Think The Minimum Wage Will Be Safe Under Labor Secretary Puzder? Not So Fast.
Think The Minimum Wage Will Be Safe Under Labor Secretary Puzder? Not So Fast.
This year was supposed to be a good one for America’s workers. After all, nearly 12 million workers won higher wages in...
This year was supposed to be a good one for America’s workers. After all, nearly 12 million workers won higher wages in 2016, the result of sustained and coordinated efforts around the country. There’s a catch though: if these wages aren’t enforced, American workers will never even see them.
And despite widespread support, state and local lawmakers and business communities have already begun threatening to not comply with the wage hikes. In Maine, Governor Paul LePage ordered his administration to stop enforcing a minimum wage hike that 60 percent of his state’s residents voted for, telling employers who violate the law that they would be off the hook.
At the other end of the country in Flagstaff, Arizona, 54 percent of city residents backed a $15 minimum wage in elections last year, but business groups are fighting to move enforcement from a local authority to a state commission, which would likely delay the processing of claims. The state as a whole has backed higher wages, approving a proposition to raise the state’s minimum to $12 by 2020 last year.
In the face of such attacks at the city and state level, it’s imperative to have a federal Labor Department committed to ensuring that workers aren’t cheated out of their wages - wages not only earned through hard work but also guaranteed by law.
This won’t be the case if Andy Puzder becomes Labor Secretary. As chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, Puzder consistently flouted basic labor standards.
Puzder, whose confirmation hearing has already been put off multiple times, could easily fail to enforce the wage increases that prevailed in referendums throughout the country, and he’s likely to put even the existing protections we have in jeopardy - including the minimum wage, which currently stands at a paltry $7.25.
It’s the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, a term that we seem to be asserting with every cabinet appointee, but that rings even more true with Puzder.
Just last week, CKE Restaurants was hit with nearly two dozen charges of stealing wages. Multiple workers said they had worked for weeks without seeing a paycheck. One was only paid after he stopped coming to work in protest.
CKE has also come under fire for paying employees with pre-paid debit cards that incur fees on certain ATMs, in effect shorting employees their full paycheck.
If Puzder runs the Labor Department like he runs his company, these kinds of abuses will be allowed to flourish nationwide – and workers will lose one of their most important outlets for addressing their concerns.
For working Americans, it could be a disaster of epic proportions
And CKE is far from the only chain that regularly skirts labor laws. In fact, wage theft runs rampant across the restaurant industry, as well as retail and other low-paying service jobs. A National Employment Law Project study found that more than two-thirds of low-wage workers in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles had experienced wage theft in the previous workweek. The Economic Policy Institute in 2014 calculated that wage theft cost Americans as much as $50 billion every year
Some states, realizing the scope of the problem, have taken steps to improve oversight in recent years. In New York, 2010 workers won the strongest protections against wage theft in the country. After passage of a significantly higher minimum wage last year, Governor Cuomo followed up with a 200-person task force to ensure wages are being paid.
Yet state action can only do so much. The Department of Labor sets standards for wage enforcement around the country and is the front-line agency for filing many wage theft cases. A 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that weak oversight during the Bush years had left thousands of workers stranded with nowhere to turn.
We have made too much progress to turn back now. Taking the teeth out of oversight hurts workers and hurts the overall economy. Members of Congress need to make clear that Puzder’s persistent record of wage theft disqualifies him from the job of Labor Secretary – and, if Puzder is confirmed, states must show that they are willing to stand up for workers on their own.
By JoEllen Chernow
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Some Retailers Promote Decision to Remain Closed on Thanksgiving
New York Times - November 14, 2014, Steven Greenhouse - This...
New York Times - November 14, 2014, Steven Greenhouse - This Thanksgiving, the open-versus-shut debate has grown even louder.
Walmart, Kmart, Macy’s, Target, RadioShack and many other major retailers are proclaiming that they will be open on Thanksgiving Day to make shoppers happy. But Costco, Marshalls, GameStop and T. J. Maxx are riding the backlash against holiday commerce by boasting that they will not relent: They will remain closed that day to show that they are family-friendly and honoring the holiday.
