Left takes aim at the Federal Reserve
Liberal activists are putting a target on the Federal Reserve for the 2016 elections, much to the delight of the Bernie...
Liberal activists are putting a target on the Federal Reserve for the 2016 elections, much to the delight of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Denouncing an agenda that they say tilts toward Wall Street, members of the “Fed Up” coalition on Monday unveiled a set of reforms that would alter how the central bank does business.
“No longer are we focused only on fixing the Fed’s monetary policy and internal governance positions,” said Ady Barkan, the group’s campaign director. “We are now beginning an effort to reform the Federal Reserve itself.
“Ask all of the presidential candidates what their plans are for the Federal Reserve,” he added in a call with reporters.
While touting its reform proposals, the group was joined Monday by a top policy official with Sanders, who has made criticism of Wall Street a cornerstone of his presidential bid.
Warren Gunnels, Sanders’s policy director, said the Democratic candidate was not yet ready to endorse the coalition’s proposal, needing more time to review it.
But Sanders has pitched his own Fed reforms, and Gunnels said the Vermont senator is “very passionate” about overhauling how the Fed does business. Gunnels said the central bank should delay raising rates any time soon.
“The Fed should not raise interest rates until unemployment is lower than 4 percent,” he said. “Raising rates must be done as a last resort, not to fight phantom inflation.”
The “Fed Up” coalition said it had reached out to every remaining presidential campaign with its reform proposal. None of the Republican campaigns responded, but the group has had “very substantive conversations” with staffers to Hillary Clinton, according to Barkan.
“We urge Secretary Clinton to show leadership on this issue and hope that she will soon be coming out with her plan to reform the Federal Reserve,” he told The Hill.
Clinton’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The leftward pressure on the Fed is coming at a critical time.
The bank is trying to step back from intense stimulus it injected into the economy after the financial crisis. It raised rates for the first time in nearly a decade in December, but so far has opted not to raise them any further at subsequent meetings.
Looming over its deliberations is the presidential election. The central bank prides itself on its political independence, and any major decisions in the months to come could expose it to charges it is working to benefit one party or the other.
While many economic indicators are improving, many community groups like Fed Up argue that many middle-class and working-class Americans are feeling none of those gains. They point to stagnant wage growth and a low labor participation rate as evidence that the Fed has ample reason to continue boosting the economy.
The coalition’s reform proposal was written by Andrew Levin, a Dartmouth economist who spent two decades at the Fed, including time as a special adviser to Fed chiefs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen.
While most conservative critiques of the Fed center on how it conducts monetary policy, Levin focuses most of his fire on the dozen regional Fed banks scattered across the country.
Levin argues that the regional institutions are undemocratic entities that hand bank executives huge influence at the Fed. The regional banks are directly backed by commercial banks, which occupy most of the seats on each regional bank’s board. In turn, those boards pick each regional Fed president, who at some point will hold a rotating spot on the Fed’s board, which handles the nation’s interest rates.
Under Levin’s plan, regional Fed banks would have to solicit public input when selecting their presidents. Regional banks would be required to put together a list of candidates through input from both the public and public officials from their specific region. The plan calls for Fed banks to emphasize diversity, considering candidates across a range of racial, gender and educational backgrounds.
Levin highlighted that in the 100-year history of the Federal Reserve system, there has never been a black head of a Fed regional bank.
The unveiling of the reform plan came on the same day that Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen met privately with President Obama to discuss the central bank’s work and the state of the economy.
High-ranking Republicans have been critical of the Fed, particularly for the unprecedented stimulus program it carried out under Bernanke. Top GOP candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have accused the Fed of harming the economy with its efforts, and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has also been a frequent critic of the bank.
Sanders occupies a fairly unique political position when it comes to the Fed. He was one of just two Democrats to back a vote earlier this year on a Republican bill that would subject the central bank to a full outside review.
Did you know 67% of all job growth comes from small businesses? Read More
Separately, Sanders has also pushed to “Audit the Fed,” and the Levin plan also includes a comprehensive annual review of the Fed’s operations.
The Vermont senator has floated his own Fed reform proposal, arguing in a December piece in The New York Times that the institution has been “hijacked” by bankers. His plan would limit the influence of the financial sector on selecting Fed officials and require the Fed to prioritize unemployment when considering interest rates.
