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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Jackson Hole Summit To Provide Forum For Policymakers Amid Market Turmoil
Also getting under way at the lodge is a protest conference organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal...
Also getting under way at the lodge is a protest conference organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal group that has been cajoling the Fed to hold off on raising interest rates. Some researchers, for example, argue that “core inflation” – which strips out food and energy prices and is often used by bankers as their preferred gauge – may be less relevant in a world where futures contracts, global shipping and worldwide trade help even out retail level price swings for some of those goods.
Some analysts have also said that globalization has been a factor in holding down U.S. wages and prices even at times of solid growth.
When the Fed met in June, US oil prices had recovered to over $60 a barrel, and there had been a belief that we’d seen the lows.
Inflation has been a concern for the Fed, as it has been running well below its 2 percent goal and some signs have indicated that it may fall further. London Business School professor Lucrezia Reichlin is the discussant. Yet the theory is still a useful framework to think about monetary policy. This year central bankers, finance ministers, academics and financial market participants will chewing over why inflation is so low, whether this is unsafe and what they can do about it. Investors have cut the probability of a move at that gathering to 28 percent Tuesday from 48 percent on August 18 based on trading in fed funds futures.
They confront a big disparity between the world’s two largest economies, the U.S. and China.
China’s stock market is swooning and its economy slowing.
Goldman Sachs economists wrote Wednesday that they “expect liftoff in December, and see the recent market sell-off as another argument against a hike in September“.
U.S. counterparts will experience both advantages and disadvantages if their currencies behave according to textbooks and their currencies weaken against the dollar if the Fed raises rates.
Dudley said a final decision would reflect how the market acts over the next few weeks, as well as the end-of-montheconomic data.
The absence of Yellen and Draghi has lowered expectations for a major policy announcements at Jackson Hole.
The official roster of attendees at the invitation-only event included Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer and Fed governors Lael Brainard and Jerome Powell, and presidents from eight of the 12 regional Fed banks. “So you look around the world and ask who can take up the slack, and really the answer is nobody”, said Kevin Logan, chief U.S. economist at HSBC Securities, in New York.
The opening session at 10 a.m. Eastern will examine a paper on “Inflation dynamics though firms’ pricing behavior” by Simon Gilchrist, a professor at Boston University and Egon Zakrajsek, an associate director for monetary affairs at the Fed Board of governors.
The vice chairman is considered extra inclined than Yellen to boost charges prior to later, so his statements might make clear how the talk contained in the central financial institution might transpire when officers meet September 16 and 17.
Source: Rapid News Network
Rally Aims To Highlight Racial Employment Disparities In Metro Area
CBS Minnesota - March 4, 2015 - A report to be released on Thursday aims to highlight employment disparities in the...
CBS Minnesota - March 4, 2015 - A report to be released on Thursday aims to highlight employment disparities in the Twin Cities.
The groups Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Economic Policy Institute say they plan to hold a rally at the Neighborhoods Organizing for Change offices on Thursday afternoon to draw attention to the racial differences between wages and jobs available here.
The groups say that, though the economy is adding jobs, the unemployment rate among black residents in the Twin Cities metro area is nearly four times that of white residents.
The groups said that the racial disparities on display in Minnesota are “among the worst in the nation.”
The rally is scheduled for 3 p.m.
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What Does Black Lives Matter Want?
What Does Black Lives Matter Want?
On August 1 the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a coalition of over sixty organizations, rolled out “A Vision for...
On August 1 the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a coalition of over sixty organizations, rolled out “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom & Justice,” an ambitious document described by the press as the first signs of what young black activists “really want.” It lays out six demands aimed at ending all forms of violence and injustice endured by black people; redirecting resources from prisons and the military to education, health, and safety; creating a just, democratically controlled economy; and securing black political power within a genuinely inclusive democracy. Backing the demands are forty separate proposals and thirty-four policy briefs, replete with data, context, and legislative recommendations.
