Whose Recovery? We’re ‘Fed Up’
The Fed Up campaign made their presence known in Jackson Hole, Wyoming hoping to convince the Republican Party that the...
The Fed Up campaign made their presence known in Jackson Hole, Wyoming hoping to convince the Republican Party that the Federal Reserve is ruining the economy. CNBC’s Heesun Wee and campaigner Connie Razza discuss.
Duration: 12:05
Source: MSNBC
Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere
Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere
An investigation into a term that seems to perfectly capture the indignities and absurdities of the modern economy......
An investigation into a term that seems to perfectly capture the indignities and absurdities of the modern economy...
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Practices of 13 Retailers Questioned by New York Lawyers
The Market Business - April 14, 2015, by Rachel M - The lawyer at New York has initiated inquiry against 13 retailers,...
The Market Business - April 14, 2015, by Rachel M - The lawyer at New York has initiated inquiry against 13 retailers, inquiring them if workers are asked to come on call for short notice shifts and spend less than 4 hours when employees are required to report to operate, stating the practice as illegal in NY.
On-call scheduling requires workers to call in just a few hours in advance or the night before to see if they need to come in to work. If not needed, the employee will receive no pay for the day.
“For many workers, that is too little time to make arrangements for family needs, let alone to find an alternative source of income to compensate for the lost pay,”
A New York state law requires that employees who are asked to come into work must be paid for at least four hours atminimum wage or the number of hours in the regularly scheduled shift, whichever is less, even if the employee is sent home.
California has a similar law that says employees must be paid for half of their usual time — two to four hours — if they are required to come in to work but are not needed or work less than their normal schedule.
The letter was also sent to J. Crew Group Inc.; L Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works; Burlington Stores Inc.; TJX Cos.; Urban Outfitters Inc.; Sears Holdings Corp.; Williams-Sonoma Inc.; Crocs Inc.; Ann Inc., which owns Ann Taylor; and J.C. Penney Co.
The letters ask the retailers for more information about how they schedule employees for work, including whether they use on-call shifts and computerized scheduling programs.
Rachel Deutsch, an attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, a New York worker advocacy group, said on-call scheduling can make it difficult for workers to arrange child care or pick up a second job.
“These are folks that want to work,” she said. “They’re ready and willing to work, and some weeks they might get no pay at all even though they set aside 100% of their time to work.”
Danielle Lang, a Skadden fellow at Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles, said the attorney general’s action could have repercussions in other states.
“The New York attorney general is a powerful force,” she said. “It’s certainly an issue that’s facing so many of our low-wage workers in California, and anything that puts a highlight on this practice and really pressures employers to think about these practices is a good thing.”
Sears, Target and Ann Inc. said in separate statements that they do not have on-call shifts for their workers. J.C. Penney said it has a policy against on-call scheduling.
TJX spokeswoman Doreen Thompson said in a statement that company management teams “work to develop schedules that serve the needs of both our associates and our company.”
Gap said in a statement that the company has been working on a project with the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of the Law to examine workplace scheduling and productivity and will see the first set of data results in the fall.
“Gap Inc. is committed to establishing sustainable scheduling practices that will improve stability for our employees, while helping toeffectively manage our business,” spokeswoman Laura Wilkinson said.
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New York Fed taps John Williams to be next president
New York Fed taps John Williams to be next president
"Today, the Federal Reserve concluded another opaque and controversial Reserve Bank presidential selection process by...
"Today, the Federal Reserve concluded another opaque and controversial Reserve Bank presidential selection process by ignoring the demands of the public and choosing yet another white man whose record on Wall Street regulation and full employment raises serious questions,” said Shawn Sebastian, Fed Up’s director. Fed Up said it submitted a list of nine non-white male candidates to the New York Fed’s search committee and that most of them were never contacted.
Read the full article here.
Veepstakes: Julian Castro moves to shore up a potential weakness
Veepstakes: Julian Castro moves to shore up a potential weakness
The controversial federal program that clouded the HUD secretary's VP prospects gets a timely overhaul. Julian Castro’s...
