A Life Without Papers
New York Times - March 2, 2015, by Ehiracenia Vasquez - The birth certificates for my children, born here eight and...
New York Times - March 2, 2015, by Ehiracenia Vasquez - The birth certificates for my children, born here eight and four years ago. The receipts that prove I paid property taxes on the trailer home where we used to live. My children’s medical records. A stack of documents that show I’ve lived in Texas for more than 12 years, and that my son and daughter are United States citizens.
I keep all these papers in a drawer next to my bed, so I will have easy access to them as soon as I need them. These are the documents that were supposed to allow me to apply for a new program, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans — the documents that would protect me, for a time, from deportation, and give me some relief from the constant fear that comes with life as an undocumented immigrant.
“Why do you need those papers?” my son asks me one day in January, as he watches me search through plastic bags and backpacks I’ve kept for years on the top shelf of my closet, looking for one more bill, one more certificate, one more piece of paper that might help with applications for my husband and me.
He knows I’ve kept the television tuned to Univision ever since President Obama announced his executive action in November. I listened closely as the news anchor Jorge Ramos explained the application requirements, and realized we qualified. I was watching when, two weeks ago, a federal judge here in Texas put a temporary stop to the program. Now I am waiting to see what happens next.
My son doesn’t understand why I am so anxious. He is 8 years old. He has a Social Security number and could travel out of the country if he wanted.
So I tell him: I want to be able to travel, too. I want to take him to the Rio Grande Valley, where his grandfather lives — the grandfather he has never met, because we need to pass an immigration checkpoint to get to that part of Texas. I want him to play with his abuelo under the tall palm trees that dot the landscape of that border town.
There is more, of course. I want to drive the short distance to the grocery store without worrying that the police car in the lane of traffic behind me is going to pull me over and demand documents I don’t have. I want to be able to look for a good job so that I can help provide for my family. I want to take my kids to school in the morning without worrying whether that day will be the last one I have with them.
Their childhood here in Houston is already so different from mine.
I was born and raised in Río Bravo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. I was 12 when my mother told me she couldn’t send me to school anymore. She needed me at home helping her with my siblings and keeping the house clean. When I was 17, one of my older sisters, who had already moved to Houston, invited me join her. She was 20 and asked me to take care of her baby so that she could work. Knowing there was little to lose, I crossed — without documents, but with my mother’s blessing.
I quickly realized that life as an undocumented person in the United States was not what I had imagined. Without documents, school did not make sense. The only job I could find was taking care of other people’s kids, earning me a few dollars in cash at the end of each day.
Eventually, I met my husband, also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. He found work as a mechanic. We live with my in-laws and I currently stay home with our children. We have stitched together a beautiful family. But that’s 12 years of living cautiously, on the margins.
In November, it seemed we would be able to move, however slowly, out of those margins. We would have temporary relief. I gathered my documents together and kept them safe. We were prepared.
Then the judge put it all on hold. Everything we had been working toward — a break from life in the shadows — is now on pause, in limbo, maybe never to be a reality.
I allowed myself to feel a little disappointed and a little bit sad. But I am not going to let myself feel defeated. I am still trying to organize people to go to meetings so that they can be ready when the program moves forward.
I make phone calls, trying to get them to show up. I hear a lot of doubt. Why learn about a program that may never come to be?
I tell them what I have been telling myself: that we need to be prepared for when the good news comes. I have my documents ready, in that drawer near my bed. I’m not giving up hope.
Ehiracenia Vasquez is a member of the Texas Organizing Project, a partner of the Center for Popular Democracy. This article was translated by Mary Moreno from the Spanish.
Source: The New York Times
A Blow to Voting Rights in Illinois
Last week, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner rejected bipartisan legislation that would set up a system of Automatic Voter...
Last week, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner rejected bipartisan legislation that would set up a system of Automatic Voter Registration and make it easier for millions of Illinois residents to exercise their right to vote.
