Why the People’s Climate March matters to people of color like me
Ever since taking power, the Trump administration has made clear it intends to wage war on the environment. It’s given...
Ever since taking power, the Trump administration has made clear it intends to wage war on the environment. It’s given the green light to both the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines and geared up to wipe away long-standing protections that keep our air and water safe. Its mission is clear: Eliminate any obstacle that stands in the way of fossil fuel companies.
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‘May You Die in Pain,’ Voter Tells GOP Lawmaker
An angry voter had harsh words for Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., at a town hall meeting on Monday: "May you die in pain...
An angry voter had harsh words for Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., at a town hall meeting on Monday: "May you die in pain," the voter said, scolding the California Republican for his support of a House GOP plan to repeal Obamacare.
The biting remark from the elderly constituent, who was holding a sign that read "Lackey for the Rich!" was one of several intense moments from a passionate group of about 400 residents during the gathering in Chico, according to The Los Angeles Times.
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Want To Change The Face Of Politics? Help Teens Register To Vote.
Want To Change The Face Of Politics? Help Teens Register To Vote.
In a recent Center for Popular Democracy report, we detailed examples of youth-focused campaigns for high school...
In a recent Center for Popular Democracy report, we detailed examples of youth-focused campaigns for high school registration around the country. In Phoenix, organizers at Living United for Change in Arizona regularly go door-to-door registering eligible students in the 27,000-student Phoenix Union High School district. They also work with school district officials to integrate voter registration in high schools.
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Vast Majority Of Construction Site Deaths Are Latino Or Immigrant Workers
Think Progress – October 25, 2013, by Esther Yu-Hsi Lee - A Center for Popular Democracy...
Think Progress – October 25, 2013, by Esther Yu-Hsi Lee -
A Center for Popular Democracy report released on Thursday reveals that the majority of construction site accident victims in New York State are Latinos and/or immigrant workers. In an eight-year overview of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigations between 2003 to 2011, the researchers found that punitive measures to impose construction worker safety are often meager and its resulting criminal penalties are almost never followed through, especially at non-union work sites.
Only 34 percent of all construction workers in New York state are Latino and/or an immigrant, but they comprise 60 percent of all OSHA-investigated “fall from an elevation fatalities” in the state. That number climbs to 74 percent in New York City and skyrockets to 88 percent in Queens and 87 percent in Brooklyn.
Latinos, some of whom make up the 17 percent undocumented construction worker population, stay on hazardous workplace sites because refusal to work could mean deportation. A 2002 Supreme Court ruling makes it difficult for undocumented workers to seek basic labor protections because they weren’t legally allowed to work in the first place.
Many of these workers are in the US to support their families abroad. According to the New York Daily News, Daniel Basilio, a Mexican immigrant from Hidalgo, fell four stories and died on route to the hospital. Hours after he died, his wife in Mexico gave birth to his second child.
Basilio’s tragedy is just one of 400,000 construction site deaths that have occurred since 1970. One study showed that at least 85 percent of day laborers were “routinely abused,” including receiving substantially less pay than was agreed upon, receiving bad checks, being unable to take breaks or water, and subjected to robbery and threats, and exposed to chemical wastes and occupational hazards.
New York State has had worker protection laws, like the Scaffold Law, in place since the 1880s. That law makes owners and contractors directly liable for providing a safe workplace for workers who are otherwise too afraid to report unsafe conditions. Owners and contractors must provide worker’s compensation and health care for medical care, pain, and suffering if their safety equipment cause serious injury.
But the Scaffold Law is hard to implement given that OSHA fines are meager and do little to improve construction site violations. Penalties generally run between $2,000 (for a serious injury) to $12,000 (for a fatality)– a paltry sum equivalent to the price of an used car. Also, OSHA inspectors have cut down on the number of OSHA visits due to budget cuts, to the point where an average workplace only receives an OSHA visit every 99 years.
Source
Citizen Green: First Flint and New Orleans, then North Carolina
Citizen Green: First Flint and New Orleans, then North Carolina
Take it as a given that the state General Assembly will pass legislation to increase teacher pay when it reconvenes for...
Take it as a given that the state General Assembly will pass legislation to increase teacher pay when it reconvenes for the short session on April 25, albeit somewhere below the 5-percent raise Gov. Pat McCrory wants.
