilland of the University of North Carolina looked at labor practices at a large (unidentified) retail chain. Their hypothesis was that the use of temporary and part-time workers would be linked with per-store sales in an inverted U-shaped curve -- with sales at first rising as the percentage of temps and part-timers rose, but eventually falling.
The data backed them up. To maximize sales, the optimal share of temp workers was 13 percent and part-timers 44 percent. But those percentages were both higher than the retailer's current averages of 7 percent and 32 percent. Overall, hiring more part-timers and more temps was likely to lead to higher sales.
The data-driven reexamination of labor practices by big retailers will surely lead to some improvements in how workers are treated and paid. I don't get the impression that, by itself, it will lead to all retail jobs becoming good jobs.
Source: Bloomberg
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