It is disappointing that Gov. Rauner would stand in the way of such visionary reform, especially when the need to protect voting rights is front and center in the national consciousness. Court decisions in the past month from North Carolina to Kansas have rolled back laws that put unnecessary and discriminatory restrictions on the right to vote. These decisions specifically called out lawmakers for leaning on illusory claims of voter fraud to support voter IDs and other discriminatory obstacles to voting, obstacles that disproportionately hurt communities of color.
Rauner used the same misleading arguments to justify blocking the law, singling out the possibility of non-citizen voting – even though voter fraud by citizens and non-citizens alike is miniscule, in Illinois and elsewhere. But Rauner ignored that fact, instead tapping into a dangerous national narrative used to spread fear and hatred against immigrants and other minority groups.
Automatic voter registration, in fact, makes registration more secure and more accurate. Voter restrictions, not the phantom menace of voter fraud, are the real threats to our democracy.
We hoped that Gov. Rauner would reject such specious claims and put himself on the side of more access to voter registration, not less.
Rauner’s veto comes just days after a lawsuit was filed to try to block the state’s 2015 same-day voter registration law from going into effect this November. Like automatic voter registration, same-day registration reduces unnecessary barriers to registration so that all eligible voters can make their voices heard. The attack on same-day registration resembles recent efforts to suppress voter registration and turnout in other states.
Now, with this one-two punch, Illinois’s democracy could take a hit, closing off viable paths to the polls for many of its citizens.
Rather than maintaining unnecessary barriers, lawmakers should be expanding access to the franchise. After all, we have seen what happens without such proactive efforts. In the past few years, 17 states enacted new laws restricting the right to vote, emboldened by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted decades-old protections against discriminatory voting rules.
Until this veto, Illinois was set to go down a different path. A majority of Illinois lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, came together to strengthen our democracy. They supported a commonsense law that would simply add eligible citizens to the rolls by default when they sign up for a driver’s license or change their address – while including safeguards to ensure only eligible voters could be signed up and an option for residents to opt out of registration. The Illinois law would sweep aside barriers to registration that have disproportionately hit communities of color, young people and low-income communities for far too long.
In passing the law, the Illinois General Assembly followed in the footsteps of four other states who have passed automatic voter registration: Oregon, West Virginia, Vermont and California. And with automatic voter registration under consideration in a slew of states across the country, the Illinois law could serve as a model for other states to follow.
However, this veto doesn’t mean we should sit back and accept defeat. The right to vote—and a fair, efficient, and modern registration system that allows everyone to access that right—is too important for all of us not to fight for.
Later this year, the Illinois General Assembly will consider overriding the veto in a special session. We urge Illinois lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to once again stand up and ensure automatic voter registration goes into law.
Yet the message Gov. Rauner sent with his veto will not go unheard. He has put himself firmly on the side of those seeking to weaken voting rights, rather than strengthen them.
We hope the Illinois lawmakers who worked hard to pass this important legislation will vote in a different direction this fall. With the stakes high, it is critical Illinois ensures all eligible citizens can exercise their right to vote.
By Lawrence Benito and Emma Greenman
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Black Unemployment Dips to 7-Year Low
The Black unemployment rate tumbled to 9.1 percent in July, the lowest rate for Black workers in seven years, according...
The Black unemployment rate tumbled to 9.1 percent in July, the lowest rate for Black workers in seven years, according to the latest jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department.
Even though the Black jobless rate has slowly ticked down to 2008 levels, some economists expressed concerns about the labor force participation rate, the measure of people who are employed or looking for jobs. The Black labor force participation rate decreased from 61.7 percent in June to 61.5 percent in July, which could indicate that the unemployment rate fell because some people simply gave up looking for work.
By comparison, the White unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate remained unchanged from June levels, 4.6 percent and 62.8 percent, respectively.