But the document quickly came under attack for its statement on Palestine, which calls Israel an apartheid state and characterizes the ongoing war in Gaza and the West Bank as genocide. Dozens of publications and media outlets devoted extensive coverage to the controversy around this single aspect of the platform, including The Guardian, the Washington Post, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Of course, M4BL is not the first to argue that Israeli policies meet the UN definitions of apartheid. (The 1965 International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the 1975 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid define it as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”) Nor is M4BL the first group to use the term “genocide” to describe the plight of Palestinians under occupation and settlement. The renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, for example, wrote of the war on Gaza in 2014 as “incremental genocide.” That Israel’s actions in Gaza correspond with the UN definition of genocide to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” by causing “serious bodily or mental harm” to group members is a legitimate argument to make.
The few mainstream reporters and pundits who considered the full M4BL document either reduced it to a laundry list of demands or positioned it as an alternative to the platform of the Democratic Party—or else focused on their own benighted astonishment that the movement has an agenda beyond curbing police violence. But anyone following Black Lives Matter from its inception in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman verdict should not be surprised by the document’s broad scope. Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi are veteran organizers with a distinguished record of fighting for economic justice, immigrant rights, gender equity, and ending mass incarceration. “A Vision for Black Lives” was not a response to the U.S. presidential election, nor to unfounded criticisms of the movement as “rudderless” or merely a hashtag. It was the product of a year of collective discussion, research, collaboration, and intense debate, beginning with the Movement for Black Lives Convening in Cleveland last July, which initially brought together thirty different organizations. It was the product of some of the country’s greatest minds representing organizations such as the Black Youth Project 100, Million Hoodies, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Dream Defenders, the Organization for Black Struggle, and Southerners on New Ground (SONG). As Marbre Stahly-Butts, a leader of the M4BL policy table explained, “We formed working groups, facilitated multiple convenings, drew on a range of expertise, and sought guidance from grassroots organizations, organizers and elders. As of today, well over sixty organizations and hundreds of people have contributed to the platform.”
“A Vision for Black Lives” is a plan for ending structural racism, saving the planet, and transforming the entire nation—not just black lives.
The result is actually more than a platform. It is a remarkable blueprint for social transformation that ought to be read and discussed by everyone. The demands are not intended as Band-Aids to patch up the existing system but achievable goals that will produce deep structural changes and improve the lives of all Americans and much of the world. Thenjiwe McHarris, an eminent human rights activist and a principle coordinator of the M4BL policy table, put it best: “We hope that what has been created carries forward the legacy of our elders and our ancestors while imagining a world and a country profoundly different than what currently exists. For us and for those that will come after us.” The document was not drafted with the expectation that it will become the basis of a mass movement, or that it will replace the Democratic Party’s platform. Rather it is a vision statement for long-term, transformative organizing. Indeed, “A Vision for Black Lives” is less a political platform than a plan for ending structural racism, saving the planet, and transforming the entire nation—not just black lives.
If heeded, the call to “end the war on Black people” would not only reduce our vulnerability to poverty, prison, and premature death but also generate what I would call a peace dividend of billions of dollars. Demilitarizing the police, abolishing bail, decriminalizing drugs and sex work, and ending the criminalization of youth, transfolk, and gender-nonconforming people would dramatically diminish jail and prison populations, reduce police budgets, and make us safer. “A Vision for Black Lives” explicitly calls for divesting from prisons, policing, a failed war on drugs, fossil fuels, fiscal and trade policies that benefit the rich and deepen inequality, and a military budget in which two-thirds of the Pentagon’s spending goes to private contractors. The savings are to be invested in education, universal healthcare, housing, living wage jobs, “community-based drug and mental health treatment,” restorative justice, food justice, and green energy.