Improving teacher salaries is the kind of popular public policy the governor can take to the voters, in addition to the infrastructure bond referendum that passed last month, in his reelection bid. He’s the only one who will have to face voters across the state in November, but the ultra-conservatives in the legislature who are protected by gerrymandering owe McCrory big time after he signed HB 2.
But also expect the emboldened Republican super-majority to aggressively push through a legislative agenda that radically promotes for-profit education while punishing students in poor, low-achieving schools.
The NC School Board Association is closely monitoring a proposal by state Rep. Rob Bryan (R-Mecklenburg) to create a so-called Achievement School District. The proposal, released in the form of draft legislation in January, would yank five low-performing schools across North Carolina from the control of local school boards and place them under the administration of a statewide Achievement School District to be operated by a private company contracted by the state.
The model of states superseding local control of education by turning academically struggling schools over to charters was pioneered in 2003 in Louisiana, where it rapidly expanded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Tennessee followed suit in 2010, and Michigan got in the game in 2013. Parallel to taking control of local schools, the state of Michigan also placed the city of Flint in receivership, with disastrous consequences when citizens were exposed to lead poisoning from the water in Flint River. It should be obvious that opaque administration and lack of local accountability invites abuse and undermines democracy.
A study by the New York-based Center for Popular Democracy found that takeover districts in Louisiana, Tennessee and Michigan failed to improve test scores, while metrics were “altered from year to year, confounding accountability and transparency.”
The authors wrote, “Additionally, lawsuits and student protests demonstrate that when local oversight is stripped away, children may face harmful practices such as discriminatory enrollment, punitive disciplinary measures, and inadequate access to special education resources. Students suffer in the wake of high teacher turnover and personnel instability brought on by the rushed firing of staff. Finally, we find that a consistent lack of oversight can create an environment rife with fraud and mismanagement, where private interests gain financially while taxpayers, students and teachers are left behind. We conclude that takeover districts actually hinder children’s chances of academic success rather than improving them.”
As further warning that the Republican lawmakers intend to take away control and funding from public education, take it from Bryan Holloway, a former Republican lawmaker who now works as a lobbyist for the NC School Board Association.
A remarkable story published by the Elkin Tribune on March 30 quotes Holloway as telling the Elkin City School Board: “There could be numerous education bills go through in this short session you may not like at all.”
Last year, the state Senate approved legislation to shift funding from public schools to charters, including federal child nutrition funds, even though many charter schools don’t provide free lunch, prompting sharp criticism from many Democratic lawmakers. The House could move on the legislation and present it for Gov. McCrory’s signature in the short session.
If that’s not strange enough, the article also quotes Holloway as saying, “A bill to eliminate school boards throughout the state we’ve been told is going to be introduced. I don’t think it has legs to go anywhere, but because they are brazen enough to even be willing to file it means you’ll probably have to deal with it in the future.”
The General Assembly started down this path in 2014 when they passed a law to give every public school in the state a letter grade from A to F. Predictably, the schools that consistently earn Ds and Fs are the ones that serve communities with concentrated poverty.
Fortunately, teachers and principals see very clearly what our lawmakers in Raleigh are trying to do.
“They are putting a big red X on the schools that already have a big red X on them,” Michelle Wolverton, the principal at Hunter Elementary in Greensboro, told a few intrepid souls who braved the blustery cold for a Rally for Public Education at Greensboro’s Governmental Plaza on April 9. “They have a big red X on them because of poverty. They have a big red X on them because a high percentage of the students are immigrants. They have a big red X on them because of poverty and because the economics are not equal.”
by Jordan Green
Source
Williams picked as next president of New York Fed
Williams picked as next president of New York Fed
But Shawn Sebastian, director of the Fed Up Coalition, a collection of liberal groups, said the New York Fed search...
But Shawn Sebastian, director of the Fed Up Coalition, a collection of liberal groups, said the New York Fed search process had failed in its job to offer diverse candidates. "The New York Fed's claims that there are no qualified candidates who are women or people of color working in the public interest who would take this job are untrue," he said in a statement.
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Starbucks vows to do more to ease barista schedules
An internal memo from a Starbucks executive this week urged store managers to "go the extra mile" to improve workers'...
