Campaign News

New York Times - November 10, 2014, by Binyamin Appelbaum - A coalition of community groups and labor unions wants the Federal Reserve to change the way some Fed officials are appointed, criticizing the existing process as secretive, undemocratic and dominated by banks and other large corporations.

In letters sent to Fed officials last week, the coalition called for the central bank to let the public participate in choosing new presidents for the regional reserve banks in Philadelphia and Dallas. The current heads of both banks plan to step down in the first half of 2015.

The Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, has agreed to meet on Friday with about three dozen representatives of the groups to hear their concerns.

“The Federal Reserve has huge influence over the number of people who have jobs, over our wages, over the number of hours that we get to work, and yet we don’t have discussion and engagement over what Fed policy should be,” said Ady Barkan, a lawyer with the Center for Popular Democracy, a Brooklyn-based advocacy group that is orchestrating the campaigns. “More people’s voices need to be heard.”

A spokeswoman for Ms. Yellen confirmed the meeting but declined to comment on the issues raised by the groups.

The Philadelphia Fed said in an email that the institution “is conducting a broad search for its next president and will consider a diverse group of candidates from inside and outside the Federal Reserve System.”

James Hoard, a spokesman for the Dallas Fed, said the bank’s board would meet on Thursday to discuss the search process.

The campaign is part of a broader increase in political pressure on the Fed, which is engaged in a long-running campaign to stimulate the economy that some liberals regard as insufficient and some conservatives see as both ineffective and dangerous. Mr. Barkan led a picket line in support of the Fed’s efforts in August outside the annual monetary policy conference at Jackson Hole, Wyo.

House Republicans, meanwhile, have passed legislation that seeks to reduce the Fed’s flexibility in responding to economic downturns, arguing that such efforts are destabilizing.

The Fed acts like a monolith, but it has a complicated skeleton. Most power rests with a board of governors in Washington, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But operations are conducted through 12 regional banks, each of which selects its own president. And those presidents rotate among themselves five of the 12 seats on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy.

The two presidents who have said they plan to step down are, by coincidence, among the most outspoken internal critics of the Fed’s campaign to stimulate the economy. Charles I. Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Fed since 2006, plans to retire at the end of March. Richard W. Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed since 2005, is required to step down by the end of April, though he has not set a date.

Their replacements will be selected by the board of each reserve bank. Each board has nine members, including three bankers, but under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, only the nonbank members can participate in the process. The banks in each reserve district, however, still elect three of those six nonbank members. The other three, including the chairman and vice chairman, are appointed by the Fed board in Washington.

By law, the boards are supposed to represent a diverse set of viewpoints, including “labor and consumers.” But the 72 nonbank board members are predominantly corporate executives. Just eight are leaders of community groups; two more are leaders of labor groups.

Corporate executives exclusively make up the boards of the St. Louis and Richmond regional banks. The Dallas Fed’s board includes the presidents of the Houston Endowment — a charitable organization — and the University of Houston. The Philadelphia Fed has five executives and the president of the University of Delaware.

“I look at that list and it doesn’t strike me that most of those folks are representing the public,” Kati Sipp, director of Pennsylvania Working Families, a nonprofit advocacy group that is one of the signatories of the recent letter, said of the Philadelphia Fed’s board. “We believe it is important for the people who are making economic policy to hear from the regular folks on the ground who are being affected by those decisions.”

The two dozen signatories also include the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, New Jersey Communities United and W. Wilson Goode Jr., a Philadelphia city councilman. The letter asks for the Fed to disclose basic information about the selection process, including the timetable, criteria and, eventually, names of candidates. It also seeks search committee seats and opportunities to question the candidates publicly.

The selection process is secretive, but control has increasingly shifted from the regional banks to the board of governors. Beginning under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, a former Fed chairman, the central bank has sought presidents who can contribute to making monetary policy. The board provides informal guidance during the winnowing process, and candidates travel to Washington to meet with the governors.

As a result of that trend, 10 of the 12 sitting presidents are former Fed staffers, economists or both. Mr. Fisher, a former investor, is one exception. The other is Dennis P. Lockhart, a former banker who leads the Atlanta Fed — and is the next president who will reach retirement age.

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Two Chicago protesters who have been fasting for 17 days over the future of a local high school traveled to Washington D.C. this week to take their fight to the national stage.