But the point is not simply to reinvest the peace dividend into existing social and economic structures. It is to change those structures—which is why “A Vision for Black Lives” emphasizes community control, self-determination, and “collective ownership” of certain economic institutions. It calls for community control over police and schools, participatory budgeting, the right to organize, financial and institutional support for cooperatives, and “fair development” policies based on human needs and community participation rather than market principles. Democratizing the institutions that have governed black communities for decades without accountability will go a long way toward securing a more permanent peace since it will finally end a relationship based on subjugation, subordination, and surveillance. And by insisting that such institutions be more attentive to the needs of the most marginalized and vulnerable—working people and the poor, the homeless, the formerly incarcerated, the disabled, women, and the LGBTQ community—“A Vision for Black Lives” enriches our practice of democracy.
For example, “A Vision for Black Lives” advocates not only closing tax loopholes for the rich but revising a regressive tax policy in which the poorest 20 percent of the population pays on average twice as much in taxes as the richest 1 percent. M4BL supports a massive jobs program for black workers, but the organization’s proposal includes a living wage, protection and support for unions and worker centers, and anti-discrimination clauses that protect queer and trans employees, the disabled, and the formerly incarcerated. Unlike the Democratic Party, M4BL does not subscribe to the breadwinner model of jobs as the sole source of income. It instead supports a universal basic income (UBI) that “would meet basic human needs,” eliminate poverty, and ensure “economic security for all.” This is not a new idea; some kind of guaranteed annual income has been fundamental to other industrializing nations with strong social safety nets and vibrant economies, and the National Welfare Rights Organization proposed similar legislation nearly a half century ago. The American revolutionary Thomas Paine argued in the eighteenth century for the right of citizens to draw a basic income from the levying of property tax, as Elizabeth Anderson recently reminded. Ironically, the idea of a basic income or “negative income tax” also won support from neoliberal economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek—although for very different reasons. Because eligibility does not require means testing, a UBI would effectively reduce the size of government by eliminating the bureaucratic machine of social workers and investigators who police the dispensation of entitlements such as food stamps and welfare. And by divesting from an unwieldy and unjust prison-industrial complex, there would be more than enough revenue to create good-paying jobs and provide a basic income for all.
Reducing the military is not just about resources; it is about ending war, at home and abroad. “A Vision for Black Lives” includes a devastating critique of U.S. foreign policy, including the escalation of the war on terror in Africa, machinations in Haiti, the recent coup in Honduras, ongoing support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and the role of war and free-trade policies in fueling the global refugee crisis. M4BL’s critique of U.S. militarism is driven by Love—not the uncritical love of flag and nation we saw exhibited at both major party conventions, but a love of global humanity. “The movement for Black lives,” one policy brief explains, “must be tied to liberation movements around the world. The Black community is a global diaspora and our political demands must reflect this global reality. As it stands funds and resources needed to realize domestic demands are currently used for wars and violence destroying communities abroad.”
Finally, a peace dividend can fund M4BL’s most controversial demand: reparations. For M4BL, reparations would take the form of massive investment in black communities harmed by past and present policies of exploitation, theft, and disinvestment; free and open access to lifetime education and student debt forgiveness; and mandated changes in the school curriculum that acknowledge the impact of slavery, colonialism, and Jim Crow in producing wealth and racial inequality. The latter is essential, since perhaps the greatest obstacle to reparations is the common narrative that American wealth is the product of individual hard work and initiative, while poverty results from misfortune, culture, bad behavior, or inadequate education. We have for too long had ample evidence that this is a lie. From generations of unfree, unpaid labor, from taxing black communities to subsidize separate but unequal institutions, from land dispossession and federal housing policies and corporate practices that conspire to keep housing values in black and brown communities significantly lower, resulting in massive loss of potential wealth—the evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible. Structural racism is to blame for generations of inequality. Restoring some of that wealth in the form of education, housing, infrastructure, and jobs with living wages would not only begin to repair the relationship between black residents and the rest of the country, but also strengthen the economy as a whole.
To see how “A Vision for Black Lives” is also a vision for the country as a whole requires imagination. But it also requires seeing black people as fully human, as producers of wealth, sources of intellect, and as victims of crimes—whether the theft of our bodies, our labor, our children, our income, our security, or our psychological well-being. If we had the capacity to see structural racism and its consequences not as a black problem but as an American problem we have faced since colonial times, we may finally begin to hear what the Black Lives Matter movement has been saying all along: when all black lives are valued and the structures and practices that do harm to black communities are eliminated, we will change our country and possibly the world.
