Brett Kavanaugh's 2nd accuser contacted by the FBI: Lawyer
Brett Kavanaugh's 2nd accuser contacted by the FBI: Lawyer
With only a week to conduct its high-stakes investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Brett...
With only a week to conduct its high-stakes investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, the FBI has already contacted the second woman to accuse the Supreme Court nominee, her lawyer said.
Read the article and watch the video here.
J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and More Just Stopped Using ‘On-Call’ Scheduling
J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and More Just Stopped Using ‘On-Call’ Scheduling
Several major retailers have in recent weeks relieved their workers from having to spend their mornings waiting for...
Several major retailers have in recent weeks relieved their workers from having to spend their mornings waiting for their boss to tell them if and when to show up for work.
J. Crew recently joined a group of several other top retail chains in dropping on-call scheduling—the system that requires workers to make themselves available for a shift with no guarantee of actually getting any clocked hours. Under on-call scheduling, workers generally must be ready to be called in for a shift just a few hours beforehand, and often that meant wasting valuable time by not being called in at all. In addition to J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, Gap, Bath & Body Works, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Victoria’s Secret, and various affiliated brands, have announced that they’re phasing out on-call nationwide.
The abandonment of on-call at these high-profile chains—affecting roughly 239,000 retail sales workers, according to the Fair Workweek Initiative (FWI)—represents growing backlash against the erosion of workers’ autonomy in low-wage service sectors. The pressure for reform has been stoked by media scrutiny, labor protests, and litigation, and an investigation into on-call scheduling in New York retail stores by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
But the fight for fair labor practices isn’t over in retail. Carrie Gleason, director of the FWI, a project of the advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy, says nominally phasing out on-call at a workplace may simply lead to a “whack-a-mole situation,” pushing managers to find other ways to drive workers into erratic and unstable schedules. Your supervisor might not call you in two hours before a shift starts, but might still abruptly cancel your pre-scheduled shift, or text on an “off” day to pressure you to sub for a coworker. Some workplaces might have a set start time for shifts, but then pile on on-call extended hours, so the workday expands unexpectedly. Across the service sectors, Gleason says, “there’s not a real commitment around standards around what workers experience as a predictable schedule.”
Nationwide two-thirds of food service workers and over half of retail workers have at most a week’s notice of their schedules. Part-timers and black and Latino workers disproportionately work irregular schedules.
According to National Women’s Law Center, over half of workers surveyed
“work nonstandard schedules involuntarily because they could not find another job or ‘it is the nature of the job.’” The “nature of the job” reflects the nature of our current economy, which has redefined labor as a seller’s market for employers, while union power and labor protections have disintegrated.
FWI campaigns both for stronger regulation and industry-led reforms. It presses for “high-road workweeks,” under which workers and employersnegotiate equitable scheduling systems, which can streamline operations and reduce turnover, while giving workers more predictable hours, along with flexibility to change schedules on a fair, voluntary basis. (Yet there’s good reason for skepticism about voluntary corporate “social responsibility”: in a recent study of Starbucks’s scheduling reforms, workers nationwide reported irregular and unpredictable shifts, despite the company’s promises of more humane schedules.)
On the regulatory front, as reported previously, some state laws and San Francisco’s new Retail Workers Bill of Rights provide reporting time pay(compensation for unplanned shift changes), and safeguards for stable hours.
California, New York, and other states have recentlyintroduced fair-scheduling legislation, including reforms that provide workers with negotiating mechanisms at work to make scheduling procedures more democratic, and limits on consecutive hourly work shifts.
Nationally, the proposed Schedules That Work Act would provide similar protections for advanced notice, reporting time pay and the right to bargain schedule changes.
The basic principle that drives labor advocates is predictability in both time and earnings, which counterbalances the service industry trend toward precarious low-wage jobs, pushing workers into part-time, temporary, or unstable contract work.
The opportunity cost of abusive schedules drives financial insecurity, impedes career advancement, and hurts families. Erratic hours can interfere with childcare arrangements and medical care, and are linked to increased marital strain and long-term problems with children’s behavioral development.
