“These Disasters Aren’t Natural Anymore”: A Dispatch from Puerto Rico After Maria
“These Disasters Aren’t Natural Anymore”: A Dispatch from Puerto Rico After Maria
Several weeks ago, Puerto Rico avoided a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, which shifted north at the last minute. But Hurricane Maria hit head on, and has left a humanitarian crisis in its wake....
Several weeks ago, Puerto Rico avoided a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, which shifted north at the last minute. But Hurricane Maria hit head on, and has left a humanitarian crisis in its wake. Power on the island could be out for as long as six months, and many parts of the island have yet to be contacted.
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For immigrants fighting deportation, a push for government-funded lawyers
For immigrants fighting deportation, a push for government-funded lawyers
Nearly 4,000 immigrants in the Washington region face deportation every year without a lawyer, according to a report that calls on area governments to follow the lead of New...
Nearly 4,000 immigrants in the Washington region face deportation every year without a lawyer, according to a report that calls on area governments to follow the lead of New York and Los Angeles and provide funding for legal aid to immigrants.
The Center for Popular Democracy, a national nonprofit organization, analyzed thousands of deportation cases at immigration courts in Baltimore and Arlington and found that immigrants were far more likely to prevail if they had a lawyer...
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Sexual assault testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing triggers trauma, reports
Sexual assault testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing triggers trauma, reports
The political became personal for many this week, as Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony of sexual assault reopened old wounds for other victims — including two women who dramatically confronted a...
The political became personal for many this week, as Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony of sexual assault reopened old wounds for other victims — including two women who dramatically confronted a key US senator Friday in a Capitol elevator.
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We, The People, Defeated Republican Attempts To Repeal The Affordable Care Act
We, The People, Defeated Republican Attempts To Repeal The Affordable Care Act
After months of grandstanding and cloak-and-dagger meetings by Republican leaders, we dealt a final blow to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Who are we? We are the thousands of people who...
After months of grandstanding and cloak-and-dagger meetings by Republican leaders, we dealt a final blow to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Who are we? We are the thousands of people who attended town hall meetings around the country to confront our elected officials, marched on the streets, and occupied the offices of our senators until we got arrested.
Early Friday morning, dozens of us who have been active in the fight against the ACA repeal stood outside the Capitol, bleary-eyed from exhaustion and tears and holding on to each other for moral support. We were stunned and elated when the ‘skinny’ repeal vote failed.
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Advocates Rally to Eliminate ‘Sub-Minimum Wage'
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - October 23, 2014, by Matthew Taub - Hundreds of tipped and low-wage workers and advocates, including fast food, car wash and other low-wage workers, rallied...
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - October 23, 2014, by Matthew Taub - Hundreds of tipped and low-wage workers and advocates, including fast food, car wash and other low-wage workers, rallied outside a Domino’s Pizza location in Harlem before marching to the second public hearing of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Wage Board, where they testified and called on the Wage Board to eliminate the sub-minimum wage for the 229,000 tipped workers in New York state.
“In an increasingly unaffordable city, tipped workers remain among the lowest-paid hourly workers,” said New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, who joined the workers at the rally and wage board hearing. “An hourly wage of $5 an hour is simply not sustainable for an individual or a family. Now is the time to ensure that low-wage workers receive a fair and sustainable income. I join the many voices today calling on Gov. Cuomo to help bring fair wages to these industries.”
Employers in New York are allowed to pay less than the minimum wage — just $5 an hour — to restaurant servers, delivery workers and other service workers. Employers are legally required to “top off” a tipped worker’s pay when it falls short of the regular minimum wage, but lax enforcement enables employers to routinely violate minimum wage, overtime and other wage and hour laws with minimal repercussion.
“We work very hard and deserve a raise, just like other minimum wage workers in this state,” said Juana Tenesaca, a tipped worker and member of Make the Road New York. “I have worked as a waitress for years, earning the tipped minimum wage, and it’s impossible to raise my children never knowing how much money I’ll bring home at the end of the day. My daughter had to get a job while she was still in high school to help support our family and that breaks my heart.”
A July report by the National Employment Law Project finds that eliminating the sub-minimum wage would benefit an estimated 229,000 tipped workers in New York.
“Tipped workers are employed in industries like hospitality that are among the fastest growing in today’s economy,” said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project. “If we want to stimulate consumer spending and boost our local economies, we need to make sure that the growing number of New Yorkers relying on these jobs actually have money to spend on basic necessities at their neighborhood stores.”
