The Growing Realization That Our Individual Struggles Are All Connected Makes This “Our Moment”
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AlterNet - December 7, 2013, by Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers - The above photograph from the NYC Light Brigade came at the end of an incredible day of action on December 5 when fast food workers in 100 cities walked off their jobs and joined with supporters in their communities to protest poverty wages. The photo proclaims “ALL OF US” with people holding signs that identify different members of the community; and proclaims “THIS IS OUR MOMENT.”
The solidarity at the fast food worker protests on December 5 echoed the solidarity seen on December 3 when people throughout the United States and around the globe protested toxic trade agreements especially the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). And, that “ALL OF US” solidarity was seen last Friday, November 29 when workers walked out at 1,500 Walmarts with widespread community support at their rallies.
We are moving toward becoming a movement of movements that cannot be ignored because more people are coming to the realization that our individual struggles are all connected to a larger struggle and that we have more strength when we act together rather than alone. As the unity shown in that photograph becomes a reality, we will succeed in creating the kind of solidarity that will make this era “OUR MOMENT.”
Lessons From Nelson Mandela
South Africa is mourning the death of Nelson Mandela. His vision for South Africa was of a rainbow – uniting all people, no one race white or black dominating others. The liberation he sought was not only ending the racist and abusive apartheid system but also ending an economic system which allowed the white minority to profit while the black majority was impoverished. He believed in human rights and democracy, questioned capitalism and was a socialist. His vision of a country without poverty, with adequate housing for all and equal opportunity has not yet been realized. But he saw the whole and today the country is united around his legacy.
Mandela said, “The most vital task facing the democratic movement in this country is to unleash such struggles and to develop them on the basis of the concrete and immediate demands of the people from area to area. Only in this way can we build a powerful mass movement which is the only guarantee of ultimate victory in the struggle for democratic reforms.” In other words, Mandela saw the need to build a movement of movements connected in purpose but organized around the immediate needs and demands of various communities.
Such a united movement is growing in the United States and around the world as people organize around the issues that affect them directly but recognize they are working toward a common goal of ending the rule of money and putting the needs of the people and protection of the planet first. In Wisconsin, Occupy Community Organizing has been reaching out to work across issues at the local level and they are now sharing what they’ve learned with people in other communities.
Recent reports expose that a growing number of people are struggling due to a rigged economy and austerity spending which further fuels the movement. Philadelphia and other cities are hurting from school closures. Pensions are under attack in Detroit which a court ruled was bankrupt this week; pensions of public workers are also threatened in Illinois. And while our public institutions are being dismantled, our public dollars are subsidizing CEO profits. A report by the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center finds that poverty wages of bank tellers require $900 million in public assistance, while a report from the Institute for Policy Studies found the same for low wage fast food workers. We all pay for this unjust business model.
Extreme methods of energy extraction such as the tar sands, mountaintop removal and fracking have also spurred a larger and more aggressive movement to stop them. This past week, students from the University of Chicago protested fracking at a public hearing. New blockades and occupations have sprung up and the Elsipogtog and Mi’kmaq in New Brunswick continue to try to protect their land from drilling.
According to leaked Stratfor documents, the energy industry’s worst nightmare is coming true because of the actions that environmentalists are willing to take to nonviolently protect the land, air and water. In fact, one oil CEO revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is now placing community members who oppose fracking on the terrorist watch list, revealing their fear of mobilized people.
The Urgent Need For Unity To Stop Transnational Corporate Power
In addition to fighting back in communities, people across movements are connecting their struggles and working together on specific campaigns. This was demonstrated best over this past week in the Global Day of Action against Toxic Trade Agreements on December 3 which coincided with the first day of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Bali, Indonesia. Hundreds of civil society members gathered in Bali to protest provisions in the WTO package that jeopardize food and climate security as well as including other threats to human rights and wellbeing.
There were colorful actions outside of the meetings in Renon Square and creative surprise actions on the inside such as this flash mob by women leaders from the Philippines for climate justice. Indian farmers, laborers and their allies alsoprotested inside as they monitored whether their representatives would compromise the needs of the people. They reminded WTO members that “aggressively upholding the rights of its citizens is not tantamount to collapsing the ministerial talks. On the contrary, such pressure tactics [of the negotiators] must be exposed as a conspiracy to keep people hungry and poor.”
