Campaign News

Dive Brief:

The New York City Council on Tuesday introduced a package of bills that would ban on-call scheduling and other inflexible, unpredictable scheduling practices deemed unfair by retail workers and many policymakers, according to the council's website.

The bills in some cases go further than what has been proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said in September he would push for legislation to give fast food and retail workers advance notice of schedules and penalty pay for last-minute changes.

The state of New York has also pushed against on-call scheduling practices, with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office warning several retailers that aspects of such practices are already against state law, which prompted Urban Outfitters, Gap Inc., L. Brands, J. Crew, Pier 1 and Abercrombie & Fitch to end on-call scheduling.

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Dive Insight:

Algorithms in scheduling software have helped retailers cut costs through efficient staffing, but have also made life difficult for workers who are trying to manage households, attend school or work additional jobs. New York isn’t the only place to find growing antipathy toward the practice of on-call scheduling. Seattle, San Francisco and Bay Area city Emeryville have also passed laws limiting and penalizing the practice.

In New York, the proposed bills would ensure that when hours become available, they’re offered first to existing employees, before new workers are hired. Many part-time workers remain willing to work full-time but can’t find the positions, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. This will offer a pathway to full-time work. The bills also provide remedies and protections to retail workers when on-call scheduling does occur and establish a process for employees to seek flexible work arrangements, among other provisions.

"People working in fast food and retail have made clear that higher wages are not enough without hours they can count on," Elianne Farhat, Deputy Campaign Director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, said in a statement emailed to Retail Dive. "Now more than ever, parents and students need more input into their work hours so they can balance working hard with caring for their families, attending college classes and participating in our community.”

Indeed, retailers should be prepared to see more such concerns, warnings and even legislation from more states and jurisdictions across the country as on call scheduling gets more scrutiny, Gail Gottehrer, a labor and employment litigator at Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider in New York, told Retail Dive last year. “This can be especially difficult for multi-state employers,” Gottehrer said. “If you’re in a lot of jurisdictions it can be complicated to get things right.”

By Daphne Howland

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Workers Still Face Low Pay, Part-Time Employment in Today’s Economy

Connie Razza, Director of Strategic Research for the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), released the following statement following today’s jobs report:

“Today’s jobs numbers show we are still a long way away from a full recovery, particularly in communities of color. Labor force participation rates are still at their lowest levels in decades and the rate of involuntary part-time work is still far too high. The clearest indicator that there is still significant slack in the labor market is that wages are still not rising. With unemployment rates remaining stuck, the number of jobs added under-performing expectations and last month’s projections revised downward, the new jobs numbers show that the Federal Reserve made the right decision by not raising interest rates.

“In her comments following the Fed’s decision not to raise interest rates in September, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen responded to a question about the Fed Up campaign by speaking about workers who are still suffering from under-employment and don’t have the opportunity to work a full workweek. She is correct: the even this very disappointing headline unemployment rate understates the even greater weaknesses of the economy.

“This reality was illuminated by media reports in the past few days of unfair scheduling practices at Starbucks, which include workweeks that fall far short of 40 hours, and terrible scheduling conditions such as lack of notice and ‘clopening’ shifts. If the economy were healthy and we were at full employment, America’s largest employers wouldn’t be able to treat their employees this way. In a true full employment economy, workers would be able to demand fair schedules and better wages, to make up for years of rising inequality. Today’s jobs numbers continue to show that the economy is far from full employment and we still have a lot of work to do before everyone who wants one can find a stable, predictable, full-time job.”

Anthony Newby, Executive Director of Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change(MNNOC) released the following statement:

"A 15.9% unemployment rate for black Minnesotans means we have a two-tiered economy, here and across country. Some people have access to steady jobs with good pay, and some don't. At workplaces across the country, like Target Field in Minneapolis, people doing the same job have different standards for scheduling and pay for doing the exact same job. Workers need the same protections everywhere and we need the economy to keep growing to win them."

Sondra Jones, temp worker at Target Field for the past two summers at $8/hour, Minneapolis:

“Me and my co-workers at Target Field are not experiencing the economy or employment in our country getting any better. We are still struggling to get enough hours to live off and to plan our lives around our unpredictable work schedule. Once, I received a text message telling me to come into work later that day. I had planned to baby-sit for my sister, but I needed to go into work. Since my sister didn't have childcare that day, she lost her job. We need enough notice of our schedule to plan our lives, and we need enough hours to pay our bills.”

For additional interview opportunities with Connie Razza, Anthony Newby, Sondra Jones, or low-wage workers from other cities across the country in various industries, please contact Ricardo Ramirez at rramirez@populardemocracy.org, 202-905-1738 or Anita Jain at ajain@populardemocracy.org, 347-636-9761.

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Citizenship: A Wise Investment for Cities

Metropolitan areas derive much of their vitality from their large immigrant populations. When immigrants become citizens, they make a deeper investment in their communities, leading to civic, economic and social benefits for all.

Download the report here

Local governments have recognized that investing in helping immigrants naturalize is money well spent. Recent research shows that naturalized immigrants achieve an increase in earnings of 8-11%, nationally, with multiplier effects stimulating the local economy.

Yet roughly one-third of immigrants eligible to naturalize fail to do so because of various obstacles, such as the high cost, lack of English proficiency, and lack of knowledge about the naturalization process.

Although Congress has failed to take comprehensive action on immigration reform, cities can take bold action to integrate more immigrants into their communities. By increasing the number of immigrants who naturalize, cities can benefit their local economies and our entire country.

