CPD IN THE NEWS

Times Union - September 3, 2014, by Casey Seiler - SUNY's Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government has released a second draft of its controversial report on New York's Scaffold Law. According to the Institute's Deputy Director for Operations Robert Bullock, it's the only remaining version of the report that was shared with the report's funder, the state Lawsuit Reform Alliance.

The business-backed group, which opposes Scaffold Law, paid $82,800 to fund the report — sponsorship that has led critics to attack the study as advocacy in the guise of research. Its authors, however, insist the research was conducted in good faith.

Scaffold Law, which places "absolute liability" on employers for gravity-related workplace injuries, is supported by labor unions but opposed by business groups that claim it needlessly drives up construction costs — a thesis backed up in part by the report. Opponents would like to see New York follow other states by adopting a "comparative negligence" standard that would make workers proportionately responsible when their actions contribute to an accident.

The Center for Popular Democracy, a labor-backed group that supports Scaffold Law, lambasted the report upon its release last winter and requested copies of all communications between the institute and the Lawsuit Reform Alliance. That FOIL request produced a series of emails between researchers and LRA Executive Director Tom Stebbins, including Stebbins' suggested edits to a June 25, 2013, draft copy of the report that was not initially released by the institute.

The center appealed to SUNY, which ultimately released the June 25 draft. A comparison of the draft and the final report suggested that some of Stebbins' suggestions were reflected in the final version. Researchers, however, said any changes were the result of their efforts to sharpen their analysis, and not made due to pressure from the funder.

The newly released draft, dated Aug. 7, 2013, closely resembles the final report.

The center's Josie Duffy claims the six-week gap between the first and second drafts suggests that the institute moved quickly to follow the alliance's edits.

"SUNY says it has now disclosed everything it has, but given that LRANY and the authors held weekly conference calls to discuss the report's progress, we may never know the full extent of their influence over the final version," she said.

In an email, Bullock said the institute "has been open and honest about its contacts with funders and its research has been and will continue to be immune from influence."

"It is unfortunate," he added, "that a research organization known throughout the nation for the quality and character of its work should have to defend itself from accusations leveled by the Center for Popular Democracy, an organization well known for its partisanship."

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FOX CT - March 5, 2015, by Katie Harris - A series of bills were introduced at the Legislative Office Building  Thursday, aimed at helping the “Women’s Economic Agenda.”

“We need an economy that works for everyone,” said Lindsay Farrell, Executive Director of Connecticut Working Families. “That simply isn’t the case right now, especially for women. The bills in the Women’s Economic Agenda give workers the chance to balance their jobs and caring for their families.”

The group says that for too many people, our economy isn’t working, and women face additional disparities. Women make just seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man earns. Women make up two-thirds of the minimum wage work force, and over seventy percent of servers. Women are far more likely to have the primary responsibility to care for children, and represent more than two-thirds of adults providing substantial assistance to elderly parents.

The bills in the Women’s Economic Agenda include:

 HB 6932 which would establish a paid family and medical leave insurance style program for workers to care for new-born or adopted children, treat and recover from serious illnesses, or care for family members.

HB 6784, which would expand Connecticut’s groundbreaking and successful paid sick days program to workers who are currently not covered. It would include workers at businesses with 10 or more employees and workers in any employment category so more workers can take a day off when they are sick or have to care for a sick family member.

HB 6933, which establishes fair scheduling guidelines that will give workers input into, and advanced notice of, their work schedule.

SB 858, which eliminates the tip credit that allows businesses to pay tipped workers $5.78 an hour, so that every worker earns the same minimum wage.

HB 6791, which charges large corporations a fee for each employee they pay poverty wages to help offset the cost of state aid programs the workers are forced to rely upon.

SB 1037, SB 106, and SB 914 that protect workers from wage theft.

“In the early 1990s, the Family and Medical Leave Act was a landmark bill to help workers and their families take leave when they needed it” said Catherine Bailey, Legal and Public Policy Director, Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund and chair of the CT Campaign for Paid Family Leave. “However, this law needs to be updated to catch up to the needs of modern American families, who shouldn’t have to choose between their health or caring for a family member and staying financially afloat.  Now is the time for Connecticut to be a leader on policies that truly support family values.”

Director of Organizing and Capacity Building at the Center for Popular Democracy “Working moms and dads are juggling a lot – like doctor appointments, child rearing, and caring for aging parents. Fair scheduling legislation would go a long way to establishing basic standards that allow hardworking families to not just get by, but to get ahead.”

The Everybody Benefits Coalition was originally created to push for paid sick days. In 2011, the coalition successfully passed the first-in-the-nation statewide paid sick days program. Now, it aims to expand that program and make even more progress on family-friendly workplace policies.

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Shawn Sebastian, Policy Analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy, released the following statement on behalf of the Fed Up campaign: 

“The Fed Up campaign has been saying for more than a year that the economy is too weak to warrant interest rate hikes. Although the stock market was performing well and Wall Street was reaping major profits, the real economy has seen stagnant wages and insufficient job growth.

