Letter: No point putting faith in GOP lawmakers
Anyone who buys the GOP story that they are going to give us better health care is a sucker. We will get hosed by the...
Anyone who buys the GOP story that they are going to give us better health care is a sucker. We will get hosed by the lying GOP. Anyone who votes for this garbage of a health care proposal should be voted out of office. If this becomes law, every working man and woman should change their dependents, then let us see how these leeches get by with no salary. We do that and the federal government has no income.
Read the full letter here.
Watch Live: Young Immigrants Rally In DC To Call On Congress To Save DREAMers
Watch Live: Young Immigrants Rally In DC To Call On Congress To Save DREAMers
(Interview with Ana Maria Archila at 1:09:10)...
(Interview with Ana Maria Archila at 1:09:10)
Watch the full video here.
National advocacy groups are backing the sick-leave effort in Texas
National advocacy groups are backing the sick-leave effort in Texas
National advocacy groups based mostly in Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, N.Y., were responsible for $1.8 million of the...
National advocacy groups based mostly in Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, N.Y., were responsible for $1.8 million of the $2.5 million contributed and loaned to the political action committee leading the effort to mandate paid sick leave for workers in Texas...The other major outside donors include...$95,000, Center for Popular Democracy, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Read the full article here.
De Blasio and Mayors of Chicago, Los Angeles Launch Initiative to Help Immigrants Become U.S. Citizens
SILive - September 18, 2014, by Anna Sanders - Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced the launch of a new...
SILive - September 18, 2014, by Anna Sanders - Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced the launch of a new initiative to push for eligible immigrants to become U.S. citizens in the nation's three largest cities.
"Cities for Citizenship" aims to increase naturalization programs and other efforts to help immigrants in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.
"This win-win effort will help us create more inclusive cities that lift up everyone," de Blasio said in a statement announcing the initiative. "From increased economic activity to larger voting and tax bases, the advantages of citizenship will not only expand opportunity to our immigrant families, but to all New Yorkers and residents nationwide."
The de Blasio administration said increasing immigrant access to citizenship will help fight poverty and estimated that naturalizing 684,000 legal permanent residents will add up to $4.1 billion to the city's economy over a decade.
In a report released Wednesday, the Center for Popular Democracy estimated that there are about 750,000 legal permanent residents eligible for naturalization.
Citigroup, a corporate partner of the initiative, will contribute $1.15 million for the new initiative.
New York City will use funds for NYCitizenship, a coordinated effort to connect low- and moderate-income New Yorkers to free legal assistance during the naturalization process. NYCitizenship works with city agencies to connect those in the city eligible to become U.S. citizens with assistance, such as legal advice, help on applications and financial counseling.
The NYCitizenship program has already helped more than 1,800 New Yorkers complete naturalization applications since 2012, according to the Center for Popular Democracy report.
In addition to the initiative, the city's Office of Immigrant Affairs will also commission a study on the economic impact of citizenship programs nationwide.
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"Give Them Hell": Exposing the Corporate Backers of Anti-Immigrant Hate
"Give Them Hell": Exposing the Corporate Backers of Anti-Immigrant Hate
Since election night 2016, the streets of the US have rung with resistance. People all over the country have woken up...
Since election night 2016, the streets of the US have rung with resistance. People all over the country have woken up with the conviction that they must do something to fight inequality in all its forms. But many are wondering what it is they can do. In this ongoing "Interviews for Resistance" series, experienced organizers, troublemakers and thinkers share their insights on what works, what doesn't, what has changed and what is still the same. Today's interview is the 61st in the series.
Today we bring you a conversation with José Lopez, one of the co-organizing directors at Make the Road New York, and Daniel Altschuler, the director of civic engagement and research at Make the Road New York.
Read the full article here.
"You can save my life - remember this conversation": Father with ALS confronts Senator Jeff Flake on flight from DC to Arizona over tax bill*
"You can save my life - remember this conversation": Father with ALS confronts Senator Jeff Flake on flight from DC to Arizona over tax bill*
A terminally-ill father suffering Lou Gehrig's disease shared his personal story with Sen. Jeff Flake with the ambition...
A terminally-ill father suffering Lou Gehrig's disease shared his personal story with Sen. Jeff Flake with the ambition to make an influence on his stance of the GOP tax reform bill.
Ady Barkan, 33, approached the Republican lawmaker during his flight home from Washington D.C. - where the ill Barkan had spent days protesting the bill.
Read the full article here.
High Road Workweek Partnership Invites Employers to Adopt a Fair Workweek
High Road Workweek Partnership Invites Employers to Adopt a Fair Workweek
As more retailers declare nationwide reforms to their scheduling practices – from ending on-call scheduling to...
