Toys 'R' Us and the Death of Retail
Toys 'R' Us and the Death of Retail
When Debbie Beard found out the company she'd worked at for 29 years, Toys R Us, was closing down, she was shocked--she...
When Debbie Beard found out the company she'd worked at for 29 years, Toys R Us, was closing down, she was shocked--she knew the company had been having financial difficulties for a while, but didn't realize it was that bad. The more she learned, though, about the way the company had been looted by private equity firms Bain Capital and KKR, the more she determined that no one else should have to go through this. Debbie and other Toys R Us workers are organizing to demand severance pay from the company, and beyond that, organizing to stop the kind of leveraged buyouts that saddle viable companies with unsustainable debt. She joins me along with Carrie Gleason of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy to explain what can be done.
Read the full article here.
Seis meses después de “María”, Puerto Rico sigue en lucha por reconstrucción
Seis meses después de “María”, Puerto Rico sigue en lucha por reconstrucción
“Tuesday, March 20th from organizations across the nation take to the streets in DC to make sure that @fema, Congress,...
“Tuesday, March 20th from organizations across the nation take to the streets in DC to make sure that @fema, Congress, and the Trump Administration hear our demands.”
Read the full article here.
'Nueva York en un Minuto': el fiscal general Jeff Sessions le declara la guerra a la pandilla MS-13
'Nueva York en un Minuto': el fiscal general Jeff Sessions le declara la guerra a la pandilla MS-13
En otras noticias, la dueña de una floristería de Nueva Jersey es acusada de robar flores de un cementerio y el...
En otras noticias, la dueña de una floristería de Nueva Jersey es acusada de robar flores de un cementerio y el expresidente dominicano Leonel Fernández está en Manhattan para presentar su nuevo libro.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
The John Gore Organization & Scarlett Johansson's Our Town Benefit Raises $500,000 for Hurricane Maria Community Relief Fund
The event played to a full house and a very enthusiastic crowd. With more than 3,500 tickets sold, it was one of the...
The event played to a full house and a very enthusiastic crowd. With more than 3,500 tickets sold, it was one of the largest audiences the play has ever been presented to in one night. Johansson was joined on stage for opening remarks by director Leon and Xiomara Caro, Director of New Organizing Projects for the Center of Popular Democracy and coordinator for The Maria Fund, sharing an inspiring message about the purpose of the event and the relief effort. They brought the crowd to their feet when they revealed that the evening’s efforts resulted in half of a million dollars raised to help Puerto Rico in their hour of need.
Read the full article here.
The Silver Lining of the New Gilded Age: Fewer Targets
The Silver Lining of the New Gilded Age: Fewer Targets
Members of groups including Hedge Clippers and the Center for Popular Democracy protest outside Blackstone's New York...
Members of groups including Hedge Clippers and the Center for Popular Democracy protest outside Blackstone's New York headquarters in January.
Read the full article here.
Charter Financing: Study Finds Too Little Accountability in California
San Jose Mercury News - April 9, 2014, by Raymond Blanchard - Every parent wishes their children will reach their...
San Jose Mercury News - April 9, 2014, by Raymond Blanchard - Every parent wishes their children will reach their highest potential to live the life they choose. We do everything in our power to make this wish a reality, and we know an extraordinary education is essential.
Fulfilling this wish is difficult, particularly in the Bay Area. When California, the eighth largest economy in the world, ranks 49th among the states in school spending, we know it's difficult for our schools to provide the best education possible.
That's why I enrolled my children in Gilroy Prep Charter School, a Navigator school that achieved the highest API score -- 978 -- in California for a first-year charter school in 2011-12. I also served on the Navigator Board for three years but recently resigned due to transparency and accountability concerns with the Charter Management Organization (CMO), a service some charters use to manage their finances.
Now I find that my concerns were not an aberration. A recent study by the Center for Popular Democracy (linked with this article at mercurynews.com/opinion) found mismanagement of funds, fraud and abuse to the tune of $80 billion, or $160,000 per child, across all California charter schools, and our state could lose another $100 million in 2015 to charter school fraud. That's enough money to pay full tuition and board for every student in California at a University of California school for four years.
The report found that charter schools in California undergo little monitoring of finances, and the districts that oversee charter schools do not have the resources to provide sufficient oversight. Over my three years on the Navigator board, the local districts only attended seven board meetings.
Charter schools were created to bridge the achievement gap by granting increased freedom to administrators, teachers and parents to innovate without being subject to most California education laws. I support charter schools and think many of them provide an excellent education: 60 percent of Santa Clara County charter schools outperform the districts in which they reside. As a former entrepreneur and venture investor, I am all for freedom, innovation, competition and choice.