Civil society groups from around the world held their own Global Peoples Tribunalin which testimonies of those affected by the WTO’s policies were heard. The Tribunal issued its findings which concluded with this statement: “We recognize that the struggle of resistance goes hand in hand with the construction of alternatives of an economy for the people and the planet, with initiatives such as the indigenous knowledge systems, seed banks, food sovereignty, and a new paradigm for trade and investment, as well as a new juridical system that will deliver justice.”
Likewise, civil society groups in North America joined the Global Day of Action on Dec. 3 with actions in 35 cities focused on stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). And thousands of farmers in Japan protested the TPP during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Japan. In Washington, DC, we joined local activists to deliver thousands of petition signatures to US Assistant Trade Representative Stan McCoy at his office to tell him to stop bullying negotiators from other countries into accepting harmful provisions. McCoy who is in charge of intellectual property rights has been pushing policies that would deny lifesaving health care to many around the world in order to prop-up pharmaceutical profits as well as policies to restrict Internet freedom. He refused to meet with us.
Due to our persistence, we did meet with Jewel James, the public liaison, and told her of our serious concerns, especially the reality that many will die due to lack of access to necessary health care if the patent protections for medications and other treatments are passed as currently written. We told Ms. James that we wanted Stan McCoy to know he is being watched. She told us “He is well-aware that he is being watched.” He only knows because the movement has exposed his actions. We hope that the knowledge that the TPP is literally trading away lives for corporate profits will motivate a brave person in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to release the text of the TPP.
Analysis of text that has been leaked to date finds that the language being pushed by the United States on intellectual property rights violates international norms. Last month, more than 80 law professors and academics sent a letter to President Obama and Congress criticizing the secrecy with which the TPP is being negotiated and calling for the text to be released to the public and for a new negotiation process that is more inclusive and democratic.
This weekend, TPP negotiators are meeting in Singapore in an attempt to complete the agreement. And pressure is being put on Congress to give the President Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority to sign the TPP into law himself. This would prevent a transparent and democratic process in Congress and a full review of the potential impacts of the TPP. Members of Congress are pushing back against this executive power grab, including more than three-quarters of Democrats in the House. Labor unions released a statement to let the TPP negotiators know that opposition to the TPP is broad and deep in the United States.
Frustration is building among corporate trade advocates like Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and Rep. David Camp (R-MI). They know they must pass Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority to serve the transnational corporate interests, without Fast Track these rigged trade agreements will never become law. A few days ago Baucus and Camp leaked to the press that they were almost there, even started rumors they were introducing a Fast Track bill for a quick vote. But, then the push back from the people and opposition in Congress responded and they pulled back. They are pushing hard so we need to push back, now is the time to act –we have an opportunity to put a nail in the coffin of Fast Track and the TPP. Act now, here’s how.
Lessons from the Success of the Battle of Seattle
Since the mass protests in Seattle in 1999, the WTO has not been able to move forward with its agenda and it looks like the current meeting did not accomplish much. The TPP and its European sister, TAFTA which began negotiations in July, are thought to be attempts to advance the WTO agenda through another path. As we go to press, news reports that the WTO reached a scaled down deal have come out. While much will be made of this by corporate trade advocates, it looks like a minimalist deal that still may never come to real fruition. If this is the best they can do since their founding in 1995, it is evident that we are nearing the cusp of a new age of trade as this approach is not working. The opportunity is rising for us to push away from corporate-dominated rigged trade that allows transnational corporations to exploit people and the planet with impunity to an era that is transparent, inclusive and democratic and that puts the needs of people and the planet before profits.
This week was also the 14th anniversary of the Battle of Seattle, David Solnit wrote about the “Lessons for Today” from that success. He interviewed Paul deArmand, a researcher and activist; and a giant who passed away this year. This article brought up many important points for a movement of movements to succeed, but first he highlighted one we should not forget “the unexpected political power of ad-hoc, even accidental, coalitions.” Seattle was a success because it brought people together across issues in a focused effort to stop the WTO. Let’s not forget the success of working together. He also points out that “Movements grow by expansion and recruitment” and that after Seattle there was too much looking inward, contracting, not expanding (we agree this was true until recent years).