But even as retailers vie for every dollar during a very competitive season, Tony Bartel, the president of GameStop, views this debate as open-and-shut. “For us, it’s a matter of principle,” said Mr. Bartel, whose company has 4,600 stores nationwide. “We have a phrase around here that we use a lot — it’s called ‘protecting the family.’ We want our associates to enjoy their complete holidays.”
“It’s an important holiday in the U.S., and our employees work hard during the holiday season, and we believe they deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving Day with their family and friends,” said Richard A. Galanti, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Costco Wholesale, the nation’s second-largest retailer after Walmart. “We’ve never opened on Thanksgiving, and when the trend to do so occurred in the last couple or three years, we chose not to because we thought it was the right thing to do for our employees.”
More than two dozen major retail chains plan to stay dark on Thanksgiving, including Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, the Burlington Coat Factory, Crate and Barrel, Dillard’s, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Patagonia.
Johan Araujo, a senior game adviser at GameStop’s flagship store in Herald Square in Manhattan, applauded his company’s decision. “It’s good to know they’re thinking about us and what we want,” he said. His plans involve cooking the turkey for his fiancée and friends this year.
Sidney Bartlett, the manager of Mr. Araujo’s store, said that when the store used to be open on Thanksgiving — it started closing for the holiday last year — it was painful to figure out which employees to inconvenience and schedule to work that day. “I thought it’s great the C.E.O. decided to close for the holiday,” he said.
He said it saddened him to see so many stores open that day. “We’ve shifted as a nation — it’s not so much about the family, it’s all about business,” said Mr. Bartlett, who is studying for an M.B.A. at Columbia.
“We don’t believe we will lose any ground to competitors,” said Mr. Bartel, the company’s president. “Even if we lose some ground to competitors, we are making it corporate principle — we have committed to associates that we will not open on Thanksgiving.”
Pushed by competitive forces, some malls are opening on Thanksgiving Day for the first time. In Paramus, N.J., Westfield Garden State Plaza and Paramus Park will open from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., prodded by Macy’s decision to open its stores in those malls.
Walden Galleria, a mall with over 200 stores near Buffalo, threatened to fine retailers about $200 an hour if they don’t open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.
Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative, a campaign pushing retailers to adopt schedules that are more friendly to workers, said, “What’s different from years past is there are more and more retailers coming out publicly and saying, ‘We’re staying closed on Thanksgiving.’ ” They want to demonstrate to their customer base that they’re family-friendly.”
More than 55,000 people have signed a petition on change.org urging Target to remain closed on Thanksgiving, while the Boycott Black Thursday Facebook page has more than 87,000 likes.
Walmart officials say they are doing consumers a favor by opening on Thanksgiving. To reduce the long lines that have upset many shoppers on Black Friday, Walmart announced on Tuesday that it would spread Black Friday over five days.
“It became Black Friday, then it became Thursday, and now it’s becoming weeklong,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising officer at Walmart. “Maybe it’s going to be November.”
Deisha Barnett, a Walmart spokeswoman, said many shoppers were happy that the company would be open on Thanksgiving. “We’re in the service industry, and we’re just like airports and grocery stores and gas stations that are open on Thanksgiving so they can provide what customers need,” she said. “We’ve been open on Thanksgiving for 20-something years.”
Walmart will again face a wave of protests this holiday season. Our Walmart, a union-backed group of Walmart workers pushing for higher pay, said on Friday that it would hold protests at 1,600 Walmarts on Black Friday.
After keeping almost all its stores closed last Thanksgiving, the financially troubled RadioShack said that it planned to open its stores from 8 a.m. to midnight this Thanksgiving. But after some employees voiced dismay, the company changed course to give them time for their feast. Its stores will open from 8 a.m. to noon, close for five hours and reopen from 5 p.m. until midnight, and again at 6 a.m. on Friday.
The University of Connecticut Poll conducted a survey last November that found that nine out of 10 Americans said they didn’t plan to spend Thanksgiving hunting for bargains, while 7 percent said they planned to visit stores on Thanksgiving Day.
The poll of 1,189 adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percent, found that 49 percent disapproved of stores opening on Thanksgiving Day, with 16 percent approving and 34 percent neutral.
Last Thanksgiving, J. C. Penney, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Sears and Target all opened at 8 p.m. This year, Kmart plans to open at 6 a.m. and remain open for the next 42 hours.