By By Robin D. G. Kelley
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Laid-Off Workers Demand Severance Pay From Equity Firms Behind Toys "R" Us Bankruptcy
Laid-Off Workers Demand Severance Pay From Equity Firms Behind Toys "R" Us Bankruptcy
Today we bring you a conversation with Debbie Beard, an assistant manager at Babies "R" Us in Phoenix, Arizona, and ...
Today we bring you a conversation with Debbie Beard, an assistant manager at Babies "R" Us in Phoenix, Arizona, and Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy. They discuss how leveraged buyout of Toys "R" Us hurt tens of thousands of retail workers and how a new campaign is fighting back to demand justice for these employees.
Read the full article here.
Conyers presses Federal Reserve for more diversity
Conyers presses Federal Reserve for more diversity
Washington — Rep. John Conyers, the longest serving member of Congress, is leading a group of 127 lawmakers who are...
Washington — Rep. John Conyers, the longest serving member of Congress, is leading a group of 127 lawmakers who are urging the Federal Reserve System to add more diversity to its leadership ranks and become more attuned to economic problems in minority communities.
The lawmakers complained that all but one of the 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents across the nation are white and 10 of them are men. In addition, they said none of the current Federal Reserve presidents are African-American or Latino, and the system has never had a regional president who is black.
“Far too often, the voices of minorities are silenced because they aren’t sitting at the table,” Conyers, the longtime Democrat and African-American Detroiter, said in a statement. “The Federal Reserve needs leadership that models the diversity that exists in this Nation.”
The Federal Reserve has banks in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas and San Francisco. Detroit is part of the Chicago bank.
Conyers said the diversity of the bank’s regional presidents is important to Detroit and other urban cities, however.
“Detroit and cities across the country with high minority populations have the highest unemployment rates and will be harmed if the Federal Reserve does not consider our needs when they make key policy decisions,” he said. “Increasing diversity at the Federal Reserve will help ensure that the needs of people of color, women, labor, and consumers are part of the crucial conversation in our nation’s central bank.”
A spokesman for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors said the system has been committed to bolstering diversity and continues to aim for increasing ethnic and gender diversity.
“Minority representation on Reserve Bank and Branch boards has increased from 16 percent in 2010 to 24 percent in 2016,” spokesman Dave Skidmore said in a Thursday statement. “The proportion of women directors has risen from 23 percent to 30 percent over the same period. Currently, 46 percent of all directors are diverse in terms of race and/or gender (with a director who is both female and a minority counted only one time).
“We are striving to continue that progress.”
The letter, which is signed by 116 House members and 11 Senate members, is being spearheaded by Conyers and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts.
Other Michigan representatives who signed the letter were Brenda Lawerence, D-Southfield; Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak; Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township; and Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn. Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was also a signatory.
By Keith Laing
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How Cities’ Funding Woes Are Driving Racial and Economic Injustice—And What We Can Do About It
The Nation - April 28, 2015, by Brad Lander & Karl Kumodzi - In August 2014, the municipality of Ferguson, Missouri...
The Nation - April 28, 2015, by Brad Lander & Karl Kumodzi - In August 2014, the municipality of Ferguson, Missouri erupted onto the national scene. In the wake of the killing of Michael Brown, we learned much about economic and political life in Ferguson and greater St. Louis County.
To many, it was no surprise to learn that, for years, African-American residents of municipalities throughout St. Louis County have been disproportionately and illegally stopped for minor offenses. Blacks are far more likely to be stopped, searched, ticketed, fined, and arrested. Many wind up jailed, leading to a cycle of lost jobs, drivers’ licenses, homes, or child custody. Some are beaten, terrorized, or—like Michael Brown—even killed.
It was more surprising to learn that in Ferguson, “Driving While Black” isn’t only about racial profiling: it’s also about municipal revenue. Fines and court fees have become the city’s second largest revenue source, and the over-criminalization of Black people has become a strategy for collecting taxes.