Another lesson of Seattle was the value of networks, rather than institutions. Networks confuse the opposition: “Networks operate by ‘swarming’ their opponents, approaching stealthily and from many directions in offense . . . leaving opponents unclear about what is occurring and how to respond.” Networks have multiple centers of power “all moving toward a shared general goal.” The energy for the network comes from sharing information; the goal is to grow the network, not just one node of it. Further, by spreading our values widely, we make some in the power structure question themselves and their values thereby weakening the pillars that hold the status quo in place.
Making ALL OF US Real
When we make the “ALL OF US” photo on the top of this article a reality, and become an inclusive movement that spreads its values widely, communicating not just with each other but more broadly, we will unite our base and create a foundation to build a mass movement on and grow to a point that cannot be ignored. A mobilized mass movement can erase the artificial political limitations of today and change the political culture of the nation. When that happens, things that seem impossible to change, like apartheid in South Africa, become remnants of history.
The immediate priority of stopping Fast Track for the TPP, TAFTA and other corporate trade rigging, is an opportunity for us to act in unity. It is an “ALL OF US” moment. The rigged trade of the TPP is stalling and united we can stop it.Find out what you can do here.
Let’s take advantage of the opportunity to stop this transnational corporate power grab – let’s swarm them, come from many directions and confuse them. Let us move from our multiple centers of power toward the common goal of building the power of the people. We have a common goal, together we can achieve it; and then we can build from that success as we will have shown that this is indeed, OUR MOMENT for transformation.
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ABQ call center workers get more family-friendly workplace rules
More than workers at Albuquerque’s T-Mobile call center began working under new workplace rules this week. The company has been under increasing pressure to modify work rules to give workers...
More than workers at Albuquerque’s T-Mobile call center began working under new workplace rules this week. The company has been under increasing pressure to modify work rules to give workers greater flexibility to balance family and work requirements.
The company operates a nationwide call center near Jefferson and Menaul in Albuquerque and recently announced plans to add more employees top the more than 1,500 local workers already employed at the site.
News of the new workplace rules came from the Communications Workers of America which has been leading efforts with local organizations for these changes:
For Immediate Release July 2, 2015
Public Pressure Pushes T-Mobile US to Provide Fairer Paid Parental Leave Policy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Responding to growing public pressure and local government initiatives, T-Mobile US announced this week that it would be adopt a paid parental leave program. The company also said it would end an oppressive policy that required call center workers to be on the phone 96.5% of their work time, leaving them with virtually no time for follow up on customer issues or to make changes in customers’ accounts as needed.
This is great news for workers who often must struggle to balance family and career. It comes as workers at T-Mobile US and a coalition of community supporters in cities like Albuquerque, N.M., step up efforts to restore a fair workweek and achieve other improvements for workers.
Members of TU, the union of T-Mobile workers, the Communications Workers of America and many organizations, including the Center for Popular Democracy, OLÉ and other coalition partners, have been raising concerns about unfair scheduling and other issues for workers at T-Mobile US and other employers. Workers want a voice in the decisions that affect them in their workplace — not just the ones that the company selectively picks and chooses. That’s why T-Mobile US workers are joining TU.
T-Mobile US’s initial scheduling changes were made just as the Albuquerque City Council was moving forward to consider a proposal to implement paid sick leave and scheduling improvements. The Albuquerque coalition hosted a town hall meeting on irregular scheduling, where Albuquerque City Council members pledged to support their fight for a fair workweek including the right to take sick leave without retaliation.
A recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision found T-Mobile guilty of engaging in illegal employment policies that prevented workers from even talking to each other about problems on the job. The judge ordered the company to rescind those policies and inform all 46,000 employees about the verdict.
Parental leave is a good first step toward helping workers balance their career and family responsibilities. But workers want real bargaining rights and the right to fairly choose union representation. That’s what T-Mobile must realize.
