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.
Source
How Municipal ID Cards Make Cities More Inclusive
This week Newark, New Jersey, ...
This week Newark, New Jersey, became the latest in a growing number of cities to adopt a municipal ID program. The IDs, available to all residents 14 and older, will be especially useful to undocumented immigrants, the homeless, formerly incarcerated people, and other populations who may not be able to present documents typically required for state-issued cards.
One notable addition to this list: transgender people. Unlike other forms of state and federal identification, Newark’s new card will not list the holder’s gender. The omission is expected to benefit those who do not identify with the gender listed on their birth certificate or other official documents.
Gender sensitivity is a relatively new development within the relatively newphenomenon of municipal IDs. In 2007, New Haven, Connecticut, became the first city in the U.S. to offer city IDs, followed by several cities in California (including San Francisco and Los Angeles), Washington, D.C., New York City, and a few others. In every case, undocumented immigrants were the main target group for the cards. But when San Francisco launched its ID program in 2007, the city made a point of omitting a gender marker (“male” or “female”) from the card, and in 2014 New York City became the first jurisdiction to allow local ID card holders to self-designate their gender.
Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, hopes that more cities will embrace self-designation on municipal IDs. “Since transgender people face so much discrimination based on sex, it’s important that they have ID that matches who they truly are and how they appear to the outside world,” he says. It’s a human rights issue, since IDs confer access to virtually every aspect of public life. When applying for jobs, public benefits, or other services that require identification, the option to affirm one’s gender identity (or omit it) can be significant. Sometimes, Silverman says, ID is the “only layer of support” for a person’s gender identity.
Gender markers are just one battleground in the struggle for gender-flexible documentation, however. Most states don’t allow people to change the gender on their birth certificates unless they undergo sex-reassignment surgery—difficult-to-define procedures that many transgender people either do not want or cannot afford. TLDEF has represented transgender people in West Virginiaand South Carolina who were asked to remove wigs, makeup, and other items associated with female gender expression before taking their driver’s license photos, and the ACLU recently sued the state of Michigan for requiring proof of reassignment surgery to change gender markers on state IDs.
But Silverman senses a sea change in public attitudes on gender identity, buoyed by the high-profile stories of Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner. In Newark, New York, and San Francisco, gender identity has become part of the conversation surrounding municipal IDs—one that has so far focused on the legal rights of undocumented immigrants. Silverman predicts that, moving forward, “municipalities will look to what other similar cities have done, and will take the concerns of the local transgender population into account when they plan these types of programs.”
In a 2013 report on municipal ID programs across the U.S., the Center for Popular Democracy wrote that “cities that offer ID to their residents regardless of immigration status are making a powerful statement of welcome and inclusion.” The same goes for cities who do so regardless of gender identity.
Source: The Atlantic's CityLab
Voting rights restored to 40,000 Marylanders
Source: The Baynet.com
The Maryland General Assembly overrode Governor Larry...
Source: The Baynet.com
The Maryland General Assembly overrode Governor Larry Hogan’s veto today on a bill that restores voting rights for approximately 40,000 Maryland citizens who live in their communities but were barred from voting because of a criminal conviction in their past. The law will go into effect on March 10, 2016 allowing all former felons who are out of prison to register and vote in Maryland’s upcoming April local and federal primaries.
Maryland law withheld the right to vote from individuals until they fully completed every requirement of their sentence, including those beyond incarceration, like probation and parole supervision. SB 340/HB980, introduced by Sen. Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore) and Del. Cory McCray (D-Baltimore), simplifies the process by allowing an individual to become eligible to vote upon release from prison or if they were never incarcerated.
After the law takes effect on March 10, affected Marylanders will have until April 5 – less than a month -- to register to vote in the April 26 primaries. New voters can also register through same-day registration during the early voting period of April 14 – 21. There will be at least 59 early voting centers throughout the state.
The bill was championed the Unlock the Vote coalition, led by Communities United with Out for Justice, the ACLU of Maryland, Common Cause Maryland, Maryland Working Families, MD State Conference of the NAACP, Maryland League of Women Voters, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, SEIU Local 500, SEIU 32BJ, SEIU Maryland & DC State Council, Prison Ministry Task Force of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, the Job Opportunities Task Force, the Center for Popular Democracy, Brennan Center for Justice, the Sentencing Project, the National NAACP and the NAACP National Voter Fund, Communication Workers of America, SAVE Our Votes, Colorofchange.org, People for the American Way, the Democracy Initiative, the American Probation and Parole Association and Common Cause.
“The Maryland General Assembly has opened up our democracy to the thousands of Marylanders who have returned home from prison and now have the right to vote. I know from experience that this legislation will have a powerful impact on our lives and in our communities,” said Perry Hopkins, a formerly incarcerated citizen and organizer with Communities United. “From the minute you are released from prison, you pay taxes, you are working to reintegrate back into society in a productive way and you deserve the full rights of citizenship. It’s just that simple. And today the Maryland General Assembly did the right thing and restored our rights.”