It is important to understand and address the revenue crisis facing U.S. municipalities. As cities have become unable to pay their bills, they often turn to regressive strategies that disproportionately harm people of color and low-income residents.
Ithaca, NY is like Ferguson. Up until January 2014, residents had to pay for installations and repairs of public sidewalks adjoining their properties—with one notable case in which 28 homeowners were forced to pay a combined $100,000 out of their personal pockets to the city for repairs. Detroit, MI is like Ferguson. After the city filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history, the city’s water department responded to pressures to lower their $90 million portion of the overall $20 billion debt by shutting off crucial water services to mostly Black low-income residents who owed over a mere $150 on their water bills. This April, Baltimore followed Detroit’s lead.
These cities are like Ferguson because of a common underlying problem: All across America, cities and towns are struggling to maintain enough revenue to provide crucial services to residents. The collateral damage of this revenue crisis—over-criminalization, utility shut-offs, the withdrawal of public services, and slashed budgets for schools—is dire.
Local Progress, a national network of progressive municipal elected officials, is working to address inequality from an often overlooked source: municipal budgets. In our new report, Progressive Policies for Raising Municipal Revenue, Local Progress lays out forward-thinking strategies and policy options that cities can pursue to restructure their revenue streams in a way that doesn’t fall disproportionately on the backs of their most vulnerable residents.
The roots of the municipal revenue crisis were decades in the making. Following the post-war desegregation of housing and education, and other civil rights victories of the 50’s and 60’s, racial animosity and the conservative backlash against taxation—referred to by historians as the tax revolt—helped to fuel the exodus of higher-income families from urban centers to suburban enclaves.
This “white flight” dramatically eroded the tax base of urban centers like Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis—and later of first-ring suburban municipalities like Ferguson.
The tax revolt also led directly to policies that dramatically reduced the ability of cities to collect enough revenue through property and other taxes. Most dramatic was the 1976 passage of Prop 13 in California, which contributed heavily to the erosion of California’s public education system and other public services.
In 2008, the Great Recession caused the municipal revenue crisis that had been brewing for decades to explode, spurring significant and rapid declines in general fund revenues for municipalities. In order to deal with the impacts of this dramatic shortfall, cities were forced to cut personnel, cancel capital projects (and their much-needed jobs), and slash funding for education, parks, libraries, sanitation, and more. These cuts hit low-income families the hardest. And they are especially harmful to Black families because African-Americans are 30 percent more likely to be employed by the public sector than other workers.
The strategies that many municipalities adopted to address the crisis hit low-income people of color the hardest. When property tax revenue declined in St. Louis County, fines-and-fees revenue increased in order to maintain revenue. Tickets are issued for everything from failure to cut one’s lawn to sleeping over at someone’s house without being on the occupancy certificate. In nearby Edmundson, the city averages $600 per person per year in court fines, and forecasts increasing revenue from these fines in their future budget proposals – essentially creating a hidden tax on the most vulnerable residents. Black residents throughout the region report feeling “as if their governments see them as little more than sources of revenue.”
Many towns have resorted to privatizing formerly public responsibilities such as trash collection, sewage, roads, parks, and introducing new fees to force residents to foot the bill directly. These fees and taxes are often extremely regressive, because as everyone is forced to pay a flat rate, poor people end up paying a higher percentage of their income. A recent study conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the nationwide average effective state and local tax rates are 10.9% for the poorest fifth of taxpayers and 5.4% for the wealthiest 1 percent. In fact, in the ten states with the most regressive tax structures, the poorest fifth pay as much as seven times the percentage of their income in taxes and fees as the wealthiest residents do.
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Addressing the municipal revenue crisis is, therefore, a central barrier to achieving racial and economic justice in our urban centers, and to rebuilding a more democratic, just, and livable America with genuinely shared prosperity.
