Toys ‘R’ Us Signals Openness to Severance Pay
07.17.2018
NEW YORK, NY – Late yesterday afternoon, Toys ‘R’ Us filed a stipulation in bankruptcy court that grants a two-week period for the now-liquidated company to discuss a resolution...
07.17.2018
NEW YORK, NY – Late yesterday afternoon, Toys ‘R’ Us filed a stipulation in bankruptcy court that grants a two-week period for the now-liquidated company to discuss a resolution to an employee claim for severance. The stipulation preserves the class proof of claim, meaning that plaintiff Ann Marie Reinhart Smith files on behalf of all Toys ‘R’ Us employees who were fired without severance. The move, filed on the legal deadline for action, signals an openness on the part of the company to negotiations.
With this new stipulation, the plaintiff and the debtor – Toys ‘R’ Us – have until July 23 to engage in conversation about a resolution to the claim for severance pay. In essence, it serves as a public notification of Toys ‘R’ Us’ willingness to resolve the claim outside of court and reach a solution favorable to laid-off employees.
Ann Marie Reinhart Smith, the plaintiff in the case, is a former Toys ‘R’ Us employee who worked at the company for 30 years before being laid off when it shut its doors on June 30. Along with thousands of Toys ‘R’ Us workers, she has advanced this effort with the support of Rise Up Retail, a movement of working people building a voice to advocate for good jobs in the retail industry. Workers have petitioned Congress, held protests in stores, spoken out in the press and on social media, pushed for responsible investment by pension funds who invest in private equity, and organized thousands of families hurt by losing jobs at Toys ‘R’ Us. Similar advocacy will continue throughout the summer. Rise Up Retail helped to connect Ms. Reinhart and the lawyers at Outten & Golden LLP, who are authorized to file the administrative claim on behalf of all 33,000 people laid off since the bankruptcy began.
“I come from the generation where you get rewarded for hard work. I devoted 29 years – my entire adult life – to Toys ‘R’ Us, as have many of my former colleagues,” said Ann Marie Reinhart Smith, plaintiff in the case. “To be let go with nothing, after being so loyal to the company, is humiliating. I hope that the resolution we come to will help to acknowledge the sacrifice and love that we brought to our work, and make sure that what happened to us becomes illegal so that no one has to go through what we did again.”
For Ann Marie, severance pay would mean being able to support herself and her husband while finding new work. Her unemployment benefits ended last week, making it even more challenging to pay her bills. When Toys ‘R’ Us shut its doors, Ann Marie not only lost her paycheck, but also lost her health insurance. Without insurance, her husband’s medical expenses have soared. Still, she expresses optimism about the legal claim and negotiations with the private equity firms.
###
Media Contact:
Lia Weintraub, lweintraub@populardemocracy.org, 202-618-2482
Schumer and Pelosi on Opposite Sides of Budget Deal, As the Fate of DREAMers Hangs in the Balance
Schumer and Pelosi on Opposite Sides of Budget Deal, As the Fate of DREAMers Hangs in the Balance
After failing to force a government shutdown before Christmas, advocates from a variety of groups, including United We Dream, The Center for Popular Democracy, and Make The Road, managed to...
After failing to force a government shutdown before Christmas, advocates from a variety of groups, including United We Dream, The Center for Popular Democracy, and Make The Road, managed to convince Senate Democrats to do so in January.
Read the full article here.
Democratic activist Ady Barkan launches six-figure ad blitz in CD8 race
Democratic activist Ady Barkan launches six-figure ad blitz in CD8 race
Ady Barkan, the progressive health care activist whose video pleadings with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake last year briefly became a viral hit, is starting a group to tout select Democratic candidates ...
Ady Barkan, the progressive health care activist whose video pleadings with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake last year briefly became a viral hit, is starting a group to tout select Democratic candidates across the country, starting with Hiral Tipirneni's congressional bid in Arizona.
Read the full article here.
Fed’s Kashkari to Spend Day in Life of Struggling Black Family
Neel Kashkari tried living on streets for a week during his failed run for California governor in 2014. Now, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis will spend a day in the life...
Neel Kashkari tried living on streets for a week during his failed run for California governor in 2014. Now, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis will spend a day in the life of a black family barely making ends meet.
“Walking a day in somebody else’s shoes is actually -- it makes the anecdotes that much more real,” Kashkari, 43, told reporters Wednesday in Minneapolis after a meeting with the local community to discuss race and economic inequality. “It influences how I think about the problems we face.”
Kashkari, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive who went on to oversee the U.S. government’s $700 billion financial rescue program, took the helm of the Minneapolis Fed in January.
National poverty levels among blacks stand at 26 percent, more than double those for whites. Fed Chair Janet Yellen has discussed inequality and the fact that minorities have higher unemployment than whites in speeches and testimony to Congress.
Outrage has mounted in the U.S. over a recent spate of fatal shootings of black men by police, some of which were filmed and broadcast over social media, worsening racial tensions in many communities.
On Wednesday, Kashkari, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from India, heard Rosheeda Credit describe how she and her boyfriend worked three jobs between them to support their family. She then invited him to find out himself what it was like by spending the day with her.
