Campaign News

Members of groups including Hedge Clippers and the Center for Popular Democracy protest outside Blackstone's New York headquarters in January.

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Isaacson to sit on City Planning Commission

Author and former CNN CEO Walter Isaacson may be only a part-time resident of New Orleans, but Mayor Mitch Landrieu has appointed him to the City Planning Commission.

Isaacson, 64, who now heads the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., will replace lawyer Alexandra Mora in January.

The City Council approved the appointment Thursday.

“I'm deeply honored and excited about the prospect of helping to protect the city and plan for its future,” said Isaacson, who splits his time between New Orleans and Washington.

Isaacson, a New Orleans native, is also a former editor of Time magazine and the author of books about Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger and the "group of hackers, geniuses and geeks (who) created the digital revolution."

He was vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the agency that oversaw the state’s rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. He is also on the boards of Tulane University and the New Orleans Tricentennial Commission.

Landrieu also appointed Jason Hughes to the commission to fill the unexpired term of Nolan Marshall III, who left New Orleans in October for a job in Dallas.

Hughes’ tenure will end in 2021, while Isaacson's will end in 2023.

City Council condemns anti-Muslim rhetoric

At the end of a heated election season that has included calls from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the country, the New Orleans City Council approved a resolution Thursday condemning anti-Muslim rhetoric.

The resolution is part of a national effort by the liberal group Local Progress to get similar measures passed across the country

"We have seen dangerous levels of anti-Muslim and racist rhetoric as well as a rise in hate crimes," said Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, a board member of Local Progress. "This rhetoric and violence is not only a threat to our communities but also a direct threat to us as U.S. citizens."

The resolution passed 6-0, with Councilman Jason Williams absent.

"Love really does trump hate," Cantrell said, echoing a slogan used by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The resolution says the council "condemns all hateful speech and violent action directed at Muslims, those perceived to be Muslims, immigrants and people of color," "categorically rejects political tactics that use fear to manipulate voters or to gain power or influence" and "reaffirms the value of a pluralistic society, the beauty of a culture composed of multiple cultures, and the inalienable right of every person to live and practice their faith without fear."

Clinton is expected to easily carry New Orleans in Tuesday's election.

Jeff council backtracks, OKs disputed contract

The Jefferson Parish Council on Wednesday suspended a disputed ordinance in order to keep the parish's Carnival parades rolling in 2017, hiring a company owned by a local political consultant to build the grandstands from which revelers will cheer on the annual spectacle.

The council voted 7-0 to suspend a ban passed a year ago that would prevent parish contracts from being awarded to any firm partially owned by a consultant who had represented an elected official during a prior election.

That ordinance, which was proposed by Councilman Chris Roberts last November, is under challenge in federal court.

Buisson Creative, a firm owned by political consultant Greg Buisson, was the only firm to respond to the most recent request for proposals to provide the grandstands for the upcoming Carnival season.

Because of the pending legal challenge and the fact that no other proposals for the work were submitted, the council suspended the ban and also voted 6-0 to negotiate a contract with Buisson Creative. Roberts abstained from that vote.

The ordinance was controversial because some saw it as being aimed specifically at Buisson, who had just worked for Roberts’ political opponent in the prior election cycle.

Roberts dismissed the criticism, saying the ordinance was a good-government measure designed to prevent conflicts of interest by making sure those who worked on political campaigns did not then get contracts with parish government.

BGR: Its report to save taxpayers millions

The Bureau of Governmental Research put out a release last week taking credit for uncovering an issue that it said is "expected to yield millions in savings to taxpayers."

On Oct. 27, an Orleans Parish Civil District Court judge ruled in the city's favor on how to apply the formula for calculating pension benefits for city firefighters. The BGR release said the "matter stemmed from a 2013 report in which BGR revealed that the New Orleans Firefighters' Pension and Relief Fund was applying the benefits formula on more generous terms than those spelled out in state law."

The court order directs the fund "to apply the formula as set forth in law," the research group said. 

"According to a pension consultant's estimate, if the formula were properly applied to current employees alone, taxpayers would save roughly $1.3 million per year. But under the judgment, the formula is to apply to current retirees as well, increasing the potential savings," BGR said.

By Jessica Williams, Jeff Adelson, Chad Calder and Bruce Eggler

Source

San Francisco, the country’s premier laboratory for new Internet services, is also used to innovating in municipal regulation.

But in its latest experiment, it’s starting to find that legislating good corporate behavior isn’t as easy as pressing a button on your smartphone.

In July, the city started implementing a first-in-the-nation law aimed at curtailing the trend towards “just-in-time” scheduling, where managers call in employees to work on short notice. The new measure requires large chain retailers— such as Safeway and Walgreen’s — to publish schedules at least two weeks in advance, and to compensate employees with “predictability pay” if they make changes less than a week ahead of time. It also mandates that additional hours be offered to existing employees first before new hires are made, and that part-time workers be paid at the same rate as people who work full-time.