But the charter school financial model is at risk of failing.
Charter Management Organizations use public money with little public accountability and transparency, and that's starting to cause material financial problems. Not all charter schools have a CMO and run very well on their own, and some CMO-run charter schools are clearly better than others.
In 2014, charter schools authorized by the Santa Clara County Board of Education received $42 million in public revenue, excluding the millions of dollars in philanthropic investments. Some CMOs charge the schools they manage up to 25 percent of school revenue, while our local district charges about 6 percent per school.
In Santa Clara County, 73 percent of charter schools spent $1,287 less per student than their district school peers in 2012-2013. That's worth a musical instrument, computer, books, iPad and field trip per child. Where does the money go? It's not clear, and that's a problem.
To avoid financial risks, charter schools should be held to the same types of regulations as other public schools and the boards that oversee them. All public schools should be given the same freedoms charter schools have to innovate.
My wish is that all public schools be excellent educational institutions and stewards of our tax money. However, we must improve transparency and accountability. I think this is a wish we can all agree on.
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Extraordinary organizing effort to assist undocumented immigrants impacted by the #FlintWaterCrisis needs YOUR help
Art Reyes III is Director of Training and Leadership Development at Center for Popular Democracy. He along with the...
Art Reyes III is Director of Training and Leadership Development at Center for Popular Democracy. He along with the Genesee County Hispanic Latino Collaborative and a powerful group of organizers from around the country are working in Flint to be sure undocumented immigrants in Flint are getting the help they need in the midst of the water crisis there. The need is real. Many undocumented people are not getting the information they need and still more are too afraid of being detained to go to water distribution sites. It’s a legitimate fear as the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reported to detaining people in grocery stores and other areas around Flint:
Juani Olivares, says there are roughly a thousand undocumented immigrants in Flint – and many have spent years hiding from authorities to avoid deportation.
“Water was being delivered,” she says, “and they (immigrants) were not opening the door. Because that is the one rule. Do not open the door.”
Let’s face it, undocumented immigrants aren’t paranoid: The government really does want to get them.
Juani Oliveras works with the Genesee County Hispanic/Latino Collaborative. She says rumors are flying about sporadic raids at grocery stores.
“That’s another reason why people are not getting the water,” she says.
What’s worse is that many of these folks are still boiling water before drinking it because that’s what they have been told to do in the past when e. colicontaminated the city’s drinking water. In the case of lead contamination, however, it’s exactly the WRONG thing to do because it concentrates the lead even further.
This past Wednesday, Reyes and other organizers held a training for lead canvassers in Flint, setting the stage for what they hope will become regular daily canvasses until the water issue is resolved.
I spoke with Reyes after the organizing meeting to get a better understanding of what they are hoping to accomplish. He told me that there is currently no infrastructure in place to do what needs to be done in the undocumented community so they are literally building it as they go. He told me that there are an estimated 1,000 undocumented people in Flint. The goals of his group are fourfold:
First, they want to educate people about the water situation to ensure they know what precautions to take and what things to avoid (like boiling the water.)
Second, they want to make sure people are getting the water, water filters, and other necessary items that they need to stay healthy. The state has already been neglected this marginalized population and the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water is making things much, much worse.
Third, they are collecting stories from people. Unless the stories of those who are impacted are lifted up and heard, there will be nothing to stop this from happening again.
Fourth, they are trying to create a database of undocumented immigrants so that they can continue to work with them as needed until the crisis is over. This one is very difficult. The idea of getting into any database is, of course, the greatest fear of people here without documentation.
Finally, they are working to build a database of partners and volunteers who can help them with their effort.
How can you help? There are several ways. First, you can donate money. The Genesee County Hispanic Latino Collaborative has set up a fundraising page HERE.
Second, you can volunteer your time and resources to the effort. This will be an ongoing project and they will need assistance for the foreseeable future. Spanish-speaking volunteers are in particularly high demand. They also need things like storage and organizing spaces, trainers, printing, and all of the things that go along with a long-term effort like this. Click HERE to volunteer.
Third, you can donate water.
Finally, educate yourself about the issue. A good starting point is this essay by Art Reyes titled, “I Grew Up in Flint. Here’s Why Governor Snyder Must Resign. “.
One of the groups assisting with this effort is a small non-governmental agency (NGO) called Crossing Water. The group is headed up by social worker Michael Hood who has brought together around 150 social workers from around the country along with several hundred other volunteers and donors. They have already put up several billboards around Flint in both English and Spanish letting people know not to boil the water. They have plans for more billboards, including trailer mounted billboards that they can drive around Flint. They are also using donations to pay for public service announcements on television and radio. They’ve created videos on how to properly install and use water filters and teaching new parents not to use tap water to mix with baby formula. They have recruited plumbers to help replace lead-containing plumbing. This single group is making a huge difference.