“Having to live entirely off tips means the customer is always right, which means I’ve had to put up with unwanted advances and uncomfortable situations from guests,” said Ashley Ogogor, a tipped worker and member of Restaurant Opportunities Center-United. “The guest shouldn’t have to feel pressured at the end of the night to pay me a decent wage. If seven other states can require restaurant owners to pay their employees a full minimum wage, so can New York.”
As part of last year’s legislative deal to increase New York’s minimum wage to $9 an hour by Dec. 31, 2015, the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers was set to automatically rise in proportion to the full minimum wage whenever the latter is raised with one exception: workers in the hospitality industry. The final deal froze these workers’ wages at $5 an hour and instructed Gov. Cuomo’s Department of Labor to convene a “wage board” to determine whether these workers will get a raise, and if so, by how much.
“We call on Gov. Cuomo and the wage board to do whatever it takes to lift up working families in the Empire State,” said Tony Perlstein, campaigns co-director for the Center for Popular Democracy. “Wealthy restaurant employers shouldn’t receive special treatment that allows them to pay poverty wages to working New Yorkers, including the women who make up more than two-thirds of the tipped wage workforce. Seven states have already eliminated their sub-minimum wages, and more are seriously considering it. Their restaurant sectors are not suffering for it, and in fact are thriving.”
The wage board, consisting of Timothy Grippen, Retired Broome county executive; Heather C. Briccetti, president and CEO of the Business Council; and Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel Trade Council, heard hours of testimony detailing how New York’s tipped subminimum wage fuels unstable paychecks and poverty for thousands of workers, particularly women, across the state.
“People want to work hard at a place where they feel valued,” said Amado Rosa, a tipped worker at a Thai restaurant and a member of Make the Road New York. “Being paid $4 or $5 an hour does not make a worker feel validated and does not generate enough income to support a single person or a family. I have faced many hardships over the years, and my anxiety stemmed from not knowing what my take-home pay would be in a given week.”
The poverty rate among New York’s tipped workers is more than double that of the regular workforce. Seven states across the country have adopted policies requiring employers to pay tipped workers the full minimum wage and have shown that eliminating the sub-minimum wage reduces poverty without slowing job growth. In fact, according to projections by the National Restaurant Association in their 2014 Industry Forecast, all of the states that require employers to directly pay the full minimum wage to tipped workers are expected to have greater restaurant job growth than New York in the next decade — in most cases, much greater. Tipped workers are already being paid $9 or more in California, Washington and Oregon, and will soon be getting raises to over $9 in Minnesota, Hawaii and Alaska.
“More than 3 million New Yorkers work low-wage jobs, and they need our state government officials on their side,” said Michael Kink of the Strong Economy for All Coalition. “New York needs a one-two punch for good jobs: a big increase in the minimum wage, and elimination of the second-class sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. This combination could boost the paychecks of millions of workers and help revive the New York economy from the ground up — the Wage Board should take direct action to provide one fair wage to a quarter-million tipped workers to get us moving now.”
Advocates who testified at today’s hearing are members of Raise Up NY, fighting for #1FairWage, a coalition comprised of tipped workers, the National Employment Law Project, Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy, Fast Food Forward, New York Labor-Religion Coalition, New York Communities for Change, ROC-NY, ROC-NY affiliate of Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United, Strong for All, United New York, Citizen Action New York, Tompkins County Workers Center, Worker Center of Central New York, Metro Justice, Coalition for Economic Justice, Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse (ACTS) and other community groups and advocates around New York State calling for the elimination of New York’s sub-minimum wage for tipped workers.
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Top Fed Officials Meet Protesters on Sidelines of Jackson Hole
Top Fed Officials Meet Protesters on Sidelines of Jackson Hole
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer and 10 of his colleagues met Thursday with a coalition of activists to hear complaints about the U.S. central bank, in a first-of-its-kind event on...
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer and 10 of his colleagues met Thursday with a coalition of activists to hear complaints about the U.S. central bank, in a first-of-its-kind event on the sidelines of an annual policy retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“Even when we disagree, we do it with mutual respect.,” said Esther George, president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve, who hosts the high-powered symposium in the heart of the Grand Teton National Park that draws central bankers from all over the world. “We are pleased to have this conversation.”
