CPD IN THE NEWS

The Center for Popular Democracy reports that 18 percent of women have upper-management positions, even though they make up 60 percent of first-line supervisors. People of color, namely black and Latino, are also delegated to low-level, low-paying positions, such as cashiering. Older, experienced employees often do not receive benefits or long-term rewards, according to The Washington Post.

Read the full article here.

Fox News Latino – October 24, 2013 -

A disproportional number of Latino construction workers in New York City die while on the job compared to their coworkers of other races, according to a new report.

From 2003 to 2011, three-fourths of construction workers who died were either U.S.-born Latinos or immigrants, according to a review of all of the fatal falls on the job investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency of the federal Labor Department.

“The data we have demonstrates that Latinos and immigrants are more likely to die in these types of accidents,” Connie Razza, from the Center for Popular Democracy, which compiled the report, told the New York Daily News.

Construction safety advocates and a study by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association cited safety violations on job sites run by smaller, non-union contractors and an unwillingness by some undocumented workers to report violations as main reasons for the high number of deaths among Latino workers.

“Contractors aren’t taking simple steps to protect their workers,” said Razza. “They are not providing the training and the safety equipment that are required by law.”

While New York may have a surprisingly high number of deaths of Latino construction workers, numbers nationwide for Hispanic deaths on the jobs are also greater than any other group.

OSHA reported that 749 Latino workers were killed from work-related injuries in 2011— more than 14 deaths a week or two Latino workers killed every single day of the year. While 12 percent of all fatal work injuries in 2011 involved contractor work, Latinos made up 28 percent of fatal work injuries among contractors — well above their 16 percent share of all fatal work injuries in 2011.

Advocacy groups in New York are working to combat any changes to the state’s scaffolding law, which organizations like Razza’s the Center for Popular Democracy say gives incentive to keep workplaces safe.

Contractors argue that the law, which holds owners and contractors who did not follow safety rules fully liable for workplace injuries and deaths, has caused their insurance costs to skyrocket.

New York lawmakers, however, has historically blocked any of the proposed changes to the law.

“All we’re looking for is the ability to have the same right as anybody else would in the American jurisprudence system,” said Louis J. Coletti, president and CEO of the Building Trades Employers’ Association.

Source

Source: In These Times

The National Retail Federation is fond of pointing out that “retail means jobs.” And it’s true: the retail industry today provides one in ten private-sector jobs in the U.S., a number set to grow in the next decade.  

Yet new findings show those jobs may be keeping retail workers and their families from rising up the career ladder, exacerbating our country’s growing inequality. The findings from the Center for Popular Democracy demonstrate that, for women and people of color especially, working in retail often means instability and low pay. Both groups make up the lion’s share of cashiers, movers, and other poorly paid positions and barely figure in the upper ranks of management. In general merchandise—including big-box stores such as Target and Wal-Mart—women hold more than 80 percent of cashier jobs, the lowest-paid position. And in the food and beverage industry, women make up approximately half of the workforce but less than a fifth of managers.

People of color in the retail industry are often relegated to the least lucrative jobs as well. In home and garden stores like Home Depot and Lowes, for example, employees of color account for 24 percent of the total workforce—but 36 percent of jobs that pay least.

The findings are especially disappointing given the opportunities available for those who succeed. Certain areas of retail, such as home and garden stores and car dealers, offer living wages to workers—but both women and people of color are largely shut out of these sub-sectors. And management jobs across the industry provide wages and benefits that can allow workers to support themselves and their families—but they are closed off to many.

Reducing these disparities will take more than a bigger paycheck. Retailers must make a concerted effort to establish policies that ensure women and people of color are equally represented in management positions and develop more robust training programs for workers just starting out that give them the chance to advance.

Many retailers have training policies in place, but they can be far from meaningful. Wal-Mart, for example, recently announced it was raising wages to $10, dependent on completion of a six-month training program—an onerous requirement to earn a pitifully low wage that lags well behind the retail sector average. Real training can introduce employees to a range of job duties and responsibilities, incentivizing them to learn specialized skills that allow workers to pick up shifts, advance to higher-paying positions, and bring home a full-time paycheck. Sectors like finance long ago recognized internal barriers to promotion and created programs to promote equal opportunity. Why do we not expect the same of retail?

Retailers that lack such programs, from Walmart to Gristedes, have faced multi-million-dollar class-action lawsuits from women harmed by policies that prevented them from moving upward. Companies that fail to enact real advancement policies can expect similar pushback. 

Moreover, workers at the lowest levels are doubly punished with erratic, last-minute scheduling that wreaks havoc on their lives. These schedules are particularly difficult for women. Unable to find childcare at the last minute or unwilling to miss bedtime every night, moms in retail are often deemed ineligible for promotion. Ironically, climbing up the job ladder is the only way to obtain stable hours that let working women and their families thrive.

As these practices have grown worse, many workers have started fighting back, demanding schedules that let them plan their lives, be there for their families and pursue education.

Facing outside pressure, policymakers have also stepped in and accelerated the pace of change. Retailers demonstrated how fast they could change last year when they received a letter from New York’s Attorney General into their use of on-call scheduling. Within months, major retailers like The Gap agreed to significant reforms—and a quarter of a million workers no longer had to put their life on hold for a shift.

State and city policymakers are also leading the way to raise workplace standards, pursuing policies to raise wages to $15 per hour, secure improved work schedules, and guarantee earned sick time. Creating higher-paying, more secure retail jobs will boost the economy, as the low-income retail workforce will likely use any additional earnings to cover basic expenses.

Yet if industry leaders want retail to mean good jobs, they must step up to the plate.  Retail workers are the neighbors who shop in our local small businesses; parents trying to help their kids with homework; students working their way through college.  It’s clear that retail jobs are holding too many women and people of color back.  Rather than superficial fixes, we need bold solutions that move all retail workers forward and allow their families to thrive. 

Art Jackson was diagnosed with HIV in 1989 and given three years to live. Almost 30 years later, the social worker entered the offices of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) — and began shouting that the Republicans’ Senate health care bill must be defeated.

“I’ve lived each day I’ve been given to speak for other who can’t,” said Jackson, 52, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Monday afternoon minutes before entering Burr’s office with about 10 other activists from his home state. “We have to stop this.”

Read the full article here.