Luckily, there are creative and progressive strategies that municipalities can adopt to generate more revenue in a progressive way, such as:
● Expanding the progressivity of existing local income taxes by creating more tax brackets with greater differences between brackets, and doing the same for property taxes in order to generate more revenue from commercial and high-end development.
● Eliminating corporate tax breaks at the city level, particularly Tax Increment Financing and business improvement districts that come with tax breaks
● Restructuring fines so that residents pay different rates based on income. A $200 traffic ticket has no deterrent effect for a millionaire, but can be devastating for a low wage worker; a more rational fine system, like the one adopted in Finland, would be more fair and generate more revenue.
● Mandating that major tax-exempt institutions like hospitals and universities make genuine and fair payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) to help cover the costs of crucial city services that they use.
● Converting city services into municipality-owned utilities when possible, charging utility fees to all users, and applying conservation pricing so lower-income households pay a lower rate while bulk users—such as commercial and industry—pay higher rates
● Forming statewide coalitions of municipal elected officials, grassroots organizations, school boards, and other affected parties to change preemption and revenue policies at the state level.
These policy innovations and many more are detailed in our report.
Cities are America’s bedrock and its future: both for our country and for the progressive movement. Cities are home to 67% of the population, account for 75% of our GDP, and house our best public institutions and infrastructure.
The policy recommendations laid out by Local Progress in our new report can help municipalities develop progressive revenue solutions—so they can pay for public education, health, and housing programs that help families thrive, invest in the infrastructure of public transportation, climate resilience, parks that sustainable cities need, and stimulate inclusive economic growth that creates good jobs.
Through progressive revenue strategies, cities can turn the Ferguson-like cycle of disinvestment and inequality into a cycle of reinvestment and opportunity—and help make sure that our cities can become the models for our vision of a more progressive and prosperous America.
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As Federal Reserve Selects New Top Officials, Coalition Calls for Public Input
New York Times - November 10, 2014, by Binyamin Appelbaum - A coalition of community groups and labor unions wants the...
New York Times - November 10, 2014, by Binyamin Appelbaum - A coalition of community groups and labor unions wants the Federal Reserve to change the way some Fed officials are appointed, criticizing the existing process as secretive, undemocratic and dominated by banks and other large corporations.
In letters sent to Fed officials last week, the coalition called for the central bank to let the public participate in choosing new presidents for the regional reserve banks in Philadelphia and Dallas. The current heads of both banks plan to step down in the first half of 2015.
The Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, has agreed to meet on Friday with about three dozen representatives of the groups to hear their concerns.
“The Federal Reserve has huge influence over the number of people who have jobs, over our wages, over the number of hours that we get to work, and yet we don’t have discussion and engagement over what Fed policy should be,” said Ady Barkan, a lawyer with the Center for Popular Democracy, a Brooklyn-based advocacy group that is orchestrating the campaigns. “More people’s voices need to be heard.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. Yellen confirmed the meeting but declined to comment on the issues raised by the groups.
The Philadelphia Fed said in an email that the institution “is conducting a broad search for its next president and will consider a diverse group of candidates from inside and outside the Federal Reserve System.”
James Hoard, a spokesman for the Dallas Fed, said the bank’s board would meet on Thursday to discuss the search process.
The campaign is part of a broader increase in political pressure on the Fed, which is engaged in a long-running campaign to stimulate the economy that some liberals regard as insufficient and some conservatives see as both ineffective and dangerous. Mr. Barkan led a picket line in support of the Fed’s efforts in August outside the annual monetary policy conference at Jackson Hole, Wyo.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have passed legislation that seeks to reduce the Fed’s flexibility in responding to economic downturns, arguing that such efforts are destabilizing.
The Fed acts like a monolith, but it has a complicated skeleton. Most power rests with a board of governors in Washington, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But operations are conducted through 12 regional banks, each of which selects its own president. And those presidents rotate among themselves five of the 12 seats on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy.
The two presidents who have said they plan to step down are, by coincidence, among the most outspoken internal critics of the Fed’s campaign to stimulate the economy. Charles I. Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Fed since 2006, plans to retire at the end of March. Richard W. Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed since 2005, is required to step down by the end of April, though he has not set a date.