Valerie Wilson, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. based think tank focused on low- and middle-income families, found that Tennessee had the lowest Black jobless rate (6.9 percent) in the second quarter of 2015, which was almost the same as the highest White unemployment rate (7 percent in West Virginia).
Wilson also reported that the African American unemployment rate “was at or below its pre-recession level in eight states”: Michigan, Indian, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, Illinois, and Missouri.
In the press release on her analysis of state unemployment rates by race and ethnicity, Wilson said that even though the Black unemployment rate has returned to pre-recession levels in those eight states, the states that are seeing improvements, with the exception of Texas, had the highest Black unemployment rates in the nation before the recession.
“African Americans are still unemployed at a higher rate than their white counterparts in almost every state,” Wilson said. “We need policies that look beyond simply reducing unemployment to pre-recession levels as an end goal.”
The national unemployment rate was 5.3 percent and 215,000 jobs were created in July.
Economic indicators for Black male workers over 20 years old followed the same pattern as Black workers in general. The Black male unemployment rate plunged to 8.8 percent from 9.5 percent the year before, but the participation rate also decreased from 67.6 percent in June to 67 percent in July.
On the other hand, Black female workers not only saw a slight increase in their month-over-month jobless rate as it edged up from 7.9 percent June to 8 percent in July, their labor force participation rate also increased from 62 percent to 62.1 percent, which could signal that Black women are entering the labor force and finding work.
In a statement about the jobs report, Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) said that the report showed that economy is still improving, growing and heading in the right direction.
“With the sixty-fifth consecutive month of private sector job growth, and the unemployment rate holding at 5.3 percent, our nation continues to recover from the 2008 economic recession,” said Scott. “Americans are finding more opportunities to get back to work, and put more money into their pockets.”
He also said, “While this is excellent news, our efforts to rebuild our economy are not complete until every person who wants a job is able to find a stable one.”
Connie Razza, the director of Strategic Research for the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), a group focused on racial justice that describes itself as “pro-worker” and “pro-immigrant,” said that the latest job numbers show that flat wages and a sluggish recovery continue to threaten the livelihood of working families.
“Federal Reserve officials must look beyond the topline employment figures to determine whether the economy has truly recovered,” said Razza in a statement. “Even the state with the lowest rate of Black unemployment still has a rate equivalent to the state with the highest White unemployment rate.”
Razza continued: “With Black families still out of work and wage growth nowhere to be found, the economy is simply not ready for the Fed to slow it down.”
She warned the Federal Reserve against raising interest rates in 2015.
“While there are reports of the Fed staff suggesting one interest rate hike to 0.35 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to the [Federal Open Market Committee] forecasts of two hikes in the year achieving 0.65 percent, the Fed Up campaign remains convinced that the only humane, inclusive, and economically sound approach from the Fed would be to write off increasing interest rates for 2015, and instead to commit to wage targeting,” said Razza. “Resilient as our communities are, families are still hurting in this economy. The Federal Reserve can and should reduce inequalities in our economy.”
Source: The Dallas Weekly
The Refugees in New York’s Hotel Rooms
On Sept. 20, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, turning my life upside down. At the time, my two daughters and I were...
On Sept. 20, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, turning my life upside down. At the time, my two daughters and I were living in Carolina, a town on the northeastern side of the island. In just a day, my clothes were turned to rags, my home was destroyed, and I lost the few belongings I had.
My mother lived in the same town but her house was still standing. For two months, we slept on a couch in her living room. But we couldn’t stay there forever. In December, the Federal Emergency Management Agency moved us to New York City. Since then, we’ve been staying in hotels provided by FEMA in the Bronx and Brooklyn, like hundreds of other families who were moved to New York after the storm. Read more here.
Lawmakers Call for “Fair Work Week” for Workers with Changing Schedules
WTNH News 8 - April 27, 2015, by Kent Pierce - Once you hit adulthood, life becomes a balance between your personal...