Sometimes, it’s just humiliating. Like when Mary Colemangot sent home from a shift at Popeyes and ended up effectively paying not to work. As a campaigner with FWI, the grandmother described the experience as a theft of precious time and wages: “When I get to work only to be sent home again, I lose money because I have to pay for my bus fare and hours of time traveling without any pay for the day.” Under a reporting time pay system, however, she might instead have been reimbursed for showing up, instead of bearing the cost of her boss’s arbitrary decisions.
“The idea is that if you need this level of flexibility for your workforce, that’s something that has value, being able to have a nimble workforce that’s ready when you need them,” Gleason says. In fact, honoring the workers’ overall role in an organization, not just hours clocked, is akin to the salary system. White-collar professionals often voluntarily exceed a 40-hour workweek and feel duly rewarded with their annual compensation package.
A fairer schedule system isn’t difficult to imagine if we start with the premise of honoring workers’ time in terms commensurate with the value of what they’re expected to produce—whether it’s impeccable service at peak-demand time, or a good cappuccino. And that’s why unions and other worker-led organizations, which understand a job’s real meaning in the context of workers’ lives, have historically been instrumental in shaping wage structures through collective bargaining. Though unions have withered, smart policy changes and grassroots organizing networks are carving out more autonomy and control for labor over the course of a workday.
The byzantine, unstable scheduling systems that dominate low-wage industries aren’t really “the nature” of today’s jobs so much as the result of a society that deeply undervalues workers’ lives, whether that’s the value of a parent’s time with her children, or the time invested in a college degree. In a “just in time” economy, employers put a premium on consumer convenience and business logistics. But as boundaries blur between work and home, the “new economy” challenges workers to finally reclaim their stolen time.
Source: The Nation
Arrests Made At Protest Outside UES Home Of JPMorgan Chase Exec
Arrests Made At Protest Outside UES Home Of JPMorgan Chase Exec
Hundreds of people picketed outside of 1185 Park Ave. around 8 a.m. to deliver more than 100,000 petition signatures...
Hundreds of people picketed outside of 1185 Park Ave. around 8 a.m. to deliver more than 100,000 petition signatures demanding that JPMorgan Chase stop financing immigrant detention centers and private prisons, protest organizers said. The demonstration was organized by groups such as Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change and the Center for Popular Democracy.
Read the full article here.
Debbie Lesko wins Arizona congressional race, leaves Republicans anxious about the fall
Debbie Lesko wins Arizona congressional race, leaves Republicans anxious about the fall
Ady Barkan, the California man with ALS who confronted Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, over health care issues last year,...
Ady Barkan, the California man with ALS who confronted Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, over health care issues last year, started an organization to oppose GOP health care policies and raised money for Tipirneni. "There is no such a thing as a safe Republican seat this year. Dr. Hiral Tipirneni overcame the odds to come within striking distance of victory in a deep red district, because the Republicans put their donors' greed ahead of the health of families like mine," Barkan said Tuesday.
Read the full article here.
Mind the Gap: How the Federal Reserve Can Help Raise Wages for America’s Women and Men
The American economy remains too weak. Over the past 35 years, the vast majority of workers have seen their wages...
