CPD IN THE NEWS

OZY - April 29, 2014, by Pooja Bhatia - Comprehensive immigration reform is on again. No, it’s off again. No, it’s on again. Nope, it’s off again.

Take heart, CIR enthusiasts. As the back-and-forth over immigration reform enters its umpteenth year, a potential workaround might be coming to a city near you.

Since 2007, a handful of cities have issued municipal IDs to residents, regardless of their citizenship. The idea is to integrate undocumented immigrants by making it easier for them to open bank accounts, interact with the police, access city services and rent an apartment. Bringing the undocumented “out of the shadows” will improve civic life for everyone, proponents say.  

It’s a warm-hearted move as well as a political calculation. The concept is generally popular in cities, which tend to lean liberal, and is sure to have long-range appeal among voters as national demographics shift. About a dozen cities are in some stage of the municipal ID process.

The line between protecting and branding residents can be a fine one.

But ID cards are not an easy way out of the immigration quagmire. Opponents argue that municipal IDs overstep local authority, could lead to fraud and lure terrorists. The earliest version won vicious backlash, including from federal authorities. Even those who support the cards stress the importance of sweating the small stuff, like card design and privacy controls. The big risk: Unless they’re popular with immigrants and non-immigrants alike, the ID cards can brand as outsiders the very people they attempt to embrace.

“It’s been trial and error for cities to even realize that it’s a risk and start guarding against it,” says Emily Tucker, an attorney at the Center of Popular Democracy who has studied the issue in depth. 

This week, New York City will hold its first hearings on municipal ID legislation, a pet project of the new mayor, Bill de Blasio. If approved, New York’s program would be the most prominent of its kind. It would send a message, too, for New York City has a certain symbolic status in matters of security and immigration. 

Proponents like Tucker are enthusiastic about New York’s foray into municipal IDs, if a bit wary. If not done right, they say, the ID cards won’t protect undocumented immigrants, but just sort and label them for easy deportation. The line between protecting and branding can be a fine one. The IDs tend to work best when other protections for undocumented residents are in place: confidentiality for city services, local law enforcement policies that limit interaction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and other “sanctuary city” provisions. “Without those things, people won’t want to use the card — they’ll be too afraid,” says Tucker.

Cities vary enormously on this count: Some abide by the ICE’s “detainer requests,” holding suspected unauthorized immigrants in local jails until the federal authorities pick them up. Others refuse. Some jurisdictions allow police to act as ICE deputes. Others won’t allow police officers to inquire about immigration status.

California Highway Patrol officers lead an information session on obtaining a state driver’s license at the Mexican Consulate in San Diego, Calif., on April 23, 2014.

New Haven, Conn., was the first municipality to adopt local IDs, in 2007, after a robber stabbed an immigrant to death. According to reports, undocumented immigrants were dubbed “walking ATMs” — often, they carried cash, as they couldn’t open bank accounts. New Haven’s program faced some backlash, including, allegedly, from federal authorities: Less than two days after the city passed municipal ID legislation, the ICE raided homes in the area and detained 32 immigrants.

Although the city has stood by its program– it’s issued some 10,000 IDs– it’s not clear how functional the IDs are. Cashiers often don’t accept it, researchers found, and it served mostly to underscore the city’s pro-immigrant attitude. 

Since 2007, Oakland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and several localities in New Jersey have all joined suit. Programs in Richmond and Los Angeles have been approved, and local governments from Philadelphia to Iowa City and Phoenix are contemplating issuing cards, too.

The local ID programs are yet another instance of cities taking “an affirmative step toward securing interests of their residents in the face of congressional inaction,” says Peter Bailon, a lawyer at the progressive American Legislative and Issue Campaign Exchange. They also demonstrate cities’ ability to enact progressive agendas that likely wouldn’t fly nationally.

But are cities exceeding their authority? “It’s not just usurping but contravening federal law,” says Ira Melhman, spokesperson for the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). There’s controversy here. Although the federal government places control over immigration firmly within its authority, the law does not explicitly forbid the issuance of local IDs, proponents say. And the feds have tended to turn a blind eye to the programs.

Mehlman and others say they also worry about terrorism. They argue that municipal ID requirements are lax and could allow criminals to procure false identification. Official documentation, even if limited to a few municipal venues, could serve as “breeder documents” for other IDs, they say. New York state Senator Greg Ball blasted the municipal ID plan as the “de Blasio Terrorist Empowerment Act.”