Esther George speaks with Shawn Sebastian, field director of the pro-worker Fed Up coalition, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy, following a meeting with a coalition of activists on the sidelines of the Jackson Hole economic symposium on Aug. 25.
Esther George speaks with Shawn Sebastian, field director of the pro-worker Fed Up coalition, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy, following a meeting with a coalition of activists on the sidelines of the Jackson Hole economic symposium on Aug. 25. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Faced with criticism that it doesn’t look out for the interests of poorer Americans that have been sharpened in this U.S. presidential election year, the Fed has been going out of its way to show that it’s getting the message.
Fischer and George were joined by New York Fed chief William Dudley, Boston’s Eric Rosengren, Cleveland’s Loretta Mester, Neel Kashkari from Minneapolis, Governor Lael Brainard, the Atlanta Fed’s Dennis Lockhart, Robert Kaplan from Dallas, John Williams from San Francisco, and Richmond Fed boss Jeffrey Lacker.
The pro-worker Fed Up coalition, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy, is pressing for more diversity among the leadership of the central bank and for policies that take into account the needs of low and middle income families. Several speakers explicitly urged the Fed not to raise interest rates to fight a threat of inflation that they didn’t believe was real.
Got to Go
Fed Up protesters wearing green T-shirts chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, these Wall Street banks, they’ve got to go” at a rally prior to the meeting at the Jackson Lake Lodge, where the symposium will hear a speech Friday from Chair Janet Yellen.
Dudley said that the Fed had done a “pretty lousy” job of delivering better diversity and added that “I want to look at all changes people are suggesting.”
Fed Up says the central bank is dominated by white men -- Yellen is its first woman chair -- and takes issue with the fact that private banks select two-thirds of the members of the 12 regional banks’ boards of directors.
The Richmond Fed responded to those complaints this week -- economic writer Helen Fessenden and economist Gary Richardson on Tuesday published an economic brief addressing Fed Up’s concerns, and they say monetary policy isn’t well-suited to the end goal the activists have in mind.
By Steve Matthews & Jeff Black
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Divest From Prisons, Invest in People—What Justice for Black Lives Really Looks Like
Divest From Prisons, Invest in People—What Justice for Black Lives Really Looks Like
This article is the second part of a series of conversations with contributors to the demands of the Movement for Black Lives. Part One was on reparations.
In July 2015, more than 2,000...
This article is the second part of a series of conversations with contributors to the demands of the Movement for Black Lives. Part One was on reparations.
In July 2015, more than 2,000 members of The Movement for Black Lives—a group composed of more than 50 racial justice organizations—convened in Cleveland to recognize the violence committed against Black people in this country and around the world. At the assembly, participants decided the Movement needed to form a coalition that articulated concrete ways to build a more equitable society. Six legislative platforms emerged that covered issues like economic justice, reparations, political empowerment, and divestment from policing and incarceration. In their Invest-Divest platform, the authors called instead for investment in programming, like restorative justice initiatives, that would decrease incarceration and strengthen communities.
We’ve come to accept policing and incarceration as catch-all solutions.
According to the Brookings Institution, White Americans are equally likely to use and more likely to deal drugs, while African Americans are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and sentenced harshly. For U.S. residents born in 2001, the Bureau of Justice Statistics predicts that 1 in 111 White women will go to prison in her lifetime, while 1 in 18 Black women will. For White men, the likelihood is 1 in 17; for Black men, 1 in 3.
“At the heart of the Invest-Divest demand is the recognition that our city, state, and federal budgets reflect the dehumanization, and the degradation of Black life through lack of investment in anything besides Black incarceration or surveillance,” says Marbre Stahly-Butts, co-author of demands from the Invest-Divest platform that call for reallocating government funds from law enforcement to long-term safety, and decriminalizing drug and prostitution crimes.
Stahly-Butts, a facilitator of the Cleveland convening and deputy director of racial justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, explains that our current criminal justice system is based on a premise of comfort, rather than of safety: Instead of addressing the roots of uncomfortable issues such as drug addiction, mental illness, and poverty, we’ve come to accept policing and incarceration as catch-all solutions. This disproportionally affects African Americans.
Here she discusses why divestment from the prison and military industries is as critical to a just future as investment in public institutions.
The following interview has been lightly edited.
Liza Bayless: How does the Invest-Divest platform play into the Movement for Black Lives?