The controversial federal program that clouded the HUD secretary's VP prospects gets a timely overhaul.
Julian Castro’s Housing and Urban Development Department announced significant changes Thursday to a federal program that sold delinquent mortgages to private investors — a move that mollified progressive critics who threatened to undermine his vice presidential prospects.
With three weeks remaining until the Democratic convention and Hillary Clinton’s campaign narrowing down its list of potential ticket mates, the U.S. housing agency said it is changing a controversial program to give delinquent homeowners a new chance to reduce the principal they owe on their mortgage. The changes also prohibit financial firms from giving up on trying to sell or recuperate decrepit properties the businesses would rather walk away from.
As HUD secretary since 2014, Castro had been under attack from by at least 11 Latino and populist groups for his oversight of the department’s “distressed asset stabilization program,” which sold struggling homeowners’ mortgages to hedge funds. Castro, they alleged, failed to deliver on a HUD promise to sell more mortgages to non-profit community groups instead of financial firms.
Started in 2012, the program’s two stated objectives are to help struggling residents while also clearing billions of dollars of bad debt off the agency’s books. But liberals have argued the program undermines homeowner protections, especially for people in low-income neighborhoods, as HUD sold mortgages to the same financial firms that exploited borrowers in the lead-up to the 2008-2009 recession.
The changes came not long after Castro surfaced on Clinton's short list of vice presidential candidates — along with Sens. Tim Kaine and Elizabeth Warren — leading to immediate speculation about the HUD secretary’s political motivations.
Warren was among those calling for major reforms to the program.
“Given that Secretary Castro has only spent a brief time on the national stage, the black mark caused by the distressed asset issue stands out prominently on his record,” said Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research for Compass Point Research & Trading in Washington. He covers housing policy.
“There is no question that the left’s attack of this program generally — and Secretary Castro specifically — lowered the odds of him being tapped,” he said.
As severely-delinquent mortgages accumulated after the recession, the Federal Housing Administration, a division of HUD, needed to reduce debt liabilities to the government.
Under the program, delinquent loans held by banks but insured by the FHA are sold to new buyers, including hedge funds, private-equity firms and non-profit community groups. Through May 2016, HUD sold more than 105,000 FHA-insured loans valued at $17 billion, according to a report by the National Consumer Law Center.
Castro has not said much publicly about the program, which in recent weeks erupted into a politically-charged issue for the Obama administration, said sources with familiar with the situation.
The program was supposed to give struggling homeowners another chance to avoid foreclosure. But researchers following the program said that financial companies have used it to circumvent homeowner safeguards.
“If you have an option of selling your loan through [the] DASP, then you don’t have to go through state foreclosure procedures that have the consumer protections in them and actually help enforce FHA rules,” said Geoff Walsh, author of NCLC’s report. He previously worked as an attorney with Vermont Legal Aid, Inc. and specialized in housing, consumer and bankruptcy areas. “A lot of damage has been done,” he said.
The liberal groups held Castro responsible for the program’s flaws, even though it started before his tenure at HUD. But the groups immediately applauded HUD’s new changes to the program that they had advocated for.
Their website attacking Castro was still live on Friday, though it will be updated to reflect HUD’s changes, said Matt Nelson, managing director of Presente.org, which claims to be the largest U.S. online Latino organizing group.
Housing experts acknowledged that pressure from advocacy groups — which used the issue to question Castro’s progressive credentials — played a role in the revisions.
“But for his potential to be vice president, these changes probably don’t get made,” said Edward Gorman, head of community development for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, whose members include nonprofits that buy DASP loans.
“It was the specific targeting of the secretary on this issue and the gathering of liberal senators in support that caused the [Obama] administration and the secretary particularly to take another look at this issue,” he said. “This will be fodder for Republicans. This will become a political issue.”