Kashkari said he’d be “happy to do it.”
The Fed has also been under fire from Democrats, including presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for a lack of diversity on the boards of directors on the 12 regional Fed banks. Kashkari said the central bank had a lot of work to do to improve diversity and was committed to making that happen.
By ALISTER BULL & JEANNA SMIALEK
Source
Mayoral Hopefuls Cool to Plan to Lift Up Low-Wage Workers
Labor Press - February 13, 2013, by Marc Bussanich - While the city’s economy has been recuperating from the Great Recession, low-wage workers in the city face enormous difficulties in making ends...
Labor Press - February 13, 2013, by Marc Bussanich - While the city’s economy has been recuperating from the Great Recession, low-wage workers in the city face enormous difficulties in making ends meet in one of the nation’s most expensive cities. A new report, Workers Rising, reveals policy decisions the next mayoral administration can make to improve conditions and pay for low-wage workers.
Presented at a symposium on low-wage worker organizing at the Murphy Institute, the authors of the report, UnitedNY and The Center for Popular Democracy, write that the city should raise standards by guaranteeing at least five days of paid sick leave. The city should also regulate high-violation industries, establish a Mayor’s Office of Labor Standards to investigate complaints by workers and pass a resolution that’ll allow the city to pass a higher minimum wage than the state.
According to the report, the city’s economy is shedding living wage jobs, but is adding low-wage, service sector jobs such as restaurants (42,000) and retail trade (27,000).
Prince Jackson works as a security officer for the Air Serv Corporation at Kennedy airport and is part of a committee of security officers organizing for better pay and the appropriate equipment to do their jobs that ensures the safety of passengers.
He worked all night, but said it was important for him to be at the event.
“I’m very tired, but I will do anything that I can do to raise the standards for my fellow workers at the airport.”
Alterique Hall is a retail worker who said he’s behind his rent because he’s paid very low wages.
“It’s difficult. Some days I just want to lie down and cry because I’m being paid and treated poorly. We need to fight for higher wages to better our futures,” said Hall.
A car wash worker who worked for seven years at a carwash owned by John Lage in SoHo, owner of multiple carwashes throughout the city, will soon be laid off because Lage is selling the property to a developer. The workers at the SoHo facility voted to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in November, but Lage said the property was up for sale before the election.
Council Member Gale Brewer welcomed the proposal to create a local office for labor standards.
“All the other cities and states that have paid sick leave have such an office. Right now, the only way to get a complaint on many of these issues is on a complaint-by-complaint basis. There isn’t currently any organization; the state doesn’t have enough staff. You need a local office that will be a partner with the employee and employer to come up with safe standards,” Brewer said.
Also joining Ms. Brewer were two mayoral hopefuls—Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former comptroller and 2009 mayoral candidate, William Thompson. They both said they support the movement to help low-wage workers, but they did not say they would enact the authors’ proposals if elected mayor.
Source
The fight to make bad jobs better
As of November 26, 2017, fast food companies in New York are required to post worker schedules 14 days in advance. If they change the schedule within that window, they will pay an extra fee to the...
As of November 26, 2017, fast food companies in New York are required to post worker schedules 14 days in advance. If they change the schedule within that window, they will pay an extra fee to the workers who are affected. And before they hire more people, they must offer the available hours to their existing part-time workers.
Read the full article here.
Markets to Fed: See you next year
MARKETS TO FED: SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! — Asia followed Wall Street higher on hopes the Fed might take weak jobs data into account and wait until next year to hike rates. … Reuters: “...
MARKETS TO FED: SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! — Asia followed Wall Street higher on hopes the Fed might take weak jobs data into account and wait until next year to hike rates. … Reuters: “Fading expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year and a bounce in oil and commodity prices helped lift Asian stocks to two-week highs on Tuesday …
“‘One of the two big persistent concerns has faded, so investors are taking risks,’ said Masashi Oda, senior investment officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, referring to expectations of a near-term Fed hike. … Japanese shares garnered further momentum from speculation that the Bank of Japan might expand its massive stimulus program to support the flagging economy”http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/06/us-global-markets-idUSKCN0S001I20151006
M.M. SIDEBAR — Seems like wishful thinking. The FOMC is almost certain to hit the liftoff button by December unless jobs growth really falls off a cliff, which appears unlikely based on other data. It remains possible that both August and September jobs figures will get revised higher. And even a slightly sub-200K pace is enough to keep unemployment dropping to what the Fed generally considers full employment (though nobody actually knows exacly what full employment is). Of course a messy debt limit fight actually could push the Fed off into 2016 but it would likely take markets down with it.