“All these companies were closed for decades,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “What’s changed is that some have chosen to remain open, and those companies should be getting demerits. People should ask, ‘Is this the sort of society we want to live in that people aren’t even given the option of celebrating holidays?’ ”
He said that if stores decided to open on Thanksgiving, working that day should be voluntary, not mandatory. He said many part-time workers were eager to work on Thanksgiving.
Mr. Appelbaum praised the Macy’s store in Herald Square for using only workers who volunteer to work that day
Macy’s plans to open at 6 p.m. this Thanksgiving, two hours earlier than last Thanksgiving — and Sears is doing the same thing. “Customer response to the 8 p.m. opening last year was exceptionally strong,” said Jim Sluzewski, Macy’s senior vice president for communications. “At Macy’s Herald Square store, we had 15,000 customers waiting outside when the doors opened. The experience was similar across the country. Many customers asked why we couldn’t open a little earlier.”
In contrast, he said Bloomingdale’s, a Macy’s subsidiary, would remain closed on Thanksgiving Day, saying it was “less promotional” than Macy’s.
Roger Beahm, executive director of the Center for Retail Innovation at Wake Forest University, said it was smart competitively for retailers to open on Thanksgiving. “Did the folks who questioned the sanctity of Thanksgiving learn a lesson?” he said. “A good start to the holiday retail season can really make your year, and a late start can really cripple retailers.”
Dan Evans, a spokesman for Nordstrom, said his company kept its stores closed on Thanksgiving, with a few employees completing holiday decorations that day, before they are unveiled on Black Friday.
“If our customers really wanted us to open on Thanksgiving, that’s what we’ll do,” Mr. Evans said. “We used to be closed on the Fourth of July. We used to be closed on New Year’s Day, but customers wanted us to be open on those days, so now we’re open on those days. Our customers guide us. We don’t guide them.”
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New Video: Preying on Puerto Rico, The Forgotten Citizens of Hedge Fund Island
New Video: Preying on Puerto Rico, The Forgotten Citizens of Hedge Fund Island
Last month I returned to my native Puerto Rico to attend a wedding and was catching up with family still on the Island...
Last month I returned to my native Puerto Rico to attend a wedding and was catching up with family still on the Island one evening. A couple of sips of whiskey in, and the truth came out: My wife’s father reported that he hadn’t received a paycheck in 3 months.
He is a doctor. A highly specialized one, And, with most of his patients coming through government insurance, he hadn’t seen a dime in payment.
Most Puerto Rican health care professionals try to hang on as long as possible. They want to stay in their homeland, be with their families and help make things better. But increasingly, they have no choice. Now many doctors are among the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans who have become economic migrants, forced to flee from home because they simply cannot survive on patriotism and hope.
In 2014, 364 doctors left the island, the Puerto Rican Surgeons and Physicians Association reported. Last year, 500 practitioners packed up and got out.
“Don’t get hurt on a Sunday or a holiday,” one man recently told CNN after his uncle died because only 2 neurologists were on duty to serve the island’s 3.5 million “forgotten citizens.” (His family now calls the lines at the hospital “the walking dead.”)
Behind those staggering numbers is rapacious, hungry, heartless greed as embodied by two simple words: Hedge funds.
Just like Detroit, Greece and other places rocked by the recession and government mismanagement, Puerto Rico’s debt ballooned over the last decade, further exacerbated by colonial status and expiring tax incentives.
In 2012, hedge fund managers began to circle the Commonwealth, looking to reap billions – and experiment with new wealth extraction strategies that could be imported back to the American mainland. The short version: They bought Puerto Rican bonds after the price fell.
Now these “vulture” managers (as they are literally called for their creditor and distressed buying schemes – los buitres in Spanish) insist that any package from Washington that allows Puerto Rico to renegotiate its $72 billion debt puts Wall Street investors at the front of the line to get paid.
A handful are holding out for even more; refusing to accept any restructuring and demanding even more severe austerity measures and suffering so they don’t have to take any losses on their risky investment.
