Meet The ‘Rapists’ Who Built Donald Trump’s Empire
As a real estate tycoon, Donald Trump built up and has given his name to ...
As a real estate tycoon, Donald Trump built up and has given his name to clothing lines, hotels,resorts, golf courses, a winery, and apartment buildings. And for a man who has unapologetically characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, and has said that infectious diseases are spilling across the border, Trump has decided to work in industries where it’s impossible to avoid the Latino immigrants he is maligning.
A 2010 Current Population Survey found that more than 200,00 foreign-born workers work in the hospitality industry, nearly 1.2 million foreign-born workers hold construction occupations, and another 1.3 million foreign-born workers are employed in the food service industry. The data doesn’t break down the figures by nationality and legal status, though a Southern Poverty Law Center survey found that Latino immigrants are most often employed in construction, factory work, cleaning, and restaurant work.
A 2011 National Council of La Raza study corroborated those results, finding that nearly one in five employees in the accommodation industry is Latino. The group is also overrepresented in “nearly all the major service jobs in the accommodation industry,” the NCLR study stated.
For Trump, that overrepresentation of Latino laborers could very well mean that at least some of his workers are from the country that he’s made inflammatory remarks about. And if he took a stroll through some of the properties that he owns long after business hours are over, he might encounter many of these “good people“:
Construction workers
As the Washington Post reported this week, Trump relies on both undocumented and legal immigrants on the construction site of his hotel in Washington, D.C. Trump has also put undocumented immigrants on the payroll in the past. In the 1980s and 1990s, Trump was embroiled in a 15-year lawsuit for allegedly cheating 200 undocumented Polish immigrants out of meager wages and fringe benefits during the demolition of the building that preceded Trump Tower, the New York Times reported in 1998.
Trump doesn’t think it’s “crass” to tell people that he’s “really rich,” (he has a net worth anywhere between $4.1 billion and $8.7 billion), but his wealth isn’t solely from his own doing. He likely had help — as he currently does in D.C. — from immigrants like Ramon Alvarez, a window worker, who told the Washington Post, “Do you think that when we’re hanging out there from the eighth floor that we’re raping or selling drugs? We’re risking our lives and our health. A lot of the chemicals we deal with are toxic.”
A 2013 Center for Popular Democracy report found that the majority of construction site accident victims in New York State are Latinos and/or immigrant workers. 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. A 2008 Pew Hispanic study found that 17 percent of construction workers were undocumented.
Some of these workers are subject to wage theft. Fernando, an undocumented construction worker and painter, told ThinkProgress in March that he joined an union because “the contractor refused to pay me and they helped me get my money back.” He was also serious injured twice on the job, once in Galveston, Texas after Hurricane Ike.
Golf course maintenance workers
About 180,000 maintenance workers keep the nation’s 15,619 golf courses green and pristine across the country. As a four-part Golf Digest series documented, immigrants do most of the maintenance work on golf courses. “We get up early and try to stay out of the way,” one golf course worker told Golf Digest. “We don’t know anything about the players, and they don’t know anything about us.”
Most of the time, American workers just aren’t “willing to do those jobs,” Chava McKeel, the associate director of government relations for the GCSAA said.
“The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) estimates that two-thirds of the maintenance workforce is Latino, with the largest presence in California, Texas and Florida (85 percent), followed by the Northwest (50 percent) and the Midwest/Mideast (10 to 20 percent),” Golf Digest reported. A 2008 Cornell study backs up the findings, noting that superintendents responding to their survey indicated that “72 percent of their workforce at the peak of the season was Hispanic.”
The Trump organization owns seven golf courses throughout the country. The PGA of America saidon Tuesday that the Grand Slam of Golf tournament won’t be played at the Los Angeles golf club.
Restaurant workers
The 2008 Pew Hispanic study found that about one in ten workers in the restaurant industry is an immigrant. Of those, about 20 percent of restaurant cooks and 30 percent of dishwashers are undocumented, Seattle’s KUOW reported.