As more retailers declare nationwide reforms to their scheduling practices – from ending on-call scheduling to providing greater advance notice – there is increased industry interest in understanding the impact of difficult work schedules on employees. Leading-edge employers are also starting to quantify the down-stream effects of ever-changing work schedules and excessive reliance on part-time staff, including higher turnover, chronic absenteeism, lower productivity, and unsatisfactory customer service. Many industry leaders now recognize that predictable, stable and flexible work schedules are not just good for employees, but are essential to meeting operational, sales and growth objectives.
At the Next:Economy summit, the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative will unveil the High Road Workweek Partnership, a groundbreaking approach to the future of work, which meaningfully incorporates employee voice and scheduling equity values into scheduling technologies and management practices.
Achieving a High Road Workweek involves three key components:
A Partnership of Core Stakeholders: With a 360 degree view from engaging diverse stakeholders, employers can assess the impact of their current scheduling practices and envision a sustainable workweek;
The High Road Workweek Pledge: Translates core business principles into specific scheduling practices that encompass: Predictability and Stability, Adequate Hours, and Employee Input and Flexibility, and Equal Opportunity and Mobility; and
Measurable Implementation and Assessment: Innovative scheduling technologies, guidance for managers, and clear metrics will facilitate implementation of the pledge, while ongoing feedback from employees and a research-based assessment will ensure that new policies deliver the intended outcomes.
The High Road Workweek Partnership delivers lasting scheduling solutions and provides a framework for employers who want to be strongly positioned in the global economy, leveraging the latest technologies and integrating corporate social responsibility into workforce management to create meaningful employment.
“Employers of our country’s hourly workforce are at a crossroads. The worrisome scheduling trends that have come to public attention are persistent and challenging issues that affect both workers and the longevity of a company’s success. Through a meaningful collaboration with employees, a commitment to core scheduling principles, and an innovative use of workforce management metrics, any business is capable of implementing a high road workweek,” says Carrie Gleason, Director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy.
Professor Susan Lambert of the University of Chicago, a key architect in developing the framework for scheduling stability, says, “While this year marks tremendous progress in employers recognizing the costs that lean staffing and unpredictable scheduling has for both workers and business, employers will need to implement new metrics for their managers and find ways to incorporate more employee input to ensure these commitments to reform become consistent scheduling improvements. The High Road Workweek Partnership presents an innovative approach to helping employers implement measurable standards for fair work schedules across their operations.”
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www.populardemocracy.org The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
www.fairworkweek.org The Fair Workweek Initiative, anchored by the Center for Popular Democracy and CPD Action, is driving the growing momentum to restore a workweek that enables working families to thrive. We are committed to elevating the voices of working people to ensure they can shape the solutions that work for their families – whether through improved industry practices or new workplace protections.
Bushwick Residents Rally at City Hall to Decry Deadlock on Immigration Reform
Bushwick Residents Rally at City Hall to Decry Deadlock on Immigration Reform
“Today we suffer, in November we vote,” dozens of protesters chanted in front of City Hall this afternoon. Some 40...
“Today we suffer, in November we vote,” dozens of protesters chanted in front of City Hall this afternoon. Some 40 people gathered to express dismay over yesterday’s Supreme Court deadlock over President Obama’s immigration plan, which would have given undocumented immigrants protection from deportation and the possibility to work in the United States. The rally was organized by the Bushwick chapter of Make the Road New York, a non-profit dedicated to representing the city’s Latino and immigrant communities.
President Obama’s executive action would have shielded over 5 million from deportation by introducing The Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), which would have allowed the undocumented parents of American-born children to apply for work permits, and expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which would have protected those who arrived in the U.S. before the age of 16 and stayed at least five years. For many participating in today’s rally, these measures would have been key to achieving a more secure legal status in the country. Many of those protesting were beneficiaries of DACA, and had hoped for the passing of DAPA to reunite families or keep them together.
Catalina Benitez, an immigrant from Mexico and a member of Make the Road, has been in the United States for over 20 years. She was attending the rally with her two-year-old son, Daniel, and said the Supreme Court’s deadlock came as a “great disappointment” to many.
“We were hoping that we’d be given more options.” Benitez said in Spanish of Obama’s plan, and the limbo that’s left in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 4-4 tie. Benitez’s son, as well as her five-year-old daughter, have benefitted from DACA, but the aborted expansion of the plan has many families worried about their future.
Benitez, who lives in Williamsburg, isn’t eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election, but she hopes that the rally will raise awareness and encourage people who can vote to support immigrant rights. “The citizens who can vote should vote for Hillary Clinton,” she said.
