Campaign News

Last month, immigrant and workers’ rights groups, led by the Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road New York, launched the “Corporate Backers of Hate” campaign. The groups are targeting nine corporations that, activists argue, stand to profit off of policies pushed by President Donald Trump. These include several companies whose CEOs sit on the president’s Business Council.

“We are launching this campaign today because we know the extent to which President Trump is able to implement his anti-immigrant, anti-worker agenda actually depends heavily on how much collaboration he is able to muster,” said Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, during a press conference. “On immigration, for instance, the White House will rely on the work of private companies to provide the funding, software, and manpower to ramp up deportations, to build detention facilities, and to build a border wall.”

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*For Planning Purposes Only*

Contact: Ricardo A. Ramírez, rramirez@populardemocracy.org, 202-464-7376 

Congress will reintroduce the “Schedules that Work Act,” which has increased support, reflecting a growing traction among leading legislators including Senators Warren, Murray, Baldwin, Murphy, Schumer, Brown and Franken and Representatives DeLauro and Scott.

The Center for Popular Democracy released the following statement:

“The Schedules that Work Act is path-breaking legislation in the national movement to update workplace protections with common sense solutions for the challenges faced by the majority of Americans who are working by the hour,” said Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy. “The introduction of this bill comes amid a growing national movement of working people in states and cities across the country who are declaring that their time counts. Working Americans increasingly struggle with unpredictable hours that change week to week and have too little say in the schedules that have become a moving target. In twelve states, legislators have responded to the needs of working families by introducing fair workweek legislation, including in cities like Albuquerque, Minneapolis, and Washington DC. As political momentum grows for these new labor standards, employers are also facing increasing pressure to reform their scheduling practices with major retailers – like Victoria’s Secret and the GAP - facing scrutiny regarding their use of unpaid on-call shifts.”

"As a night student with two jobs, having to learn about my schedule with only a week’s notice is hard,” said Ciera Moran, a Starbucks worker in New Haven, Connecticut who is working with Make the Road Connecticut. “Often I get very little sleep, and sometimes I have to scramble to get enough hours and make ends meet. A fair workweek means that I get the advance notice I need to pay my bills, get an education, and plan my future. I deserve a fair workweek and I know that the only way we get it is if workers come together and speak out."

 "Across the country, parents working hourly jobs, particularly women, are increasingly struggling to balance their families with the chaos of unpredictable work schedules they can't control," said Anthony Newby, executive director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change in Minnesota. “Here in Minneapolis, we are organizing to pass citywide fair scheduling policies before the end of the year. As this week’s event will show, our families are energized and won’t back down until we obtain a workweek we can count on.”

 As the Schedules That Work Act moves through Congress, state and municipal campaigns are taking off across the country. On Wednesday, 200 workers with Neighborhoods Organizing for Change and other labor and community groups will march to City Hall in Minneapolis to release a report highlighting the scheduling crisis in Minneapolis and the need for policy solutions. They will be unveiling groundbreaking new data about the effect of unpredictable scheduling in Minneapolis neighborhoods.

Workers involved with CPD’s community partners and the Fair Workweek Initiative in Minneapolis, Albuquerque and across the country are available to talk to the media. Interested reporters can request an interview by writing an email to press@populardemocracy.org.

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The Fair Workweek Initiative (FWI), a collaborative effort anchored by the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), is bringing together leading worker, community and policy organizations across the country to raise industry standards and develop, drive and win policy solutions that achieve a workweek working families can count on.

The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.

A new report released by Make the Road New York and the Center for Popular Democracy confirmed that Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy can mean racking up dollars for financial beneficiaries.

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Wall Street Journal - December 11, 2014, by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa - A group of left-leaning activists is taking aim at the process for selecting the presidents of the Federal Reserve‘s 12 regional banks, saying it lacks sufficient transparency and public input.

Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser and Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher have announced they will retire next year and both district banks are conducting searches for successors. The two men have been critics of the central bank’s prolonged low-rates policies, saying they aren’t doing very much to boost employment or growth.

Federal law dictates the process for choosing the regional presidents. They are picked by a subset of the banks’ boards of directors, with approval from the Fed’s Washington-based board of governors. The regional bank boards include bankers, business executives and some community representatives, but directors from banks supervised by the Fed don’t have a vote in hiring the banks’ presidents.

Commercial banks that are members of the Fed system own the stock of their district’s reserve bank and elect most of its directors. Remaining directors are appointed by the Fed board in Washington.

The activist group, led by the Center for Popular Democracy, a national nonprofit organization, said it is in talks with the Dallas Fed about increasing transparency in its selection process and is planning a march in Philadelphia from Constitution Hall to the Philadelphia Fed on Monday. Members of the group plan to hold a press conference outside the regional Fed bank like the one they held in Washington in November, at which community members and leaders will tell some of their stories.

The appointments are “too important to be done behind closed doors, too important to be dominated by financial and corporate interests,” said Ady Barkan, a staff attorney at the center.

“We are concerned there is not going to be enough community and public engagement,” Mr. Barkan said. “Corporate and financial elites already have tremendous influence over monetary policy and interest rates. The Fed should also listen to the tens of millions of working families who are not experiencing a recovery.”

The Fed board, the Dallas Fed and the Philadelphia Fed declined to comment.

In response to the activists’ concerns, voiced during a conversation with Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen in November, the central bank has just published a new list of “frequently asked questions” about the regional president selection process.

Kendra Brooks, a member of Action United in Philadelphia, a community organizing group, said she and others have met with some officials at the Philadelphia Fed, but have yet to be granted a meeting they’ve requested with Mr. Plosser or received an answer to their offer to take top officials around local communities.

“We’re hoping we can push them a little harder about allowing a meeting or taking a tour of their communities,” said Ms. Brooks.

Her story is an all-too-familiar one in the Great Recession of 2007-09. Having lost a 15-year job as a program director at Easter Seals, a nonprofit that helps people with disabilities, Ms. Brooks, 42 years old, said it took her a year and a half to find work again—and she now makes just half what she used to. She also lost her home to a foreclosure.

Fed governors are appointed by the U.S. president, subject to Senate confirmation. They all are voting members of the central bank’s powerful policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

The New York Fed president is the vice chairman of the FOMC and a permanent voting member. The other 11 presidents vote on a rotating basis. The presidents run the regional Fed banks, which supervise the private banks in their districts. The presidents also move markets and influence Fed policy through their public remarks.

The center organized activists to appear at the Kansas City Fed’s exclusive annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August. They argued the Fed should not start raising its benchmark short-term interest rate from near zero until the labor market improves more.

U.S. unemployment has fallen to 5.8%, historically elevated but much lower than postrecession peaks. Some policy makers worry that number masks pockets of weakness including a large number of workers who are only working part-time because they cannot find full time jobs.

Many investors and top Fed officials expect the first rate increase in the middle of next year.

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