“The past week’s events vindicate our argument. The economy is too weak, and the performance of the stock market is not a legitimate basis for making interest rate decisions. Just as the market inflated itself over previous months, and witnessed a “correction” recently, it will likely continue to fluctuate in the months ahead. Fed officials who pointed to an inflated stock market as a justification to raise interest rates have been proven wrong: the health of the economy should be measured by the labor market, not the stock market, and the labor market is far from recovered.

“The Fed must continue focusing on the fundamentals: building a labor market that works for all communities, and that features rising wages and good jobs for everybody who wants to work. Creating genuine full employment is the Fed’s mandate, and the past few days vindicate the message that the Fed Up campaign’s worker leaders and economists have said all along: this economy is far too weak for the Fed to intentionally slow it down.”

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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.

Although she was hired on as a full-time employee at Domino’s Pizza, Crystal Thompson had a schedule that became erratic and unreliable shortly after she began working there in 2009. One day she’d start at 9 a.m. and work until 9 p.m.; and then she’d get a call asking her to work the morning shift the next day.

“It’s so hard trying to plan your life.”

The single mother of three relied on the job to pay over $1,200 a month in rent, utilities, food, and child care, but during the most volatile weeks, she was lucky if she got even 20 hours in shifts. Moreover, it was difficult to find a babysitter or make doctor’s appointments when she sometimes received her schedule only a day in advance. At a loss, Thompson moved one of her children into the living room and found a roommate to shoulder the part of the rent that she couldn’t afford.

“It’s crazy,” Thompson says about her schedule. “It’s so hard trying to plan your life.”

But thanks to an ordinance passed in Seattle last month, Thompson and other workers in the service and retail industries will finally have the freedom to think more than one day ahead. The new law, known as “secure scheduling,” will take effect in July 2017 and will impact large retail, service, and drinking establishments with a minimum of 500 workers globally, as well as full-service restaurants with more than 500 workers and 40 or more locations.

The measure requires that employers post work schedules at least two weeks in advance, offer additional hours to existing workers before hiring new employees, and provide at least a 10-hour break between closing and opening shifts. Thompson says that anything less than that doesn’t leave enough time to rest, shower, care for her children, and be alert enough to work another shift.

The Seattle measure comes on the heels of similar legislation passed in San Francisco in 2014, which labor activists call a game changer for the labor movement. It provides that hourly workers have the ability to better budget their expenses, take on second jobs, and plan for education and family time.

Workers in the service and retail industries will finally have the freedom to think more than one day ahead.

Working Washington, a Seattle-based labor advocacy organization that led the efforts, attests that, much like legislation for a $15 minimum wage that passed in Seattle in 2014, predictable schedules will likely spread to other cities and states too. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that he and other city officials plan on drafting legislation to ensure secure scheduling for fast-food workers.

Thompson’s plight is common for workers in the service and retail industry nationally, as shown in a report co-authored by associate professor Susan Lambert at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. About 3 out of 4 early-career adults in hourly jobs report fluctuations in the number of hours they’ve worked in a month, and nearly half of part-time workers said that their employers gave them a week’s notice or less when their schedules changed.

Photo courtesy of Working Washington.

The problem is especially severe among African Americans and Latinos in Seattle. Another study, this one commissioned by the city itself in July, revealed that the two groups were the most likely to receive their schedules with less than a week’s notice, be required to be on-call, or to be sent home during slow shifts. They also reported higher rates of having difficulty attending classes and working second jobs because of their schedules.

Sejal Parikh, executive director of Working Washington, says that erratic scheduling has proliferated in the past two decades with the advent of scheduling software programs. After her group pushed for a $15 minimum wage and won, a campaign for secure scheduling seemed like a natural next step, she says. “The $15 minimum wage is about money, and the secure scheduling campaign is really about power.”

A stable schedule allows workers to spend time with their families, have hobbies, and further their careers.

But the measure is not immune to opposition. The advocacy group Washington Retail Association issued a press release in August stating that the measure undermines the fluctuating nature of business and would lead to layoffs. But Parikh counters that companies are already staffing leanly and that there’s usually not an excess of workers during one shift. A secure schedule simply allows a barista who lives an hour away from work to get eight hours of sleep at home instead of sleeping inside of the coffee shop, she contends.

It’s important that the more than 75 million people who work hourly jobs nationally have some say in their own schedule, says Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy. A stable schedule allows workers to spend time with their families, have hobbies, and further their careers. Gleason adds that the legislation “ensures that Seattle workers can have a voice” in determining how many hours they work, which is something she hopes catches on in other cities.

In Seattle, Thompson is already planning out the time she’ll enjoy once she has a more predictable schedule. She is now working part time because she’s caring for her 9-month-old baby, but Thompson says she plans on going back to school to get a degree in Spanish and to become an interpreter. The new ordinance will also allow her to figure out child care and to budget for the rent in her new Section 8 housing, which takes 30 percent of her income.

More than anything, Thompson says she’s looking forward “to more peace of mind.”

By Melissa Hellmann

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