Fed officials have repeatedly resisted any efforts to change how it does business, frequently arguing that changes could render the central bank ineffective or subject it to improper political pressure.
By Peter Schroeder
Source
America Has Become A Tyranny of the Few - But We Can Fight It
America Has Become A Tyranny of the Few - But We Can Fight It
We’re in the thick of the second post-Citizens United presidential campaign, and it’s already clear that allowing...
We’re in the thick of the second post-Citizens United presidential campaign, and it’s already clear that allowing unlimited funds to influence political elections was a terrible idea.
Half of the funds supporting presidential candidates from both parties comes from a mere 158 families — a miniscule percentage of America’s 120 million households — as documented by a recent New York Times investigation. Largely white, older, male, and Republican, they are also unrepresentative of what our multicultural society looks like.
As a result of this narrow group of donors controlling what’s on the political agenda, America has a fundamentally undemocratic system in which working class people and people of color are left on the margins, silenced in a political debate, they can’t gain access to — because they don’t have millions to share.
America has become a tyranny of the few, and Americans are fed up with the broken system. Last week, voters in Maine elected to increase funding from $2 million to $3 million for the Clean Elections Fund, which provides government grants to candidates who agree to limit their spending and private fundraising. It might be a long time before Citizens United is overturned. In the interim, it’s important that other states introduce similar legislation challenging existing financing models.
The tyranny of the few is two-pronged, however. Not only are our elected leaders being held accountable to wealthy donors instead of the people of our nation, the least privileged of this nation are simultaneously facing strong barriers to voting.
Our antiquated voter registration system results in roughly 62 million eligible voters not registered, either because they never registered or their registration information is incorrect. In a 2008 Current Population Survey, blacks and Latinos cited “difficulties with the registration process” as their main reason for not registering to vote. Whites disproportionately reported not registering because they were “not interested in elections or politics.” Barriers to voting registration are in many states especially well in place for people of color, workers and youth, who are targeted by voter suppression laws.
We could put an end to the error-ridden old-fashioned manual voter registration and step into the 21st century with automatic voter registration. Other states could follow the example set by California and Oregon, which are linking voter registration to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Through linking voter registration with public offices such as the DMV, revenue agencies, the Postal Service and others, the United States could secure over 56 million more voters, as a report from Center for Popular Democracy shows.
So to sum up: people of color and working class Americans aren’t just unable to place millions of dollars with politicians who will take care of them in Congress, they aren’t even able to vote for leaders who might serve their interests.
The outcome? Our America has become an oligarchy run by a tiny and overly privileged section of its population, whose lives and wishes for our nation are in stark opposition to the lives and dreams of the average American.
This is borne out in our legislation. Despite overwhelming public support for policies such as taxing those who earn more than $1 million a year, and laws that address inequality, workers’ rights, and protection of the middle class, we see the footprints of corporate powers all over our legislation.
We need to act fast by passing laws that disrupt this undemocratic cycle. We must break Congress’ dependency on big money and return the power to the people, but we can’t only rely on our lawmakers to change our nation.
It will take a lot of work, but we can’t allow for this undemocratic oligarchy to go on. Let’s not leave the future of our country in the hands of the wealthiest, let’s instead bring back democracy to our nation.
Source: Common Dreams
New Layers of Dirt on Charter Schools
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An earlier review identified the "Three Big Sins of Charter Schools": fraud, a lack of transparency, and the exclusion of unwanted students. The evidence against charters continues to grow. Yet except for its reporting on a few egregious examples of charter malfeasance and failure, the mainstream media continues to echo the sentiments of privatization-loving billionaires who believe their wealth somehow equates to educational wisdom.
The Wall Street Journal, in its misinformed way, says that the turnaround of public schools requires "increasing options for parents, from magnet to charter schools." Wrong. As the NAACP affirms, our nation needs "free, high-quality, fully and equitably-funded public education for all children." For all children, not just a select few.
The NAACP has called for a moratorium on charter schools. And Diane Ravitch makes a crucial point: "Would [corporate reformers] still be able to call themselves leaders of the civil rights issue of our time if the NAACP disagreed with their aggressive efforts to privatize public schools?"