The Cities for Citizenship Initiative (C4C) is a collaboration co-chaired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York.

The initiative is made possible with generous funding from Citi Community Development, and national campaign support is provided by the National Partnership for New Americans and the Center for Popular Democracy. Launched in September 2014, C4C will promote a large-scale naturalization campaign over the next 5 years, assisting legal permanent resident immigrants who want to go through the challenging process of becoming U.S. citizens. C4C will help mayors and municipal governments initiate and enhance citizenship programs in their cities.

This report represents the first stage in what will be an ongoing research effort by C4C to analyze the social and economic benefits of increased naturalization to immigrant families and local economies. Our initial assessment examines the economic benefits of naturalization for Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, with the understanding that similar benefits are achievable in other metropolitan areas. We conclude that:

The increase in earnings of immigrants who otherwise would not have naturalized is estimated to add between $1.8 and $4.1 billion over ten years to the local economy in the city of New York, between $1.6 and $2.8 billion in Los Angeles, and between $1.0 and $1.6 billion in Chicago.

Taking into account a modest multiplier effect, these increased earnings will lead to additional economic activity—or GDP—over ten years of between $2.2 and $4.8 billion in the city of New York, $1.9 to $3.3 billion in Los Angeles, and between $1.2 and $1.8 billion in Chicago.

The increased income would generate additional local and state tax revenues over ten years (sales, property, and income) of between $270 and $600 million in the city of New York, between $180 and $320 million in Los Angeles, and between $100 and $170 million in Chicago.

Immigrants with disabilities who do not have a five-year work history in the U.S. would become eligible for SSI upon naturalization, bringing more federal dollars into the local economy to support benefits programs.

Helping immigrants to naturalize is an investment that pays off. For the relatively low cost of promoting naturalization, local communities grow the local economy, increase tax revenue, and relieve local assistance programs. The result is stronger communities with members who have made a permanent commitment to stay and who are able to participate more fully in our democracy, through their new right to vote, improved economic condition, and other protections or perceived protections.

Download the report here

AL.com - March 17, 2014, by Rep. Craig Ford - Other than the $700 million hole in the state's General Fund budget, no issue has been more talked about than the charter school bill.

Republicans in the Alabama legislature have made charter schools a part of their legislative agenda, and a priority in this legislative session (which is ironic, given these same Republican legislators campaigned on stopping President Obama's agenda, but President Obama has been one of the strongest advocates for charter schools).

The charter school bill was passed out of the state senate last week, and will most likely be voted on in the state House of Representatives this week.

Because the Republicans hold a Supermajority (nearly 70 percent of legislators in the House of Representatives), they will certainly force this bill through, and it will be up to Gov. Bentley to decide whether to veto the bill.

There is no doubt that something needs to be done in some of our school systems. But charter schools are not the answer, and will not give our children the better quality of education that proponents of charter schools have claimed.

Researchers at Stanford University conducted two studies on charter schools, in which they reviewed test scores from charter schools in 26 states.  The results they found undermine the argument that charter schools outperform existing public schools.

In all, only 25 percent of charter schools performed better than traditional public schools in reading, while only 29 percent performed better in math. More troubling is that 19 percent of charters performed worse in reading, while 31 percent performed "significantly worse" in math. The rest performed at the same level as the existing public schools.

So after about two decades of experimenting with charter schools, the test results have proven that charter schools are not likely to give our children a better quality education. In fact, there's a pretty high chance that our children will get a lower quality education at a charter school than they would at the school they are already attending.

Charter schools also have a very real problem with fraud, waste and abuse of tax dollars.

The Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity In Education, both non-profit organizations, released a report that found more than $100 million in fraud, waste and abuse by fraudulent charter operators in just 15 of the 42 states that have charter schools.

Another report conducted by Integrity In Education found that, just in Pennsylvania, charter operators had fraudulently misused more than $30 million!

The authors of Alabama¹s charter school bill have claimed their bill addresses the accountability issues. But it does not.

The charter school bill that came out of the Alabama Senate does not require that ³Education Service Providers² be non-profit organizations. What this means is that, while the organization that applies for the charter might have to report to the state, the companies that it subcontracts to do not and have no accountability to the taxpayers.

The reason charter schools are hotbeds for fraud and waste is because the for-profit companies that provide education services, such as financial and operation management, managing the facilities and even designing the curriculum, are not held accountable.

In fact, in the reports I referenced earlier, government regulators were not the ones who have discovered the fraud in charter schools. The fraud was only discovered by an investigative reporter, or when a whistle blower came forward or someone filed a lawsuit.

The fraud has come in many forms, including charter operators using school funds illegally to buy personal luxuries for themselves and to support their other businesses.

Investigative reporters have also found that education service providers are typically non-compliant with request for information required by law under the Freedom of Information act. The Washington Post reported that, during their own investigation of charter schools, 70 percent of Education Management Organizations refused to respond to the request for a copy of their contract with Charter Operators, while another 10 percent claimed they were not legally required to publicly provide a copy of their contract.

So even if the Alabama legislature passes a provision requiring them to make their contracts and finances publicly available, 80 percent of these organizations have proven that they will ignore the law and refuse to provide the information.

The sad thing is these are not even all the arguments that can be made against charter schools. But these are more than enough to prove that charter schools are a scam, and a bad idea. Yes, something needs to be done in some school systems. But charter schools are not the answer.

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