Marbre Stahly-Butts: The call for Invest-Divest has been at the center of organizing and activism work for at least the last decade, if not more. Since slavery, but especially in the age of mass incarceration in the last 30 or so years, [there has been an] incredible increase in the amount of spending that goes to police departments—to cages, prisons and jails, corrections offices, military equipment, and surveillance equipment. At the same time, [there has been] divestment from the social safety net, from social services and education to affordable housing.
What makes our communities safe is not more guns, more police, or more cages.
What makes our communities safe is not more guns, more police, or more cages, but employment opportunities, safe housing, jobs, education, restorative justice. To live in the world we’re envisioning requires a real investment—both by private parties, but also by public dollars.
Bayless: In August, the Department of Justice announced it would end use of private prisons. How significant is this step?
Stahly-Butts: It’s an important step and in many ways a symbolic step, but I think it’s essential that states follow suit. The caging of our people actually happens on a local level, and so the same week that the Department of Justice made that announcement, I believe in Florida they decided to continue contracts with local prisons and, in fact, expand them.
Most of our people are kept in public facilities, so there’s a real need to decarcerate and not just de-profitize. It would matter a lot if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did it, because that’s, in fact, where most of the [prison] beds are.
A month [after the announcement], the Department of Justice released guidelines around its increased funding of police officers and officers in schools. So it’s important to realize that the criminalization—and the incarceration—of our people really is something that the government has not divested from, and in some ways has actively continued.
There’s a lot of work to be done, but I was pleased about implications of ending those contracts.
Bayless: Usually we hear from organizations about investment more than divestment. What makes the concept of divestment so important to this platform?
Stahly-Butts: I think that we see a general narrative on the left around the need to increase infrastructure and investment. Obama, Clinton, and other progressives constantly affirm their commitment to investment strategies, whether it’s health care, job programs, or educational funding. But the divestment piece is essential to a conversation around the livelihood, wealth, health, and survival of Black, brown, and poor communities.
There has to be a conversation about real solutions to incarceration.
If we continue to lock up and put one of every three Black men under police control; if we continue to incarcerate Black women at the highest-growing rates; and continue surveillance and denying people [driver’s] licenses and housing opportunities when they are out of incarceration, [then] we’re undermining our investments if we’re not also divesting from these systems that have led to this mass criminalization of folks for behaviors that often have nothing to do with public safety.
Bayless: The topic of mass incarceration has been at the forefront of the country’s conversations about racial injustice. Is there something missing from that discussion?
Stahly-Butts: It’s essential that we talk about the entire purview of things that don’t belong under the criminal code, from the way poverty is criminalized to the ways homelessness is criminalized. Even in Florida, wearing saggy pants [has been criminalized].
There has to be a conversation about real solutions to incarceration, and not just changing the practices of putting people in cages, but also changing the entire orientation for communities that criminalize them en masse, that have police in schools, that believe that the only answer to mental health and other issues is cages and handcuffs. There’s a real need for cultural change and a social conversation about the roots of the system, and other ways to deal with these issues that is not state violence.
Bayless: By focusing on decriminalization of certain crimes—in this case, nonviolent ones such as drug and prostitution crimes—as fundamentally different from “violent” crimes, is there a risk people convicted of the latter could end up with harsher sentences?
Stahly-Butts: There’s a false dichotomy between violent and nonviolent crimes. We often talk about it as if there’s some fine line, but in fact every state, every city defines that differently. Whether we’re talking about crimes that hurt people or impact property, or crimes that are about mental health or drug addiction, the idea of investment is key to all of them.
Folks are working locally to realize what it means to build alternative structures to criminal justice.
If we use the money that we’re currently using to cage people, and take the literally trillions of dollars to invest in the well-being of our people—in jobs, education, trauma-informed services, restorative justice—we would see a real addressing of all sorts of social issues, including the ones that make people less safe.
Bayless: Anything else you’d like to add about this platform?
Stahly-Butts: Folks are working locally to realize what it means to build alternative structures to criminal justice, to divest from policing and invest in communities. Despite the past two years—where we’ve seen literally dozens of Black folks be killed on video, and uprisings in communities from Baltimore to Ferguson—we’ve seen incredible movement and energy.
By Liza Bayless
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Arrests Made At Protest Outside UES Home Of JPMorgan Chase Exec
Arrests Made At Protest Outside UES Home Of JPMorgan Chase Exec
Hundreds of people picketed outside of 1185 Park Ave. around 8 a.m. to deliver more than 100,000 petition signatures demanding that JPMorgan Chase stop financing immigrant detention centers and...