The American economy remains too weak. Over the past 35 years, the vast majority of workers have seen their wages stagnate. And, racial and gender wage gaps have persisted. The failure to aggressively target and achieve genuine full employment explains a large part of this disappointing performance. And this failure looks poised to continue. Despite these indicators that we are far from full employment and the fact that the inflation rate remains below the Federal Reserve’s target rate, pressure is mounting on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to slow the pace of economic expansion and job growth in the name of fighting hypothetical future inflation. It would be a terrible mistake for the Fed to yield to this pressure.This paper makes the case that the Fed should pursue genuine full employment that features robust wage growth, rather than be satisfied with job growth that is consistent but does not boost the pace of wage growth. The paper considers the shifts in gender and racial wage gaps since 1979 and highlights the fact that because the vast majority of American workers have seen near-stagnant wages even as economy-wide productivity growth has consistently risen, there is ample room for wage-gaps to close without any group suffering wage declines.Key findings:
A significant portion of the limited progress towards closing the gender wage gap in recent decades has been due to the outright decline of men’s wages. Although there is greater gender wage equity among the bottom 10 percent of earners than among higher wage-earners, the gap between men and women has closed very little since 1979 Wage disparities between white earners and Latino or Black earners have increased in the past 35 years Productivity growth—which measures the average amount of income generated in each hour of work in the economy—has remained strong. At 64.9 percent over the 35-year period, productivity growth represents the possible increases in every worker’s wage throughout the economy. White women, the group whose median wage growth has been strongest over the period, gained at roughly one-third the rate of productivity.The Federal Reserve plays a powerful role in shaping labor market trends. To be sure, these wage gaps among groups of workers result from a long history of discrimination within the labor market, education, housing, wealth-building, and criminal justice policies, and require a full array of economic, social, and political policies.However, until we reach genuine full employment, a Federal Reserve decision to slow the economy will hamper the ability of workers’ wages to rise.Key recommendations:
The Federal Reserve should set a clear and ambitious target for wage growth, which will provide an important and straightforward guidepost on the path to maximum employment.Wage targeting can be fairly easily tailored to the Fed’s price-inflation target and pegged toincreases in productivity. The Fed should maintain a patient, but watchful posture. The history of the past 35 years shows a generally steady downward trend in price inflation and that prematurely slowing the economy results in higher than desirable unemployment. The Federal Reserve should not consider an interest-rate hike until indicators of full employment—particularly wage growth—have strengthened.Raising interest rates too soon will slow an already sluggish economy, stall progress on unemployment, and perpetuate wage stagnation for the vast majority of American workers. This harm will be disproportionately felt by women and people of color, who are concentrated in the most vulnerable strata of the workforce.
Download the report here
Five takeaways from Colorado's campaign finance reports
Five takeaways from Colorado's campaign finance reports
KUSA - Candidates and campaigns had to file their latest round of finance reports to the Secretary of State’s office...
KUSA - Candidates and campaigns had to file their latest round of finance reports to the Secretary of State’s office Monday.
Here’s what we learned from reading those reports.
1) Tobacco companies have deep pockets.
The No Blank Checks in the Constitution committee has raised about $5 million to keep the tobacco tax in Amendment 72 from passing.
That’s more money than any other campaign has raised so far this cycle, and it all comes from one source: Altria Client Services.
The company is a subsidiary of Altria (formerly Phillip Morris) -- one of the world’s largest tobacco companies.
2) ColoradoCareYES is struggling.
The group pushing universal health care through Amendment 69 raised just $10,000 during the last filing period.
That brings their total to about $320,000. In contrast, Coloradans for Coloradans, has raised nearly $4 million this cycle.
In addition to its fundraising woes, the campaign has also suffered from some surprising opposition. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Michael Bennet both oppose the amendment. And so does the liberal group Progress Now.
3) Most of the minimum wage money is coming from out of state.
The group Colorado Families for a Fair Wage wants you to vote to raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour.
But the majority of the $2.3 million it's raised comes from groups in New York and California.
The campaigns biggest donors are Civic Participation Action Fund, The Fairness Project and The Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund.
The campaign against raising the minimum wage is called Keep Colorado Working.
Most of its money comes from industry groups like the Hospitality Issue PAC, which had a Denver address.
That might make you think it’s local money fighting the minimum wage campaign, but the PAC’s funded by national companies like McDonald’s and the National Restaurant Association.
4) The physician assisted suicide campaign is raising and spending some serious cash
Yes on Colorado End of Life Options has raised about $4.8 million to pass Proposition 106, which would let terminally ill patients purchase medications to end their lives.
The campaign’s biggest expenditure is $2.9 million to Blue West Media for advertising. That means we’re likely to see a lot of ads about the proposition between now and Nov. 8.