“FED UP” PROTESTERS TO HIT PHILLY — POLITICO's Zachary Warmbrodt: “Activists lobbying against a Federal Reserve interest rate increase as part of the so-called ‘Fed Up’ campaign are planning to hold a protest targeting new Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia president Patrick Harker on Tuesday afternoon. Around 15-20 people including workers, small business owners and clergy are expected to participate in the protest, which is aimed at pressuring Harker to meet with the coalition and take a tour of low-income neighborhoods …
“Kendra Brooks, who leads the local Fed Up coalition and is an organizer for Action United, is attending Harker's event but says she has been urging him to meet with more members of the community beyond the heads of non-profits and corporations … Brooks tried to get a commitment from Harker at the Fed's symposium in Jackson Hole, and their chat is on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h-GN7cHDAc
WILL HILLARY FLIP FLOP ON TPP? — POLITICO's Victoria Guida: “Hillary Clinton has presented herself as a skeptic of the biggest trade deal in history, saying this summer that ‘we should prepared to walk away’ from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership unless it boosts Americans' wages and national security. But with a deal announced Monday after months of backstage wrangling, Clinton will be under intense pressure to take a stance.
“The deal is one of the most ambitious items left on President Barack Obama's White House bucket list. But his former secretary of state owns it too, even though she has expressed increasing ambivalence about its details and could soon disown it outright, as some in her circle have suggested. … [R]eacting to the polarizing TPP deal is one of the most excruciating policy decisions of her campaign thus far - and far more politically perilous with Democratic primary voters than her backing of Obama's Iran deal.” http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/hillary-clinton-trade-dilemma-214456
BIGGEST TPP WINNER: JAPANESE AUTO MAKERS — Per Bloomberg’s list of winners under the trade deal: “Japanese car and auto-parts makers may be the biggest winners, as they get cheaper access to the U.S., the industry’s biggest export market” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-06/tpp-trade-deal-who-stands-to-benefit-suffer-in-asia-pacific
FIRST LOOK: “TAX HAVEN SEX MANSION” — Can't resist a headline like that, eh? Bloomberg Businessweek piece up at 7:00 a.m. by Zeke Faux “investigates how Abe Zeines and Muir Hurwitz, two sons of an ultra-religious Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn piloted a shady new kind of finance — ‘merchant cash advance’ — made a fortune, and then saw it all come to an end.” The two now live in a "tax-haven sex mansion in Puerto Rico.” As one does. https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AP5w7epl1Xo/zeke-faux
LITAN RESPONDS — Bob Litan writes in FORTUNE: “Sen. Warren clearly disagrees with our study, but rather than address its reasoning and facts, she claimed my disclosure was vague (which it was not) and that I was misusing my non-resident perch at Brookings by identifying that position in a footnote (a newly established Brookings rule of which I was unaware but promised Brookings I would not run afoul of again), though I never mentioned my Brookings affiliation at the hearing. …
“I can only speculate why Sen. Warren has been so interested in our research, but I suspect it is because, even with its disclosed sponsor, the study exposed two major weaknesses in Labor’s proposal — which the Department may correct when it issues its final rule. But if it does not, these two points, at least in my view, make the rule susceptible to being overturned by a court as being arbitrary and capricious (or failing a benefit-cost test) if it is legally challenged” http://fortune.com/2015/10/05/elizabeth-warren-robert-litan-u-s-department-of-labor/
Litan’s pithy email response to M.M. on the whole affair: “Life in the big city.”
GOOD TUESDAY MORNING — Crazy Monday Night Football game. The Lions had a surprising road victory over the Seahawks in their grasp only to have Kam Chancellor poke the ball out of Calvin Johnson’s hands at the goal line. The Seahawks then illegally batted the ball out of the end zone for the touchback but the refs missed it. Should have been Lions ball at the goal line. Crushing blow. Massive officiating mistake. Email me at bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter (like Kam Chancellor does!) @morningmoneyben.
THIS MORNING ON POLITICO PRO FINANCIAL SERVICES — Adam Behsudi on the TPP currency side deal that Congress might not like – [https://www.politicopro.com/financial-services/story/2015/10/pro-trade-tppcurrency-behsudi-056469] and to get Morning Money every day before 6 a.m.-- please contact Pro Services at (703) 341-4600or info@politicopro.com
** A message from Grant Thornton LLP: The tax code puts U.S. companies at a disadvantage. Congress can’t address the problem if it excludes pass-throughs from an innovation box or tax reform. Congress should lower the effective business tax rates equitably for all U.S. businesses. https://www.grantthornton.com/issues/library/articles/public-policy/2015/policy-issues/support-the-BER.aspx?utm_medium=ad-partnership&utm_campaign=public-policy-issues&utm_term=Public-policy&utm_content=article **
BLOOMBERG EVENT TODAY — The Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit takes place in New York, London and Hong Kong featuring Tom Steyer, Mike Bloomberg, Bill Ackman, Cliff Asness, Barry Diller, Blythe Masters and more https://www.bloomberglive.com/markets-most-influential/new-york/agenda/
SOFTBALL REPORT: FERC TAKES THINK TANK CROWN — Per AEI’s Michael Pratt: “FERC defeated the defending champs AEI 13-7 in the Think Tank Softball League Championships in a game under the lights in a field by Pentagon City. Congrats to the winning team - over 40 teams are part of the league.”
POSTCARD FROM THE NEW YORKER FESTIVAL — POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman reports: “Homeland” actor Damian Lewis told the New Yorker festival on Saturday that he's met with hedge fund managers like Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb to prepare for his upcoming new show about Wall Street called "Billions" (on which Andrew Ross Sorkin is an executive producer).
