CPD IN THE NEWS

Somos was one of 14 organizations nationwide to win the nonpartisan grant from Cities for Citizenship, a national initiative aimed at increasing citizenship among eligible U.S. permanent residents and encouraging cities to invest in citizenship programs. The organization site says it is chaired by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, with support from the Center for Popular Democracy and the National Partnership for New Americans. Citi Community Development is the founding corporate partner.

Read the full article here.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has somehow convinced himselfthere is public desire for him to be president, took a moment at yesterday’s board meeting to deliver some pious criticism of America’s unusually rancorous political season.

“Dysfunction and polarization have worsened,” the coffee entrepreneur said. Deep in a bout of Bloombergitis, Schultz warned of the failure of the American dream: “Sadly, our reservoir is running dry, depleted by cynicism, despair, division, exclusion, fear and indifference.”

“What is the role and responsibility of all of us, as citizens?” Schultz asked.

His employees have one answer: They want him to keep Starbucks’ promise to set their schedules at least 10 days in advance, and stop making them work consecutive shifts closing a location and then returning to open it early the next morning. So-called “clopening” shifts can entail working until 11pm and then starting again at 4am.

The scheduling problems have been an issue since at least 2014, when a New York Times investigation exposed how scheduling practices can be as problematic for workers as low pay or abusive treatment. The problem is especially difficult for parents, who must find a way to care for their children without knowing their work responsibilities more than a few days in advance.

The problem seems especially galling because the company uses scheduling software to match employee availability with the predicted demand. Experts suggest that this software could be used to provide more predictability for workers. Starbucks has repeatedly said it will remedy these issues, but interviews with employees suggest they remain. The Center for Popular Democracy, a union-backed organization that runs advocacy campaigns for workers rights, published a survey of 200 workers (pdf) in September 2015 that found half received their schedules less than a week in advance and one in four worked the “clopening” shift.

Grant Medsker, who worked at a Starbucks in Seattle for about a year before quitting in January, told Quartz that managers often don’t follow dictates from headquarters. “Everyone runs their ship their own way, regardless of company policies,” he said.

Some franchise managers attribute the lack of follow-through on the company’s promise on schedules to pressure from higher-ups to keep labor costs down, which leads to chronic understaffing. Meanwhile, Starbucks earnings per share more than doubled between 2011 and 2015; in fiscal 2015 it had an operating income of $3.6 billion. Quartz reached out to Starbucks but has not received a response. In the past, the company has noted that many of its employees see a flexible schedule as a perk, rather than a hindrance. The company also provides its part-time employees with access to health insurance and educational benefits that it says are more generous than comparable companies. But given the company’s history of dubious social responsibility campaigns, it’s hard to see this failure to implement corporate policy as an accident. This is, after all, the executive who announced a personal boycott of political spending even as his company spent millions on lobbying.

“It’s not enough to talk about it, it’s not enough to say, ‘oh that’s really bad, I hope that changes,'” said Medsker, who volunteers with the labor-rights group Working Washington. “We have an obligation to change what is wrong with our society.”

“It’s not about the choice we make every four years,” Schultz said yesterday. “This is about the choices we make every day.”

Source

Dec. 1 — More than a dozen states and cities in the past year considered legislation to require retail stores and restaurants to provide extra pay to employees for last-minute work schedule changes. Thus far only a handful of cities have enacted such measures into law.

These predictive or predictable scheduling proposals, also called fair workweek measures, were “very popular” in 2016, John S. Hong, an employment law attorney with Littler Mendelson in San Francisco, recently told Bloomberg BNA.

“But they died on the vine in a lot of states,” Hong said.

In addition to providing “predictability” pay, these measures would require employers to notify workers about their schedules a certain number of weeks in advance under predictive scheduling proposals. They also include “access to hours” provisions that require employers to offer newly available hours to part-time staff before hiring new workers or using contractors or staffing agencies.

Worker advocacy groups praise these measures as providing secure, clear and stable scheduling for workers. But employers counter that these requirements remove the flexibility needed for retailers and restaurants to operate their businesses effectively.

Predictive Scheduling Is ‘The Next Fight.’

Predictive scheduling bills this year were withdrawn or never went to a vote in California, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Rhode Island.

Similar bills or provisions died in Connecticut, Illinois, Maine and Oregon in 2015.

Washington, D.C., also tabled a predictive scheduling proposal this year, while a court rejected a ballot initiative on the issue in Cleveland, Hong said.

Still, employee advocates said the number of jurisdictions that have considered scheduling laws is encouraging.

Introduction of the bills initiates public conversations among workers, employers and policy makers about the issue, they said.

“They begin the legislative process, which can take multiple years,” Elianne Farhat, deputy campaign director of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative.

Predictive scheduling is “the next fight,” following the success of the “Fight for $15" minimum wage initiative, Farhat told Bloomberg BNA Nov. 30.