Please do what you can to help with this important outreach effort. There are literally lives on the line, including the lives of babies and children.
Source: Eclecta Blog
How the Labor Movement is Thinking Ahead to a Post-Trump World
How the Labor Movement is Thinking Ahead to a Post-Trump World
The American labor movement, over the past four decades, has had two golden opportunities to shift the balance of power...
The American labor movement, over the past four decades, has had two golden opportunities to shift the balance of power between workers and bosses — first in 1978, with unified Democratic control of Washington, and again in 2009. Both times, the unions came close and fell short, leading, in no small part, to the precarious situation labor finds itself in today.
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Chicago Activists, Lawmakers Deliver Petitions To SEC For Action On 'Toxic' Interest Rate Swaps (VIDEO)
Chicago Activists, Lawmakers Deliver Petitions To SEC For Action On 'Toxic' Interest Rate Swaps (VIDEO)
Chicago community activists and local elected officials delivered 88,000 petition signatures to the U.S. Securities and...
Chicago community activists and local elected officials delivered 88,000 petition signatures to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regional office Thursday morning, urging the agency to investigate complex financial agreements called interest rate swaps.
Those who delivered the petition signatures, collected online by the Grassroots Collaborative and several other organizations, say cash-strapped local and state governments are being squeezed by the "toxic swaps" they entered into with banks before the Great Recession. The complicated deals, which come with hefty penalties and termination fees, were intended to save taxpayer-backed organizations money, but they backfired when the economy crashed.
"These are the same toxic swaps that have drained millions of dollars out of our city, state and (Chicago Public Schools) budgets and are hurting cities and states across the country," Saqib Bhatti, director of the ReFund America Project, said outside the SEC's Chicago regional office, 175 W. Jackson Boulevard.
Illinois State Reps. Robert Martwick (D-Chicago), Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Westchester) and Chicago Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th Ward) joined activists at the petition delivery.
Petitioners want the SEC to "investigate the 'toxic swaps' Wall Street is using to impoverish our cities and towns -- and make bankers return all ill-gotten profits from deceptive and fraudulent sales."
The state of Illinois has already paid $684 million for interest rate swaps and could be forced to pay an additional $870 million in November if "the state does not sue or renegotiate these deals," according to the Grassroots Collaborative.
Interest rate swaps, Ramirez-Rosa said, have cost the city of Chicago and CPS over $1 billion in combined payments, plus $600 million in costs associated with terminating the agreements.
"That $600 million in ransom to the banks went to go pad their bottom line," Ramirez-Rosa said. "The banks don't need more money. Our neighborhoods desperately need these funds. ... The SEC can act now to recuperate some of that money for the city of Chicago and the Chicago Public Schools, and they can act now to defend the state of Illinois from further payments, from paying a larger ransom, to these banks."
Welch said he is "disgusted" that "big banks continue to profit at the expense of our most vulnerable." He urged Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Forrest Claypool to join the push for an SEC investigation into swap agreements.
"We ask the governor and our leaders in this city to stop putting banks before books," Welch said.
Here's more from the lawmakers at the petition delivery:
Organizers and the elected officials dropped off the petition signatures at the SEC's Chicago office, where a receptionist said she would give the documents to the regional director.
In addition to the Grassroots Collaborative, the online petition was circulated nationwide by Americans for Financial Reform, the Center for Popular Democracy, CREDO Action and Rootstrikers.
Read Progress Illinois' past reporting on how interest rate swaps work and their financial impact on the state, city of Chicago and CPS.
by ELLYN FORTINO
Source
A Call to Action From NMAC & Housing Works
A Call to Action From NMAC & Housing Works
People in the movement might be surprised by a joint letter from Charles King of Housing Works and me, but these are...
People in the movement might be surprised by a joint letter from Charles King of Housing Works and me, but these are not ordinary times. NMAC is writing this letter to invite constituents at this year’s United States Conference on AIDS to join Housing Works efforts on Wednesday, September 6, to greet Congress on its return from summer recess with a rally for the care we need to survive—sign up here!
These are confusing times with no clear roadmap. Since NMAC is hosting the HIV/STD Action Dayon the same day, we want everyone to be aware of our mutual support and collective goal to not just save the Affordable Care Act, but to also strengthen our vision of ending AIDS as an epidemic. This can only happen when affordable health care becomes a human right for everyone.
Read the full article here.
19 hours ago
19 hours ago