The protesters, joined by civil rights leaders and the presidents of the nation's two largest teachers unions, held a press conference on Wednesday and delivered a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, asking him to take action so city officials will make a decision about Chicago's Dyett High School, which closed in June due to low enrollment rates and test scores.

Twelve protesters have been participating in a hunger strike since Aug. 17 in an attempt to convince the Chicago Board of Education to reopen the school as an open-enrollment public school with a focus on science, which they say will best serve the needs of the community. The board is weighing various plans to reopen the school, but protesters say this process has been slow and inconsistent, and worry that the board will ultimately allow the school to remain closed. 

Since the start of the hunger strike, four protesters have had to receive medical attention, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Last week, a group of medical professionals asked Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to intervene, calling the situation "a health emergency."

Only two of the protesters made the trip to Washington. The letter they delivered to Duncan on Wednesday asks him to "act swiftly to avert the further harm." An excerpt from the letter states:

"One of the challenges facing African American parents and students in Chicago is the lack of response and accountability from elected and appointed officials. Affluent neighborhoods receive selective enrollment and well-resourced schools. However, communities comprised of predominantly low-income and working families have to contend with under-resourced schools and privatization models that undermine the integrity of the community. We compel you to act on behalf of the residents of Bronzeville who have been rendered voiceless in this process." 

At Wednesday's press conference, protesters Jitu Brown and April Stogner were joined by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García, Advancement Project Co-Director Judith Browne Dianis, Schott Foundation President John Jackson, Coalition for Community Schools Director Martin Blank, and members of the Alliance for Educational Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy. 

"Sometimes you have to put your own health on the line to get the attention of the world," said García.

The protesters want the Board of Education to choose their proposal for the school's future, which would reopen the school as the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School.

"We’re going to do whatever is necessary to keep this school and have an open enrollment school in our community,” said Stogner, a protester who has three grandchildren. “I’m hungry. But I’m not really hungry for food -- I’m hungry for justice. I’m hungry for justice for my grandbabies, for all the kids in my community."

“We live in a city where we are not valued as black and brown people,” she added.

Earlier this week, protesters met with Emanuel and officials from Chicago Public Schools to discuss the strike, but the meeting did not lead to any resolution.

"The mayor appreciates there are strong feelings about Dyett, and he understands there is a desire for a quick resolution about its future, however what's most important is the right decision," said a statement from the mayor's office. "CPS is engaged in a thorough review of Dyett, and while they are closer to a decision, they continue to weigh all the factors at play in an effort to achieve the best outcome possible -- one that will ensure a strong Bronzeville and a strong future for our children." 

 A spokesperson for Duncan said Department of Education leaders plan to meet with the protesters to hear their concerns.

“We respect the efforts of this group and worked to accommodate their plans to hold a press conference outside our building," said Department of Education press secretary Dorie Nolt in a statement. "Senior leaders at the Department will meet with representatives of the group today to hear more about their concerns. While this is squarely a local issue, we always welcome the opportunity to engage with concerned students, parents, educators and community members.” 

Source: Huffington Post

Si bien ciertos candidatos a la presidencia han ocupado los titulares con sus indignantes propuestas de deportar a los inmigrantes indocumentados, el hecho es que los inmigrantes se van a quedar y hacer de Estados Unidos un lugar más próspero.

Dada esa realidad –y la total de inacción a nivel federal respecto a una reforma de inmigración– los estados han comenzado poco a poco a adoptar medidas para tratar a los inmigrantes con dignidad y darles la oportunidad de una vida mejor.

Un estudio reciente de la Fundación RAND concluyó que el número de normas a nivel estatal relativas a la inmigración aumentó diez veces del año 2005 al 2013, y durante el 2015, 46 estados aprobaron 391 leyes relacionadas con inmigración.

Muchas de las leyes alientan a los inmigrantes a salir de la clandestinidad. Por ejemplo, doce estados han adoptado medidas para permitir que los inmigrantes indocumentados obtengan licencia de conducir y 20 estados permiten que los inmigrantes se matriculen como residentes en universidades e instituciones de enseñanza superior del gobierno. Por otro lado, solo tres estados prohíben explícitamente que los inmigrantes indocumentados se inscriban en instituciones de educación superior.