ID proponents dismiss such fears as absurd. The IDs, they point out, have stringent eligibility requirements and limited jurisdiction. They don’t replace federal identification documents such as passports, social security cards or tax identification numbers. Their main concern is that the IDs actually be used.  

It may not be so easy to circumvent the federal government though, even for cities that are relatively friendly to the undocumented, like New York. De Blasio’s administration has already issued notice that it could put out bid specifications for ID cards, but the City Council has lagged. Only 15 council members have come out saying they favor the legislation, short of the 26 needed for a majority.

Of course, with hearings starting tomorrow, that could change quickly. Are you ready for your New Yorker ID, New Yorkers?

Hace un año, la Reserva Federal, la institución económica más importante del país mantuvo la posición de que no había nada qué podría hacer sobre las disparidades económicas entre grupos étnicos. Recientemente, la Fed cambió por completo su posición. Durante la última audiencia Humphrey Hawkins Janet Yellen, Presidenta de la Fed, cambió su narrativa al reconocer las disparidades en el desempleo e ingresos de comunidades afroamericanas y latinas en comparación a las comunidades blancas. Esta fue la primera vez que la Presidenta Yellen incluyó estas estadísticas en su informe al Congreso.

A primera vista esto puede no parecer gran cosa, pero lo es. La Fed nunca antes ha abordado las disparidades raciales en el desempleo. Antes estas estadísticas no eran ni siquiera parte del informe o de la conversation. En la audiencia Humphrey Hawkins del año pasado Janet Yellen dijo que no había nada que pudiera hacer para cerrar las brechas raciales en el desempleo e ingresos.

Al incluir esas estadísticas Yellen está mostrando que por primera vez las disparidades raciales se tomarán en cuenta cuando la Fed tome decisiones sobre cómo manejar la economía. Esto realmente es un gran cambio. De acuerdo con el Wall Street Journal, hay “un reconocimiento creciente dentro de la Fed de que las disparidades raciales en la economía son cada vez más pronunciadas y que hay un papel para la política monetaria a la hora de disminuir esas brechas.”

Este gran cambio no se vino a dar solo, fue resultado en gran parte de críticas de activistas de la coalición Fed Up y miembros del Congreso. La coalición Fed Up es formada por miembros de la clase obrera a través de el país que unieron sus voces para elevar el tema de la desigualdad económica en comunidades de bajos ingresos y comunidades de color. El público asume que la Fed no se puede modificar, pero los activistas de la coalición Fed Up están demostrando que si es posible. Este cambio en la política y la práctica de la Fed no hubiera sido posible sin la presión constante del pueblo exigiendo ser escuchado y exigiendo que sus condiciones económicas no sean ignoradas. Este es un ejemplo tangible de que en verdad la unión hace la fuerza.

Yo he estado involucrado en la campaña FED Up desde el inicio porque nuestra comunidades, comunidades de color y de bajos ingresos, necesitan un mejor estándar de vida con más y mejores oportunidades de empleo. A través de nuestros esfuerzos la conversación por fin nos incluye.

Pero el hecho de que la Presidenta Yellen haya reconocido y mencionado la desigualdad económica entre grupos étnicos no es suficiente. Si es un buen primer paso, pero no la meta.  Comunidades de color y de bajos ingresos por todo el país necesita más que palabras, necesitan acción!

Durante la audiencia Janet Yellen habló de programas de empleo diseñadas para minorías, y eso es importante, pero no dio el sentido de que estos programas podrían implementarse a una escala que tendría un impacto significativo sobre las disparidades económicas para millones de  afroamericanos y latinos.

La mejor y más importante forma en que Janet Yellen puede cumplir con su compromiso de cerrar las disparidades económicas entre grupos étnicos es simple, implementar políticas monetarias que mantengan el mercado de trabajo lo más abierto posible. Esto le dará una oportunidad a comunidades afroamericanas y latinas de tener más puestos de trabajo y mejores salarios.

Es el resultado de años de lucha por la campaña Fed Up que la Fed se ha comprometido a abordar las disparidades raciales en el desempleo e ingresos. Ahora nos toca a todos nosotros asegurarnos que Janet Yellen se haga responsable de mantener los mercados laborales abiertos para darnos la oportunidad de conseguir más puestos de trabajo y salarios con los cuáles podríamos mantener a nuestras familias!