For Castro, it had already metastasized into an issue that clouded his vice presidential prospects. Widely regarded as one of the Democratic Party’s rising Latino stars, the former San Antonio mayor was targeted by a coalition of activist groups that recognized the leverage afforded to them by a presidential primary fight colored by questions about Clinton’s ties to Wall Street and Bernie Sanders’ populist, anti-Wall Street rhetoric.
“HUD has continually enhanced the DASP program by making improvements before every sale since 2014,” an agency spokeswoman said in a statement. “As a result, tens of thousands of families have been able to remain in their home or avoid foreclosure through the program.”
Maurice Weeks, a housing staffer at the Center for Popular Democracy, one of the groups supporting the attack on Castro’s handling of the DASP, said he is grateful to see the changes HUD announced. But his group will want to make sure the changes actually result in better conditions for communities.
“It became a political problem for Castro since he’s the head of that department,” Weeks said. “We didn’t set out to determine if Castro was a good VP candidate or not. Our focus was on homeowners across the country.”
By PATRICK TEMPLE-WEST
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New York City Increases Its Resistance to Federal Entreaties on Foreign-Born Detainees
The New York Times - December 5, 2013, by Kirk Semple - For years, New York City correction officials routinely...
The New York Times - December 5, 2013, by Kirk Semple - For years, New York City correction officials routinely provided federal immigration authorities with information about foreign-born detainees in their custody. The city, in response to federal requests, would transfer many of those detainees into federal custody, often leading to their deportation.
But a series of laws passed by the City Council over the past two years sought to restrict this cooperative agreement.
And according to new city statistics, the laws appear to be achieving their goal, prompting celebration — albeit guarded — among immigrants’ advocates.
From July, when the most recent of the restrictive laws went into effect, to September, city officials responded to 904 federal hold requests, known as detainers, according to the statistics. Of those detainers, the city declined to honor 331, or 37 percent.
In contrast, until the laws were passed, the city customarily honored every detainer, according to city officials.
“We feel good about the impact that this legislation has had because it has stopped the deportation of a lot of New Yorkers,” Javier H. Valdes, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group, said on Thursday.
“Our hope,” he said, “is that with the new administration we can increase the number of New Yorkers who will not be turned over to immigration.”
Even with the new city laws, New York’s restrictions are still not as tight as those of other major cities, like Chicago and Washington, advocates said.
Cooperation between local governments and federal immigration authorities has been a deeply contentious issue around the United States.
Some jurisdictions, convinced that the federal government has not done enough to enforce immigration laws, have increased their role in immigration enforcement. But others, concerned about the impact of deportations on their communities, have tried to put distance between themselves and the immigration machinery of the federal government.
Much of the recent debate has surrounded the federal Secure Communities program. The initiative allows Homeland Security officials to more easily compare the fingerprints of every suspect booked at a local jail with those in its files. If they find that a suspect is a noncitizen who is in the country illegally or has a criminal record, they may issue a detainer.
The Secure Communities program, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, has been vehemently opposed by some elected officials around the country, who have sought to limit their jurisdictions’ participation.
In November 2011, the City Council passed a law that narrowed the range of detainers the city would honor. Among other terms, the law prevented correction officers from transferring immigrants to federal custody if the inmates had no convictions or outstanding warrants, had not previously been deported, were not suspected gang members or did not appear on a terrorist watch list.
The effect on the detainer system was immediate: Correction officials went from routinely honoring all detainers to, according to the recently released statistics, about 75 percent of them.
In February, the Council imposed additional restrictions, including blocking detainers for immigrants facing all but the most serious misdemeanor charges, like sexual abuse, assault and gun possession.
Under these new guidelines, the percentage of detainers the city rebuffed rose to about 37 percent from about 25 percent. The rates may have even been higher had the federal government not concurrently altered its own detainer policy, limiting the range of immigrants it would seek custody of.
Still, immigrant advocates said they would press for more restrictions and have reoriented their lobby toward Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who has vowed to end the city’s cooperation with federal immigration detainers except for detainees convicted of “violent or serious felonies.”
Newark, San Francisco and Santa Clara, Calif., are also among the cities that have more restrictive detainer policies than New York, according to Emily Tucker, staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group in New York.