5) Democrats are outraising Republicans in three key Colorado Senate races.
The winners of Colorado Senate districts 19, 25 and 26 will determine whether Republicans retain control of the chamber.
If Republicans lose all three races, the Democrats will likely gain control of the entire legislature.
All the Democratic candidates are ahead of their opponents when it comes to dollars raised so far.
The biggest gap is in Senate District 19. Incumbent Republican Sen. Laura Woods is $70,000 behind her challenger, Rachel Zenzinger.
We will have to wait and see whether more money translates into more votes
By 2016 KUSA
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Democrats to introduce bills to challenge arbitration system
Democrats to introduce bills to challenge arbitration system
By Nick Niedzwiadek ALBANY — Democratic lawmakers are expected to introduce a pair of bills to counter how corporations...
By Nick Niedzwiadek
ALBANY — Democratic lawmakers are expected to introduce a pair of bills to counter how corporations use binding arbitration to limit their financial exposure in legal disputes.
Consumer advocates say corporations are increasingly requiring potential employees and consumers to agree to binding arbitration in the event of a dispute as a precondition for employment or use of a product. They say that such proceedings lack transparency, put people on an uneven playing field against well-heeled corporations and can leave people with little other legal recourse.
Assemblywoman Latoya Joyner of the Bronx and Sen. Brad Hoylman of Manhattan are expected to introduce a bill that would amend state labor law to allow employees or organized labor organizations the power to bring legal proceedings against an employer for potential violations as a stand-in for the Department of Labor — independent of any private employment agreement. The state would recover a portion of the fines assessed as part of such proceedings.
Senator Jose Serrano of the Bronx and Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh of Manhattan would establish a similar process for private citizens to seek civil penalties on behalf of the state for violations of consumer protection statutes if the applicable public agency fails to pursue them due to a lack of resources.
“Too often large companies take advantage of consumers by forcing them into signing 'take-it-or-leave-it' contracts that include hidden clauses requiring forced arbitration that heavily favor businesses,” Serrano said in a statement. “My legislation will create a level playing field and give the power back to the consumers in New York State by allowing them an opportunity to fight back when they are victims of fraud."
Several of the legislators are expected to announce the legislation at a protest in Manhattan on Thursday along with New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Tish James, according to organizers. Joining them will be a number of progressive groups, including the Center for Popular Democracy, Citizen Action, Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change. The event will coincide with the release of a report called: “Justice for Sale: How Corporations Use Forced Arbitration Agreements to Exploit Working Families.”
"Legal rights are worthless if there's no remedy when laws are broken,” Kate Hamaji, a research analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy who authored the report, said in a statement. “Forced arbitration essentially allows corporations to opt out of the justice system by creating a private parallel system that makes it prohibitively expensive to seek justice and creates incentives for arbitrators to rule in favor of companies."
The report can be found here.
Central Bankers to Confront Stock-Market Turmoil at Fed’s Annual Jackson Hole Retreat
Gathering at the mountain getaway in recent Augusts, the stewards of global currency have contended with the looming...
Gathering at the mountain getaway in recent Augusts, the stewards of global currency have contended with the looming collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, global deflation worries in 2010, serial Greek fiscal meltdowns and other dramas. This time, they confront a big disparity between the world’s two largest economies, the U.S. and China.
The U.S. has recovered enough from the last financial crisis that Fed officials have been preparing to raise interest rates to prevent overheating down the road. But China appears to have lost economic momentum, driving the People’s Bank of China to cut rates and take other measures to boost growth. Markets have responded to these conflicting forces with turbulence, creating new uncertainties for policy makers about the economic outlook.
Before this week’s turmoil, Fed officials had signaled they might move as soon as next month to start lifting their benchmark interest rate from near zero, where it has been since December 2008. It was shaping up to be a tough decision even before the stock-market corrections around the globe. Now, the odds of a rate increase in September appear to have diminished, though a move is still possible if markets stabilize and new economic data show the U.S. economy is strengthening despite threats abroad.