He asked the hedgies: "Give me your intellectual defense of being a hedge fund guy, of shorting companies and the one thing they could never really persuade me of, was that playing to a moral code that we might all conventionally understand, it wasn't possible for them to justify what they do. But if they just ever so slightly shifted the goal posts and created a new moral reality for themselves, which is essentially that as long as I don't break the law and as long as the game exists, I'm here to play the game and everything is fine."
BETTER MARKETS’ FUNDING QUESTIONED — National Review’s Brendan Bordelon goes long on hedge fund manager Michael Masters’ funding of pro-financial reform group Better Markets.” http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425063/elizabeth-warrens-wall-street-double-standard-brendan-bordelon
Better Markets’ Dennis Kelleher emails: “Wall Street has been trying to shut down, shut up or smear Better Markets since it was founded five years ago. Wall Street has little tolerance for anyone willing to stand up to them or who can’t be bought.
“Better Markets’ independence and effectiveness on the public’s behalf is what gets under Wall Street’s skin and why it has been shopping a fabricated story for months to anyone in the media who would listen. … [T]he story is so factually wrong it is laughable, as detailed here https://www.bettermarkets.com/blog/fact-sheet-better-markets%E2%80%99-response-wall-street%E2%80%99s-latest-attack”.
M.M. SIDEBAR — Anyone who knows Kelleher (agree or disagree with him on issues) knows he wouldn't be shilling for some hedge fund guy looking to tilt stock prices. But in an era when Bob Litan can get dumped from Bookings over a fully-disclosed source of research funding, everything seems to be fair game.
TOUGH ROAD FOR TPP IN CONGERSS — WP’s David Nakamura: “President Obama hailed the historic 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal … as an accord that ‘reflects America’s values,’ but within hours the administration had turned from the negotiating table to selling the agreement on Capitol Hill, a reflection of the harsh political climate the controversial pact is expected to face in Congress. Obama pledged that [TPP] … would open new markets for U.S. goods and services and establish rules of international commerce that give ‘our workers the fair shot at success they deserve.’
“But almost immediately there were signs of the tough fight ahead to win final ratification from Congress next year. Lawmakers from both parties criticized the pact as falling short in crucial areas, raising the prospect that the White House could lose the support of allies who had backed the president’s trade push earlier this year" http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/deal-reached-on-pacific-rim-trade-pact/2015/10/05/7c567f00-6b56-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html
SHARP PRICE INCREASES DRIVE DRUG COMPANY REVENUES — WSJ’s Joseph Walker: “Demand for a drug called Avonex has declined every year for the past 10. Not a problem for its manufacturer. U.S. revenue from the drug has more than doubled in that time, to $2 billion last year. The key: repeated price increases. The multiple sclerosis drug’s maker, Biogen Inc., raised its price an average of 16 percent a year throughout the decade — 21 times in all.
“It is an example of drug companies’ unusual ability to boost prices beyond the inflation rate to drive their revenue, even when demand for the drugs doesn’t cooperate. A result of this pricing power is that across 30 top-selling drugs sold by pharmacies, U.S. revenue growth has far outpaced demand in the past five years … Revenue growth averaged 61 percent, three times the increase in prescriptions” http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-prescription-drug-makers-price-increases-drive-revenue-1444096750
BERNANKE ADMITS MISLEADING ON LEHMAN — NYT’s Andrew Ross Sorkin: “It is astonishing to hear a former Federal Reserve chairman acknowledge that he may have misled the public as part of an agreement with another senior government official about one of the most crucial moments in recent financial history — and that he now questions whether he should have “been more forthcoming.” But that is what Ben S. Bernanke says in his new memoir …
“That crucial moment? The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Mr. Bernanke, in perhaps the most candid explanation of Lehman’s 2008 collapse, writes that he and Henry M. Paulson, then the treasury secretary, purposely obfuscated when asked about Lehman’s demise early on, allowing a narrative to develop that the government had purposely let the firm fail
“In congressional testimony immediately after Lehman’s collapse, Paulson and I were deliberately quite vague when discussing whether we could have saved Lehman,’ Mr. Bernanke writes. ‘But we had agreed in advance to be vague because we were intensely concerned that acknowledging our inability to save Lehman would hurt market confidence and increase pressure on other vulnerable firms.’” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/business/dealbook/in-ben-bernankes-memoir-a-candid-look-at-lehman-brothers-collapse.html?_r=0
GOOGLE BUYS INTO SYMPHONY — FT’s Joe Rennison and Richard Waters: “Alphabet, Google’s renamed parent company, is set to become the latest investor to back Symphony, joining a host of big banks in their attempt to dislodge Bloomberg’s dominant position in Wall Street messaging. Born out of the 2013 snooping scandal, where it came to light that Bloomberg News reporters had spied on bankers using its ubiquitous terminals, Symphony claims to offer a more secure way for people to communicate with each other.