“The issue will continue to pick up steam and move forward,” she said.

Two Cities Join San Francisco

Two cities this year enacted predictive scheduling laws. Seattle and Emeryville, Calif., followed in the footsteps of San Francisco, which passed the nation’s first ever predictive scheduling law in late 2014

Rules implementing San Francisco’s ordinance went into effect in March 2016. They apply to businesses that have 20 or more employees in the city and at least 40 retail sales establishments worldwide.

Seattle and Emeryville’s laws take effect in 2017.

Seattle’s law applies to retail and quick or limited food-service establishments with more than 500 employees worldwide and full-service restaurants with more than 500 employees and 40 full-service locations worldwide.

Emeryville’s law applies to businesses with more than 55 employees worldwide.

New Hampshire, San Jose Also Pass Laws

On the predictive scheduling periphery are San Jose, Calif., and New Hampshire, which passed narrower laws in the past year.

San Jose voters approved a ballot initiative in November that focused only on access to hour protections for part-time employees, meaning they would be given extra hours prior to hiring others.

New Hampshire in June didn’t quite enact a predictive scheduling law. Instead, it required employers to consider employee requests for flexible working arrangements and prohibited employers from retaliating against workers who made those requests.

The New Hampshire law is “minimal, but still important,” Liz Ben-Ishai, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg BNA.

Farhat added that Washington, D.C. passed a law guaranteeing a 30-hour minimum workweek for building service workers, although it tabled its broader predictive scheduling law.

Depending on the needs of a particular locality, some cities or states will pass broader scheduling laws, while others pass narrower provisions.

“They’re all part of updating our work hour standards,” Farhat said.

Looking Ahead to 2017

Predictive scheduling bills are pending in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Hong said. But the latter “may die for lack of action” before the end of the year.

A measure also is pending in Minnesota, according to CLASP data, but it may share the same fate as the Massachusetts bill.

Asked if the issue of predictive scheduling will continue to crop up in 2017, Hong said more cities and states may consider such measures. But “ultimately they may die on the vine,” he said.

Ben-Ishai provided a more optimistic outlook for predictive scheduling.

“I think it’s a promising area moving forward,” she said.

State and local lawmakers in Oregon could consider predictive scheduling measures next year, she said. In 2015, a state predictive scheduling bill died in committee, but legislators preempted scheduling ordinances at the local level only until 2017.

Portland, Ore., already has passed a resolution to study and eventually establish workweek principles for city contractors, Farhat said.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in September announced that the city is developing legislation that would require predictable work schedules for about 65,000 hourly fast-food employees in the city.

Predictive scheduling is expected to come back in Washington, D.C. next year “in a very serious way,” Farhat said. And California may onceagain consider a statewide measure, she added.

Don’t Forget About State Preemption Laws

Hong observed that several states have preemption laws that prevent cities, towns and counties from passing workplace laws that conflict with state or federal law.

About 22 states so far have expressly preempted localities from adopting such laws, like those that would raise minimum wages, provide leave benefits or expand workplace anti-discrimination protections. Most of these state have enacted the laws within the last five years., Lawmakers in about 11 other states have introduced similar bills so far in 2016.

At least five states—Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas and Michigan—have laws that could preempt local predictive scheduling laws, Hong said.

Preemption laws don’t necessarily indicate that legislatures are against fair scheduling, he said. “They don’t want local governments doing something potentially inconsistent with state law,” Hong said.

But Ben-Ishai contended that preemption laws can be a strategy taken by lawmakers who “are not friendly to workers’ rights.”

Federal Predictive Scheduling Law?

A federal predictive scheduling bill known as the Schedules That Work Act ( H.R. 3071, S. 1772) was introduced in both houses of Congress in July 2015.

The identical bills were sponsored by democrats and have remained stalled in committee. They are unlikely to be considered for a vote before the year ends.

Ben-Ishai said she expects the bills’ sponsors, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), will reintroduce the legislation in the next Congress.

But given Republican control of both Congress and the White House, Ben-Ishai said, “I don’t think we’re super optimistic about it moving forward.”

Predictive scheduling will have a better chance at seeing “more movement” at the state and local levels, she said.

By: Jay-Anne B. Casuga

Source

Update 3 PM EDT:

In a decision that aligns with progressive demands, the Federal Reserve announced on Thursday that it would keep interest rates near zero in light of "recent global economic and financial developments" and in order to "support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability."

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders issued the following statement today after the Federal Reserve announced that it would hold off on raising interest rates:

“It is good news that the Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates today. At a time when real unemployment is over 10 percent, we need to do everything possible to create millions of good-paying jobs and raise the wages of the American people. It is now time for the Fed to act with the same sense of urgency to rebuild the disappearing middle class as it did to bail out Wall Street banks seven years ago.”