New reports on Tuesday showed increases in U.S. consumer confidence and new home sales in August and July, respectively, reasons for Fed officials not to become too glum about the U.S. outlook.
“Prior to these market events in the last few days, I thought that this was about as close to a 50/50 call as you can get,” said former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder of the odds that the central bank would raise U.S. rates in September. If markets don’t stabilize, he said, the Fed would likely hold off on a rate increase.
“If the markets are in anything close to the sort of tizzy they have been in the last few days, then the Fed will not throw a match into the fire” when it meets September 16-17, said Mr. Blinder, a Princeton University professor and friend of Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen.
Ms. Yellen will not be attending this year’s Jackson Hole conference, but Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer is scheduled to deliver remarks there Saturday on inflation. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi won’t be there, but the ECB and many of the world’s other central banks will be represented by senior officials. The meeting has included top central bankers from Turkey, Malta, Sweden, South Korea and beyond in the past.
It is a fraught moment for all of the world’s central banks. China’s repeated efforts to stimulate growth don’t seem to be working. China’s central bank cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point on Tuesday and its stock market fell.
Many other economies are trapped in the middle of a global monetary tug of war between the two economic giants, especially emerging markets and commodity-producing countries. Their economies have been hit by China’s slowdown. At the same time, their currencies have been declining against the dollar as the Fed prepares for higher rates. If central banks in places such as Brazil, South Africa or Russia try to stimulate their economies by cutting interest rates, they risk capital flight and potentially destabilizing currency depreciation. If they don’t, they risk deep recessions.
One potential fault line that Fed officials are watching carefully: Heavy loads of U.S. dollar debt accumulated by local companies in emerging markets. Total corporate bonds outstanding in emerging markets have almost doubled since 2008 to $6.8 trillion, according to Institute of International Finance estimates. The share of this debt issued in U.S. dollars rose from less than 15% in 2008 to more than 40% in the first five months of 2015.
Those debts become harder to pay off as the dollar appreciates. It is up more than 7% against a broad basket of other currencies so far this year.
The central banks also face skepticism about the paths they are charting. “Our global economy is fixated on central banks and the latest utterance of the monetary authorities,” said Judy Shelton,senior fellow of the Atlas Network, a free-market think tank participating in a parallel conference critical of the Fed this week, also in Wyoming. The title of her panel, “What Happens if Central Bankers are Wrong?”
Central banks for the major developed economies, including the Fed, responded to the post-financial crisis period of slow economic growth and low inflation by pushing short-term interest rates to near zero and launching bond-buying programs to drive long-term interest rates down, too.
Many central bankers say the economy would have been in much worse shape, possibly a repeat of the Great Depression, without the support. Critics like Ms. Shelton say the policies failed to produce the higher inflation or faster growth desired.
As the Fed considers when to start raising rates, officials are getting pressure from several sides. While many free-market advocates would like the central bank to move, liberal activists plan to press the Fed this week to hold rates near zero to promote economic growth and more hiring.
“The economy is too weak to warrant interest-rate hikes,” said Shawn Sebastian, policy analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy, a left-leaning group, in a statement on Tuesday.
Academics don’t provide clear direction. In competing newspaper opinion pieces this week, Harvard professors Martin Feldstein andLawrence Summers, who have served as economic advisers to Republicans and Democrats, respectively, argued for and against a Fed rate increase in September.
From the maelstrom, Fed officials are trying to respond to the unfolding economic outlook.
Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart on Monday said he still expects the central bank to raise rates this year, but he didn’t say when. That marked a subtle shift since Aug. 4, when he told The Wall Street Journal he believed the economy was ready for a rate increasein September.
Current developments like “the appreciation of the dollar, the devaluation of the Chinese currency and the further decline of oil prices are complicating factors in predicting the pace of growth,” Mr. Lockhart said Monday. But, he noted, “our baseline forecast at the Atlanta Fed is for moderate growth with continuing employment gains and a gradually rising rate of inflation.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Economic Sector Bias at the Federal Reserve
Economic Sector Bias at the Federal Reserve
In part one of this two-part posting, I looked at the gender bias at the Federal Reserve, showing how men vastly...
