Hold the Fed Accountable: Opposing View
USA Today - March 17, 2015, by Mark Weisbrot - Should the Federal Reserve raise interest rates in order to create more...
USA Today - March 17, 2015, by Mark Weisbrot - Should the Federal Reserve raise interest rates in order to create more unemployment and keep wages from rising? If the question were asked that way, the vast majority of Americans would say, "No!"
It is not posed in this manner, even though economists — including Fed economists — and many journalists who write for the business press know that this is exactly what the Fed will be doing when it raises interest rates.
Of course, the justification is that we "need" to do this in order to keep inflation from rising to harmful levels. But the Consumer Price Index is actually down slightly for the year ending in January; in other words, inflation is in negative territory. Why should anyone want to increase unemployment just to keep inflation down?
OUR VIEW: Why it's good news if Fed loses 'patience'
When the Fed increases unemployment, it increases it twice as much for African Americans as for everyone else. And higher unemployment also reduces wage growth much more for African-American workers and lower-wage workers. Across the board, more unemployment translates very directly into more income inequality.
This is no time to be increasing unemployment and inequality, and pushing down wages. Median household income in the U.S. is still down about 3% since the recession ended in mid-2009. For the vast majority of the workforce, wages have stagnated or declined since 1979. Meanwhile, in the first three years of the current economic recovery, the top 1% of Americans received 91% of all income gains.
Fortunately, for probably the first time in the Fed's century of existence, there is a grass-roots movement to hold America's central bank accountable to the voters, citizens and working people of this country. A coalition led by the Center for Popular Democracy is "Fed Up" and trying to make sure that the Fed doesn't cut off wage growth before it even gets rolling.
If America is to shed the title of "Land of Inequality," this is how it is going to happen: by more people becoming aware of how the Fed's monetary policy affects them and demanding that it change.
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Dumpster Tapes showcases local Latinx talent at the second annual Demolición
Dumpster Tapes showcases local Latinx talent at the second annual Demolición
One of America's largest banks, JPMorgan Chase, is quietly financing the immigration detention centers that have...
One of America's largest banks, JPMorgan Chase, is quietly financing the immigration detention centers that have detained an average of 26,240 people per day through July 2017, according to a new report by the Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road New York. Through over $100 million loans, lines of credit and bonds, Wall Street has been financially propping up CoreCivic and GeoCorp, America's two largest private immigration detention centers.
Read the full article here.
Bankruptcy lenders say 'no' to more cash benefits for fired Toys 'R' Us workers
Bankruptcy lenders say 'no' to more cash benefits for fired Toys 'R' Us workers
Wachtell's letter said there's $180 million set aside for unsecured creditors with administrative claims. The two...
Wachtell's letter said there's $180 million set aside for unsecured creditors with administrative claims. The two advocacy groups, which include the Center for Popular Democracy and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, estimated the workers should have received $75 million in severance under the company's policy, and are asking for contributions to meet that sum.
Read the full article here.
Communities Lose When HUD Sells Loans to Wall Street
The Hill - October 2, 2014, Rachel Laforest & Keven Whelan -James Cheeseman and his mother, Constance, have lived...
The Hill - October 2, 2014, Rachel Laforest & Keven Whelan -James Cheeseman and his mother, Constance, have lived in their Rosedale, New York home for the past five years. Like many Americans, they struggled during the recent economic downturn and have been trying to get a modification on their mortgage.
The bank that held their mortgage JPMorgan Chase, agreed to provide borrowers like them relief under a multi-billion dollar settlement with the Justice Department last year. But the Cheesemans' mortgage was insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). And before they could work out a deal with Chase, the bank had the FHA sell their loan to a new investor as part of a program, called the Distressed Asset Stabilization Program or DASP.
The program is supposed to have a dual purpose. First, the federal agency hopes to be able to use the funds received by DASP to right the balance sheet of the Federal Housing Authority’s mortgage insurance program. Second, the program is intended to “encourage public/private partnership to stabilize neighborhoods and home values in critical markets.”
According to HUD’s own data and reports, DASP is meeting the first objective and failing miserably at the second. Almost all loans sold through the DASP program went to for-profit firms and only a tiny handful (around 3 percent) of families whose loans were sold ended up with deals that kept them in their homes.