“Today’s override is a huge step forward for voting rights in Maryland. Governor Hogan suppressed the vote for an additional eight months with his veto so our next challenge is to quickly educate and register voters for the upcoming April 26 local and federal primaries” said Jane Henderson, executive director of Communities United. “Because of the confusing nature of the previous law, there is a lot of misinformation about if and when those with felonies can register and vote. We want all former felons to know that if you are home, you can vote. We have a short window of opportunity in March to reach and register newly enfranchised voters – whether in church, on the job, at recovery centers, at parole offices or in our neighborhoods – and we call on civic, civil rights and religious leaders to help us to reach these 40,000 newly enfranchised citizens."
“This is a victory for civil rights that comes at a critical moment for our state and our nation,” said Gerald Stansbury, President of the Maryland State Conference of the NAACP. “Today 40,000 Marylanders who have been locked out of the process by an unfair law and an unjust criminal justice system have regained a fundamental right of citizenship, the right to vote. The majority of citizens regaining their voting rights are African American and it has never been more important that their voices are heard in local government, the halls of the State House and by our federal representatives. I am grateful to the Maryland General Assembly for restoring the right to vote.”
“Democracy is on the march in Maryland. The Maryland General Assembly’s vote to restore the right to vote of more than 40,000 ex-offenders comes at a critical time for our democracy,” said Emma Greenman, Director of Voting Rights and Democracy at the Center for Popular Democracy. “Over 50 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, nearly 5.8 million Americans remain shut out of the democratic process because of a criminal conviction. Today Maryland unlocked the vote for folks reintegrating into their communities and lifted up their voices in our democracy.” “We’re seeing growing national momentum for voting rights restoration, and Maryland is the latest place to join in on this trend,” said Tomas Lopez, Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “This legislation will give 40,000 Marylanders a second chance.”
The measure builds on recent bipartisan support for rights restoration around the country. Last year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called on states to restore voting rights. Supporters from across the political spectrum have introduced bills in Congress to restore rights, including the Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act of 2015 from U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and the Democracy Restoration Act of 2014 from U.S. Sen.Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).
Over the past two decades, more than 20 states have improved their criminal disenfranchisement laws, including Maryland, which ended lifetime disenfranchisement in 2007. Like similar laws elsewhere in the United States, Maryland’s criminal disenfranchisement law has disproportionately impacted racial minorities. It is estimated that African Americans have comprised more than half of Maryland’s disenfranchised population. When the rights restoration bill becomes law, Maryland will be the newest addition in the national movement to restore voting rights to people who are released from prison, joining 13 states and the District of Columbia.
Why Labor and the Movement for Racial Justice Should Work Together
Why Labor and the Movement for Racial Justice Should Work Together
The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) has made tremendous strides in exposing and challenging racial injustice, and has won real policy victories. The policies, while often imperfect, are a...
The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) has made tremendous strides in exposing and challenging racial injustice, and has won real policy victories. The policies, while often imperfect, are a testament to the strength of the organizing and activism of the moment. Not coincidentally, this uprising comes at a time when income and wealth inequality are at peak levels and the economy for most black people looks markedly different than the economy for their white counterparts.
Just as we are in a critical moment in the movement for racial justice, we are in a critical moment for the right to unionize. Unions, which have been a major force for economic justice for people of color in the past 50 years, have been decimated to historically low levels.
Labor should work alongside the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition with more than 50 organizations, to usher in a radically new economic and social order. The path won’t be easy. But recent history has shown that one of the ways to get at this new reality is through union bargaining. Consider the example of Fix L.A.
Fix L.A. is a community-labor partnership that fought to fund city services and jobs alike, using city workers’ bargaining as a flashpoint to bring common good demands to the table. The coalition started after government leaders in Los Angeles drastically cut back on public services and infrastructure maintenance during the Great Recession. The city slashed nearly 5,000 jobs, a large portion of which had been held by black and Latino workers. Not only did these cuts create infrastructure problems—like overgrown and dangerous trees and flooding—but they also cost thousands of black and Latino families their livelihoods.
Fix L.A. asked why the city was spending more on bank fees than on street services, and demanded that it renegotiate those fees and invest the savings in underserved communities.
What was the result of this groundbreaking campaign?
The creation of 5,000 jobs, with a commitment to increase access to those jobs for black and Latino workers, the defeat of proposed concessions for city workers and a commitment from the city to review why it was prioritizing payment of bank fees over funding for critical services in the first place!
Bargaining for the common good
Fix L.A. may seem novel, but the context is no different from many places. We have seen massive disinvestment from public services in a way that disproportionately affects black people. This structurally-racist disinvestment is often driven by the corporate interests that bankroll elected officials’ campaigns and by Wall Street actors that use their influence over public finance to push an austerity agenda. Everywhere you look, public officials are making a choice between paying fees and providing critical services.