Here are the four big sins of charter schools, updated by a surge of new evidence:
1. Starve the Beast
Corporate-controlled spokesgroups ALEC, US Chamber of Commerce, and Americans for Prosperity are drooling over school privatization and automated classrooms, with a formula described by The Nation: "Use standardized tests to declare dozens of poor schools 'persistently failing'; put these under the control of a special unelected authority; and then have that authority replace the public schools with charters." But as aptly expressed by Jeff Bryant, "As a public school loses a percentage of its students to charters, the school can’t simply cut fixed costs for things like transportation and physical plant proportionally...So instead, the school cuts a program or support service."
It's an insidious and ongoing process, aided and abetted by business-friendly mainstream media outlets, to convince Americans that "every family for itself" is better than the mutual support and cooperation of a public school system.
2. Cream and Segregate and Discard
Urban charter schools primarily enroll low-income minority students. That seems admirable upon first reflection, but selective admissions of the best students from ANY community will make an individual school look good, leading to the belief that the concept will work on a larger scale. Success is much harder to achieve if a school accommodates special needs and English-learner students.
Numerous sources reveal the high degree of segregation in charter schools -- white or black, and by income and special need.
As expressed in the report "Failing the Test," "School choice is just that — except that charter schools are doing the choosing instead of communities."
It gets worse. Prominent New York charter network Success Academy has been accused of "counseling out" students who are low-performing or disruptive or otherwise difficult to teach. Even worse are charters that shut down, stranding hundreds of students, while their business operators can just move on to their next project. Nearly 2,500 charter schools closed their doors from 2001 to 2013, leaving over a quarter of a million kids temporarily without a school.
3. Scream 'Public' to Get Tax Money, Plead 'Private' to Hide Salary Data
Charter schools are increasingly run by private companies, or by private trusts. The National Labor Relations Board affirms that charters are private, not public.
As private entities, they are unregulated and lacking in transparency, and, as concluded by the Center for Media and Democracy, they have become a "black hole" into which the federal government has dumped an outrageous $3.7 billion over two decades with little accountability to the public.
4. Engage in "Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Mismanagement"
That's how the Center for Popular Democracy describes charter performance in 2015, during which the schools wasted an estimated $1.4 billion of taxpayer money. The fraud is far-reaching, with examples from around the country:
The Department of Education audited 33 charter schools and concluded: "We determined that charter school relationships with CMOs (charter management organizations) posed a significant risk to Department program objectives."
In California, charter performance is so poor that even the National Association of Charter Authorizers is calling on the state to better control the authorization of such schools. At present, there are almost no restrictions on opening a charter school, and existing schools are restrictive in their enrollment policies.
Because of charters, Michigan cities have lost nearly half (46.5%) of their revenue over the past 10 years. Detroit, which is surpassed only by New Orleans in the number of charter students, half of the charter schools perform only as well as, or worse than, traditional public schools. A federal study found an "unreasonably high" number of charters among the lowest-rated public schools in the state.
In Louisiana, according to the Center for Popular Democracy, "charter schools have experienced millions in known losses from fraud and financial mismanagement so far, which is likely just the tip of the iceberg."
According to PR Watch, Florida "has one of the worst records in the nation when it comes to fraud and lack of charter school oversight." Texas has an unknown number of charters housed in churches. Nine charters in Washington remain open despite being declared unconstitutional by the state's Supreme Court.
Ohio might be worst of all. Since the 2006-07 school year, 37 percent of the state's charter schools receiving federal grants have either closed or never opened. An Ohio newspaper reported, "No sector – not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals – misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio."
The Big Picture
Despite student selection advantages, charter schools generally perform no better than public schools, according to the most recent CREDO study and as summarized by the nonpartisan Spencer Foundation and Public Agenda: "There is very little evidence that charter and traditional public schools differ meaningfully in their average impact on students' standardized test performance." As for technology-based schools, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools admits that "The well-documented, disturbingly low performance by too many full-time virtual charter public schools should serve as a call to action to state leaders and authorizers across the country."
Charter schools have turned our children into the products of businesspeople. Americans need to know how important it is to get the profit motive out of education, and to provide ALL our children the same educational opportunities.