For homeowners like the Cheesemans, that failure has real-life consequences. When HUD, through DASP, sold their mortgage to another servicer, the Cheesemans lost their protections under the FHA program mandating an effort to modify the mortgage. Their new servicer, BSI Financial, was under no requirement to consider a mortgage modification. BSI doesn’t even participate in HAMP, a post-bailout program for major banks that facilitates loan modifications to keep families in their homes. The result? The Cheesemans and thousands of other homeowners throughout the country are at serious risk of losing their home.
A recent report, Vulture Capital Hits Home: How HUD is Helping Wall Street and Hurting Our Communities, published by the Right to the City Alliance and Center for Popular Democracy cited serious problems with DASP. First, the current structure of most DASP auctions considers only the highest bid without weighting the bidder’s track record of good outcomes for homeowners and communities. Secondly, the groups found that the current outcome requirements and reporting structure fail to hold purchasers accountable. Third, the current pre-sale certification phase does not ensure that the FHA modification process has been followed.
Organizations called “Community Development Financial Institutions” with a track record of helping consumers stay in their homes stand ready to be a part of an improved version of this program. If a reformed DASP program incentivized it, investors with a social purpose could also make money by negotiating win-win, sustainable mortgage modifications with homeowners.
But community-friendly organizations can’t even get to the table with the auction overheated by well-heeled Wall Street firms and private equity “vulture capital” firms.
When the highest bidder places profits first, homeowners and neighborhoods come last. The result: more and more American homeowners losing their homes to unnecessary foreclosures and more and more corporate landlords leasing homes at rates few of these former homeowners, let alone anyone else, can afford.
All of this is the consequence of a program developed and managed by HUD, a federal agency with a stated mission to advance affordable housing and sustainable communities.
This week, HUD plans to sell off another 15,000 American homes to Wall Street investors. These are 15,000 families, 15,000 neighbors and 15,000 futures. Many if not all of these homeowners will lose their share of the American dream as a result of these auctions.
HUD can and should halt this week’s sale and must implement the necessary reforms that have been proposed by a range of community and advocacy groups.
As we consider the results of the economic collapse and what has been called by some a recovery, it is important to note once again that many neighborhoods, especially in communities of color, haven’t bounced back.
Too often our government has put the interests of Wall Street above the needs of struggling families. HUD can do better by fixing the “Distressed Assets” program now.
Laforest is executive director of the Right To The City Alliance, based in New York City. Whelan is National Campaign director of the Home Defenders League. He lives in Minneapolis.
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An Imperfect Victory for New York Workers
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better...
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better future in sight for families around the state and sends a powerful signal to other states considering wage hikes of their own.
The deal is a testament to the power of organizing. Today’s headlines would be unimaginable just a few years ago. When New York Communities for Change organized the first fast food worker strike – almost four years ago – people thought we were crazy.
As the federal government repeatedly stalled on a meaningful increase to the nationwide minimum wage, it seemed that higher wages were out of reach.
In response, fast-food and other low-wage workers rose up to fight for better wages and a better quality of life, sparking a movement that spread to cities and towns across the nation.
It is no coincidence that the Fight for $15 began right here in New York City. The level of inequality in our city has long been one of the worst of the country – and has grown to historic proportions in recent years.
According to a 2014 Census Bureau survey, the top 5 percent of Manhattan households made 88 times as much as the poorest 20 percent. And as of last year, workers earning minimum wage could not afford median rent in a single neighborhood in New York City.
Wages have long failed to keep pace with the growing cost of living. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute found that the statewide wage of $9.00 per hour was well below what it would be if it had simply kept pace with inflation since 1970. The same study found that, accounting for both inflation and a higher cost of living, the minimum wage today would match its 1970 value if it reached $14.27 per hour this year – nearly the level agreed on by the New York State Legislature.
Governor Cuomo made the right move last year by mandating higher wages for fast-food workers – those on the front lines fighting for reform. But leading industry by industry risked neglecting too many workers. In order to truly create change, the rules must apply equally to everybody. Last week’s deal did that, letting workers across the economy finally dream bigger than the next paycheck.
The deal is a victory for New York City workers. However, it bypasses hard-working families in Upstate New York. While over a million low-wage workers in the city will see their wages rise to $15 per hour by the end of 2018, those in Long Island will only reach $15 in almost six years and those upstate will need to wait five years only to reach $12.50. Although the deal allows wages to rise to $15 after that, the rate will depend on review and inflation and could take years.
It is a painfully long stretch given the growing cost of living north of the city. The New York State Comptroller, for example, has found housing costs skyrocketing, with at least one in five people in every county – including those far upstate like Warren and Monroe – spending more than a third of their salary on rent. In some counties half of residents must spend that much. With added expenses like utilities and food, it leaves little room to save up for college or retirement.
