Campaign News

Latinos Post - February 26, 2014, by Jorge Calvillo - The Hispanic and immigrant population employed in the construction industry in the state of New York is the ethnic group most vulnerable to fatal accidents in the workplace, according to a report by the Center for Popular Democracy.

According to El Diario NY, the data collected by the study shows that between 2003 and 2011, within the total amount of deaths by falls and accidents in construction areas registered in New York City, 60 percent of the deceased were Hispanic and/or immigrants.

This is an alarming figure because 75 construction workers die due to accidents per year in the state of New York, revealed journalist Blanca Rosa Vílchez, for news network Univisión.

The source points out that in New York, 41 percent of construction workers are Hispanic. However, the report released on Thursday showed that 74 percent of the deaths by accidents belong to that same ethnic group.

Last September 24, construction workers in Brooklyn protested to demand better safety conditions in their workplaces, after they reported a significant rise in accidents related to the low investment in safety that companies offer, which has caused severe accidents which in many cases have taken the lives of workers, who receive a minimum salary.

Back then, El Diario NY reported that the workers protested at 227 Carlton Avenue in Fort Greene, where a 62-year-old worker lost his life when the roof of one of the buildings he was working on collapsed onto him on September 10.

According to the protestors, contractor companies in New York buy low-quality materials to save some money and don't invest in safety courses for their workers, which leaves construction workers in a perilous situation.

The Latino community working in the construction industry is double vulnerable in this situation, since many of the workers are undocumented immigrants, and if they suffer an accident, they don't report the construction company for fear of being deported or fired.

As if this were not enough, if violations of safety norms are reported, the fines against construction companies are very low, which makes it easy for them to continue ignoring safety norms in construction sites.

Univisión highlights that the fines construction companies face are no higher than $2,000 in case of an accident, and $12,000 if a worker dies, a figure that reflects the dimensions of the risks that construction workers must face every day.

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A coalition of unions and other progressive organizations is pushing lawmakers on a jobs and infrastructure bill that would put millions of people to work.

Read the full article here.

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer and 10 of his colleagues met Thursday with a coalition of activists to hear complaints about the U.S. central bank, in a first-of-its-kind event on the sidelines of an annual policy retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

“Even when we disagree, we do it with mutual respect.,” said Esther George, president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve, who hosts the high-powered symposium in the heart of the Grand Teton National Park that draws central bankers from all over the world. “We are pleased to have this conversation.”

Esther George speaks with Shawn Sebastian, field director of the pro-worker Fed Up coalition, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy, following a meeting with a coalition of activists on the sidelines of the Jackson Hole economic symposium on Aug. 25.

Esther George speaks with Shawn Sebastian, field director of the pro-worker Fed Up coalition, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy, following a meeting with a coalition of activists on the sidelines of the Jackson Hole economic symposium on Aug. 25. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Faced with criticism that it doesn’t look out for the interests of poorer Americans that have been sharpened in this U.S. presidential election year, the Fed has been going out of its way to show that it’s getting the message.

Fischer and George were joined by New York Fed chief William Dudley, Boston’s Eric Rosengren, Cleveland’s Loretta Mester, Neel Kashkari from Minneapolis, Governor Lael Brainard, the Atlanta Fed’s Dennis Lockhart, Robert Kaplan from Dallas, John Williams from San Francisco, and Richmond Fed boss Jeffrey Lacker.

The pro-worker Fed Up coalition, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy, is pressing for more diversity among the leadership of the central bank and for policies that take into account the needs of low and middle income families. Several speakers explicitly urged the Fed not to raise interest rates to fight a threat of inflation that they didn’t believe was real.

Got to Go

Fed Up protesters wearing green T-shirts chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, these Wall Street banks, they’ve got to go” at a rally prior to the meeting at the Jackson Lake Lodge, where the symposium will hear a speech Friday from Chair Janet Yellen.

Dudley said that the Fed had done a “pretty lousy” job of delivering better diversity and added that “I want to look at all changes people are suggesting.”

Fed Up says the central bank is dominated by white men -- Yellen is its first woman chair -- and takes issue with the fact that private banks select two-thirds of the members of the 12 regional banks’ boards of directors.

The Richmond Fed responded to those complaints this week -- economic writer Helen Fessenden and economist Gary Richardson on Tuesday published an economic brief addressing Fed Up’s concerns, and they say monetary policy isn’t well-suited to the end goal the activists have in mind.

By Steve Matthews & Jeff Black

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89.3KPCC - March 13, 2013 - Wells Fargo writes the most mortgages in California. According to a new report released Tuesday from a consortium of grassroots activists and housing advocates, 11,616 of those loans are currently in foreclosure, out of roughly 65,000 homes in foreclosure in the state.

The report accuses Wells Fargo of damaging both California communities and the state’s overall economy. It was produced by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Home Defenders League.

Ross Rhodes of the Alliance of Californians for Community Development said on a conference call Tuesday that Wells Fargo was singled out because the bank is "responsible for handling more delinquent loans than any other servicer."

He added that Wells Fargo is failing to live up to the terms of last year's mortgage settlement between the states and the country's biggest banks. Rhodes said that Wells is lagging behind both Bank of America and Chase in efforts to keep people in their homes.

In a statement, Wells Fargo said that its foreclosure rate in California is lower than its rate in the nation as a whole and that the report "appears to be an attempt to question Wells Fargo’s longstanding track record as a fair and responsible lender and servicer."

The bank emerged from the financial crisis relatively unscathed. But in recent years it has been called to task for past lending practices. It was was fined $175 million by the Justice Department in 2012 for steering minorities into costly subprime loans before the housing crisis.

The bank was also fined $148 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for violations perpetrated by Wachovia Securities (Wells took control of Wachovia in 2008, at the height of crisis, when major U.S. banks were failing).

The report also argues that Wells Fargo’s foreclosures in the state are disproportionately affecting African American and Latino neighborhoods and could wind up costing the state $20 million in lost tax revenue.

The authors say that the solution is “principal reduction” — adjusting mortgages to reflect the reduced market value of homes in foreclosure.

Numerous economists support the idea of principal reduction, but the notion has been resisted at the federal level, most notably by Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has overseen mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since they were taken into receivership during the financial crisis.

DeMarco has supported principal forbearance, a method that would not reduce the amount of mortgages held by Fannie and Freddie but rather restructure them so that homeowners could see more affordable payments.

The report's consortium of advocates doesn't favor forbearance, arguing that it can't address the core issue of borrowers drowing in debt.

But as tempting as principal reduction might be in theory, in practice is doesn't always lead to the homeowner staying in the home.

Economist Stuart Gabriel is Director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA. He said that principal reduction isn't a "cure all."

"For borrowers that are deeply underwater, a modest amount of principal reduction is going to make no difference the ultimate outcome, which would be default and foreclosure," Gabriel said.

In its statement, Wells Fargo called its principal reduction efforts since 2009 "aggressive." But the advocacy groups said that Wells Fargo is one of the most difficult banks to work with, and that it engages in "dual tracking" — undertaking loan modifications at the same time it moves forward with the foreclosure process.

The report also recommends that Wells Fargo disclose more data about its foreclosures, and specifically about the impact that foreclosures are having on minority neighborhoods in California.

Gabriel said that more transparency about lending practices and the racial and geographical makeup of loan portfolios is always a good thing because additional information improves markets.

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