By Paul Buchheit
Source
Por qué la ciudad de Nueva York es una ciudad santuario modelo
Tras meses esperanza de que Donald Trump daría marcha atrás respecto a sus promesas de campaña contra los inmigrantes,...
Tras meses esperanza de que Donald Trump daría marcha atrás respecto a sus promesas de campaña contra los inmigrantes, lo opuesto ha sucedido. En las primeras semanas después de asumir el mando, Trump les ha declarado la guerra a los inmigrantes y ha prometido construir un muro en la frontera, aumentar las deportaciones y no dejar entrar a refugiados.
Su programa de gobierno va en contra de todo lo que este país valora y todo lo que la ciudad de New York siempre ha defendido. El compromiso de nuestra ciudad con los inmigrantes es el núcleo de nuestra identidad. Respetamos a los inmigrantes, apoyamos sus aspiraciones y trabajamos arduamente para que sean parte de la esencia de esta ciudad.
Como tal, la ciudad de Nueva York se considera desde hace mucho tiempo una “ciudad santuario”, donde las agencias locales de la ley se rehúsan a ser forzadas a cumplir políticas de inmigración del gobierno federal que perjudican a sus comunidades. Dichas políticas están en vigor desde hace varias décadas. Incluso Rudy Giuliani, cuando fue alcalde, defendió ardientemente las leyes que prohibían que los empleadores de la ciudad de Nueva York reportaran la situación inmigratoria de los neoyorquinos inmigrantes.
Cientos de ciudades, estados y condados siguen políticas similares. Entre ellos se encuentran algunas de las más grandes ciudades del país, como también pueblitos al interior de los estados donde ganó Trump. Las razones son las mismas: las políticas de santuario mantienen a las ciudades más seguras y prósperas al no forzar a los inmigrantes a la clandestinidad y permitirles aportar y llevar vidas plenas.
En años recientes, la ciudad de Nueva York ha ido incluso más lejos. Por medio del trabajo de muchas organizaciones de defensa, incluidas Make the Road New York y el Center for Popular Democracy, los líderes municipales han puesto en vigor una serie de programas que ayudan a los inmigrantes a tener una vida más segura y próspera, y que benefician a la ciudad de muchas maneras.
Por ejemplo, en el año 2014, el alcalde De Blasio dio inicio a IDNYC, el más extenso programa municipal de identificación en el país. Permite que los inmigrantes indocumentados abran cuentas de banco y tengan acceso a servicios sociales necesarios. Tiene un alcance de más de 850,000 personas y se ha hecho popular con una gran variedad de neoyorquinos, entre ellos muchos que no son inmigrantes (como yo).
La ciudad también ofrece excelente acceso lingüístico a los neoyorquinos que aún se encuentran en el proceso de aprender inglés, lo que incluye vitales servicios de interpretación y traducción en todas las agencias de la ciudad para los residentes que necesitan acceso a valiosos servicios municipales.
Para los residentes que enfrentan la traumática posibilidad de deportación y separación de sus familiares, la ciudad también ha creado un innovador programa a fin de proporcionar a los neoyorquinos en procesos migratorios acceso a abogados que tienen mucha experiencia en la defensa contra la deportación. Los clientes del programa tienen probabilidades aproximadamente 1,000 por ciento más altas de ganar sus casos de inmigración que quienes no tienen representación legal.
Con estas medidas, a la ciudad de Nueva York realmente ha elevado el estándar para otras ciudades en todo el país. Y ha sido beneficioso para toda la ciudad. Hoy en día, nuestra economía se encuentra en auge, la tasa de criminalidad es la más baja de la historia, y un nivel récord de turistas de todo el mundo vienen en masa. La protección de nuestros inmigrantes solo ha tenido consecuencias positivas para la ciudad de New York.
Seguiremos esforzándonos por lograr medidas de política que faciliten que los inmigrantes trabajen y vivan en la ciudad de Nueva York, y haremos todo lo posible para alentar a otras ciudades a que sigan nuestro ejemplo. A juzgar por el número de ciudades que se están pronunciando y declarándose santuarios tras los crueles e insensatos decretos ejecutivos de Trump, parece que el ejemplo de Nueva York ya está surtiendo efecto.