Their replacements will be selected by the board of each reserve bank. Each board has nine members, including three bankers, but under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, only the nonbank members can participate in the process. The banks in each reserve district, however, still elect three of those six nonbank members. The other three, including the chairman and vice chairman, are appointed by the Fed board in Washington.
By law, the boards are supposed to represent a diverse set of viewpoints, including “labor and consumers.” But the 72 nonbank board members are predominantly corporate executives. Just eight are leaders of community groups; two more are leaders of labor groups.
Corporate executives exclusively make up the boards of the St. Louis and Richmond regional banks. The Dallas Fed’s board includes the presidents of the Houston Endowment — a charitable organization — and the University of Houston. The Philadelphia Fed has five executives and the president of the University of Delaware.
“I look at that list and it doesn’t strike me that most of those folks are representing the public,” Kati Sipp, director of Pennsylvania Working Families, a nonprofit advocacy group that is one of the signatories of the recent letter, said of the Philadelphia Fed’s board. “We believe it is important for the people who are making economic policy to hear from the regular folks on the ground who are being affected by those decisions.”
The two dozen signatories also include the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, New Jersey Communities United and W. Wilson Goode Jr., a Philadelphia city councilman. The letter asks for the Fed to disclose basic information about the selection process, including the timetable, criteria and, eventually, names of candidates. It also seeks search committee seats and opportunities to question the candidates publicly.
The selection process is secretive, but control has increasingly shifted from the regional banks to the board of governors. Beginning under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, a former Fed chairman, the central bank has sought presidents who can contribute to making monetary policy. The board provides informal guidance during the winnowing process, and candidates travel to Washington to meet with the governors.
As a result of that trend, 10 of the 12 sitting presidents are former Fed staffers, economists or both. Mr. Fisher, a former investor, is one exception. The other is Dennis P. Lockhart, a former banker who leads the Atlanta Fed — and is the next president who will reach retirement age.
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A guaranteed “Jobs For All” Program is Gaining Traction Among 2020 Democratic Hopefuls
A guaranteed “Jobs For All” Program is Gaining Traction Among 2020 Democratic Hopefuls
A longtime organizer, Barkan — who has Lou Gehrig’s disease — gained national recognition after his viral confrontation...
A longtime organizer, Barkan — who has Lou Gehrig’s disease — gained national recognition after his viral confrontation of Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., over his support for the Republican tax plan and the cuts to Medicare that it would impose. When he was diagnosed with ALS in late 2016, Barkan was working with the Center for Popular Democracy on a campaign to reform the Federal Reserve and American monetary policymaking with it. Following Trump’s election, he has continued to fight for that and against a range of Republican policies.
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Trabajadores demandan freno a la ‘epidemia’ de robo de salarios en NYC
Trabajadores demandan freno a la ‘epidemia’ de robo de salarios en NYC
Source:...
Source: El Diario
Freno a la epidemia de robo de salarios fue la consigna que gritaron sin cesar unas 30 empleadas domésticas y jornaleros frente a la Corte de Brooklyn. La acción, liderada por el Proyecto de Justicia Laboral (WJP), sirvió para exponer a un contratista inescrupuloso como parte de “una maquinaria que exprime a las familias trabajadoras”.
Los defensores denunciaron que la creación de’ empresas fantasma’ es una estrategia que los empleadores para esquivar a las autoridades y seguir en el negocio pese a tener casos abiertos en las cortes de la ciudad.
Samuel Just, propietario de Just Cleaning, fue arrestado el verano pasado por la Fiscalía de Brooklyn luego de que el WJP documentara varios casos de robo de salario. Pese a la presión de las autoridades y de los grupos defensores de los jornaleros, el empresario se niega a pagar a las víctimas, la mayoría mujeres latinas.
“El robo de salario es un crimen. No hay otra manera de calificarlo”, sentenció Ligia Guallpa, directora ejecutiva del WJP.