So far, it’s been easier to publish schedules than live up to the spirit of the law.

"The two-week notice seemed to be instituted right away, but the other stuff is lagging,” says Gordon Mar, director of San Francisco Jobs With Justice, a labor-backed group that pushed for the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights” and has been monitoring its implementation.

The sluggish response may be because fines don’t kick in until Oct. 3; the city is still hashing out the rules. But the spotty compliance so far highlights the difficulty of attempts to mandate worker-friendly practices — especially the kind that touch the most fundamental aspects of business operations, rather than those that simply require higher pay and better benefits.

San Francisco employers fought the new ordinance, but couldn’t prevent its passage. Now, they complain it’s impacting service.

“We’re hearing from members in San Francisco that it really is not working well at all,” says Ronald Fong, president of the California Grocers Association. Stores can’t always predict surges in foot traffic, which might be brought on a sunny day, leaving managers without the option to bring in more staff. That was a problem during the heat wave that swept over San Francisco this summer.

"Supplies weren’t able to get out to the shelves,” Fong says. "It just kind of snowballed, and our customers have a bad experience, or the stores lose sales.”

Some businesses don’t mind the rules in principle, but object to the red tape. "Everybody pretty much operates on a predictive schedule,” says Bill Dombrowski, president of the California Retailers Association. “But the process of implementing this, with offering the employees hours in writing and waiting three days for a response, it’s a lot of government intrusion into very minute detail.”

Also, not all industries schedule their workers in the same way. Milton Moritz is president of the National Association of Theatre Owners’ California and Nevada chapter, and says the theater business is by nature unpredictable, making the new law particularly difficult to comply with.

“We might not know until the Monday before the Friday a film shows, and even then we’re hiring, firing, scheduling people based on the business that film’s going to do,” Moritz says. “This ordinance flies in the face of all that. It really complicates the issue tremendously.”

The San Francisco ordinance hasn’t just been irritating for big companies. Some workers grumble the law discourages employers from offering extra shifts on short notice, because they would have to pay the last-minute schedule change penalty — even if workers would be happy for the chance to pick up more hours.

Rachel Deutsch, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Popular Democracy who has been helping local jurisdictions across the country craft fair-scheduling legislation, says that’s something that might change in future iterations.

"I think that’s the thing with any policy where it’s the first attempt to solve a complicated economic problem,” Deutsch says. "It’s been a learning process.”

So far, fair scheduling laws aren’t spreading as quickly as minimum wage and paid sick leave laws. A statewide bill in California failed a couple weeks ago, and no other local ordinances have passed besides San Francisco’s, though there are active campaigns in several cities including Minneapolis and Washington D.C.

Meanwhile, several companies have acted on their own to curb some of the practices that workers have found most disruptive, like on-call shifts, where workers have to be available even if they aren’t ultimately asked to work. But in some cases — like that of Starbucks, which committed to eliminating many of those practices — those voluntary changes haven’t been any more effectivethan government mandates.

Erin Hurley worked at Bath & Body Works and campaigned for an end to on-call shifts. After she left the job, parent company L Brands said it would stop the practice at Bath & Body Works as well as another of its chains, Victoria’s Secret. But Hurley says she’s heard from current workers that managers are still doing effectively the same thing, by asking employees to stay a little longer.

“On-call shifts were replaced with shift extensions,” says Hurley. “Basically what L Brands did was change the name of the practice.” Keeping people on-call is very convenient for employers, and letting it go can be easier said than done. (L Brands did not respond to a request for comment.)

Still, advocates in San Francisco think the Retail Workers Bill of Rights has already done some good, and will be more effective when the city’s enforcement kicks into high gear — just like overtime rules did, when companies got used to obeying them.

Take Michelle Flores, 21, who has worked part time at Safeway for two years to support herself while in going to college. Unpredictable schedules made that difficult: She would only know her shifts a few days beforehand, which sometimes didn’t leave her enough time to hit the books.

"I would study from midnight until 5, 6 a.m., sleep for two or three hours, and then go to the exam,” says Flores, 21, who attends San Francisco State. This year, she expects that to change. "If I know that I have a shift scheduled, I’ll just study another day,” Flores says.

Also, the law came with some funding for community organizations to make employees aware of what workers are entitled to. That has ancillary effects — like getting people interested in joining a union, which can be better equipped to make sure companies are following the rules.

“It just creates an opportunity to talk to more workers about their rights under the law, and that leads to conversations about other issues in the workplace,” says Gordon Mar, of Jobs with Justice. “And that could lead to getting organized.”

Source: Washington Post

“Most recently, I’ve answered the call to service within my Delaware community. As the Program Director for Achievement Matters, I lead a team working with youth to close the educational achievement gap. Through the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, I teach young people how to fight for social change. I also work with the Center for Popular Democracy on solutions to the opioid crisis, healthcare, immigration, and taxes, and as the Kent County Coordinator for Network Delaware, I’m organizing to increase engagement throughout Delaware.

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