By Andrew Friedman
Source
Tipped Workers Fight for Higher Wages
Amsterdam News - July 17, 2014, by Stephon Johnson - Last week, a new coalition of food delivery workers, low-wage...
Amsterdam News - July 17, 2014, by Stephon Johnson - Last week, a new coalition of food delivery workers, low-wage tipped workers and women’s rights leaders across New York called for an end to subminimum wages for tipped workers. This campaign begins right when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is preparing to appoint a Wage Board charged with recommending an increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers.
The broad coalition fighting for subminimum wage workers includes Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy, Fast Food Forward, the Labor-Religion Coalition, the National Employment Law Project, New York Communities for Change, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, Strong for All, United New York and other community groups.
On July 10, Domino’s delivery workers rallied outside of a Manhattan Domino’s restaurant to call for an end to subminimum wages for tipped workers, citing wage theft, and demanding an administrative wage order that requires companies to directly pay tipped workers the state’s minimum wage, with tips as an addition.
“The public might think we do well, but the reality is that many times we don’t even get a tip,” said Alfredo Franco, a tipped Domino’s delivery worker in New York City. “Delivery fees are often confused with a tip for the drivers. We never see a penny of that. Many of us have to work two or three jobs just to get by, sacrificing everything, including time with our families. We need a reliable income. The tipped [sub]minimum wage has to go.”
According to a report released on July 9 by the National Employment Law Project, a wage order eliminating the tipped subminimum wage would benefit close to 229,000 low-wage tipped workers in New York. Women make up more than 70 percent of the low-wage work force. The wage order would benefit working women and, according to the report, make progress in addressing the gender pay gap in New York.
Michael Stewart, executive director of United NY, released a statement championing the NELP’s report. “As New York faces one of the worst economic inequality crises in the nation, it should put an end to the subminimum wage for tipped workers that leaves so many of our neighbors living in extreme poverty,” said Stewart. “The minimum wage is already too low. Allowing employers to pay below it does further damage to workers and our economy.”
As a result of legislation signed by Cuomo last year, New York’s minimum wage is scheduled to go up to $9 an hour by Dec. 31, 2015, and the minimum wage for tipped food service workers is still stuck at $5 an hour, with tipped hotel workers earning slightly more at $5.65 an hour.
Zenaida Mendez, president of the National Organization for Women of New York State, said the gender pay gap needs to close, and no longer allowing the subminimum wage for tipped workers would help it along.
“The poverty rate for waitresses is three times the rate for the American workforce as a whole,” said Mendez. “For this reason, the National Organization for Women is seeking to eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers. This pay inequality must end.”
Source
After the Las Vegas Shooting, Taking on Myths About Gun Control
After the Las Vegas Shooting, Taking on Myths About Gun Control
Nearly 60 people were killed and more than 500 injured in the worst mass shooting in modern US history on Sunday night...
Nearly 60 people were killed and more than 500 injured in the worst mass shooting in modern US history on Sunday night, early Monday morning in Las Vegas at a concert. As details are still emerging about the suspected shooter, we’ll take on the issue of gun control and the myths of the gun industry with Dennis Henigan. Then, we’ll turn to the situation in Puerto Rico. Samy Olivares of the Center for Popular Democracy will give us a report on the on-going slow-motion disaster unfolding in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and how mainland Americans can help. Finally, author George Monbiot joins us from London to discuss his new book Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. Hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar.
Listen to the story here.
Who’s running our schools anyway?
After reading about Gov. Walker’s plan to close some Green Bay public schools and replace them with charters, I’m...
After reading about Gov. Walker’s plan to close some Green Bay public schools and replace them with charters, I’m beginning to believe the takeover of our public schools by big business and legislators like Walker is proceeding very well.
They say our public schools are failing. That’s not fully true. Some are, but it’s because of poverty. We don’t fund them adequately to overcome student poverty-related problems.
No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core were composed and implemented by Bill Gates and other member of the 1 percent without input from parents, teachers of early childhood students and early education experts.
The educational expectations, of especially very young children, are causing children great stress, enough to make them throw up, cry and get sick. The standardized testing by Pearson (a British multinational corporation) is a hoax. It has no background in education or teaching children. Its record of mistakes in the test questions, correcting tests, and delivering them on time is dismal.