“The service officially launched on September 15, unveiling tie-ups with McGraw Hill Financial, which will supply financial information from S&P Capital IQ, and News Corp’s Dow Jones unit, which will provide a live news feed to the platform. Symphony and Alphabet declined to comment. People familiar with the matter said the deal was yet to be finalised but one confirmed a WSJ.com report that the new funding round would value Symphony at about $650m.”https://www.ft.com/content/32dbcf1a-6ba1-11e5-aca9-d87542bf8673
ALSO FOR YOUR RADAR —
FIRST LOOK: MARANTIS JOINS VISA — Per release going out this morning: “Visa … day announced the appointment of former Acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis as Senior Vice President, Global Government Relations. Marantis joins Visa from Square, where he led global policy, government, and regulatory affairs. Marantis will report directly to William Sheedy, Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy, M&A, and Government Relations at Visa Inc., and be responsible for all facets of Visa’s government relations activities
JOIN US — WOMEN RULE: TAKING RISKS AND TAKING CHARGE Women Rule live event series returns Wednesday morning at 8 am with “Women Rule: Taking Risks and Taking Charge,” a series of conversations with women who have braved the odds in their lives and careers. Vian Dakhil, Iraqi MP and voice of the Yazidi people being attacked by ISIS and her sister, Dr. Deelan Dakhil, the co-director of the Sinjar Foundation will headline the event. Featured speakers also include Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.); Sarah LaFleur, Founder and CEO, MM. LaFleur, and former White House NSA and EVP of MacAndrews and Forbes, Frances Fragos Townsend. RSVP: http://www.politico.com/events/2015/10/women-rule-taking-risks-and-taking-charge-213943
NOW AVAILABLE: POLITICO PRO LEGISLATIVE COMPASS — POLITICO Pro, POLITICO’s premium subscription service, has released a first-of-its kind legislative data analytics and decision-making tool that helps policy professionals manage and act on legislation. Leveraging features such as a personalized dashboard, virtual whip count, bill text comparison and 20 years of data, users will not only save time but benefit from customizing and cross-referencing information, enabling them to make smarter and faster decisions. Schedule your demo today.
** A message from Grant Thornton LLP: When Congress fails to act, businesses suffer. More than 50 popular tax provisions expired at the end of 2014, including the R&D credit. Congress’s indecision on these provisions is impeding business planning and stifling growth. According to a Grant Thornton survey of top financial executives, more than half of companies that use the provisions do all their planning under the assumption that the extension will not occur. That’s a huge blow to the effectiveness of the provisions and a barrier to growth. The R&D credit is a major driver of entrepreneurial activity and high-paying jobs. Congress needs to act soon to reinstate these provisions and to make the R&D credit permanent. Find out what else Congress could do to strengthen the R&D credit and view survey findings at http://gt-us.co/1iOXJW5
Source: Politico
States Expand Inquiry Into On-Call Scheduling
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies, asking a group of national chains to provide detailed information on their use of...
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies, asking a group of national chains to provide detailed information on their use of the controversial practice.
On-call shifts, where a worker must be available to work a shift that can be cancelled at the last minute without compensation, has become popular in retail. But the practice wreaks havoc on the lives of low-paid hourly workers trying to plan plan around child care, schooling, or second jobs, as a BuzzFeed News investigation found last year.
At the time, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent a letter to 14 chains (published below), inquiring about their use of on-call scheduling and warning it may be illegal. Since then, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Workers, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and Gap have committed to ending the practice.
“On-call shifts are not a business necessity, as we see from the many retailers that no longer use this unjust method of scheduling work hours,” said Schneiderman in a statement.
A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the lowest income workers receive the most irregular schedules, with unpredictability leading to increased stress.
“It’s heartening to see more and more policymakers and regulators take action,” said Carrie Gleason, Director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group.
On Tuesday, the offices of the Attorneys General in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island sent a letter requesting employee handbooks, schedules, and payroll information.
In these states, the Attorneys General warn, the practice may be a violation of a law mandating a minimum of four hours of pay for employees who report for work.
The following retailers received the letter: Aéropostale, American Eagle, BCBG Max Azria, Carter’s Inc., Coach, DavidsTea Inc., Walt Disney Co., Forever 21 Inc., Ascena Retail Group Inc.’s Justice, Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., Payless ShoeSource, Tilly’s Inc., Uniqlo, VF Corp.’s Vans, and Zumiez Inc.
Spokespeople from Uniqlo and Coach told the Wall Street Journal that the companies don’t use the practice. BuzzFeed News has reached out to the companies listed for comment and will update the post with responses.
UPDATE
A spokesperson for American Eagle Outfitters said in a statement, ““American Eagle Outfitters is committed to providing our associates with a positive working environment. We decided in November 2015 to cease the use of ‘on-call shifts’ and advised our stores. We are taking steps to reinforce and assure adherence to this policy across our store fleet.”
A spokesperson for Forever 21 said, “Contrary to published reports, Forever 21 does not permit on-call scheduling nor do we have a company policy around doing so.”
A spokesperson for Vans said the company does not use on-call scheduling and will comply with the request for information.
A spokesperson for Uniqlo said that Uniqlo has received the letter and that on-call scheduling is not a Uniqlo practice or policy.
A spokesperson for Payless ShoeSource says the company does not engage in on-call scheduling, has received the inquiry and will respond accordingly.
A spokesperson for Zumiez said, “It is our practice to cooperate with any request from the attorney general or other state agencies and we will do so in this case as well.” Apr. 14, 2016, at 10:21 a.m.