“New York City can do much better than these numbers show we are doing at the moment,” she said.
Source
It’s Time to Put the Brakes on Runaway Drug Prices
It’s Time to Put the Brakes on Runaway Drug Prices
The movement against ICE is born at the grassroots. Groups like Indivisible Project and the Center for Popular...
The movement against ICE is born at the grassroots. Groups like Indivisible Project and the Center for Popular Democracy have also called for defunding ICE.
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Toys 'R' Us owners will hand out $20 million severance to employees
Toys 'R' Us owners will hand out $20 million severance to employees
The fund was set up following negotiations between the private equity firms and various public interest groups that...
The fund was set up following negotiations between the private equity firms and various public interest groups that organized the employees, including Organization United for Respect, Private Equity Stakeholder Project and Center for Popular Democracy. "This Fund begins to ensure the hard-working people who spent their lives building Toys 'R' Us and making children happy are not left out in the cold," said Marilyn Muniz, a New York-based Toys "R" employee for nearly 20 years.
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School Voucher Opponents Ready for Fight as Bill Advances
The Tennessean - March 3, 2015, bt Jason Gonzales - Anti-voucher groups are digging in for a fight as the second of two...
The Tennessean - March 3, 2015, bt Jason Gonzales - Anti-voucher groups are digging in for a fight as the second of two almost identical voucher bills easily passed the House Education and Planning Subcommittee by a 7-1 vote. State Rep. Kevin Dunlap, D-Rock Hill, was the lone dissenter.
The proposed legislation that passed Tuesday is sponsored in the House by state Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, and has considerable backing from pro-voucher groups and legislators alike. A separate bill sponsored by state Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, narrowly passed the Senate Education Committee.
The legislators hope to provide low-income students a voucher program to pay for private school tuition with a state-funded scholarship. The program targets students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch who attend a public school ranked in the bottom 5 percent of the state in academic achievement.
Several groups have publicly voiced opposition to the bills, including the Tennessee Education Association. The teacher's union has been against proposed voucher legislation for years. In past years, opponents have been successful in their fight, as bills have continually struggled in the House and Senate finance committees.
Between the two bills, Haslam said the administration agreed to fund the measure from Dunn and state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga. On supporting the Dunn-Gardenhire bill versus Kelsey's, Haslam said Tuesday morning the bill most resembles the one he supported last year.
Kelsey is a sponsor of both bills, and House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, recently told The Associated Press the plan could survive in the House this year.
Volunteers with Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence were the visible face Tuesday of the anti-voucher group at Legislative Plaza. They were there to pass out brochures and stickers that said, "No School Vouchers."
Anne Marie Farmer, a volunteer with the public education advocacy group, said the group argues vouchers don't have the desired effect in a time when schools need more resources. The group also contends vouchers only give private schools a choice, not parents.
"We don't believe it is an effective way to raise student achievement," she said
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition have also voiced opposition to the bill.
A recent poll by the Public Interest and the Center for Popular Democracy, however, says Tennesseans are not concerned with school choice. The TEA sent out a Tuesday media release weighing in on the poll.
"When Tennesseans were asked to rank important issues facing the state's public schools, school choice came in dead last," said Barbara Gray, Arlington Community Schools administrator and TEA president, in the release. "This poll shows that legislators need to redirect their attention to the issues that really matter to Tennesseans, like parental involvement, over-emphasis on standardized testing and cuts to programs like physical education and music."
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Janet Yellen, the first woman Fed chair, proved the skeptics wrong and got fired anyway
Janet Yellen, the first woman Fed chair, proved the skeptics wrong and got fired anyway
On February 3, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank and likely the most...
On February 3, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank and likely the most qualified nominee ever for the post, will exit the Fed, leaving a legacy described as “near perfection” and with an “A” grade from a majority of economists.
And yet in 2014, the US Senate confirmed Yellen by a vote of 56-26, the lowest number of “yes” votes a confirmed Fed chair has ever received.
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3 days ago
3 days ago