I remember in the ’70s standardized testing was dropped all over the country because the tests were considered an inaccurate method of measuring the whole learning process. They basically measure memorization. Now they’re back and they’re quick, inaccurate and expensive.
The complaint of parents, teachers, children and administrators are growing louder because of excessive homework. Health care professionals are saying the stress of overburdening students causing sleeping problems is unhealthy. The curriculum being used now relies on demand-and-push as a method of teaching. I call it abusive because that method doesn’t respect the personhood of the student who becomes a yes person, not a creator.
In my teaching experience, I found children love to learn if they are presented with material they are mentally, physically and developmentally ready for.
We had a school in De Pere called the Wisconsin International School. It left with very little notice to parents and children. Teachers were out paychecks. A friend lost nearly $1,000 she paid as a retainer fee for the next year. They are suing but to little avail.
A year ago, the Center for Popular Democracy issued a report demonstrating “charter schools in 15 states ... had experienced over $100 million in reported fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. Now there are millions of new alleged and confirmed cases of financial waste, fraud, and mismanagement reported.”
But we don’t yet have the necessary law to protect us from dishonesty in charter schools. How come?
Sen. Dave Hansen said, “Wisconsin taxpayers cannot afford to pay for two systems, much less a system of private schools that are not held accountable for providing their students quality education.”
We need our public schools to care for all our students. Finland, a world leader in education, manages it with great success.
Peggy Burns of Green Bay has a bachelor’s degree in kindergarten-primary education, a master’s degree in elementary eduction and 24 graduate credits in early childhood/educational exceptional needs.
Source: Green Bay Press Gazette
Payday lenders must be stopped from preying on the poor: Guest commentary
Payday lenders must be stopped from preying on the poor: Guest commentary
Payday lending has come under attack in recent years for exploiting low-income borrowers and trapping them in a cycle...
Payday lending has come under attack in recent years for exploiting low-income borrowers and trapping them in a cycle of debt. The problem has grown to such an extent that last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed new rules to rein in the most egregious abuses by payday lenders.
Yet payday lenders are not alone in profiting from the struggles of low-income communities with deceptive loans that, all too often, send people into crushing debt. In fact, such targeting has grown common among industries ranging from student loan providers to mortgage lenders.
For decades, redlining denied black people and other communities of color access to mortgages, bank accounts and other important services. Today, black and brown women are similarly being “pinklined” with lending schemes that deny them the opportunity for a better life.
A recent report underlines the toll these practices have taken on women of color. Among other alarming statistics, the report shows that 6 out of 10 payday loan customers are women, that black women were 256 percent more likely than their white male counterparts to receive a subprime loan, and that women of color are stuck paying off student debt for far longer than men. It also shows that aggressive lending practices from payday lending to subprime mortgages have grown dramatically in recent years.
In Los Angeles, debt is a dark cloud looming over the lives of thousands of low-income women all over the city.
Barbara took over the mortgage for her family’s home in South Central Los Angeles in 1988. She had a good job working for Hughes Aircraft until she was injured on the job in 1999 and took an early retirement. To better care for an aging mother living with her, she took out a subprime loan for a bathroom renovation.
The interest rate on the new loan steadily climbed, until she could barely afford to make monthly payments. She took out credit cards just to stay afloat, burying her under an even higher mountain of debt. To survive, she asked her brother to move in, while her son also helped out with the bills.
Numerous studies have shown that borrowers with strong credit — especially black women and Latinas — were steered toward subprime loans even when they could qualify for those with lower rates.
Women of color pay a massive price for such recklessness. The stress of dealing with debt hurts women in a variety of ways.
Alexandra, a former military officer, lost her partner, the father to her daughter, after a protracted struggle with ballooning subprime loan payments. The credit card debt she needed to take out as a result threatened her health, leaving her with hair loss, neck pain and sleep deprivation. She eventually needed to file for bankruptcy to settle the debt.
Women of color are vulnerable to dubious lenders because structural racism and sexism already puts far too many women in economically vulnerable positions. The low-wage workforce is dominated by women, and the gender pay gap is significantly worse for women of color. Many women of color are forced to take out loans just to survive or to try to improve their desperate situations.