Nueva York ha sido un líder en este frente. En el año 2015, la ciudad de Nueva York se convirtió en la ciudad más grande del país en inaugurar una tarjeta de identidad municipal. Desde entonces, la política ha sido un gran éxito, pues cientos de miles se han inscrito, muchos de ellos inmigrantes que anteriormente no podían abrir una cuenta de banco o siquiera obtener una tarjeta de biblioteca. Ahora se ha reanudado e intensificado la campaña a favor de las licencias de conducir en el estado.

Sin embargo, mientras Nueva York y otros estados avanzan valientemente, algunos estados están dando un paso atrás. Además de políticas a favor de los inmigrantes, el estudio de RAND también reveló que algunos estados están tomando medidas para hacer la vida de los inmigrantes más difícil y peligrosa al redoblar la actividad policial y privar a los inmigrantes de beneficios esenciales.

En esta lista, Arizona es uno de los ejemplos más atroces. A pesar de que se ha criticado mucho al estado por la ley antiinmigrantes del 2010, en meses recientes los legisladores estatales han tomado medidas para hacer que Arizona sea incluso más hostil con sus inmigrantes. La legislatura está promoviendo una serie de medidas legislativas que, entre otras cosas, prohibirían que las ciudades sirvan de santuario y dificultarían solicitar identificación municipal.

No es la única manera en que los legisladores estatales están tratando de restarles poder a las ciudades de Arizona, que tradicionalmente han acogido más a los inmigrantes. Los legisladores también están a punto de aprobar una medida que penaliza a las ciudades por adoptar un salario mínimo más alto o licencias por enfermedad, negándoles fondos para servicios como los departamentos de policía y bomberos.

En efecto, las medidas permitirían que Arizona imponga prácticamente un golpe de estado y haga caso omiso de los deseos de sus propios ciudadanos. No es de sorprender, pues se trata de un estado donde se permitió que fuera necesario hacer fila durante horas en los recintos para las elecciones primarias de los republicanos el mes pasado, negándoles a muchos el fundamental derecho al voto.

Y para que no pensemos que el problema se limita al otro extremo del país, hay señales de peligro aquí mismo. Varios senadores estatales están tratando de prohibir disimuladamente las ciudades santuario en Nueva York al esconder una nueva disposición en el presupuesto estatal, lo que aumenta la probabilidad de que pase desapercibida.

Ya no se pueden tolerar medidas que merman la democracia y perjudican a los inmigrantes. Los estados como Arizona han ayudado a marcar la pauta para las virulentas elecciones contra los inmigrantes de este año. Antes de que se haga incluso más daño, debemos hacer todo lo posible para poner un alto a las medidas contra los inmigrantes.

By Shena Elrington

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New York Times - July 15, 2014, by Steve Greenhouse - As more workers find their lives upended and their paychecks reduced by ever-changing, on-call schedules, government officials are trying to put limits on the harshest of those scheduling practices.

The actions reflect a growing national movement — fueled by women’s and labor groups — to curb practices that affect millions of families, like assigning just one or two days of work a week or requiring employees to work unpredictable hours that wreak havoc with everyday routines like college and child care.

The recent, rapid spread of on-call employment to retail and other sectors has prompted proposals that would require companies to pay employees extra for on-call work and to give two weeks’ notice of a work schedule.

Vermont and San Francisco have adopted laws giving workers the right to request flexible or predictable schedules to make it easier to take care of children or aging parents. Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, is pressing the City Council to take up such legislation. And last month, President Obama ordered federal agencies to give the “right to request” to two million federal workers.

The new laws and proposals generally require an employer to discuss a new employee’s situation and to consider scheduling requests, but they do not require companies to accommodate individual schedules. Many businesses have opposed these measures, arguing that they represent improper government intrusion into private operations.

In a referendum last year, voters in SeaTac, Wash. — the community near Seattle that also passed the nation’s highest minimum wage, $15 an hour for some workers — approved a measure that bars employers from hiring additional part-time workers if any of their existing part-timers want more hours. The move was a response to complaints from workers that they were not scheduled for enough hours to support their families. Some San Francisco lawmakers are seeking to enact a similar regulation.

Representative George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, plans to introduce legislation this summer that would require companies to pay their employees for an extra hour if they were summoned to work with less than 24 hours’ notice. He is also proposing a guarantee of four hours’ pay on days when employees are sent home after just a few hours — something that happens in many restaurants and retailers when customer traffic is slow.

That happened to Mary Coleman. After an hourlong bus commute, she arrived at her job at a Popeyes in Milwaukee only to have her boss order her to go home without clocking in — even though she was scheduled to work. She was not paid for the day.