These carrion feeders are in fact, real human beings, acting in inhumane ways: Mark Brodsky, of the $4.5 billion Aurelius Capital and Andrew Feldstein, of the $20 billion BlueMountain Capital are two leaders of the vulture flock of hedge fund billionaires circling Puerto Rico trying to make huge profits from what’s turning into a full-scale humanitarian crisis.
Brodsky bought up the Island’s debt for as low as 29 cents on the dollar and now is demanding full repayment (Think Greece, and Argentina). He is helping fund economists who argue that vital government services must cease – and schools and hospitals must close - to extract full payment.
Feldstein has teams of lawyers fighting basic protections for Puerto Ricans in court and lobbyists taking the same case to Congress. On his dime they have launched a high profile and highly fraudulent media campaign to make sure Congress keeps working for the billionaires – and against teachers, students, the elderly… and my former neighbors and relatives.
Together with John Paulson – who literally bragged to his bros that together they could create the “Singapore of the Caribbean” and create a tax haven for themselves – these vulture investors are consuming the living, for their greed.
That’s why I’ve been working with Brave New Films and a large coalition, including Make the Road, New York Communities for Change, Organize NOW, Florida Institute for Reform & Empowerment, AFT, SEIU, NEA, New Jersey Communities United, Grassroots Collaborative , Center for Popular Democracy, Strong Economy for All, and Citizen Action, under the campaign banner Hedge Clippers, to help ordinary Puerto Ricans expose the truth about these bad actors and their flock.
Preying on Puerto Rico: Forgotten Citizens of Hedge Fund Island is a series of short film videos that Puerto Rican activists helped create to kick off an escalated series of large actions calling on those with the power to help to stand up for Puerto Ricans and stand up to los buitres.
These same leaders are behind a growing wave of protests on Capitol Hill, Wall Street, the Trump Towers and at the Federal Reserve Board offices in cities across the U.S.
They are getting attention and being heard, but the path forward is uphill. We need your help. With unemployment at 14% and 45 percent of Puerto Ricans living below the poverty line Puerto Rico is in a humanitarian crisis. PROMESA, the bill that just passed out of the US House and is on its way to the Senate, is a bad deal that will help the hedge funds, but not the Puerto Rican people.
Preying on Puerto Rico: Forgotten Citizens of HedgeFund Island is only the beginning of how we can use our voices and votes to help my father in-law remain on the Island to help save lives – and end this suffering caused by these vultures and the politicians that do their bidding.
Join us today to share these films – and call Feldstein and Brodsky to ask them: how many more billions do you need to make before you stop pillaging the poor?
By Julio López Varona / Brave New Films
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Warren allies demand answers from Clinton on Wall St. ties
“On behalf of our nine million supporters across the country, we are writing to request more information about your...
“On behalf of our nine million supporters across the country, we are writing to request more information about your positions regarding the revolving door between Wall Street and the federal government,” reads a statement backed by Democracy For America, Rootstrikers, CREDO Action, MoveOn.Org Political Action, the Center for Popular Democracy Action, The Other 98%, Friends of the Earth Action, and American Family Voices.
The missive, which comes as Clinton interrupts her Hamptons vacation to unveil her rural policy platform in Iowa on Wednesday, specifically notes that Clinton has yet to support or comment on Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s Financial Services Conflict of Interest Act. Progressive icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who has ties to many of those who signed the letter — has encouraged all presidential candidates to back the legislation, as both Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have done.
“These types of ‘golden parachute’ compensation packages are highly controversial, and for good reason,” the letter reads. “At worst, it results in undue and inappropriate corporate influence at the highest levels of government — in essence, a barely legal, backdoor form of bribery.”
The letter concludes by posing two questions to the Democratic front-runner: “Do you still support the use of this controversial compensation practice?” and “If you become president, will you allow officials who enter your administration to receive this sort of bonus?”
While Clinton has made steps to appeal to the types of progressive voters behind this letter, she has so far resisted pressure from the left to support reviving the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking before it was repealed in 1999. And members of these groups who wanted bank antagonist Warren to run for the presidency are on high alert this week after news broke that the Massachusetts senator met with Vice President Joe Biden over the weekend as he considers his own presidential ambitions.
“It’s hard to imagine Democrats’ 2016 nominee will be truly tough on Wall Street banks that break the law, if they won’t commit to banning their advisers from receiving legalized bribes from those same banks,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, a group founded by former Vermont governor and current Clinton backer Howard Dean.