Predatory lending practices, and other corporate practices that deny communities opportunities and exploit the most economically vulnerable, have been allowed to proliferate for far too long. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began taking action on payday and car title loans last month, but more needs to be done.
Regulators must ensure all lending takes into account the borrower’s ability to repay, and that lenders do not disproportionately target and attempt to profit off of the least protected.
The payday lending rules acted on last month are a step in the right direction but don’t go nearly far enough. We have a lot of work ahead of us to ensure black and Latina women are not exploited by the 21st century version of redlining.
Marbre Stahly-Butts is deputy director of Racial Justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, of which Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment is an affiliate.
By Marbre Stahly-Butts
Source
ABQ call center workers get more family-friendly workplace rules
More than workers at Albuquerque’s T-Mobile call center began working under new workplace rules this week. The company...
More than workers at Albuquerque’s T-Mobile call center began working under new workplace rules this week. The company has been under increasing pressure to modify work rules to give workers greater flexibility to balance family and work requirements.
The company operates a nationwide call center near Jefferson and Menaul in Albuquerque and recently announced plans to add more employees top the more than 1,500 local workers already employed at the site.
News of the new workplace rules came from the Communications Workers of America which has been leading efforts with local organizations for these changes:
For Immediate Release July 2, 2015
Public Pressure Pushes T-Mobile US to Provide Fairer Paid Parental Leave Policy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Responding to growing public pressure and local government initiatives, T-Mobile US announced this week that it would be adopt a paid parental leave program. The company also said it would end an oppressive policy that required call center workers to be on the phone 96.5% of their work time, leaving them with virtually no time for follow up on customer issues or to make changes in customers’ accounts as needed.
This is great news for workers who often must struggle to balance family and career. It comes as workers at T-Mobile US and a coalition of community supporters in cities like Albuquerque, N.M., step up efforts to restore a fair workweek and achieve other improvements for workers.
Members of TU, the union of T-Mobile workers, the Communications Workers of America and many organizations, including the Center for Popular Democracy, OLÉ and other coalition partners, have been raising concerns about unfair scheduling and other issues for workers at T-Mobile US and other employers. Workers want a voice in the decisions that affect them in their workplace — not just the ones that the company selectively picks and chooses. That’s why T-Mobile US workers are joining TU.
T-Mobile US’s initial scheduling changes were made just as the Albuquerque City Council was moving forward to consider a proposal to implement paid sick leave and scheduling improvements. The Albuquerque coalition hosted a town hall meeting on irregular scheduling, where Albuquerque City Council members pledged to support their fight for a fair workweek including the right to take sick leave without retaliation.
A recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision found T-Mobile guilty of engaging in illegal employment policies that prevented workers from even talking to each other about problems on the job. The judge ordered the company to rescind those policies and inform all 46,000 employees about the verdict.
Parental leave is a good first step toward helping workers balance their career and family responsibilities. But workers want real bargaining rights and the right to fairly choose union representation. That’s what T-Mobile must realize.
Source: The New Mexico Political Report
Economic Inequality: Safe Words, at Last
OZY - December 23, 2013, by Pooja Bhatia - For decades, talk about economic inequality was taboo. Those who tried were...
OZY - December 23, 2013, by Pooja Bhatia - For decades, talk about economic inequality was taboo. Those who tried were met with accusations of sour grapes, inciting class warfare, or — gasp! — advocating socialism.
But such rhetorical bludgeons appear to have lost force in recent years, and words like “inequality” and “economic fairness” have at last found a place at the table of mainstream American political discourse. It’s not quite the head of the table, but it’s not the servants’ quarters either.
Words like “inequality” and “economic fairness” have at last found a place at the table of mainstream American political discourse.
“The core issue of economic justice has been getting more traction now than during most of my time in organizing,” says Andrew Friedman, who’s been a progressive organizer for more than 15 years and now co-directs the Center for Popular Democracy in New York. Derecka Mehrens, executive director of labor-oriented think tank Working Partnerships USA in San Jose, Calif., agrees: “There’s been a sea change in how and even whether we talk about inequality.”