By Cora Lewis
Source
Failing the Test: Searching for Accountability in Charter Schools
Failing the Test: Searching for Accountability in Charter Schools
The original concept of charter schools emerged nationally more than two decades ago and was intended to support community efforts to open up education. Albert Shanker, then president of the...
The original concept of charter schools emerged nationally more than two decades ago and was intended to support community efforts to open up education. Albert Shanker, then president of the American Federation of Teachers union, lauded the charter idea in 1988 as way to propel social mobility for working class kids and to give teachers more decision-making power.
“There was a sense from the start that they would develop models for the broader system,” John Rogers tells Capital & Main. Rogers, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, is director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access. He adds that charter schools were to be laboratories where parents and educators would work together to craft the best possible learning environment and to serve as engines of innovation and social equity.
But critics of today’s market-based charter movement say monied interests have turned those learning labs into models for capital capture in the Golden State and beyond–“the charter school gravy train,” as Forbes describes it. Charters are publicly funded but privately managed and, like most privately run businesses, the schools prefer to avoid transparency in their operations. This often has brought negative publicity to the schools – last month the Los Angeles Daily News reported that the principal of El Camino Real Charter High School charged more than $100,000 in expenses to his school-issued credit card, many of them for personal use.
See More Stories in Capital & Main’s Charter School Series
“Information belongs to the public,” says Daniel Losen, who conducts law and policy research on education equality issues. “To the extent that you think choice should benefit parents—good choices are made with good information.” Losen co-authored a March, 2016 report about charter schools’ disciplinary policies, produced by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.
Billions of taxpayer dollars have flowed into expanding America’s privately-run charter school system over the past two decades, including $3.3 billion in federal funds alone, reports an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy. California has the nation’s largest number of charter schools, with most of them located in Los Angeles County. But in an age when words like “accountability” and “transparency” dominate political discourse, the financial mechanics of charters receive less oversight and scrutiny than the average public school bake sale.
Charter schools were originally intended to support community efforts to open up education.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools candidly spells out the Golden State’s laissez faire rules of the game on its website: “California law provides that charter schools are automatically exempt from most laws governing school districts.”
The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) has explicitly opposed state legislation that would clearly define the existing transparency laws and codes for charter schools — standards charters can now avoid despite their use of public funds.
“Charters don’t have to disclose budgets,” says Jackie Goldberg, a long-time Los Angeles school teacher and former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board president, who also served in the California State Assembly. “Once a charter is written, it’s not subject to the Brown or the Public Records acts.”
The CCSA opposes several bills currently progressing through the state legislature that would bring charter school transparency requirements into line with those expected of public schools. One measure spells out the expectation that charters would follow the same standards as public schools when it comes to the Public Records Act that guarantees access to public records; CCSA argues that most charter schools already voluntarily comply—so the law is therefore unnecessary.
Below are several of areas of concern often cited by charter school critics.
Open Meetings
California public schools are required to follow the Ralph M. Brown Act that requires regular meetings with notices posted in advance, along with public testimony and the availability of agendas and minutes. Open meetings guarantee the right of local parents, teachers and taxpayers to participate in discussions about policy, funding, disciplinary standards—all the heated issues that arise in local schools or that go before school boards.
The finances of charter schools receive less oversight than the average public school bake sale.
But a group called the Charter Schools Development Center provides advice and wiggle room to attorneys representing charter schools on Brown Act requirements. Charters are frequently run by a nonprofit whose board members are chosen and named by previous board members. The CSDC’s Guide to the Brown Act pointedly raises the question of whether governing structures fit the profile of “local legislative bodies” required to comply with the Brown Act and recommends charter school boards “cover their bases” and follow at least the spirit, if not the precise requirements, of the Brown Act.
Disciplinary Protocols and “Counseling Out”
The California Education Code stipulates that a public school student undergoing the drastic disciplinary measure of expulsion is entitled to a due process hearing that includes district administrators and the principal, and allows the student and parents to present arguments and information.
That doesn’t apply to California charter schools, according to a 2013 state Court of Appeals ruling that holds charters can “dismiss” a student without due process. The ruling differentiates between expulsion and dismissal. Following a dismissal, a student is then sent back to the public school system. (The UCLA report that Daniel Losen co-authored found national suspension rates at charter schools were 16 percent higher than those of public schools.)
Charter schools depend on their reputations for teaching students who hit high test-score marks. The practice known as “counseling out” is used to winnow out difficult students, and extends beyond California—the New York Times has detailed incidents in a high-achieving charter school in Brooklyn.
Counseling out can happen for a variety of reasons, not just disciplinary. Jackie Goldberg says she personally witnessed a counseling out session at a South Los Angeles charter, where a student’s mother was simply told by a school staff member that her son was better off finding “a school that meets his needs.”
Public schools, on the other hand, cannot “counsel out” challenging students.
Conflicts of interest
Public school governments are required to follow California Government Code 1090, which states that officials can’t vote on issues or contracts wherein they have a vested interest. Charter decision-makers are not subject to the conflict-of-interest code.
Veteran educators and administrators interviewed by Capital & Main have expressed deep concern about the disparities between transparency requirements for public schools and publicly funded charter schools.
