CPD IN THE NEWS

This is where Fed Up played an incredible role. They were a crucial voice on the other side, constantly reminding the Fed of its legal mandate to promote full employment. Fed Up had important allies in this effort, most importantly former Fed chair Janet Yellen, but it is likely that Yellen and her allies on the FOMC would have been forced to raise rates sooner and faster if not for pressure from Fed Up.

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EMERYVILLE, Calif. – On Oct. 18, this city became the third in the nation to pass a Fair Workweek policy. The City Council passed the ordinance unanimously at its first reading, following testimony at a pre-meeting press conference and during the meeting itself, by those most affected.

Under the new policy, employers will have to give workers their schedules two weeks in advance, compensating them for last-minute changes. When more hours become available, current workers will have priority so they can get closer to fulltime work.

The council must confirm its action with a second vote, scheduled for Nov. 1. The new law, which will affect some 4,000 fast food and retail workers, is to become effective in July 2017.

Almost two years ago, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed the first such measure, the Retail Workers Bill of Rights, and just last month, Seattle followed suit http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/tale-of-two-cities-yes-vs-no-on-fair....

New York City may be next: Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council members are pressing legislation to require employers to give some 65,000 hourly fast food workers a two week notice of changes in their shift assignments. However, the bill doesn’t extend such requirements to retail stores or full-service restaurants.

Emeryville, a small city across the Bay from San Francisco with a large concentration of retail stores, already has the country’s highest minimum wage, with large employers required to pay their workers at least $14.82 per hour. Smaller businesses must pay at least $13 per hour.

At the state level, earlier this year California passed a new minimum wage law with a path to a $15 hourly minimum.

At the press conference, low wage workers, local residents, community and labor organizations, faith leaders and academic researchers told of the many challenges faced by retail workers who must deal with constantly shifting and unpredictable schedules and variable numbers of work hours.

Moriah Larkins, an Emeryville retail worker and activist with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) who MC’d the press conference, told of her own experience working six days a week for a “bad apple” employer. “And on my days off they would call me in, and I have my son, who was two years old at the time.”

At first, Larkins said, she used to scramble and pay extra for last minute child care. But as she realized her extra hours, and less time for her son, were making him unhappy, she started refusing the extra shifts. After that, her hours, which had been 32 to 40 per week, were cut in half.

“Now,” she said, “I work for a ‘good apple.’ I work 28 hours per week, I can pay all my bills, I can spend time with my son and finish my nursing degree.”

In a conversation after the press conference, Larkins said she hoped the ordinance would pass “without exceptions.” She and others are warning that before the final vote Nov. 1, the California Retail Association is trying hard to weaken the measure.

Other retail and fast food workers described their experiences, including a past employer who paid subminimum wages and another who fired a worker after “forgetting” he had accepted her timely request for a day off.

The new ordinance has been in the making for a while. In May, Emeryville Mayor Dianne Martinez and Councilmember Ruth Atkin wrote an op-ed published by the San Francisco Chronicle, in which they said a regional fair workweek was needed to assure workers “stable schedules so they can pay the bills, live healthier lives, “and contribute more to our communities.

A recent study, Wages and Hours: Why workers in Emeryville’s service sector need a fair workweek, conducted by ACCE, the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), and the Center for Popular Democracy found that in a sample of more than 100 frontline Emeryville retail workers, some 68 percent had part-time schedules, 82 percent were people of color, eight out of 10 had variable schedules and nearly two-thirds only got their schedules a week or less in advance. Over two-thirds said they wanted to work more hours, while over half said they were scheduled for “clopening” shifts, or back-to-back closings and openings with less than 11 hours off.

The study concluded that employers need to commit to predictable, flexible and responsive schedules that allow for adequate rest.

At the Oct. 18 press conference, EBASE Deputy Director Jennifer Lin said, “Providing a fair work week is not only good for workers, it’s good for business, too.” With many retailers already scheduling in advance, she said, the new ordinance will help level the playing field, and stable schedules and more adequate hours also reduce turnover and absenteeism.