The signs are everywhere. In his November apostolic exhortation, the pope warned of the “tyranny” of unfettered capitalism and called “an economy of exclusion and inequality” sinful. Clear majorities of Americans support hiking the minimum wage and other policies that aim to reduce the wealth gap. Earlier this month, President Obama positioned inequality and lack of social mobility as the “defining issue of our time.” Mayors-elect of major cities all made economic inequality central to their platforms. And this year’s National Book Award for nonfiction went to George Packer’s The Unwinding, which chronicles rising social and economic inequality in the United States.
Inequality talk is no longer off-limits for a simple reason: The lot of many has stagnated or worsened over the past decade, in some cases severely.
Some credit the 2011 Occupy movements for popularizing economic inequality. (Or blame it, depending on their perspective.) But the main reason inequality talk is no longer off-limits is probably simpler: The lot of many has stagnated or worsened over the past decade, in some cases severely. Some 10 million people lost their homes in the Great Recession. Although unemployment is at a five-year low, the decline is partly because many have stopped looking for work.
As OZY noted a few weeks ago, the lag between technical “recovery” and job growth is lengthening, and these days it’s lingering four to five years. No wonder the Great Recession’s rough ride seems endless. Moreover, while worker productivity has increased over the past decade, real wages have stagnated or declined — leaving the average worker to wonder just where the gains from productivity are going.
“They hear the news that the stock market is climbing and say, Oh really?” Mehrens says.
Lovely A. Warren won election as mayor of Rochester last month with a campaign lamenting what she called the “two Rochesters,” challenged by crime and poverty, but also boasting prosperous neighborhoods.
Economic inequality has been growing since at least the early 1980s. But it was harder to complain about during the Clinton years, when broad-based growth lifted all boats, yachts and dinghies alike. Economic inequality grew during the Bush years too, but those were the days of subprime homeownership and plasma TVs for all. Five years after the collapse of that easy-credit economy, most Americans are still hurting. The average household has recovered less than half the wealth it lost during the recession.
As a result, income inequality has become a winning issue in some cities. The mayors-elect of New York, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis made economic justice a central plank of their platforms — and did so despite naysayers and with newfound success. New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s “tale of two cities,” for instance, was not much different from Fernando Ferrer’s campaign theme in 2005 or Ruth Messinger’s in 1997 — but only in the New York of 2013 did it resonate.
It was harder to complain about during the Clinton years, when broad-based growth lifted all boats, yachts and dinghies alike.
Not that the discursive war has been won, mind you. Plenty of people and conservative think tanks still argue that inequality has nothing to do with poverty. Winning a war of words wouldn’t be enough anyway, organizers say: “We need to figure out how to use this sea change in how we talk about inequality to how we act against inequality,” says Mehrens.
The newfound cache of certain phrases has had some perverse effects. Developers and other big employers have latched onto terms like “living wage” but not always with worker-friendly intentions, says Lee Strieb, a researcher with labor organization Unite Here. Developers have “attempted to wrap themselves in the flag of the living wage, almost as a shield to avoid unionization,” says Strieb. ”There is a heightened sensitivity to the need to address [the wage] issue — but to the extent they can address it in a superficial way, they will.”
Mr. de Blasio’s relentless critique of economic inequality in New York seemed to resonate with voters, who elected him in a landslide.
The shift could signal a readiness to engage meaningfully with issues like the living wage or tax increases on top earners.
It’s unclear whether 2014 will set in motion changes to our income distribution. Mayors alone may have little power to tackle the issue. They usually can’t run big deficits and, in cities like San Francisco and New York, space for affordable housing is hard to find. Most important, mayors can’t singlehandedly restore the middle-class jobs that disappeared during the recession.
Yet the shift in tone and rhetoric is significant and could signal a readiness to engage meaningfully with issues like the living wage or tax increases on top earners. Consider Cam Kruse, 72, a mostly retired civil engineer who is active in ISAIAH, a social justice organization of about 100 churches in metropolitan Minneapolis. Kruse believes in small government. When working full time, he perched in the top one to three percent of earners. And he was a Republican for most of his adult life.
But earlier this year he found himself urging the state legislature to raise tax rates on top earners, which, he said, had fallen through the decades. Growing “gaps” in education, health, housing and transportation worried him. “My success, and that of all the other top earners in Minnesota, has been based on the investments that people before us made,” he testified. “It is our turn to give back and make investments for those who will be our future.”
The tax increase passed.
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9 days ago
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