Hundreds of people picketed outside of 1185 Park Ave. around 8 a.m. to deliver more than 100,000 petition signatures demanding that JPMorgan Chase stop financing immigrant detention centers and private prisons, protest organizers said. The demonstration was organized by groups such as Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change and the Center for Popular Democracy.
Read the full article here.
America’s Massive Retail Workforce Is Tired of Being Ignored
America’s Massive Retail Workforce Is Tired of Being Ignored
Francisco Aguilera has worked at the Express on Bay Street in Emeryville, California for the past year and a half. “I do a little bit of everything,” from running the register to folding and...
Francisco Aguilera has worked at the Express on Bay Street in Emeryville, California for the past year and a half. “I do a little bit of everything,” from running the register to folding and arranging clothes to working in the stockroom in the back of the store, he says. Soft-spoken with an open smile, Aguilera is what many people picture to be the typical retail worker: someone putting in a few hours in the evenings at a shopping complex while attending college during the day. He likes his job well enough, though he notes it can be tiring to work until 9:30 or 10:00 at night and then find time to do his schoolwork.
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City Council Votes to Create Municipal ID Cards
NY Daily News - June 26, 2014, by Erin Durkin - The City Council voted to create municipal ID cards Thursday, giving the city’s half a million undocumented immigrants a way to prove their identity...
NY Daily News - June 26, 2014, by Erin Durkin - The City Council voted to create municipal ID cards Thursday, giving the city’s half a million undocumented immigrants a way to prove their identity.
The 43 to 3 vote will launch the largest local ID program in the nation - also allowing transgender, homeless, and elderly people who sometimes struggle to get driver’s licenses to secure an ID. Two members abstained from voting.
“Plain and simple, this is an ID for everyone,” said Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. “We don’t accept that some people will simply be left out because of their immigration status, how they identify their gender, or whether they may be homeless.”
The cards are expected to start being issued in late 2014 or early 2015, and will cost $8.4 million to launch over the next year and $5.6 million a year to keep running after that.
To get an ID, an applicant will have to prove their identity with documents like a birth certificate or passport from any country, and prove they live in New York through papers like utility bills and pay stubs.
The cards will be accepted by city agencies from residents seeking services, let parents enter school buildings, and give people an ID to present to police if they are stopped, which sometimes spells the difference between spending a night in jail and being released.
The city is aiming to get banks and landlords to accept the card from people trying to open bank accounts or sign leases, but private institutions will not be legally required to accept it.
Critics say the bill does not make requirements for the ID secure enough to ensure it won’t be abused.
“There are legitimate security concerns that have not been adequately addressed,” said Minority Leader Vincent Ignizio (R-Staten Island), who voted no. “There are ways we can tighten it up, and there are ways we should tighten it up.”
He added the city should “want to encourage people to come here legally.”
Others feared the cards would become a scarlet letter of sorts identifying people as undocumented.
Councilman Alan Maisel (D-Brooklyn), who abstained, said he fears the cards could be used by a future anti-immigrant federal administration to mount a crackdown on the undocumented. “We are basically presenting and preparing a list of undocumented workers,” he said. “I don’t think people should be placing themselves in the position where they can be identified when they are not here legally.”
Officials say they’ll try to combat that stigma by putting benefits such as museum discounts on the card to encourage a broad group to sign up, but details of that plan have not been worked out.
Cards will include a holder’s name, picture, address, and date of birth. Applicants will get to choose whether to have the gender they self-identify with listed on the card, answering a demand from transgender advocates who say they will be able to have an ID that matches their gender identity for the first time.
Other cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New Haven currently have municipal IDs.
Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Queens) advised those with concerns about the program to “relax” and predicted the card would have broad appeal.
“We live in the coolest city in the world, and now we have a membership card,” he said. “People are going to want to be part of that club.”
Update: Mayor de Blasio, a strong backer of municipal IDs, said in a statement:
“Every New Yorker deserves an official identification that allows them to prove who they are and access core services. I thank Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Councilmembers Daniel Dromm and Carlos Menchaca, and the entire City Council for quickly enacting this critical legislation, and all of the advocates who have worked so hard to make community voices heard. The municipal ID is more than just a card – it provides New Yorkers who are currently living in the shadows with dignity and peace of mind. My administration is fully ready to develop this plan and to swiftly implement a secure and accessible Municipal ID Card program.”
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