The letter names a pair of Clinton associates who moved from banks to the State Department: Robert Hormats, an undersecretary who came from Goldman Sachs, and Thomas Nides, a deputy secretary who came from Morgan Stanley.
Warren has suggested repeatedly that any candidate seeking her endorsement must agree not to appoint officials with Wall Street ties.
“Anyone who wants to be president should appoint only people who have already demonstrated they are independent, who have already demonstrated that they can hold giant banks accountable, who have already demonstrated that they embrace the kind of ambitious economic policies that we need to rebuild opportunity and a strong middle class in this country,” she said in July.
Source: Politico
Ady Barkan launches new campaign asking everyone to “Be A Hero”
Activist Ady Barkan, who is fighting ALS, is starting a new fight - to get people to vote. He’s asking people to “Be A...
Activist Ady Barkan, who is fighting ALS, is starting a new fight - to get people to vote. He’s asking people to “Be A Hero” and vote for candidates who protect healthcare. Ady tells Ali Velshi that with all the challenges he faces that if he can get out and vote, everyone can.
Watch the video here.
Letter: Congress must pass law for universal health care
Here are the health care issues on which we need government to act......
Here are the health care issues on which we need government to act...
Read the full article here.
NYC and Seattle seek 'fair workweek' legislation for fast-food workers
NYC and Seattle seek 'fair workweek' legislation for fast-food workers
Municipal leaders and labor activists nationwide who fought for a $15 minimum wage now want to serve up a “fair...
Municipal leaders and labor activists nationwide who fought for a $15 minimum wage now want to serve up a “fair workweek” and steady hours for fast-food workers.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio set a plan in motion last week to give 65,000 hourly workers in the city's fast-food industry more stable work schedules by requiring a two-week notice for employee shift assignments. City Council members have vowed to introduce the legislation in the coming weeks.
In Seattle, the City Council on Monday gave its unanimous approval to a similar ordinance, which will affect well-known retail and food service establishments, as well as certain full-service restaurants. Mayor Ed Murray is scheduled to sign the ordinance into law by next week.
While supporters of such proposals – called “secure scheduling” in Seattle – say working families need protection against erratic work schedules, some retail organizations argue these concerns have been blown out of proportion. The Washington Retail Association said the Seattle ordinance would make work schedules less flexible.
“The effects of the law threaten to reduce available work hours for retail employees, reduce hiring opportunities and impose burdensome bookkeeping and fines on retailers deemed to be in violation of the law,” the retail association said in a news release.
Other business groups, however, don’t see the scheduling legislation as a major burden for employers. Mark Jaffe, chief executive officer of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, told AMI Newswire that the proposal is fair and that it wouldn’t cause fast-food eateries to go out of business.
“How hard is it to schedule people two weeks in advance?” he said.
A number of citywide initiatives, from affordable housing to reasonable transportation options, have helped New York City maintain a productive workforce, Jaffe said, and the Fair Workweek legislation would do the same. “We don’t believe it’s an unreasonable burden on the employer,” he said. “This is a no-brainer.”
The proposal was directed toward fast-food workers because that’s where most of the scheduling concerns originate, Jaffe said. Many of those employees need to map out their schedules in advance because they often work more than one job, he said.
The New York State Restaurant Association expressed concern about the proposed legislation but hopes it can work with city officials to reduce the burden to its members.
“It’s troubling that fast-food restaurants, which are really a local franchisee-run small business, have been singled out yet again when these restaurants are already being subjected to greater regulations than any other industry,” said the restaurant association’s chief executive officer, Melissa Fleischut, in a prepared statement. “Labor costs for quick-serve restaurants are skyrocketing, and under state law the hospitality industry is already subject to call-in pay and extra pay for a longer-than-10 spread of hours in a single day.”
In addition to providing employees a two-week notice on work schedules, the New York City proposal would force employers who make last-minute schedule changes to pay extra compensation to affected workers. The plan would also place restrictions on the practice of what’s called “clopening” – when an employee is required to work a closing shift followed by an opening shift.
“We will regulate that practice and require that there be at least 10 hours between a closing shift and an opening shift that a worker has to perform,” de Blasio said during a public announcement last week.