It is imperative that legislators now finish the job and give all New Yorkers a chance at a living wage.
Just days before Albany finalized its deal; California showed us that a $15 wage statewide is possible. Our state must fulfill the promise of Fight for $15 statewide and let all workers adequately provide for themselves and their families. Otherwise New Yorkers will continue doing what they have been doing for almost four years: risking everything to provide a better life for their families.
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By JoEllen Chernow &. Jonathan Westin
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Queens Radio Show Aims to Help Day Laborers Avoid Death or Injury on the Job
Queens Radio Show Aims to Help Day Laborers Avoid Death or Injury on the Job
As a muted telenovela played on a T.V. overhead, Jorge Roldan inched toward the microphone in a basement radio studio...
As a muted telenovela played on a T.V. overhead, Jorge Roldan inched toward the microphone in a basement radio studio in Corona, Queens.
Speaking in Spanish, Roldan, a coordinator at the Laborers’ International Union of North America who is based in Long Island City, reminded his audience, mainly construction workers, that their bosses are obligated to give them respirators when they work on jobs involving airborne contaminants like asbestos.
“New York is an old city – many buildings have asbestos,” he said. “Wash your clothes in two different machines. The asbestos resist everything.”
His advice was standard fare for Sin Fronteras. Since April, the hour-long program has brought together six Latinos weekly to offer advice on a delicate topic for the Latino immigrant community: the exploitation and mistreatment of undocumented laborers.
Translated “Without Frontiers,” the offering is the only public-affairs program of 91.9 Radio Impacto 2, an unlicensed Spanish-language music station founded in 2008 that caters to the Ecuadorian population. Sin Fronteras focuses on worker-safety issues, but also promotes cultural events in the Ecuadorian and Latino community. Its guests have included Queens Assemblyman Francisco Moya and Ecuadorian Consul General Linda Machuca, among other local leaders.
More than 98,000 Ecuadorians live in Queens. Latinos account for over 27 percent of the borough population and are a nearly equal percentage of the construction workers citywide, according to a 2015 report by the New York Committee for Operational Safety & Health, a labor advocacy group. An investigation in 2013 by the non-profit Center for Popular Democracy found that between 2003 to 2011, Latino and/or immigrant workers made up three quarters of fatal falls at construction sites in New York City.
“We don’t want more of our people to die,” said Sin Fronteras’ founder, Rosita Cali, an Ecuadorian immigrant who also co-directs Padres en Acción, an organization in Jackson Heights that offers workplace safety trainings sponsored by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration – known as “OSHA classes.”
“Workers have to protect themselves,” she said. “They have the right to say, ‘no, I’m not going to go on that ladder.’ They have a voice and a vote.”
Juan, a 28-year-old Ecuadorian construction worker, represents the people the program tries to reach. An undocumented immigrant, he said he has been a construction worker since March and makes $17 an hour, nearly one-third more than in his previous job working in a kitchen. But about two months ago, he said, he started feeling sick after working with fiberglass insulation in a building in Brooklyn.
Juan said he asked his construction supervisor for a mask, but was told that there were none available.
“They told us that there weren’t any, that we would have to wait,” said the worker, who asked that his last name not be published. “The day went by, and then the week. How can that be?”
By the end of the week, he said, he had an obstructed sense of smell, body aches and a cough, which his doctor attributed to inhalation of fiberglass.
“When you remove the insulation, the dust rises – even your skin starts to sting,” said Juan.
Christina Fox, the work center coordinator for New Immigrant Community Empowerment, a non-profit based in Jackson Heights, said the Latino laborers she works with often don’t report injuries to their supervisors. She explained that workers might not think their injuries are severe enough or don’t know that they have a right to receive compensation.
Attending a workplace safety class could change this.
“A worker will be able to go to their job, recognize there’s a crack in the retaining wall, stop, and tell their supervisor,” she said. “But low-income workers don’t [always] have the flexibility to leave the job. A lot of workers might enter that risk situation.”
It’s a scenario that Sin Fronteras aims to address. Cali began pushing for more workers’ rights classes several years ago. When she heard in 2013 that the Ecuadorian Consulate was running out of space to host OSHA classes, she offered up the basement of her jewelry store and barbershop in Corona – the same basement where her program is now recorded.
For two months, she said, dozens of immigrants flocked to her shop weekly to learn about their right to report workplace accidents, regardless of legal status.