Petra Luna, a Bushwick volunteer who helps Make the Road with press statements, event organizations, and community outreach, expressed a similar disappointment in the SCOTUS deadlock. “Immigrants are a significant community in this country,” she said in Spanish. “We’ve helped raise the economy, and we have a life here.”
Luna said that Make the Road organized this rally to show U.S. politicians that they want their voice to be heard. “We want the deportations to stop, and we want to incentivize people to vote in November,” she emphasized. “We are all hoping for an opportunity, and we want to encourage those people who do have the vote to represent us.”
Other organizations present at the rally were the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Minkwon Center for Community Action, the New York Working Families Party, United We Dream, and the Center for Popular Democracy, to name a few. Individuals would periodically get in front of the crowd with a megaphone and speak of their frustrations with the gridlocked immigration reform.
“I’m angry, I’m fed up with the system,” Jung Rae Jang, a DACA beneficiary with the Minkwon Center, told the crowd. “We need to get the immigrant community to come together against this.”
Daniel Altschuler, the press representative for Make the Road, said that the majority of those in attendance at the rally today were from Bushwick, but immigrants living in Staten Island and Jackson Heights, Queens, were also well-represented. According to the organization’s website, over 35 percent of households in Bushwick are made up of foreign-born immigrants, three quarters of whom are from Latin America. A significant number of those immigrants are undocumented.
Luna expressed hope that, come November, people will decide to vote in favor of supporting immigrant communities. “We’re all going to the same heaven,” she reflected. But in the meantime, she said she’ll keep fighting to represent immigrant rights, and hopes people with electoral power in this country will do the same.
“I’m willing to give this everything I’ve got,” she said resolutely.
By LUISA ROLLENHAGEN
Source
U.S. Cities Issue IDs to Protect Undocumented Immigrants
To help combat such unintended outcomes, the Center for Popular Democracy has consulted with policymakers and advocates...
To help combat such unintended outcomes, the Center for Popular Democracy has consulted with policymakers and advocates—including those from Poughkeepsie—who seek to start municipal ID programs. In 2015, the organization published a municipal ID toolkit listing a series of best practices for local governments to follow.
Read the full article here.
Aldermen, Activists Propose City Ordinance To Raise Minimum Wage
Chicagoist - May 28, 2014, by Aaron Cynic - Supporters of raising the minimum wage introduced an ordinance at a City...
Chicagoist - May 28, 2014, by Aaron Cynic - Supporters of raising the minimum wage introduced an ordinance at a City Council meeting today that calls for an increase to $15 an hour. The proposal, backed by several Aldermen including John Arena, Joe Moreno and Roderick Sawyer, comes on the heels of a report released that shows a raise in the wage would benefit both workers and the City’s economy.
According to the plan, companies making more than $50 million a year would be required to first raise their minimum wage to $12.50 an hour within 90 days and then to $15 within a year. Smaller businesses would have to raise their wages at a more graduated rate, with a total of four years to get to $15. From there, the minimum wage in Chicago would rise with the rate of inflation.
“Study after study demonstrates that when you put money into the pockets of consumers, they spend it," Alderman Ricardo Munoz, who also backs the measure, told Reuters. "They don't hoard it in their mattresses.”
The recent report from the Center for Popular Democracy says a minimum wage increase would yield workers about $1.1 billion collectively, with an average annual income increase of $2,620 per individual. This would generate $74 million in personal income taxes to the state and yield $616 million in new economic activity.
At a press conference at City Hall, Tanika Smith, a fast food worker, said her current pay of $8.75 an hour, just 50 cents more than the minimum wage in Illinois, simply isn’t enough. “My car note is $500 a month, my rent is about $500, food is going up, lights are going up,” said Smith.
Raising the minimum wage is becoming a key issue with politicians statewide. Last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel gave a panel of business, labor and civic leaders 45 days to draft a plan to raise the wage in Chicago. Gov. Pat Quinn has championed raising the state wage to $10.65 an hour, and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is pushing for a referendum on the November ballot to ask voters if the wage should be raised to $10 an hour.
Both the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and Illinois Retail Merchant’s Association oppose an increase to the minimum wage. “We think it puts us at a competitive disadvantage,” Chamber CEO Theresa Mintle told Reuters. The Retailers Association has said that raising the wage would force businesses to cut both jobs and hours.
Ald. Moreno, however, disagrees.
“It’s gonna hurt the people at the top possibly. It’s not gonna hurt business. It never has. Raising the minimum wage in the United States has never, ever hurt the broader economy...Our economy has been splintered with those at the top having way more. The middle class is shrinking. We want the middle class to grow.”
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8 days ago
8 days ago