The mayor dismissed anticipated concerns about layoffs resulting from the proposal, saying that he heard the same rumblings when the city was moving to expand paid sick leave for workers. “Guess what happened?” de Blasio said. “This city has added 290,000 private-sector jobs.”
Jan Teague, chief executive officer of the Washington Retail Association, said in a prepared statement that the Seattle proposal could limit the ability of businesses to take part in the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program and make it more difficult for college students to find temporary jobs over the summer and during holidays.
Teague has also expressed concern that employers would end up paying higher “predictive pay” to workers in order to fill shifts resulting from a worker calling in sick or quitting abruptly.
“Any way you slice it, this ordinance will make the workplace less flexible to meet the needs of employees and employers,” Teague said during the debate over the Seattle measure. “Sadly, this ordinance will reduce the number of hours available for many retail and restaurant employees – and they cannot afford to see their incomes go down.”
In addition, she took issue with the idea of discouraging time allotments between shifts of less than 10 hours. Some workers want to have shifts close together during part of the week to free up time later for second jobs or helping to care for a family member, Teague said.
The National Retailers Association took a similar position. “Government intervention in the scheduling of employees through a one-size-fits-all approach intrudes on the employer-employee relationship and creates unnecessary mandates on how a business should operate,” the association said in a statement on its website.
Despite such concerns, the pro-worker advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy predicted that the victory for secure scheduling in Seattle would encourage other cities to follow suit.
“Those working in Seattle’s retail, restaurant and coffee chains will no longer have to turn their lives upside down just to earn enough hours to survive – and they will finally gain a greater voice in how much and when they work,” the center’s director of the Fair Workweek Initiative, Carrie Gleason, said in a prepared statement. “We can expect the vote in Seattle will inspire other cities to act.”
By Michael Carroll
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Yellen Says Improving Economy Still Faces Challenges
The Washington Post - August 22, 2014, by Ylan Q. Mui - Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday expressed...
The Washington Post - August 22, 2014, by Ylan Q. Mui - Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday expressed growing confidence that America’s market is improving but uncertainty over how much further it has to go.
Yellen began her remarks before a select group of elite economists and central bankers here by enumerating the unequivocal progress made since the Great Recession ended: Job growth has averaged 230,000 a month this year, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.2 percent after peaking in the double digits during the depths of the crisis.
But she quickly transitioned to the challenges in determining how close the labor market is to being fully healed — and how much the nation’s central bank should do to speed its convalescence. Although Yellen has consistently emphasized that the recovery is incomplete, her speech Friday focused on the difficulty of making a current diagnosis.
“Our understanding of labor market developments and their potential implications for inflation will remain far from perfect,” Yellen said at the annual conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. “As a consequence, monetary policy must be conducted in a pragmatic manner.”
The Fed slashed its target for short-term interest rates to zero and pumped trillions of dollars into the economy in the aftermath of the recession. More than five years later, it is finally scaling back that support. The Fed is slated to end its bond-buying program in October and is debating when to raise interest rates.
That decision carries enormous consequences: Move too soon, and the Fed risks undermining the economic progress made so far. Move too late, and it could risk stoking inflation in the future and sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis.
Investors generally expect the Fed to raise rates in the middle of next year, but several central bank officials gathered here cautioned that the moment could come earlier if the recovery improves more rapidly than expected. Yellen gave no clear timeline Friday but called for a “more nuanced” reading of the labor market as the economy returns to normal.
For example, the size of the nation’s workforce unexpectedly declined after the recession, the result of both demographic factors and unemployed workers who gave up hope of finding a job. Yellen reiterated Friday that a stronger economy could help stem that drop and suggested it may already be working. She also said that the run-up in involuntary part-time work and the low level of people choosing to quit their jobs could be reversed as the labor market improves.
But Yellen seemed to shift her stance on the country’s stagnant wage growth. Previously, she has cited it as a sign that the labor market remains weak. But on Friday she called on research that suggests wage growth has been subdued because employers were unable to cut salaries deeply enough during the recession, a phenomenon dubbed “pent-up wage deflation.” She also suggested that globalization and the difficulty that the long-term unemployed face in finding jobs could also be depressing wage growth.