WTNH News 8 - April 27, 2015, by Kent Pierce - Once you hit adulthood, life becomes a balance between your personal life and work. But, for people who deal with a constantly changing schedule, having a life outside of work can be tough.
Which is why lawmakers and advocates are stepping up and calling for a “fair work week.” They’re joining forces with the people who deal with unpredictable schedules to make that happen.
Connecticut may be the wealthiest state in the nation, but for every Greenwich millionaire, there are a lot of other folks getting by on hourly wages. That’s not necessarily bad. What this report says is bad for workers is the way some employers schedule their hourly workers.
The Center for Popular Democracy says, nationwide, 3 out of 5 Americans are hourly workers. In Connecticut, 885,000 people are hourly workers. That’s about 57 percent of the workforce, and about a third, 300,000, get very little notice about what hours they have to work.
That’s very tough for anyone with family or childcare responsibilities, or for workers trying to better themselves by taking some college classes, or anyone who works two jobs to support a family. There are some organizations working to get some policies in place to force employers to structure their schedules differently and give workers some notice.
Some employers, like retail chains, say they depend on last-minute scheduling to deal with sick calls or busy shopping days, and they can’t afford to pay workers to come in when they’re not really needed.
This report will be released in Hartford Monday morning at a press conference with some of those workers, some of the organizations, and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.
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Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
Restaurant group preps for fight against Ariz. minimum wage boost
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that...
PHOENIX -- The head of the state's restaurant industry is gearing up to convince voters to quash an initiative that would boost the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association, said Wednesday the campaign against the measure will be based on showing them how much wages in Arizona have gone up since voters enacted the first minimum wage law in 2006.
Prior to that, Arizona employers had to pay only what was mandated in federal law, which was $5.15 an hour. The ballot measure pushed that to $6.75, with a requirement for annual adjustments based on inflation.
That has pushed the current state minimum to $8.05.
"The public will say, 'Enough's enough,'" Chucri said. And he said polls done for the industry in the spring show people believe that $12 is "too much."
The comments come as Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families is planning to submit its petitions for the $12 wage plus required paid leave today to the secretary of state's office.
Spokeswoman Suzanne Wilson said organizers have collected more than 250,000 signatures. That is 100,000 more than are needed to qualify for the ballot.
But Chucri said he's not convinced his organization will even have to fight the battle in November. He questioned whether petition circulators, both volunteer and paid, were careful to ensure that those who signed are qualified to vote in the state.
Arizona has become the latest battleground over what can be considered a living wage.
Several states have enacted their own laws, often through legislation. Most recently, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure that will take that state's minimum, now $10 an hour, up to $15 by 2022 for large employers; small companies will get another year to comply.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be to remind voters here that Arizona already has a minimum wage that's higher than what federal law requires.
And that same law requires annual revision. Chucri pointed out that has meant a boost every year except for two when the rate of inflation was too small for even a nickel more, the bare minimum adjustment.
The difference, though, is not great: That $8.05 an hour is just 80 cents more than the federal minimum.
What Chucri also faces is that $8.05, assuming it's a family's sole source of income, translates out to $16,744 a year.
For a single person, the federal government considers anything below $11,880 a year to be living in poverty. That figure is $16,020 for a family of two and $20,160 for a family of three.
That's part of what has driven similar living wage efforts elsewhere in the country. But Chucri said the idea of a $12 minimum won't sell here.
"That is too high of a wage for a place like Arizona,'' he said.
Chucri said part of the campaign against the ballot measure will be the argument that higher wages mean fewer jobs.
"Restaurateurs are going to survive,'' he said. But what they will do, Chucri said, is simply hire fewer people.
He pointed out the push toward automation already is underway.
At Panera Bread, customers place their orders through computer screens and then can pick up what they want. And even at more traditional sit-down place like Applebee's, orders can be placed through tablets at each table.