Otras organizaciones se unieron a la protesta para denunciar que el robo de salario afecta radicalmente a las comunidades inmigrantes. Gonzalo Mercado, director ejecutivo de Staten Island Community Job Center, explicó que los contratistas están creando empresas fantasmas para evadir a las autoridades y las pesquisas de los activistas.
“Hemos visto a empleadores circulando por las paradas de jornaleros con camionetas sin logotipos. Su estrategia es evitar ser identificados”, sentenció. “Muchos trabajadores no saben quién los contrata, lo que hace más difícil la recuperación de los salarios”.
El mexicano Oscar Lezama (36) contó que una compañía de Staten Island, que se dedica a la instalación de cocinas, se negó a pagarle unos mil dólares por horas extra.
“No sabía para quién trabajaba. Nunca vi nombres o logotipos que identificaran a la compañía”, comentó.
La organización Staten Island Community Job Center ayudó a Lezama a recuperar su salario mediante negociaciones directas con el propietario, pero Mercado dijo que identificar a la compañía implicó una investigación exhaustiva.
“Las organizaciones, de alguna manera, estamos tomando el rol del Departamento de Trabajo para recuperar los salarios”, dijo Mercado. “Muchos contratistas prefieren la negociación directa y así evitar comparecer en una corte, lo que reduce el tiempo de recuperación de salario, algo que beneficia al trabajador”.
Los defensores están pidiendo mano dura para los contratistas que reinciden en el robo de salario. Parte de sus esfuerzos implica que la Ciudad revoque o niegue la renovación de las licencias.
“Los contratistas recurren a subcontratistas para contratar jornaleros y luego no pagarles”, dijo Guallpa. “En las cortes se defienden argumentando que nunca contrataron al trabajador”.
De acuerdo con la activista, Samuel Just estaría recurriendo a estas estrategias para evadir su responsabilidad. El empresario presuntamente recurre a subcontratistas y empresas fantasma para continuar en el negocio y esquivar a los fiscales, algo que WJP está documentando.
La protesta frente a la Corte de Brooklyn fue la quinta acción colectiva convocada por WJP para exponer al propietario de Just Cleaning, pero también para crear conciencia acerca de que el robo de salario es un problema, que se agudizó en los últimos años, según defensores.
“La falta de denuncia, el miedo de los trabajadores indocumentados y las leyes débiles están nutriendo el abuso de los empleadores”, se lamentó Omar Henríquez, organizador de la Red Nacional de Trabajadores por Día (NDLON). “El robo de salario implica la evasión de impuestos. Es perjudicial para nuestros gobiernos y comunidades”.
El Servicio de Impuestos Internos (IRS) estima que los empleadores clasifican erróneamente a millones de empleados cada año en el país, evitando en promedio cerca de $4.000 en impuestos federales por cada trabajador.
Las víctimas de Just declinaron hacer comentarios por recomendación de sus abogados, pero estuvieron en la protesta demandando justicia. Varias llamadas al empleador no fueron atendidas al cierre de esta edición.
Un estimado de 2.1 millones de neoyorquinos son víctimas de robo de salario al año, lo que representa una pérdida de $3.2 mil millones en pagos y beneficios, según el reporte “By a Thousand Cuts: The Complex Face of Wage Theft in New York” del Center for Popular Democracy Action (CPDA).
Según la Fiscalía de Brooklyn, Just recogía a los trabajadores en una van en la esquina de las avenidas Marcy y Division -en el barrio de Williamsburg-, y les ofrecía entre $10 y $15 la hora. El contratista hizo trabajar a los jornaleros hasta 27 horas seguidas durante la celebración de Pesaj o Pascua Judía, que implica una intensa limpieza de los hogares.
Al menos 11 trabajadores -la mayoría mujeres- habrían sido víctimas de Just, pero sólo cinco se atrevieron a denunciarlo, según los activistas.
“El castigo de empleadores como Just motivará la denuncia y enviará un mensaje claro a otros contratistas que violan las leyes. Sólo así frenaremos la epidemia de robo de salario en Nueva York”, dijo Guallpa.
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