 The New York Times reports that the Fed’s decision, "widely expected by investors, showed that officials still lacked confidence in the strength of the domestic economy even as the central bank has entered its eighth year of overwhelming efforts to stimulate growth."

Progressives cheered the news, with Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute saying, "Today’s decision by the Federal Reserve to keep short-term rates unchanged is welcome. [...] We hope they continue their pragmatic, data-based approach and allow unemployment to keep moving lower, and only tighten after there is a significant and durable increase in inflation."

He continued: "Tightening before the economy has reached genuine full-employment is not just a mistake, it’s a regressive mistake that would hurt the most vulnerable workers—low-wage earners and workers from communities of color—the most."

However, Reuters reports that "the central bank maintained its bias toward a rate hike sometime this year, while lowering its long-term outlook for the economy."

Which means that pro-worker organizations, which have largely opposed a rate increase that they say would slow the economy and stifle wage growth, will have to keep up the fight.

"We applaud Chair Yellen and the Federal Reserve for resisting the pressure being put on them to intentionally slow down the economy," said Ady Barkan, campaign director for the Fed Up coalition, which rallied outside the Federal Reserve on Thursday. 

"Weak wage growth proves that the labor market is still very far from full employment," Barkan continued. "And with inflation still below the Fed’s already low target, there is simply no reason to raise interest rates anytime soon. Across America, working families know that the economy still has not recovered. We hope that the Fed continues to look at the data and refrain from any rate hikes until we reach genuine full employment for all, particularly for the Black and Latino communities who are being left behind in this so-called recovery."

Earlier...

Progressives are cautioning the U.S. Federal Reserve against slowing the economy by raising interest rates "prematurely"—a decision the Fed will announce Thursday. 

The U.S. central bank will issue its highly anticipated short-term interest rate decision following a two-day policy meeting, with a 2 pm news conference led by Fed Chair Janet Yellen.

As CBS Moneywatch notes, "[t]he decision affects everything from the returns people get on their bank deposits to how much consumers and employers pay for credit cards, mortgages, small business loans, and student debt." That's because a higher rate makes it more expensive for individuals and businesses to borrow, with rising bank lending rates shrinking the nation's money supply and pushing up rates for mortgages, credit cards, and other loans.

Just before the announcement, the advocates, economists, and workers of the Fed Up coalition will be joined by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) at a rally outside the Fed, calling on the central bank to keep interest rates low to allow for more jobs and higher wages.

"The point of raising rates is to rein in an overheating economy that is threatening to push inflation outside the Fed’s comfort zone," explained Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. "But inflation has been running below the Fed’s target for years—and its recent moves have been down, not up."

Furthermore, wrote economist Joseph Stiglitz at the Guardian earlier this month: "If the Fed focuses excessively on inflation, it worsens inequality, which in turn worsens overall economic performance. Wages falter during recessions; if the Fed then raises interest rates every time there is a sign of wage growth, workers’ share will be ratcheted down—never recovering what was lost in the downturn."

Progressive activists opposed to an interest rate hike overwhelmed the Fed's public comment system on Monday in a last-minute effort to sway the central bank. Raising the rate, they said, would be catastrophic for working families, particularly in communities of color that are still struggling. The Fed Up campaign, which includes groups like the Center for Popular Democracy, Economic Policy Institute, and CREDO Action, say the central bank "privileges the voices and needs of corporate elites rather than those of America's working families."

"A higher interest rate means that fewer jobs will be created, and that the wages of workers at the bottom will remain too low to live on," wrote Rod Adams, a member of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change in Minneapolis, in an op-ed published Wednesdayat Common Dreams. "That’s because when the Fed raises rates, they are deliberately trying to slow down the economy. They’re saying that there are too many jobs and wages are too high. They’re saying that the economy is exactly where it should be, that people like me are exactly where we should be."

However, at this point, "many observers believe the Fed will not raise rates this week," analyst Richard Eskow wrote on Wednesday.

"The Fed is really the central bank of the world. If the Fed raise rates a little bit, it will have an impact all over the world, particularly in emerging markets," billionaire private equity professional David Rubenstein told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday.

"I think the Fed is sensitive to that," Rubenstein said, "and I think therefore the Fed is likely to wait for another month or two to get additional data and probably telegraph a little bit better than it has now that it's about ready to do it at a particular time."

Meanwhile, global markets are fluctuating wildly in anticipation of Yellen's announcement and subsequent news conference.

But as Eskow noted, Thursday's real surprise "is that there’s any question at all what [the Fed] will do. That suggests that our economic debate is not yet grounded in economic reality, at least as most Americans experience it."

While the Guardian is providing live updates on the Fed's decision, others are making comment under hashtags that reflect the unbalanced economic recovery:

Source: CommonDreams