Chucri conceded, though, that is happening even in places where the minimum wage is not going up. What approval of this measure would do, he said, is hasten the day.
"I don't think it's a matter of 'if,' '' Chucri said. "It's a matter of 'when.' ''
He would not say how much his group and other business organizations intend to spend to kill the measure.
The most recent campaign finance reports show campaign organizers have raised more than $342,000. Virtually all of that comes from Living United for Change in Arizona. But Tomas Robles, former executive director of LUCHA, said much of that is from a grant to the organization from The Center for Popular Democracy, an organization involved in efforts to establish a $15 minimum wage nationally.
Another $25,000 came from The Fairness Project which has its own efforts to push higher minimum wages on a state-by-state basis.
By Howard Fischer
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The Price of Defunding the Police
A new report fleshes out the controversial demand to cut police department budgets and reallocate those funds into...
A new report fleshes out the controversial demand to cut police department budgets and reallocate those funds into healthcare, housing, jobs, and schools. Will that make communities of color safer?
Read the full article here.
Advocates Rally to Eliminate ‘Sub-Minimum Wage'
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - October 23, 2014, by Matthew Taub - Hundreds of tipped and low-wage workers and advocates...
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - October 23, 2014, by Matthew Taub - Hundreds of tipped and low-wage workers and advocates, including fast food, car wash and other low-wage workers, rallied outside a Domino’s Pizza location in Harlem before marching to the second public hearing of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Wage Board, where they testified and called on the Wage Board to eliminate the sub-minimum wage for the 229,000 tipped workers in New York state.
“In an increasingly unaffordable city, tipped workers remain among the lowest-paid hourly workers,” said New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, who joined the workers at the rally and wage board hearing. “An hourly wage of $5 an hour is simply not sustainable for an individual or a family. Now is the time to ensure that low-wage workers receive a fair and sustainable income. I join the many voices today calling on Gov. Cuomo to help bring fair wages to these industries.”
Employers in New York are allowed to pay less than the minimum wage — just $5 an hour — to restaurant servers, delivery workers and other service workers. Employers are legally required to “top off” a tipped worker’s pay when it falls short of the regular minimum wage, but lax enforcement enables employers to routinely violate minimum wage, overtime and other wage and hour laws with minimal repercussion.
“We work very hard and deserve a raise, just like other minimum wage workers in this state,” said Juana Tenesaca, a tipped worker and member of Make the Road New York. “I have worked as a waitress for years, earning the tipped minimum wage, and it’s impossible to raise my children never knowing how much money I’ll bring home at the end of the day. My daughter had to get a job while she was still in high school to help support our family and that breaks my heart.”
A July report by the National Employment Law Project finds that eliminating the sub-minimum wage would benefit an estimated 229,000 tipped workers in New York.
“Tipped workers are employed in industries like hospitality that are among the fastest growing in today’s economy,” said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project. “If we want to stimulate consumer spending and boost our local economies, we need to make sure that the growing number of New Yorkers relying on these jobs actually have money to spend on basic necessities at their neighborhood stores.”
“Having to live entirely off tips means the customer is always right, which means I’ve had to put up with unwanted advances and uncomfortable situations from guests,” said Ashley Ogogor, a tipped worker and member of Restaurant Opportunities Center-United. “The guest shouldn’t have to feel pressured at the end of the night to pay me a decent wage. If seven other states can require restaurant owners to pay their employees a full minimum wage, so can New York.”
As part of last year’s legislative deal to increase New York’s minimum wage to $9 an hour by Dec. 31, 2015, the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers was set to automatically rise in proportion to the full minimum wage whenever the latter is raised with one exception: workers in the hospitality industry. The final deal froze these workers’ wages at $5 an hour and instructed Gov. Cuomo’s Department of Labor to convene a “wage board” to determine whether these workers will get a raise, and if so, by how much.