Source: The New Mexico Political Report
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
Jeff Flake Is Confronted on Video by Sexual Assault Survivors A Tumultuous 24 Hours: How Jeff Flake Delayed a Vote on Kavanaugh Women Are Watching
Jeff Flake Is Confronted on Video by Sexual Assault Survivors A Tumultuous 24 Hours: How Jeff Flake Delayed a Vote on Kavanaugh Women Are Watching
Surrounded by his colleagues in a cramped corridor behind the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Jeff Flake was in agony, getting pounded on all sides.
...
Surrounded by his colleagues in a cramped corridor behind the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Jeff Flake was in agony, getting pounded on all sides.
Read the article and watch the video here.
Influence, the power to change
Clad in a “Stand With Black Women” shirt, Mercedes Fulbright, the Texas State Coordinator at Local Progress, commanded attention during her engagement entitled, Deserving and Entitled; Engaging in...
Clad in a “Stand With Black Women” shirt, Mercedes Fulbright, the Texas State Coordinator at Local Progress, commanded attention during her engagement entitled, Deserving and Entitled; Engaging in Public Policy to Empower People, as part of the annual Speaking Truth To Power community activism seminar at Friendship West Baptist Church, June 29.
Read the full article here.
Fatal Construction Accident Shows Higher Risks Faced by Latino Workers
Truthout - March 31. 2015, by Danica Jorden - Monday morning, March 23, 2015, in Raleigh, North Carolina, was a mild and slightly overcast day. The first signs of spring were beginning to emerge...
Truthout - March 31. 2015, by Danica Jorden - Monday morning, March 23, 2015, in Raleigh, North Carolina, was a mild and slightly overcast day. The first signs of spring were beginning to emerge after an uncharacteristically chilly winter for the capital of the Southern state. But the recent cold weather had hardly hampered the construction of several high-rise office and condo projects, unprecedented for the generally low-rise city.
The 12-story Charter Square was one such project, and on March 23, just before 11 am, workers were busy on its south wall, with two mast climbers attached to its all-glass surface. Mast climbers are a scaffolding device employing a thin, central steel column stuck to the side of a structure, along which a horizontal platform that ferries workers up and down, so that they can install the glass panels future occupants will gaze from when the building is finished. On this day, the mast climbers were to be dismantled, with the building scheduled for opening in May.
About halfway up, the mast suddenly peeled off the side of the building, sending José Erasmo Hernández, José Luis López Ramírez and Anderson Antones de Almeida to their deaths, and Elmer Guevara to the hospital in serious condition. The four men were working for a tangled web of contractors and subcontractors, and the Department of Labor's representative on the scene said that contractors themselves inspect mast climbers, which are not specifically regulated by the state.
North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health's Kevin Beauregard indicated that OSHA, the federal agency, also does not have specific guidelines regarding mast climbers. He added that he did not expect to find that the scaffolding had been previously inspected. "There's no possible way our inspectors can go to every site,"Beauregard said. "We have over 200,000 work sites in North Carolina. We have approximately 75 to 100 inspectors employed. So it's physically not possible to go to every single site."
(Photo: Danica Jorden)
2014 was the North Carolina construction industry's most deadly year, according todata from the state Department of Labor. Nineteen people lost their lives working in construction in 2014, or 43 percent of the 44 work-related deaths statewide. Falls accounted for 13 of those deaths. The death rate was nearly double that of 2013.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Latinos are overrepresented in the construction industry, holding 24 percent of all construction jobs. But visits to construction sites in North Carolina reveal that Latinos are far more present at the front lines: scaling walls, down in holes and operating dangerous equipment. A closer look at the statistics shows that Latinos make up only 14 percent of first-line supervisors and 9 percent of managerial positions. Furthermore, BLS statistics show that from 2010 to 2013, fatalities for Latino construction workers rose 20 percent, while during the same period, deaths for non-Latinos fell.
In 2013, the AFL-CIO published a report on Latinos in the construction industry in New York. "A disproportionate number of Latinos and immigrants are disproportionately killed in fall accidents in New York, according to a new study by the Center for Popular Democracy, because they work in construction in relatively high numbers; are concentrated in smaller, nonunion firms; and are over-represented in the contingent labor pool," according to the report.