An internal memo from a Starbucks executive this week urged store managers to "go the extra mile" to improve workers' schedules.
The letter was distributed on Tuesday and refers to a New York Times story that was set to be published the following day titled, "Starbucks falls short after pledging better labor practices."
The Times story referred to a survey by the nonprofit advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy.
Based on interviews with 200 baristas in 37 states, the survey says Starbucks "is not living up to its commitment to provide predictable, sustainable schedules to its workforce."
In 2014, Starbucks said it was changing its policies telling managers to post schedules at least a week in advance and not make store employees work an opening and closing shift back-to-back.
In this week's memo, Cliff Burrows, Starbucks (SBUX) group president of the U.S. and Americas, said the findings of the new survey "suggest" that neither commitment was being met -- "contrary to the expectations we have in place."
In his letter, Burrows urges managers to improve scheduling for coffee baristas, who the company calls partners.
"To our store managers, I want to stress that as we continue to evolve and improve the usability of our system, we have to go the extra mile to ensure partners have a consistent schedule -- free of back-to-back close and open shifts that are less than 8 hours apart -- that is posted 2 weeks in advance," he wrote.
Source: CNN Money
Does the Federal Reserve need reforming?
First, the Federal Reserve is a pretty complex place. There’s the Fed in Washington we talk about every time interest...
First, the Federal Reserve is a pretty complex place. There’s the Fed in Washington we talk about every time interest rates are changed (or not changed). Then there are 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, each with a board of directors of nine people.
That’s where the Democratic Party, and activist groups on the left, are aiming their fire.
Currently, three of those nine directors are representatives of private banks (private banks are members of the regional Federal Reserve Banks). Another three are community representatives, but also elected by private banks. The remaining three are appointed by the Board of Governors.
Critics on the left, in addition to calling for more diversity within the Federal Reserve system, also want private banks gone from regional fed banks. “These private banks get a say on who’s on those board of directors and they get representatives on those boards of directors,” said Ady Barkan, campaign director of Fed Up, a left-leaning group that’s pushed for changes at the fed. “It’s an egregious example of regulatory capture.”
Barkan says that regional bank presidents tend to be more conservative, more hawkish on interest rates, than their counterparts in Washington D.C. He blames both a lack of diversity and the influence of private banks. “You can’t imagine for example that cable networks would get some special role in choosing people on the FCC,” said Andrew Levin, professor of economics at Dartmouth College.
But the fed has already undergone some major reforms to limit influence. Under Dodd Frank, the private-bank representatives who serve on regional boards don’t get to nominate regional presidents anymore. “The bankers themselves are not involved in the choice of that person,” explained Stephen Ceccetti, professor of economics at Brandeis International Business school. “That is the person who participates in monetary policy discussions and decisions.”
Ceccetti also argues that the conservative, hawkish leanings of some regional Fed presidents are actually at odds with bank profits. “Higher interest rates don’t help banks,” he said.
Lastly, he said, regional Fed banks aren’t responsible for actually regulating banks, “they don’t even get to see the stuff.”
Chair Janet Yellen herself has said that if the fed were redesigned from scratch, it would probably look pretty different than it did a hundred years ago, but, in her view, it works pretty well. Ceccetti agreed, saying “I don’t see that anyone’s been able to show that there’s any harm or pressure applied by the banks through their directors to the policy of the Federal Reserve.”
Changing the structure of the fed would require an act of congress.
By SABRI BEN-ACHOUR
Source
New York immigration activists criticize Schumer for deal to reopen government
New York immigration activists criticize Schumer for deal to reopen government
Before 81 senators, including 33 Democrats, voted on Monday to reopen the federal government, U.S. Senate Minority...
Before 81 senators, including 33 Democrats, voted on Monday to reopen the federal government, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer blamed President Donald Trump in a speech on the Senate floor for his refusal to compromise on an immigration deal.
For many liberals in his home state, however, Schumer is to blame for being too willing to compromise, since he agreed to reopen the government without a permanent solution for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
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If Amazon Wants New York, Make It Unionize
The Center for Popular Democracy awarded Walgreens its “worst employer” prize because of its treatment of the retail...
The Center for Popular Democracy awarded Walgreens its “worst employer” prize because of its treatment of the retail chain’s employees.
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