Latinos are “disproportionately likely to be dishwashers, dining room attendants, or cooks, also relatively low-paid occupations,” an Economic Policy Institute report stated last year. The study also found that “one in six restaurant workers, or 16.7 percent, live below the official poverty line” while “more than two in five restaurant workers, or 43.1 percent, live below twice the poverty line.”
Restaurateur and TV star Anthony Bourdain told the Houston Press in 2007, “It is undeniable…I know very few chefs who’ve even heard of a U.S.-born citizen coming in the door to ask for a dishwasher, night clean-up or kitchen prep job.”
Though Trump is mainly in the hotel business, his establishments have restaurants, like the Trump Grill located in the atrium of the Trump Tower and The Terrace at Trump Chicago. However, his recent comments are threatening to derail plans for a new restaurant at the planned Trump International Hotel in D.C. At least 2,510 people have already signed a petition asking Chef Jose Andres to back out of working at the restaurant.
Hotel workers
According to the 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 36,700 Latinos working in the building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations, such as janitors, maids and housekeepers, pest control workers, and grounds maintenance staff. There are also an additional25,100 hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks who identify as Latino.
A 2009 study of workers across 50 U.S. hotels found that Latino women are twice as likely to be injured as white house keepers and 1.5 times more likely to be injured than men. The New York Times reported that housekeepers have a high injury rate since they have to do repetitive tasks, lift heavy mattresses, and work quickly to clean rooms.
“I have worked as a housekeeper for about 13 years. I work in pain constantly. My body aches all over, but most of all my back from bending and lifting throughout the day,” one housekeeper who worked at a Hyatt hotel said, according to a Work Safe report.
Unlike Trump, some conservative hoteliers have recognized the necessity of immigrant workers. J.W. Bill Marriott, then CEO and now Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Marriott International, has called for immigration reform several times in 2007, 2010, and again in 2012.
Source: ThinkProgress
Fighting for Puerto Rico: The Struggle Against Post-Hurricane Privatization
Fighting for Puerto Rico: The Struggle Against Post-Hurricane Privatization
Today we bring you a conversation with Julio López Varona, the director of Make the Road Connecticut, who also works as...
Today we bring you a conversation with Julio López Varona, the director of Make the Road Connecticut, who also works as a consultant with the Center for Popular Democracy and helps lead the Hedge Clippers' corporate accountability campaign on Puerto Rico.
Read the full article here.
White House: Obama won’t discuss interest rates with Yellen
White House: Obama won’t discuss interest rates with Yellen
President Obama met with Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen on Monday, but one of the most pressing topics for the...
President Obama met with Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen on Monday, but one of the most pressing topics for the central banker was not on the agenda.
Obama did not plan to discuss interest rates with Yellen, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest. He argued such a conversation could undercut the chair’s independence in setting monetary policy.
“I would not anticipate that, even in the confidential setting, that the president would have a conversation with the chair of the Fed that would undermine her ability to make these kinds of critical monetary policy decisions independently,” Earnest told reporters ahead of the meeting.
The closed-door discussion is instead an opportunity to “trade notes” on broader economic trends in the U.S. and abroad, as well as on a new set of regulations on Wall Street financial firms.
Obama and Yellen talked about the growth outlook, “the state of the labor market, inequality and potential risks to the economy,” the White House said after the meeting.
Vice President Biden also attended the meeting with Yellen in the Oval Office.
The meeting comes at time when Yellen is grappling with whether to raise interest rates further amid conflicting signs about the health of the global economy.
Yellen hiked the benchmark rate to 0.25 percent last December, the first such increase since the 2008 recession.
But since then, the central bank has taken a cautious approach to further hikes.
Reserve officials left the rate unchanged last month and reduced their estimate of the number of increases that could take place this year from four to two.
Yellen said late last month the economic recovery remains on track in the U.S. despite signs of weakness abroad, such as low oil prices and anemic growth in China. Inflation has also yet to hit the Fed’s 2 percent target.
She indicated she would take a wait-and-see approach on rate hikes until the economy shows more signs of improvement.
“I consider it appropriate for the committee to proceed cautiously in adjusting policy,” she said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York.