Chicago Public Schools paid $502 million to banks in toxic swap fees at the same time that it was slashing special education programs and laying off teachers to close a budget deficit. Detroit raised its water rates and paid $537 million in Wall Street penalties, setting the stage for mass water shutoffs when tens of thousands of poor residents of the overwhelmingly black city could not afford the higher water bills.
Wall Street and other corporations don’t hesitate to profit off of and perpetuate disinvestment in communities of color, and too often we forget to look up the food chain to see that at the other end of community crises there are rich bankers and billionaires lining their pockets. Campaigns, like Fix L.A., that involve direct actions targeting banks, hedge funds, corporations and billionaires are effective.
This sort of organizing can be hard. In order to isolate workers from their broader communities, the other side has done a terrific job of narrowly defining the scope of bargaining as wages and benefits. In many states, labor laws prohibit public sector workers from bargaining over issues that concern the welfare of the broader community or the quality of the services they provide.
The theory of “bargaining for the common good” seeks to challenge this status quo. As articulated by Joseph McCartin of Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, bargaining for the common good has three main tenets: 1) transcending the bargaining frameworks written in law and rejecting them as tools for the corporate elite to remain in power; 2) crafting demands between local community groups and unions at the same time and in close coordination with each other from the very beginning; and 3) embracing collective direct action as key to the success of organizing campaigns.
These may seem like simple ideas, but they stand in complete opposition to the way the power elite expects union bargaining to be done. Therein lies their power.
Therein also lies the opportunity for unions to partner with the Movement for Black Lives. For all of their complicated racial histories, unions are some of the largest organizations of black people in the country. About 2.2 million black Americans are union members—some 14 percent of the employed black workforce.
That’s a huge number of black people who are already members of organizations with the capacity to organize and mobilize. And these black workers, like all black people in America, face real challenges of structural economic racism in almost all aspects of their lives. Their communities have been underfunded; their schools are being dismantled; they face massive poverty and are under economic assault; and they regularly encounter police violence.
Stronger together
Widening the scope of bargaining in Los Angeles led to real wins for the city’s black and Latino communities. The rest of the labor movement should take note. Imagine the power that could be added to the Movement for Black Lives if unions, recognizing the trauma that systematic racism wreaks on their membership, brought solutions that have been elevated by the Movement for Black Lives to the bargaining table in negotiations with employers ranging from the City of Baltimore to private equity giant Blackstone.
But unions cannot do this unilaterally and expect unconditional support from the black community.
Unions must make the effort on the front end to build a real relationship with Movement for Black Lives groups and members, and partner with them in developing common good bargaining demands that start to go on the offense against Wall Street and the structurally-racist economic power structure. There are groups of people organizing for racial justice under the banner of the Movement for Black Lives near every union local in the country. The onus is on labor leaders and rank-and-file union members to reach out to those groups and start to build a strong relationship where one does not exist. This process will not be easy, especially because of the history of racism that plagues unions, especially police unions. But the truth remains that there is a real opportunity to leverage the power of both movements to win real gains for black people and other people of color through a strong partnership.
It is exciting to imagine potential bargaining demands major unions could undertake alongside racial justice organizations. For example, they could demand that their employers make a commitment to job training programs to strengthen the pipeline for black workers; city and state workers could demand progressive taxation measures that raise funds from corporate actors to fund schools and services in black communities; teachers could demand school districts enact restorative justice policies to stem the school-to-prison pipeline; hospital workers could bargain for targeted health care access programs in communities of color; retail workers could demand that their employers “ban the box” and let the formerly incarcerated work. The list is almost infinite.
Bargaining for racial justice is a radical idea and will not be easily won. It will require concerted direct action targeting the real decision makers in both the public and private sectors that have a vested interest in keeping racial inequities in place. The Movement for Black Lives has proven that it can execute effective and creative direct actions backed by solid demands. They are also innovating creative tactics that move beyond traditional marches and picket lines to new types of disruptive actions that make power holders directly confront those they are harming. By combining the vision and militant tactics of the Movement for Black Lives with the membership and resources of the labor movement, we can usher in a more just and equitable society
BY MAURICE WEEKS AND MARILYN SNEIDERMAN
Source
Cities Spend More and More on Police. Is It Working?
Cities Spend More and More on Police. Is It Working?
Oakland spent 41 percent of the city's general fund on policing in Fiscal Year 2017. Chicago spent nearly 39 percent, Minneapolis almost 36 percent, Houston 35 percent.
The figures reflect...
Oakland spent 41 percent of the city's general fund on policing in Fiscal Year 2017. Chicago spent nearly 39 percent, Minneapolis almost 36 percent, Houston 35 percent.