(Amador Rivas es miembro de Se Hace Camino Nueva York, socio del Centro para la Democracia Popular)

Source

New York Times - February 21, 2015, by Steven Greenhouse - On the nights when she has just seven hours between shifts at a Taco Bell in Tampa, Fla., Shetara Brown drops off her three young children with her mother. After work, she catches a bus to her apartment, takes a shower to wash off the grease and sleeps three and a half hours before getting back on the bus to return to her job.

At Hudson County Community College in Jersey City, Ramsey Montanez struggles to stay alert on the mornings that he returns to his security guard station at 7 a.m., after wrapping up a 16-hour double shift at 11 p.m. the night before.

And on many Friday nights, Jeremy Little waits tables at a Perkins Restaurant & Bakery near Minneapolis and doesn’t climb into bed until 3 a.m. He returns by 10 a.m. for the breakfast rush, and sometimes feels so weary that he forgets to take rolls to some tables or to tell the chef whether customers wanted their steak medium rare.

“It makes me feel really tired,” Mr. Little said. “My body just aches.”

Employees are literally losing sleep as restaurants, retailers and many other businesses shrink the intervals between shifts and rely on smaller, leaner staffs to shave costs. These scheduling practices can take a toll on employees who have to squeeze commuting, family duties and sleep into fewer hours between shifts. The growing practice of the same workers closing the doors at night and returning to open them in the morning even has its own name: “clopening.”

“It’s very difficult for people to work these schedules, especially if they have other responsibilities,” said Susan J. Lambert, an expert on work-life issues and a professor of organizational theory at the University of Chicago. “This particular form of scheduling — not enough rest time between shifts — is particularly harmful.”

The United States decades ago moved away from the standard 9-to-5 job as the manufacturing economy gave way to one dominated by the service sector. And as businesses strive to serve consumers better by staying open late or round the clock, they are demanding more flexibility from employees in scheduling their hours, often assigning them to ever-changing shifts.

Workers and labor advocates are increasingly protesting these scheduling practices, which often include giving workers as little as two days’ advance notice for their weekly work schedule. These concerns have gained traction and translated into legislative proposals in several states, with proponents enviously pointing to the standard adopted for workers in the 28-nation European Union. It establishes “a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours per 24-hour period.”

Britain, Germany and several other countries interpret that to require that workers be given at least 11 hours between shifts, although waivers are permitted. “If a retail shop closes at midnight, the night-shift employees are not allowed to start before 11 o’clock the next morning,” said Gerhard Bosch, a sociology professor and expert on labor practices at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

In the United States, no such national or state labor law or regulation governs the intervals between shifts, except for some particular jobs like airline pilots, although some unions have negotiated a minimum time for workers to be off, sometimes eight, 10 or 12 hours.

But at the state level this year, bills have been introduced in Maryland and Massachusetts and will be introduced in Minnesota on Monday, each of them calling on employers to give workers at least 11 hours between shifts and three weeks’ advance notice for schedules. Those proposals would require businesses to pay some time and a half whenever employees are called in before 11 hours have passed between shifts.

Paul Thissen, the Democratic leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives, supports the legislation. “When it comes to scheduling, the playing field is tilted very dramatically in favor of the employer,” Mr. Thissen said. “What we’re proposing is just trying to rebalance the playing field.”

Anthony Newby, executive director at Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, a Minneapolis-based group that advocates for worker rights, among other issues, said that clopenings have become a big issue in his region. “Clopenings are hurting many of our members; many are in the restaurant field and some in construction and nursing,” he said. “We worry it has an effect on safety — workers feel they’re on autopilot. It also has a big impact on families, on mothers trying to manage a family and arrange child care.”

Ms. Brown, who works as a cashier at Taco Bell, said her children — ages 5, 4 and 2 — don’t like it when she has just seven hours between shifts. That usually means they hardly see her for two nights in a row; they sleep at their grandmother’s both nights. On the second night, after just three and a half hours’ sleep the previous day, Ms. Brown says she stops by her mother’s for an hour or two to see her children, and then heads home to sleep.

“My kids say, ‘Mommy, I miss you,’ ” she said. “I get so tired it’s hard to function. I feel so exhausted. I don’t want my kids suffering not seeing me. I try to push to go see them.”