“It’s becoming more and more common to put employees in a very uncertain and tenuous position with respect to their schedules, and that ricochets if workers have families or other commitments,” Mr. Miller said. “The employer community always says it abhors uncertainty and unpredictability, but they are creating an employment situation that has huge uncertainty and unpredictability for millions of Americans.”

While Mr. Miller acknowledges that his bill is unlikely to be enacted anytime soon — partly because of opposition from business (and a Republican-controlled House), he said the bill would bring attention to what he called often callous scheduling practices. His bill, similar to one in the Senate sponsored by Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, has a “right to request” provision that would bar employers from denying requests from workers with caregiving or school-related conflicts unless they had a “bona fide” business reason.

Corporate groups protest that such measures undercut efficiency and profits. “The hyper-regulation of the workplace by government isn’t conducive to a positive business climate,” said Scott DeFife, an executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association. “The more complications that government creates for operating a business, the less likely we’ll see a positive business environment that’s good for the economy and increasing jobs.”

Mr. DeFife pointed out that the daily ebb and flow of customers necessitated flexibility in scheduling.

David French, a senior vice president of the National Retail Federation, said many people chose careers in retail because of the flexible work hours.

“These proposals may sound reasonable, but if you unpack them, they could be very harmful,” Mr. French said. “Where employers and employees now work together to solve scheduling problems, you’ll have a very bureaucratic environment where rigid rules would be introduced.”

While many of these workers are not unionized, the labor movement has often battled against part-time work and ever-changing schedules. But as unions have grown weaker, employers have felt freer to employ part-timers and use more volatile scheduling. Unions still push for workers to get more hours — and those pressures are one reason Macy’s and Walmart have adopted programs letting employees claim additional, available shifts by going onto their employers’ websites.

In a climate where many retailers, restaurants and other businesses are still struggling after the recession, economists point to the increased uncertainty faced by employees. About 27.4 million Americans work part time. The number of those part-timers who would prefer to work full time has nearly doubled since 2007, to 7.5 million. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 47 percent of part-time hourly workers ages 26 to 32 receive a week or less of advance notice for their schedule.

In a study of the data, two University of Chicago professors found that employers dictated the work schedules for about half of young adults, without their input. For part-time workers, schedules on average fluctuated from 17 to 28 hours a week.

“Frontline managers face pressure to keep costs down, but they really don’t have much control over wages or benefits,” said Susan J. Lambert, a University of Chicago professor who interpreted the data. “What they have control over is employee hours.”

Ms. Lambert said flexible, not rigid or unpredictable, hours would become as important an issue as paid family leave. “The issue of scheduling is going to be the next big effort on improving labor standards,” she said. “To reduce unpredictability is important to keep women engaged in the labor force.”

David Chiu, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, has created a business-labor group that is trying to find the middle ground.

“We’ve learned that predictability in hours is important not just to help workers juggle their lives, but for economic security — to help workers take a second job to live in expensive cities like San Francisco or New York,” Mr. Chiu said. “We’re confident that we can move forward with policies that work for workers as well as business’s bottom line.”

Sharlene Santos says her part-time schedule at a Zara clothing store in Manhattan — ranging from 16 to 24 hours a week — is not enough. “Making $220 a week, that’s not enough to live on — it’s not realistic,” she said.

After Ms. Santos and four other Zara workers recently wrote to the company, protesting that they were given too few hours and received just two days’ notice for their schedule, the company promised to start giving them two weeks’ advance notice.

Fatimah Muhammad said that at the Joe Fresh clothing store where she works in Manhattan, some weeks she was scheduled to work just one day but was on call for four days — meaning she had to call the store each morning to see whether it needed her to work that day.

“I felt kind of stuck. I couldn’t make plans,” said Ms. Muhammad, who said she was now assigned 25 hours a week.

A national campaign — the Fair Workweek Initiative — is pushing for legislation to restrict these practices in places including Milwaukee, New York and Santa Clara, Calif. The effort includes the National Women’s Law Center, the United Food and Commercial Workers union and the Retail Action Project, a New York workers’ group.

“Too many workers are working either too many or too few hours in an economy that expects us to be available 24/7,” said Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative and an organizer at the Center for Popular Democracy, a national advocacy group. “It’s gotten to the point where workers, especially women workers, are saying, ‘We need a voice in how much and when we work.' ”

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