CPD IN THE NEWS

This week Newark, New Jersey, became the latest in a growing number of cities to adopt a municipal ID program. The IDs, available to all residents 14 and older, will be especially useful to undocumented immigrants, the homeless, formerly incarcerated people, and other populations who may not be able to present documents typically required for state-issued cards.

One notable addition to this list: transgender people. Unlike other forms of state and federal identification, Newark’s new card will not list the holder’s gender. The omission is expected to benefit those who do not identify with the gender listed on their birth certificate or other official documents.

Gender sensitivity is a relatively new development within the relatively newphenomenon of municipal IDs. In 2007, New Haven, Connecticut, became the first city in the U.S. to offer city IDs, followed by several cities in California (including San Francisco and Los Angeles), Washington, D.C., New York City, and a few others. In every case, undocumented immigrants were the main target group for the cards. But when San Francisco launched its ID program in 2007, the city made a point of omitting a gender marker (“male” or “female”) from the card, and in 2014 New York City became the first jurisdiction to allow local ID card holders to self-designate their gender.

Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, hopes that more cities will embrace self-designation on municipal IDs. “Since transgender people face so much discrimination based on sex, it’s important that they have ID that matches who they truly are and how they appear to the outside world,” he says. It’s a human rights issue, since IDs confer access to virtually every aspect of public life. When applying for jobs, public benefits, or other services that require identification, the option to affirm one’s gender identity (or omit it) can be significant. Sometimes, Silverman says, ID is the “only layer of support” for a person’s gender identity.

Gender markers are just one battleground in the struggle for gender-flexible documentation, however. Most states don’t allow people to change the gender on their birth certificates unless they undergo sex-reassignment surgery—difficult-to-define procedures that many transgender people either do not want or cannot afford. TLDEF has represented transgender people in West Virginiaand South Carolina who were asked to remove wigs, makeup, and other items associated with female gender expression before taking their driver’s license photos, and the ACLU recently sued the state of Michigan for requiring proof of reassignment surgery to change gender markers on state IDs.

But Silverman senses a sea change in public attitudes on gender identity, buoyed by the high-profile stories of Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner. In Newark, New York, and San Francisco, gender identity has become part of the conversation surrounding municipal IDs—one that has so far focused on the legal rights of undocumented immigrants. Silverman predicts that, moving forward, “municipalities will look to what other similar cities have done, and will take the concerns of the local transgender population into account when they plan these types of programs.”

In a 2013 report on municipal ID programs across the U.S., the Center for Popular Democracy wrote that “cities that offer ID to their residents regardless of immigration status are making a powerful statement of welcome and inclusion.” The same goes for cities who do so regardless of gender identity.

Source: The Atlantic's CityLab 

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."

Source

Several organizations, including the Center for Popular Democracy, SIFMA NOW, ACT UP Boston, participated in the protest.

Read the full article here.

KMOV St. Louis - March 5, 2015, by Steve Savard - About 12 people rallied outside the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Thursday to protest the racial disparity in employment in the St. Louis region.

White unemployment in the St. Louis area is 5.7 percent, African American unemployment is 14.1 percent. Organizers said they want the Fed to adopt policies focused on getting more people get back to work.

“It’s not easy getting a job, when you are qualified even when you look the part,” one demonstrator said.

Organizers said the story of one attendee demonstrates the problem.

“When you do get the job, it’s something to get you buy, but it’s not a livable wage,” Ray Rounds said.

Rounds said he left a low paying job to go back to school at the Green Technology Training Program at St. Louis University.

“I’m certified in lead remediation, mold, asbestos, permit required confined spaces, hazardous material. I’ve got 17 of those certificates I was really proud of and I was ready to go to work,” Rounds said.

Rounds said he has not been able to land a job in the two years since he finished school.

“It’s pretty frustrating because with all I thought that I had accomplished. It’s meaningless because there are no jobs,” Rounds said.

Rounds has been attending rallies, working with churches and other organizations to try and make a difference. He hopes the contacts he has made will help him land a job.

Demonstrators also said they want to see more diversity on the Federal Reserve Board.

Source