Although Ms. Brown dislikes clopenings, she doesn’t turn them down because she needs as many hours as she can get. She makes $8.10 an hour and works about 25 hours a week.

Brandon Wagner, who works for a Zara apparel store in Manhattan, often works from 1 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. or 11 p.m., getting back to his apartment in Brooklyn around midnight. He often must be back at work at 8 the next morning, and as a result he sleeps just five hours.

“When you question this, they give a shrug of the shoulder,” Mr. Wagner said. “They say, ‘Everybody does this. You have to put up with it or go somewhere else.’ ”

Last summer, Starbucks announced that it would curb clopenings on the same day that The New York Times published an article profiling a barista, Jannette Navarro, mother of a 4-year-old, who worked a scheduled shift that ended at 11 p.m. and began a new shift at 4 a.m.

At the time, Cliff Burrows, Starbucks’s group president for the United States, said: “Partners should never be required to work an opening and a closing shift back-to-back. District managers must help store managers problem-solve issues specific to individual stores to make this happen.” (“Partners” is the term Starbucks uses for its employees.)

Neil Trautwein, a vice president with the National Retail Federation, acknowledged that some instances of scheduling were egregious, but he pointed to Starbucks’s voluntary response to argue that states should not enact any laws to address the issue.

“Advocates have it wrong to think you can legislate and just outlaw the process,” Mr. Trautwein said. “The market adjusts to the needs of workers.” He added that what Starbucks did “demonstrates that businesses listen to their employees and adjust.” (In response to complaints about schedules changing week to week, Walmart said on Thursday that it would give workers more predictable schedules.)

But several people who identified themselves as Starbucks employees complained on a Facebook private group page that they still were scheduled for clopenings, despite the company’s pronouncement. One worker in Texas wrote on Jan. 30, “I work every other Sunday as a closer, which is at 10:30 or really 11-ish, then scheduled at 6 a.m. the next morning.” Another worker in Southern California wrote, “As a matter of fact I clopen this weekend.”

Laurel Harper, a Starbucks spokeswoman, questioned the authenticity of the Facebook posts. She said company officials had held conversations nationwide “to make sure we are giving our partners the hours they want” and to prevent clopenings.

Some managers say there are workers who don’t mind clopenings — like students who have classes Monday through Friday and want to cram in a lot of weekend work hours to maximize their pay.

Tightly scheduled shifts seem to have become more common for a number of reasons. Many fast-food restaurants and other service businesses have high employee turnover, and as a result they are often left with only a few trusted workers who have the authority and experience to close at night and open in the morning. Professor Lambert said no studies had been done on the prevalence of clopenings nationwide.

Carrie Gleason, director of the fair workweek initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group, said one reason for the increasing prevalence of clopenings was that many companies had shifted scheduling responsibilities away from managers and to sophisticated software that she said was not programmed to prevent such short windows between shifts.

But David Ossip, chief executive of Ceridian, a human resources and payroll company, said that when his company provided scheduling software to companies, it generally recommended programming a mandated rest period. The software would then warn managers when an added shift violated that rest period.

“You would make sure you have a minimum rest period between shifts,” he said. “We would set up fairness results that call for regular working hours — not one day work at night, the next day work in the morning.” He added, “You have to be home for eight, 10 or 12 hours.”

Andy Iversen, a stocker at Linden Hills Co-op in Minneapolis, said the grocery store’s managers used to schedule him two or three times a week to work until 9 p.m., and then be back at 5 a.m.

“I was beyond exhausted,” he said, noting that he was getting to bed at midnight and waking around 3:45 a.m. At the time, he was pursuing a master’s degree and taking a course in neuroscience. “I couldn’t concentrate because I was so tired,” he said. “I had to drop out of class.”

Mr. Iversen praised his store’s managers for no longer giving him clopenings. Marshall Wright, the store’s produce manager, said, “We think it’s the right thing to do. We don’t feel people should work shifts like that.”

Mr. Iversen couldn’t agree more: “It doesn’t take that much empathy or reasoning to see that clopenings stink, and people don’t want to do it.”

Source

The American labor movement, over the past four decades, has had two golden opportunities to shift the balance of power between workers and bosses — first in 1978, with unified Democratic control of Washington, and again in 2009. Both times, the unions came close and fell short, leading, in no small part, to the precarious situation labor finds itself in today.

Read the full article here.