Most California charters are run by educational management organizations (EMOs), which are described by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado as “private entities [that] may not be subject to the same financial or other document/records disclosure laws that apply to state-operated entities and public officials.”
Steve Zimmer, the current LAUSD school board president and a former high school teacher and counselor, has been critical of the lack of oversight of charter funding.
“You don’t have to go through a procurement process, you don’t have to follow labor standards,” he says. “This is playing out on a multiplicity of levels.”
Audits are not routinely required in the California charter system. It was only in 2006—some 14 years after California became the second state in the nation to pass legislation to create charter schools—that the state Charter Schools Act was amended to allow local school officials to request a state audit of a charter school’s financial transactions when they suspect something is amiss.
It took a state audit—triggered by a request from the Los Angeles County Office of Education—to uncover $2.6 million in payments that went to Kendra Okonkwo, the founder of Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists charter school, and to her close family members—with no oversight from the governing board of the nonprofit running the South Los Angeles school.
Another audit uncovered an Oakland charter school founder directing $3.8 million to companies he owned. American Indian Model Schools founder Ben Chavis is presently under IRS and FBI investigations related to his dealings with the school district.
More recently, a San Jose Mercury News investigation of California Virtual Academies, an online charter school chain run by the Virginia-based, publicly traded company K12 Inc., found that not even half of its enrollees graduated with a high school diploma and even fewer—almost none—were qualified to attend a California state university. The online chain, launched by former Goldman Sachs banker Ronald Packard, with seed money from Larry Ellison, cofounder of tech giant Oracle, and former junk bond purveyor Michael Milken, has collected more than $310 million in state funds over a dozen years. (An April 12 statement from K12 Inc. criticized the investigation as incomplete.)
A study commissioned by the Center for Popular Democracy calculates the lack of oversight has cost California $81 million.
Jason Mandell, Director of Advocacy Communications at the California Charter Schools Association, says that charter school opacity is changing. “There’s an increasingly thorough review process. If a charter school isn’t meeting standards, the charter can be shut down. When you know you’re going to be scrutinized and people are watching, you better perform. [Charters] have more autonomy in exchange for greater accountability.”
Last year, however, Governor Jerry Brown, himself a charter school founder, passed on a chance to tighten that accountability. He vetoed a bill approved by both houses of the legislature that would have made it explicit that schools should be subject to the Brown and Public Records acts.
David Tokofsky, a former member of the LAUSD Board of Education who has also worked for a charter school operator, cautions that the push for charter schools has been framed in terms of “education reform,” although the movement behind these schools, he says, is really one for deregulation of financial oversight and management.
“Deregulation was supposed to be about curriculum,” Tokofsky says, allowing teachers and parents more freedom to craft education and programs to fit the students. “It has become deregulation about every aspect of the school.”
“We know,” he adds, “when deregulated banks fail; we know when deregulated airplane doors fail. Do we know when deregulated schools are hurting your kids?”
By Bobbi Murray
Source
New York’s Progressive Experiment Tees Up
Politico - November 4, 2013, by Edward-Isaac Dovere -
Even New York liberals weren’t expecting things to go this well.
Tuesday, voters in America’s most...
Politico - November 4, 2013, by Edward-Isaac Dovere -
Even New York liberals weren’t expecting things to go this well.
Tuesday, voters in America’s most prominent city are poised to elect Bill de Blasio mayor and turn over every major lever of municipal government to a new breed of politics that’s been on the rise but never close to this level of power: a mix of young progressives, reconstituted ’60s- and ’70s-era lefties, newly active minority voters and deep-pocketed unions that have transformed themselves into expert campaign organizers.
What that will mean as they try to translate that ideology into a governing philosophy is a question that even people who’ve been leading the charge are still asking. And in New York, where there are more than 8 million residents (plus close to a million more who come in daily for work), 300,000 city employees and a $70 billion-plus budget, there’s a lot riding on the answer.
These are the people who formed the labor-funded, liberal-favorite Working Families Party and sparked Occupy Wall Street. They say government shouldn’t just allow for change — it should force new change on the city and private sector. That means universal pre-K; closed tax loopholes; pensions divested from fossil fuel companies; family-friendlier work policies, including financial support for single parents; and paid sick leave requirements. And on the housing front: more market regulation, leveraging of privately owned real estate that’s in trouble and greater community power over developers’ plans.
The reaction of the city’s business, real estate, finance and high-tech industry leaders to its new governing class-in-waiting has ranged from panic to scoffing at the stuff they say pipe dreams are made of. The political establishment in the city is skeptical any of it can work, especially without igniting a budget disaster. And the progressives in charge are superstitious enough that, despite their candidates’ long and overwhelming lead in the polls, they’ve avoided doing too much planning before election night.
One thing all sides agree on: A new era has arrived. Barring major upsets, former political-labor strategist de Blasio will be the mayor, longtime Upper West Side official and political maven Scott Stringer will be the city comptroller, and Tish James, a product of Brooklyn African-American activism and politics, will be the public advocate, roughly the equivalent of the city council president.