The figures reflect an accelerating trend in the past 30 years, as city governments have forked over larger and larger shares of their budgets toward law enforcement at the expense of social services, health care, infrastructure and other types of spending, according to a new report from a network of civil rights groups.
Read the full article here.
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.”
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Starbucks Employees Treated Badly
While Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) CEO and founder Howard Schultz barnstorms America with one new program to help Americans after another, a new report shows his company continues to treat many...
While Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) CEO and founder Howard Schultz barnstorms America with one new program to help Americans after another, a new report shows his company continues to treat many of its employees badly.
According to research released by experts at the Center for Popular Democracy:
A 2015 nationwide survey of Starbucks workers reveals that the company is not living up to its commitment to provide predictable, sustainable schedules to its workforce. Starbucks’ frontline employees bear the brunt of the management imperative to minimize store labor costs, which takes precedence over attempts to stabilize work hours, provide healthy schedules, and to ensure employees have real input into their working conditions.
Also:
Many Starbucks scheduling policies fail to reflect the company’s human-focused values, while other policies designed to promote sustainable schedules have been implemented inconsistently.
According to a recent report from 24/7 Wall St. titled Companies Paying Americans the Least:
Coffee giant Starbucks employs roughly 141,000 people in the United States at more than 7,300 locations. Because the coffee chain offers some benefits not commonly offered in low-paying jobs, it has long been considered the ideal job for young students supporting themselves or even single parents. However, an increasing number of reports suggest the famous Seattle company makes life difficult for its employees. Of particular note is the company’s increasing use of complicated and inconsistent scheduling, a practice also used by many other major retailers. This practice means that baristas’ hours may be posted with little notice, preventing them from making other plans, and therefore nearly denying them the ability to earn extra income from other sources.
The work hours, benefit problems and low pay challenges face many employees at large food chains and major retailers, but none of those places has a chief executive who publicly advocates the right of many of America’s most economically challenged people. Among the most recent was Schultz’s effort to support hiring the underprivileged in Phoenix:
“Chicago marked an important milestone in our efforts to put America’s underserved youth on a pathway to employment,” said Howard Schultz, chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks and co-founder of the Schultz Family Foundation. “As we look ahead to Phoenix, where one in five youth is not in school or employed, we have a critical opportunity to accelerate our collective hiring efforts and create meaningful lifelong opportunities for all. I truly believe that these young men and women represent the most significant untapped source of productivity and talent for our economy, and America’s leading companies are ready to hire them.”
If one of these young people gets a job at Starbucks, the “meaningful lifelong opportunities” may not be much of an opportunity at all.
Source: 247WallSt.com
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
Blacks Nearly Four Times More Likely Than Whites to Be Unemployed in Minnesota
Minneapolis City Pages - March 6, 2015, by Ben Johnson - A new study reaffirms a refrain equality advocates have become quite fond of in this state: Minnesota is a great place to live -- for white...
Minneapolis City Pages - March 6, 2015, by Ben Johnson - A new study reaffirms a refrain equality advocates have become quite fond of in this state: Minnesota is a great place to live -- for white people.
The Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute released a study yesterday showing the statewide unemployment rate for black people is 11.7 percent, compared to 3.2 percent for white people.
Black Minnesotans' unemployment rate is 3.7 times higher than white Minnesotans'. The study analyzed all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and the only places with a larger gap were Wisconsin (4.6 times higher) and D.C. (5.6 times higher).
Minneapolis unemployment rates are lower than statewide, but the racial gap (3.9x) is even higher.
When these figures came out yesterday protesters from across the country lobbied the Federal Reserve to keep its interest rates low.
When interest rates are low it's easier for businesses to borrow money, and in theory, easier access to money means businesses can hire -- and pay -- more people. On the flip side, if interest rates are kept too low for too long inflation becomes a concern.
"Unemployment is slowly, slowly heading in the right direction, but raising interest rates at this point would really set minorities back," said Becky Dernbach with Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, which held a rally yesterday at its headquarters. "We think the Fed needs to pay special consideration to how the recovery has not hit certain communities at all."
NOC and its allies are supportive of Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota, who favors keeping interest rates low, but he's stepping down in a year. Protesters made it clear yesterday they want a say in who takes his place.
"On a fundamental level, we need to have a voice in the process," said Dernbach.
Source
Janet Yellen, the first woman Fed chair, proved the skeptics wrong and got fired anyway
On February 3, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank and likely the most qualified nominee ever for the post, will exit the Fed, leaving a legacy described...
On February 3, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank and likely the most qualified nominee ever for the post, will exit the Fed, leaving a legacy described as “near perfection” and with an “A” grade from a majority of economists.
And yet in 2014, the US Senate confirmed Yellen by a vote of 56-26, the lowest number of “yes” votes a confirmed Fed chair has ever received.
Read the full article here.
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