“When I saw how huge and exaggerated the demand was, I said, ‘this can’t be – we’re going to hold classes in other places,'” recalled Cali.
She created Sin Fronteras to expand the outreach. Like the majority of the hosts on the program, she doesn’t have professional radio experience, but the station’s owners immediately liked the idea of a program that seeks to help the community. The six hosts on Sin Fronteras are all volunteers and include a lawyer who specializes in construction accidents and the founder of Padres en Acción, Ronaldo Bini, who speaks about public-safety measures.
“Because people lack knowledge, they aren’t prepared and lose the chance to build their lives,” said Cali. “We want people to listen to the radio programs and come here and take OSHA classes, scaffold classes for workers’ protection.”
Maria Fernanda Baquerizo, the community relations coordinator at New York’s Ecuadorian Consulate, said that labor abuse is prevalent in the largely undocumented Ecuadorian community in Queens.
“It’s very positive that our community, our immigrants, can listen to important information of where to receive help,” she said. “Because generally the people who are abused at work, the undocumented, think that their employers can abuse them and not pay them wages… Immigrants feel helpless, they feel alone. They don’t know how to move forward.”
By Leila Miller
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From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems...
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems employees do as well. Disgruntled Walgreens employees site poor pay (cashiers are paid just $9 per hour) and other labor issues as major negatives. The Center for Popular Democracy tallied actual employee votes and named Walgreens the worst company in America. They’ve even been accused of promoting employees to salary positions to skirt overtime pay, resulting in employees earning less money per hour than their hourly counterparts.
Read the full article here.
A New Front On Immigration: NY Legislation Would Let Undocumented Vote, Drive
Buzzfeed - June 16, 2014 by Adrian Carrasquillo - New York Democrats announced Monday new legislation that would grant...
Buzzfeed - June 16, 2014 by Adrian Carrasquillo - New York Democrats announced Monday new legislation that would grant state citizenship rights to undocumented immigrants.
The bill could represent a bold new advocacy strategy: using states’ rights to secure legal protections for the undocumented.
York state senator Gustavo Rivera and assembly member Karim Camara’s bill would allow undocumented immigrants to vote, drive, receive professional licenses, run for civil office, and receive Medicaid as well as in-state tuition in New York by making them New York state citizens.
“It’s up to New York to figure out who it’s political community is,” said Peter Markowitz, professor at the Cardozo school of law, who made the legal case for the legislation through the country’s dual-sovereign structure. “New York gets to decide who is and who isn’t a New Yorker. The federal government may not interfere.”
The prospects for federal changes to U.S. immigration law took a hit last week after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s primary election loss, attributed by some as directly the result of attacks by Cantor’s opponent on his immigration record.
Flanked by activists in front of the Statue of Liberty Monday, Rivera struck a positive tone about the bill, called the New York is Home Act.
Immigrants would be eligible to become state citizens if they show proof of identity, proof of three years of New York State residency and proof of three years of New York State tax payments; the bill also requires a commitment to abide by state laws and uphold the state Constitution, and a willingness to serve on New York juries and to keep paying state taxes.
Rivera said the idea has been in the works for two years and called the legislation “bold,” not because of the pieces themselves, but because they are all in one bill.
“This is unlike SB1070,” Rivera told BuzzFeed after the event. “Arizona said, ‘We can do this and affect things on a federal level.’ No, you can’t. But the conversation we need to have is: What rights do we have in a state?”
Spokespeople for Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, the first Latina in the role, said Monday they were reviewing the legislation.
“In light of inaction at the federal government, the administration is interested in learning about local initiatives to increase equality among immigrant communities,” de Blasio deputy press secretary Maibe Ponet said.
“Given congress’s failure to address immigration reform, people are obviously becoming increasingly frustrated, a spokesman for Mark-Viverito said. “[The speaker] is supportive of increasing voting rights and will be reviewing the legislation.”
Cesar Vargas, a DREAMer who has been fighting for the right to practice law as an undocumented immigrant, would benefit from the portion of the legislation that would give licenses for professions like lawyers, doctors, dentists, midwives and others. He said he is set to work with the mayor and the city council speaker to “see how they can support undocumented lawyers.”
“As we stand in front of the Statue of Liberty, we’re reminded of the American Dream, and I’m reminded of the dream of my mother for me to be a lawyer,” Vargas said.
Many sought to draw a parallel between the fight for marriage equality — and its stops and starts over the years.