In part one of this two-part posting, I looked at the gender bias at the Federal Reserve, showing how men vastly outnumber women in key posts at Federal Reserve Banks throughout the United States despite the Fed's Congressional mandate. In part two of this posting, I want to take an additional look at the Fed's bias; its failure to represent the economic diversity of America.
For those of you that either didn't read part one or who are unaware of the Federal Reserve's organizational setup, here is a graphic from a report by the Center for Popular Democracy showing the link between the Federal Reserve and its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and its district banks known as Federal Reserve Banks:
Here is a map showing the regions covered by each of the 12 district banks (Federal Reserve Banks) and the 24 branches within each district:
Note that Alaska and Hawaii are covered by the San Francisco district.
If we start at the top of the organizational chart, the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a 14-year term of office. The President (and Senate) also confirm two members of the Board to be Chair (currently Janet Yellen) and Vice Chair for four year terms. The FOMC consists of 12 members; the seven aforementioned Board members, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and four other regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents on a rotating, one-year term basis. The Federal Reserve Banks form an important link between the Federal Reserve and their local economy and help to dictate the Federal Reserve's monetary policies. Each of the twelve district banks has their own president and boards of directors (nine directors in total for each bank); in addition, each of the 24 district branches has its own directors (seven directors in total for each branch). The Board of Directors for each Reserve Bank are appointed in two ways; the majority are appointed by the Reserve Bank and the remainder are appointed by the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. The directors for each district bank then appoint their own president and vice president. It all sounds rather nepotistic, doesn't it?
By law, under the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977, the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve are to be
"...elected with due but not exclusive consideration to the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor and consumers.".
That is, each of the leaders/directors of the world's most influential central bank and its district banking system are to represent a wide variety of each of the economic sectors that make up the American economy.
The report by the Center for Popular Democracy compares the economic sector representation during the period from 2006 to 2010 when the Government Accountability Office examined the composition of the Federal Reserve Bank Boards and the present. Here is a graphic showing the past and present composition:
In both 2006 to 2010 and 2016, directors from the banking sector filled over one-third of the board seats, growing by 3 percentage points over the timeframe of the study. In combination, in 2016, representatives from the commercial and industrial sector and the banking sector filled 68 percent of seats, up from 63 percent in 2006 to 2010. The service sector's representation fell from 26 percent of seats to 18 percent and agriculture and food processing saw their representation fall from 6 percent of seats to 3 percent. Interestingly, even though they are relatively poorly represented compared to the other sectors, the number of directors affiliated with consumer and community organizations rose from 3 percent to 8 percent.
For your illumination, here are a few of the Directors for each of the Federal Reserve Banks that you can get a sense of who is dictating America's monetary policies:
If you are interested in who is on the boards of the other Federal Reserve Banks, please see the original report.
Interestingly, during the "financial crisis" of 2008, there was some question about directors' independence and actions taken by the Federal Reserve banks since there was at least the perception of conflicts of interest when director-affliated institutions took part in the Federal Reserve System's emergency programs. With a preponderance of representation from the banking and commercial sectors, it certainly doesn't take a genius to figure out which sectors of the economy will likely be favoured by Federal Reserve policies should there be another "financial crisis", does it?
By A Political Junkie
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Father with ALS asks Sen. Jeff Flake on flight to oppose tax bill
Father with ALS asks Sen. Jeff Flake on flight to oppose tax bill
An activist who suffers from ALS protesting the GOP tax cuts confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) over his support for...
An activist who suffers from ALS protesting the GOP tax cuts confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) over his support for the controversial proposal and asked him to change his mind.
“Why not take your stand now?” Ady Barkan asked Flake as they waited for their Thursday night flight to depart Washington, D.C. “You can be an American hero. You really could — if the votes match the speech.”
Read the full article here.
4 days ago
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