In an article earlier this month in The Nation magazine, author Michelle Chen noted that the Fight for $15 and Fair Workweek struggles are “converging on sectors that used to be known as bastions of dead-end jobs.” The next step, she said, is “to organize, and unionize, to give workers real collective bargaining leverage over their wages and working conditions. Work-life balance comes by shifting the power balance on the job, so that workers have the final say over when they’re on call.”

By Marilyn Bechtel

Source

The city is considering a ban on the sale of guns and ammunition at the City Center, Mayor Meg Kelly announced Saturday in a welcoming speech to Local Progress New York.

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Our economy has long been out of balance. Workers' efforts across the country create wealth, but the profits don't get to the working people who produce them. Correcting that so that workers are paid enough to sustain their families and make ends meet, is not easy. It requires changing rules that unfairly favor the rich and are written by politicians beholden to the wealthy. That's why the recent move by Los Angeles to raise the minimum wage to $15 is so meaningful. 

Conceived and fought for by workers and grassroots organizations, the $15 minimum wage is a people-powered victory that will improve the lives of Angelenos for generations. More importantly, this victory signals an irreversible change in the broader fight for a decent wage in cities around the country. It inspires hope that we can finally make work pay enough to live on. 

The brave families that fought for change include people like Sandra Arzu, a single mother who works for Health Care Agency at $9 per hour - barely enough to survive in Los Angeles. It is people like Sandra and their families who power the country's second-largest city.

Just like Sandra, other mothers, brothers, sales representatives and servers around the country deserve the opportunity to sustain their families. Everyone who works hard should be able to make ends meet.

We came together in Los Angeles for our families, but also to join something bigger than us. We saw what was done in other cities - San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle have all raised their minimum wage recently - and we picked up on that momentum.

Through organizing and hard work, our communities stood together and demanded change. Organizations like Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the Center for Popular Democracy, and our partners and allies brought workers to the forefront and helped make history.

The result speaks for itself: an increase in the minimum wage in yearly increments, reaching $15 by 2020 for large employers. Businesses with 25 or fewer employees will have more time, until 2021. A recent study with comparable figures shows that almost 800,000 people stand to benefit. That's more than 40 percent of LA's workforce. And there will be further increases to the minimum wage with rising consumer prices, meaning that minimum wage workers won't fall further behind. It's not hyperbole; this is a victory for generations of Angelenos to come.

In New York, there is a vibrant Fight for $15 movement that has already led to Gov. Andrew Cuomo taking initial steps in favor of an increase in wages for tipped workers. Organizers in Oregon and Washington, DC are gearing up to make minimum wage fights a big part of their agendas next year. Other cities looking at increases include Portland, Maine, Olympia; Tacoma, Washington; and Sacramento and Davis, California.

Here is some of what this could mean across the country. No one will get rich off a $15 minimum wage; it adds up to just over $31,000 per year for a full-time worker. But there will be enormous benefit for local economies and household budgets. Poverty will be reduced.

According to the National Employment Law Project, a full 42 percent of U.S. workers make less than $15 per hour. People of color are overrepresented in jobs paying less than $15 an hour, and female workers make up 54.7 percent of those making less than $15 per hour, even though they make up less than half of the overall U.S. workforce. African-American workers make up about are about 12 percent of the total workforce, but they account for 15 percent of the sub-$15-wage workforce. Latinos constitute 16.5 percent of the workforce, but account for almost 23 percent of workers making less than $15 per hour. Inequality is never acceptable, and a $15 minimum wage would mean enormous progress in fighting it.

Ultimately, the fight in LA and around the country is about determining what kind of country we want to live in. In LA, we did it, and we continue the fight across the country until everyone who works can make ends meet and have a say in their future. The future for the fight for $15, our households and children looks a little brighter thanks to the victory here. We can't wait to see what our friends in other cities will do to take this fight further.

Source: Truthout