“This will get a lot of attention for New York,” DREAMer Antonio Alarcon, 19, said. “It will take months to pass, we’re going to be fighting for this like they did for marriage equality.”
“Full equality and inclusion will gain momentum in our time,” said Andrew Friedman, co-executive director of The Center for Popular Democracy.
He said his group is in discussion with four to five other states for similar legislation with the stated goal of putting “another horse in the race” in the way those who fought for marriage equality continued to refine what they were asking for.
Jose Davila, the vice president off policy and government relations at the Hispanic Federation echoed the belief that the legislation comes at an important time for the fight for changing U.S. immigration laws.
“Instead of tear families apart, we should be reframing the debate. What kind of state do we want to be?”
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Advocates of minimum wage hike raise more than $1.4 million
Advocates of minimum wage hike raise more than $1.4 million
Proponents of hiking the state’s minimum wage have already collected more than $1.4 million to put the issue on the...
Proponents of hiking the state’s minimum wage have already collected more than $1.4 million to put the issue on the November ballot and convince voters to support it.
But there’s no word on how much the Arizona Restaurant Association has spent so far trying to keep Proposition 206 from ever getting to voters.
New campaign finance reports due Friday show donations of $1,357,509 to Arizonans for Fair Wages and Health Families, with another $100,000 on loan from campaign consultant Bill Scheel. Most of those dollars — about $900,000 — were spent hiring paid circulators to put the issue on the ballot.
But the secretary of state’s office said Friday it has yet to get a spending report from foes. In fact, spokesman Matt Roberts said foes have not even filed to form a campaign committee, a legal prerequisite for spending any money for or against ballot measures.
There clearly has been some spending.
The restaurant association hired attorneys and filed suit on July 14 in a legal bid, unsuccessful to date, to have the measure removed from the November ballot. And the report due Friday is supposed to cover all expenses through Aug. 18.
Neither Steve Chucri, president of the restaurant group, nor Chiane Hewer, its spokeswoman, returned repeated calls seeking comment.
Roberts said his office has no legal opinion on whether the money spent in court over ballot measures has to be reported. But the legal expenses incurred by initiative supporters are listed, with their report saying the group paid $70,000 to the Torres Law Group to defend them in the lawsuit brought by the restaurant association.
Proposition 206, if approved in November, would immediately hike the state minimum wage from $8.05 an hour now to $10. It would hit $12 an hour by 2020, with future increases linked to inflation.
It also would require companies to provide five days of paid sick leave a year; small employers would have to offer three days.
There is one thing missing, however, from the report by the pro-206 group.
The report shows $998,684 of the donations coming from Living United for Change in Arizona.
But Tomas Robles, former director of LUCHA who is now chairing the campaign, said some of those dollars came from elsewhere. He said the organization has been the beneficiary of funds from groups like the Center for Popular Democracy and the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Robles said, though, that the way Arizona law has been amended by the Republican-controlled legislature does not require detailing the specific donors or the amounts they gave.
While any spending by the restaurant association to date is unknown, the campaign is likely to be overshadowed, at least financially, by the fight over Proposition 205.
That measure would legalize the recreational use of marijuana by all adults; current law limits use of the drug to those who have certain medical conditions, a doctor’s recommendation and a state-issued ID card.
So far the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has amassed more than $3 million in donations.
Of that, $778,950 comes from the Marijuana Policy Project, the national group that funded the successful 2010 campaign for medical marijuana. A separate Marijuana Policy Project Foundation kicked in another $236,572.
Virtually all of the other five- and six-figure donations come from existing medical marijuana dispensaries. Proposition 205 would give them first crack at getting a license for one of the fewer than 150 retail outlets that would be allowed until 2021.
So far the campaign has spent nearly $2.6 million.
The opposition Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy reported collected $950,011 but has spent less than $294,000.
The Arizona Chamber of Commerce is the largest single source of funds for the anti-205 campaign, so far putting in $114,000.
There’s also a $100,000 donation from T. Sanford Denny. He’s the chairman of United National Corp., which Bloomberg says is a privately owned holding company for First Premier Bank.
Another $100,000 was chipped in by Randy Kendrick, wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick.
The new reports also show that a branch of the Service Employees International Union spent $2.1 million in its ill-fated attempt to put a measure on the ballot to cap the compensation of non-medical hospital executives at $450,000 a year. Proponents gave up after a lawsuit was filed contending that many of the people who circulated petitions had not complied with state law, voiding any of the signatures they collected.