The city council speaker most likely won’t be picked until January, but even the conservative choices are liberal Democrats. And whoever gets the job will face a newly empowered City Council, in which the rapidly multiplying Progressive Caucus members include many unconnected to the traditions of go-along legislators, and have made clear they’re going to push for their own changes.
That array of progressive victories is “a dream,” de Blasio said on his way out of a late September fundraiser for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the godfather of this strain of progressivism in the city, that seconded as an advance celebration for the impending takeover.
“For a lot of progressives who’ve spent a whole lot of time on the steps of City Hall, this is the chance to get inside City Hall,” Stringer told POLITICO. “The challenge for all of us is to come together and govern and build our city for every New Yorker.”
Expectations are high, and made higher by the spirit of achieving what seemed impossible with unexpected election wins including de Blasio’s late surge and Stringer’s fending off Eliot Spitzer.
So what happens next, when these are the people confronted with a complicated and tight city budget, multiple costly labor contracts that are coming due for renewal, a crime rate that seems like it will statistically have to edge up at some point? How do they manage when they’re in charge, and not the outside instigators? And what happens when they’re heading into office promising major changes in rent costs and education, realignment of investments in city services and a detailed agenda of “broadly shared prosperity” — along with other liberal priorities like confronting climate change and improving senior care? When many competing interests are all going to be demanding attention from people who’ve never before been in positions of major power?
“There’s a lot you can do with really good leadership throughout the city that shares this agenda,” said Brad Lander, a city councilman who leads the progressive bloc and helped organize “Toward a 21st Century for All,” a collection of policy essays that’s become one of the main touchstones of progressive planning. “New York City is going to be an exciting laboratory.”
“What a pleasure it will be to have a city administration united with people who believe that you can increase the minimum wage, who believe that you can have paid sick leave, who believe that it doesn’t harm the city to treat workers and low-income people right, who believe that the purpose of an economy is not just to get the numbers on television but to help people live their lives, and who believe that the purpose of city government is to help all people — not just the 1 percent or the 5 percent or the 10 percent,” Nadler said, riling the crowd at an Upper West Side rally over the weekend.
At the rally, the talk was of how subway tokens cost only $1.25 and that Miley Cyrus wasn’t yet born the last time a Democrat was elected mayor. But that was a very different type of Democrat than what’s coming now — much more rooted in traditions of government spending and programs than the current strain’s emphasis on activist intervention, rethinking budget priorities and reeling in what they see as runaway wealthy interests.
“‘Liberal’s’ too soft,” actor-singer-activist Harry Belafonte declared at the rally to describe what he said was the most exciting political moment in his life in New York. “’Radicals.’ It’s time for radicals.”
There are limitations. Taxes — including the one on high-income earners that would pay for de Blasio’s signature expanded pre-kindergarten proposal — have to be approved by the state government, which also has the authority to take over city finances at any point if they begin to veer off track.
“It should be a comfort to people who are worried about the city going off the rails in a crazy far-left direction that Albany is not going to let that happen,” said Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which represents business and financial interests across the city.
“I don’t think the primary concern is whether the mayor’s a lefty,” she said, reflecting the private-sector leaders she’s talked to. “It’s whether we’re going to have a mayor who can effectively manage 300,000 city workers and an $80 billion budget and not allow the city to run off the rails.”
“We have to govern,” Stringer said. “We have to do things through the lens of what we can afford and also what we can’t afford.”
At a meeting of municipally elected progressives in Washington state in late October, the same “tale of two cities” line that’s dominated de Blasio’s campaign kept coming up as people talked about how they could build support for many of the ideas that de Blasio’s about to have the power to do.
“It’s happening all over the country,” de Blasio said in a taped message to the Local Progress conference. “This is a tremendous moment for progressive activism.”
The mayors of Richmond, Calif., and Fitchburg, Mass., both attended, but as people there acknowledged, the importance and size of New York make de Blasio and the incoming officials a much bigger deal for the movement, in both spotlight and potential.
“It’s easy to talk on the outside than to be on the inside, actually preparing the meal, so that means they’re going to be judged on what kind of meal they prepare,” said Nick Licata, a former Seattle City Council president who’s the chairman of Local Progress. “It’s going to be a challenge — it’s always a challenge for any advocate group, left or right, when you go from proposing something to actually implementing it.”
John Del Cecato, a political consultant who was one of the main architects of de Blasio’s campaign, said there’s a clear reason why the revolution started in New York.
“There aren’t just pockets of extreme wealth and pockets of poverty anymore. We’ve got close to 400,000 millionaires, while half the city lives at or near the poverty line,” Del Cecato said. De Blasio’s appeal, he said, is the fact that the current state of affairs “is deeply troubling not just to those who are living the struggle every day, but to those who’ve done quite well who fear that New York is losing what’s made it such a special place for generations.”
Recalibrating the enormous city government to focus on pre-K, after-school programs, community hospitals, better wages and affordable housing is going to be difficult, and certainly won’t be fast, Del Cecato said.
But this year’s elections, he argued, are an important start to “move New York in a direction that acknowledges where we’re slipping behind, puts us on a new path and establishes a mind-set that we’re a city that leaves nobody behind.”
Source:
2 months ago
2 months ago