The uncertainty facing the Fed means it will be carefully evaluating economic data over the coming months, Yellen said. And she said the central bank will remain nimble in its response.
“There is no simple recipe for appropriate policy in this context, and the [Fed] is particularly attentive to the need to clearly describe the policy framework we are using to meet these challenges,” she said.
Central bankers were not the only ones gathered in the Grand Tetons this year. Several workers and activists also traveled to Jackson Hole and called on the central bank to be cautious in removing its support for the economy, the first protest at the conference in recent memory.
The grass-roots group, organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, also issued an open letter to the Fed earlier in the week signed by more than 60 activist organizations. Kansas City Fed President Esther L. George — one of the most vocal proponents of raising interest rates soon — met with the protesters in Jackson Hole on Thursday for about two hours to hear their stories. Ady Barkan, senior attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, said the groups plan to request meetings with other Fed officials as well.
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States Expand Inquiry Into On-Call Scheduling
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies,...
Eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded their probe into on-call scheduling at retail companies, asking a group of national chains to provide detailed information on their use of the controversial practice.
On-call shifts, where a worker must be available to work a shift that can be cancelled at the last minute without compensation, has become popular in retail. But the practice wreaks havoc on the lives of low-paid hourly workers trying to plan plan around child care, schooling, or second jobs, as a BuzzFeed News investigation found last year.
At the time, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent a letter to 14 chains (published below), inquiring about their use of on-call scheduling and warning it may be illegal. Since then, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Workers, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and Gap have committed to ending the practice.
“On-call shifts are not a business necessity, as we see from the many retailers that no longer use this unjust method of scheduling work hours,” said Schneiderman in a statement.
A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the lowest income workers receive the most irregular schedules, with unpredictability leading to increased stress.
“It’s heartening to see more and more policymakers and regulators take action,” said Carrie Gleason, Director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group.
On Tuesday, the offices of the Attorneys General in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island sent a letter requesting employee handbooks, schedules, and payroll information.
In these states, the Attorneys General warn, the practice may be a violation of a law mandating a minimum of four hours of pay for employees who report for work.
The following retailers received the letter: Aéropostale, American Eagle, BCBG Max Azria, Carter’s Inc., Coach, DavidsTea Inc., Walt Disney Co., Forever 21 Inc., Ascena Retail Group Inc.’s Justice, Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., Payless ShoeSource, Tilly’s Inc., Uniqlo, VF Corp.’s Vans, and Zumiez Inc.
Spokespeople from Uniqlo and Coach told the Wall Street Journal that the companies don’t use the practice. BuzzFeed News has reached out to the companies listed for comment and will update the post with responses.
UPDATE
A spokesperson for American Eagle Outfitters said in a statement, ““American Eagle Outfitters is committed to providing our associates with a positive working environment. We decided in November 2015 to cease the use of ‘on-call shifts’ and advised our stores. We are taking steps to reinforce and assure adherence to this policy across our store fleet.”
A spokesperson for Forever 21 said, “Contrary to published reports, Forever 21 does not permit on-call scheduling nor do we have a company policy around doing so.”
A spokesperson for Vans said the company does not use on-call scheduling and will comply with the request for information.
A spokesperson for Uniqlo said that Uniqlo has received the letter and that on-call scheduling is not a Uniqlo practice or policy.
A spokesperson for Payless ShoeSource says the company does not engage in on-call scheduling, has received the inquiry and will respond accordingly.
A spokesperson for Zumiez said, “It is our practice to cooperate with any request from the attorney general or other state agencies and we will do so in this case as well.” Apr. 14, 2016, at 10:21 a.m.
By Cora Lewis
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Milwaukee faces historic opportunity to transform schools. Here’s how.
Milwaukee faces historic opportunity to transform schools. Here’s how.
Milwaukee spends a greater fraction of its general fund on policing than many other major cities. A 2017 report from...
Milwaukee spends a greater fraction of its general fund on policing than many other major cities. A 2017 report from the Center for Popular Democracy, Law for Black Lives, and Black Youth Project 100, compared 11 other cities and found they devoted 25 to 40 percent of their general fund expenditures to policing — Milwaukee spent 47 percent, or nearly $300 million.
Read the full article here.
11 hours ago
11 hours ago