By: Howard Fischer
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New Report Details Plans for Low-Wage Worker Justice
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013 - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to work because his...
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013 - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to work because his minimum wage salary doesn't allow for him to afford public transportation, that's a problem.
Low-wage workers across the city have stood up in the past year to demand that such insecurity be eradicated and to pressure employers to finally begin to provide them with just compensation for their labor.
Building on the progress generated by these worker-led movements--in industries such as retail, fast-food, airline security and car washing--UnitedNY, the Center for Popular Democracy and other advocacy groups held a symposium and released a report yesterday analyzing the state of the city's low-wage worker movement.
"It's very difficult to try and make ends meet on $7.25 minimum wage in New York City," Alterique Hall, a worker in the fast-food industry, said during a news conference following the event. "Some nights you want to lay down cry because you [feel] like 'what's the point of going to work and putting all of myself into a job, [if] I'm going to be miserable when I get off work, miserable when I go home...and don't want to wake up and go to work the next day...to get disrespected, treated poorly and paid poorly.'"
Hall, who's been active in the push for fairer wages in the fast-food industry, is the worker who is often forced to embark on the three-hour treks to work. Hall said that his boss will sometimes said him home as a penalty for his tardiness--without considering the ridiculous journey he has to travel just to get to there.
"Working hard, and working as hard as you can, isn't paying off for them," mayoral hopeful and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, said during the news conference. "They're being underemployed, They're being underpaid. They're being taken advantage of. They're being ignored. They're becoming a permanent underclass in the city of New York."
The UnitedNY and CPD report lays out four specific initiatives that workers and advocates must pressure the city to implement in order to help better the plight of low-wage workers. The reports calls on the city and employers to :
[Raise] standards for low-wage workers. [Regulate] high-violation industries where labor abuses are rampant. [Establish] a Mayor's Office of Labor Standards to ensure that employment laws are enforced. [Urge] the State to allow NYC to set a minimum wage higher than the State minimum--due to the higher cost of living in the City.The report pays close attention to the need for City Council to pass the paid sick-leave bill, and increase the minimum wage in the city to $10/hour--a salary that would net a worker with regular hours about $20,000/year in earnings.
"We can't continue to be a Tale of Two Cities, where the path to the middle class keeps fading for thousands of New Yorkers," said New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. "We must break the logjam and pass paid sick leave in the City Council. We have to protect low-wage workers fighting union busting employers. We can't tolerate inaction any longer. It's time for real action to fight for working families."
During one of the symposium workshops, a panel of labor experts discussed the obstacles facing low-wage workers in their fight to obtain such rights.
"[We've] shifted from a General Motors economy to a Wal-Mart economy," Dorian Warren, a professor of public affairs at Columbia University, said during the discussion. "[The job market is filled with] part-time jobs, low wages, no benefits, no social contract, no ability to move up in the job the way 20th century workers were able to."
Warren says that the quality of jobs in the American economy will only decline if something isn't done. He noted that 24 percent of jobs were low-wage in 2009. By 2020, that number is expected to nearly double and hit 40 percent. To make matters worse, technological "advances" are expected to increase unemployment rates by 3-5 percent moving forward.
"We're looking at an economy only of low-wage work in the future, but also of high and permanent levels of unemployment," Warren said.
The panel was moderated by acclaimed labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse of the N.Y. Times and included Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, Deborah Axt, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, M. Patricia Smith, the solicitor of labor for U.S. Department of Labor and Ana Avendano of the AFL-CIO.
Several panelists stressed the need to combat attacks from right-minded forces seeking to erode worker wage and benefit rights. Falcon says that those fighting for worker rights must correct popular narratives, many of which categorize wage and benefit increases for workers as business-killers.
"When we talk about the minimum wage, the immediate response from business is, we're going to lose jobs because, we're only going to be able to hire a few people. We have to have an answer to that objection," Falcon said. "Through raising the minimum wage, you create job growth in terms of people being able to put more money into the economy. You're [putting] less pressure on social welfare systems...the system is still subsidizing business [when the public provides] welfare and other social services."
Warren* argued a similar point.
"I think we have to be much more explicit about targeting the right the way that they've targeted us. There's a reason why the right has gone after public sector unionism," Warren* said. "They know that's where the heart of the labor movement is in terms of funding and in terms of membership. We have to get smarter about which parts of the right do we target to destroy ideologically, organizationally so that we can advance further our movements. "
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3 days ago
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