“We call on Gov. Cuomo and the wage board to do whatever it takes to lift up working families in the Empire State,” said Tony Perlstein, campaigns co-director for the Center for Popular Democracy. “Wealthy restaurant employers shouldn’t receive special treatment that allows them to pay poverty wages to working New Yorkers, including the women who make up more than two-thirds of the tipped wage workforce. Seven states have already eliminated their sub-minimum wages, and more are seriously considering it. Their restaurant sectors are not suffering for it, and in fact are thriving.”
The wage board, consisting of Timothy Grippen, Retired Broome county executive; Heather C. Briccetti, president and CEO of the Business Council; and Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel Trade Council, heard hours of testimony detailing how New York’s tipped subminimum wage fuels unstable paychecks and poverty for thousands of workers, particularly women, across the state.
“People want to work hard at a place where they feel valued,” said Amado Rosa, a tipped worker at a Thai restaurant and a member of Make the Road New York. “Being paid $4 or $5 an hour does not make a worker feel validated and does not generate enough income to support a single person or a family. I have faced many hardships over the years, and my anxiety stemmed from not knowing what my take-home pay would be in a given week.”
The poverty rate among New York’s tipped workers is more than double that of the regular workforce. Seven states across the country have adopted policies requiring employers to pay tipped workers the full minimum wage and have shown that eliminating the sub-minimum wage reduces poverty without slowing job growth. In fact, according to projections by the National Restaurant Association in their 2014 Industry Forecast, all of the states that require employers to directly pay the full minimum wage to tipped workers are expected to have greater restaurant job growth than New York in the next decade — in most cases, much greater. Tipped workers are already being paid $9 or more in California, Washington and Oregon, and will soon be getting raises to over $9 in Minnesota, Hawaii and Alaska.
“More than 3 million New Yorkers work low-wage jobs, and they need our state government officials on their side,” said Michael Kink of the Strong Economy for All Coalition. “New York needs a one-two punch for good jobs: a big increase in the minimum wage, and elimination of the second-class sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. This combination could boost the paychecks of millions of workers and help revive the New York economy from the ground up — the Wage Board should take direct action to provide one fair wage to a quarter-million tipped workers to get us moving now.”
Advocates who testified at today’s hearing are members of Raise Up NY, fighting for #1FairWage, a coalition comprised of tipped workers, the National Employment Law Project, Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy, Fast Food Forward, New York Labor-Religion Coalition, New York Communities for Change, ROC-NY, ROC-NY affiliate of Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United, Strong for All, United New York, Citizen Action New York, Tompkins County Workers Center, Worker Center of Central New York, Metro Justice, Coalition for Economic Justice, Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse (ACTS) and other community groups and advocates around New York State calling for the elimination of New York’s sub-minimum wage for tipped workers.
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The dollar is ticking down
“Jerome Powell’s most important qualification is that he served with Janet Yellen. His confirmation should depend on...
“Jerome Powell’s most important qualification is that he served with Janet Yellen. His confirmation should depend on his willingness to follow in Yellen’s footsteps on both monetary and regulatory policy,” Shawn Sebastian, co-director of Fed Up, a campaign from the Center for Popular Democracy, told the Washington Post.
I'm a Puerto Rican refugee from Hurricane Maria. Here's why I care about the Pa. midterm
I'm a Puerto Rican refugee from Hurricane Maria. Here's why I care about the Pa. midterm
"I am a hurricane Maria survivor who now calls the state of Pennsylvania my home...Without support from the federal...
"I am a hurricane Maria survivor who now calls the state of Pennsylvania my home...Without support from the federal government, I am grateful for the assistance of grassroots organizations and nonprofits like CASA and CASA in Action, affiliates of the Center for Popular Democracy...I am now proud to work with CASA in action, canvassing and energizing voters. It is empowering to knock on doors and connect with other Latinos and long time residents who came to Pennsylvania before me. They understand that it is our duty as a community to come together and send a strong message that we are here and that we vote too."
Read the full article here.
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