In New York, skyscrapers have been around for more than a century, and laws were written to regulate the construction industry and protect workers high up in the sky. The longstanding Scaffold Law was enacted in 1885, but is recently under attack. Construction companies have been working hard to amend it, saying it is one-sided in not protecting the industry from workers' own negligence. According to a 2013New York Times article:
They argue that the law is antiquated and prejudicial against contractors and property owners, and essentially absolves employees of responsibility for their own accidents, leading to huge settlements. The payouts, they contend, have in turn led to skyrocketing insurance premiums that are hampering construction and the state's economic growth.
But also in 2013, industry publication Durability + Design conversely reported that the industry had just been successful in reducing its penalties regarding a significant 2009 mast climber accident that resulted in fatalities.
Nearly five years after three EIFS applicators fell to their deaths from a high-rise construction site in Austin, TX, a judge has ordered the scaffolding company in charge to pay $17,150 in fines. Mast Climber Manufacturing Inc. d/b/a American Mast Climbers, of Whitney, TX, contested the 2009 citations (eight serious, one willful) issued for safety hazards after the accident. The penalties originally totaled $86,800. In the Jan. 29 ruling, Administrative Law Judge Ken S. Welch affirmed the willful violation and two serious violations involving lift equipment set up at the site. The parties agreed to settle three serious violations, and the judge vacated the rest.
In right-to-work North Carolina, people in general have more limited recourse in the workplace and the courts, and immigrants may be at a distinct disadvantage when asserting their rights. A 2012 study entitled "Employer provision of personal protective equipment [PPE] to Latino workers in North Carolina residential construction" states its "results suggest that the residential construction subsector generally fails to provide [Latino] workers with PPE at no cost, as is required by regulation."
Working side by side on a narrow platform high above the street on March 23, the men who lost their lives and their injured companion worked for at least three different companies. Brazilian Anderson Almeida and Elmer Guevara from El Salvador worked for Associated Scaffolding and Equipment, while José Hernández of Honduras and José Luís López from Mexico worked for Juba Aluminum/ Janna Walls and Kea Contracting. These subcontractors were employed by the site's general contractor, Choate Construction. The property is owned by Dominion Realty.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), using multiple subcontractors is a way to hide worker abuse as well as shield companies from culpability.
[W]orkers who try to stand up for their rights often find themselves frustrated by multiple layers of subcontractors and middlemen - an arrangement that seems designed to insulate corporations at the top from accountability for the mistreatment of workers. The same phenomenon was seen repeatedly in New Orleans with contractors working to clean up the city after Hurricane Katrina.
In a federal ruling, the SPLC won a case against Del Monte on behalf of agricultural workers, successfully arguing that "... the labor contractor and the workers were really employees of the Del Monte subsidiary and that the company was indeed responsible for any wage abuses that could be proven. The federal ruling was an important milestone for workers, but the fact remains that most Latino farmworkers in the South have little or no access to legal representation."
Speaking to television news station Notícias 40 in Durham, Olvia López tearfully explained that her husband José Luís, father of their three children, had expressed fear about the conditions at his job, but felt he had no choice but to go to work. The station also indicated that José Hernández leaves behind a wife and two young children who depend upon him in Honduras, where he had intended to return in November, while Anderson Almeida had a partner, child and stepchild. The family of Elmer Guevara has instructed the hospital to withhold information about their loved one at this time.
In a growing memorial, a cardboard sign erected near the Charter Square buildingread, "While we run from a corrupt government, we put our lives on the line in the chase of the American dream. RIP fellow dreamers."
It may have been placed by the NC Dream Team, made up of Dreamers, like the brave Viridiana Martínez, Loida Silva and Rosario López, who held a hunger strike in 2010 not far from the site of the accident. After Viridiana qualified for the Dream Act, or DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), she went on to report from inside an immigration detention facility and helped identify and liberate women who were eligible for US residency. Dreamers are the children of immigrants who were born abroad but grew up in the United States and want to continue their education as Americans.
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Richmond Fed Names McKinsey's Thomas Barkin as Its President
Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond confirmed Monday they had chosen Thomas Barkin, a senior executive at global consulting firm McKinsey & Co., as the institution’s next...
Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond confirmed Monday they had chosen Thomas Barkin, a senior executive at global consulting firm McKinsey & Co., as the institution’s next president.
“We are fortunate to have found an extremely well-qualified individual to serve the Federal Reserve’s Fifth District and the American people,” Margaret Lewis, chair of the Richmond board of directors, said in a statement.
Read the full article here.
Pagaría el Gobierno de NY abogados a ilegales en juicios de deportación
Vanguardia – July 19, 2013 - Nueva York planea pagar abogados de oficio a los migrantes que se encuentren en una corte de migración y enfrenten la deportación.
Algunos migrantes con o sin...
Vanguardia – July 19, 2013 - Nueva York planea pagar abogados de oficio a los migrantes que se encuentren en una corte de migración y enfrenten la deportación.
Algunos migrantes con o sin papeles en la ciudad que enfrenten la expulsión de EU podrán a partir de finales de este año o 2014 presentarse frente al juez de migración con un abogado de oficio pagado con fondos municipales, reduciendo así sus posibilidades de ser deportados porque ya no estarán solos en la corte.
Activistas, un Magistrado federal y funcionarios locales planean anunciar el viernes que la ciudad ha destinado 500 mil dólares a financiar un programa piloto que ofrecerá representación legal a migrantes.
Brittny Saunders, de la organización Center for Popular Democracy, dijo que esta es la primera vez que un programa así se implementa en una municipalidad de EU.
“La intención que tenemos a través de este programa piloto es lograr información sobre los beneficios que la representación legal supone tanto para un individuo en detención y enfrentando la deportación como para su familia, su comunidad y la ciudad entera’’, dijo Saunders.
“Esperamos que este programa sea un modelo para otras comunidades alrededor del país’’.
Migrantes que acaban en las cortes de migración y que enfrentaban la deportación no tienen derecho a ser defendidos por un abogado de oficio. Pueden contratar a un abogado privado pero muchos migrantes no tienen el dinero para pagar por ese servicio. Es por ese motivo que la ciudad, varios activistas y un juez federal interesado en el tema llamado Robert Kaztmann han unido esfuerzos para ofrecer ayuda a migrantes en esta situación.
Saunders dijo que en el Estado de Nueva York una media de 2 mil 800 migrantes se encuentra anualmente en proceso de deportación sin acceso a asistencia legal.
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Mpls. Fed chief, activists talk about economic gap
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis met with activists and northside residents Wednesday over racial and economic disparities.
Neel Kashkari talked with leaders from...
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis met with activists and northside residents Wednesday over racial and economic disparities.
Neel Kashkari talked with leaders from Neighborhoods Organizing for Change for an hour — an unusual meeting of a banking insider and a group known for street demonstrations and putting political pressure on the powers that be.
"A big part of my job is to get out and understand first hand what is happening, what are the challenges," said Kashkari who has served on the central bank system since January.
In that time, the former head of the federal government's bank bailout program in 2008 has drawn attention for his warning that failure of some big banks could lead to another financial crisis.
Kashkari said that the Fed's monetary policy can have an effect on unemployment, interest rates and inflation, but he said Congress' fiscal policy will also be key in addressing racial disparities.
Anthony Newby, executive director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, said they talked about the high unemployment rate among African-Americans.
"Now we can spend more time collaborating, doing a deeper dive and figure out what are the structural barriers and then what can the Fed do to bridge that gap," Newby said. "That's a big deal and big starting point."
Newby added he was pleased to have someone in Kashkari's position listening to real people struggling to make ends meet.
Kashkari agreed to meet with them again.
By PETER COX
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Republicans Are Scrambling To Save An Arizona House Seat In GOP Territory
Republicans Are Scrambling To Save An Arizona House Seat In GOP Territory
Tipirneni's biggest individual national booster may be Ady Barkan, an ALS-stricken activist who leads the progressive Center for Popular Democracy Action. Barkan, who played a lead role in Capitol...
Tipirneni's biggest individual national booster may be Ady Barkan, an ALS-stricken activist who leads the progressive Center for Popular Democracy Action. Barkan, who played a lead role in Capitol Hill protests against the GOP tax cuts, traveled to the district to campaign for Tipirneni ― and press Lesko about her stances on cutting major social insurance programs.
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