Election-year politics could complicate the Reserve’s decision-making process.
Progressive groups are wary of further rate hikes, worried that upping the cost of borrowing could slow the pace of hiring and economic growth.
The left-leaning “Fed Up” campaign circulated a questionnaire to presidential candidates Monday asking whether the Fed “should be intentionally slowing down the economy in 2016” by raising rates.
Republican leaders have frequently accused Obama of being too reliant on Fed policy to drive the recovery, which they say hasn’t spread to large segments of the economy.
Obama hasn’t publicly commented on interest rates. But he has sounded a more optimistic tone than Yellen on the economy, trumpeting a string of positive employment reports and rising wages.
Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist for Biden, expressed confidence Yellen would be able to insulate her decision-making from the political debate.
“The Yellen Fed, and particularly Chair Yellen herself, has been extremely data-driven, and I expect that to continue,” he said.
“What will be motivating her is less electoral politics and more the actual state of the real economy,” he added. “People worried about the fed loosening in an election year to help the incumbent party. I don’t think that is in play this year.”
Did you know 67% of all job growth comes from small businesses? Read More
Obama does not meet frequently with the Fed chair to discuss the economy. Yellen’s last one-on-one sit-down with the president occurred in early November 2014.
“I think the president has been pleased with the way that she has fulfilled what is a critically important job,” Earnest said.
Even while he offered praise for Yellen, the spokesman said Obama “cares deeply about preserving both the appearance of and the fact of the independence of the Federal Reserve and the chair.”
By Jordan Fabian
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Proposed Legislation Could Grant State Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants
SILive.com - June 16, 2014, by Ryan Lavis - With the legislative session in Albany scheduled to end this week, one New...
SILive.com - June 16, 2014, by Ryan Lavis - With the legislative session in Albany scheduled to end this week, one New York lawmaker is pushing legislation that would grant sweeping rights of citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants and non-citizens, including the right to vote and access to healthcare.
The New York Is Home Act, sponsored by Bronx state Senator Gustavo Rivera, would provide benefits to non-citizens who meet certain criteria.
Requirements include proof of residence in New York state for at least 3 years, pledges to abide by New York laws and uphold the state constitution, as well as a willingness to serve on New York juries. Additionally, non-citizens would also have had to pay state taxes for at least 3 years.
After meeting these criteria, non-citizens would receive a form of state citizenship that includes the right to vote in all state and local elections and hold certain public offices. Additionally, they would have access to college financial aid and health insurance programs, and the ability to apply for drivers and professional licenses, according to a summary of the bill.
Staten Island Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn) opposed the bill.
"Extending the privilege of voting to those in our country illegally devalues United States citizenship and further erodes the incentive to enter the country through safe and proper channels," Ms. Malliotakis said in a statement. "While some of us are fighting to protect taxpaying citizens, others are looking to give rights and benefits to non-citizens. It is a shame that during these last days of session, this is the priority of some legislators."
State Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) questioned the logistics of the bill, and noted the responsibility of such immigration reform should ultimately fall on Congress.
"These are issues that rightfully belong to the federal government, and we need a Congress more willing to develop comprehensive solutions to citizenship," Sen. Savino said.
According to the bill, this legislation would not interfere with the federal government's authority to regulate immigration.
The bills sponsor told the Daily News that he does not expect his legislation to pass anytime soon.
"Obviously this is not something that's going to pass immediately, but nothing as broad as this or as bold as this passes immediately," Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), told the Daily News.
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Stringer nails contractor who stole $1.7 million from immigrant workers
Stringer nails contractor who stole $1.7 million from immigrant workers
After getting away with stealing money from his immigrant employees’ paychecks for years, a major contractor who worked...
After getting away with stealing money from his immigrant employees’ paychecks for years, a major contractor who worked city projects across the five boroughs was slapped on Monday with a $3.2 million fine and barred from doing business with the city and state for five years.
A six-year investigation carried out by the New York City Comptroller’s Office used undercover video, subpoenas, union records and a city agency paper trail to uncover the kickback scheme, Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a statement on Monday.
Stringer said K.S. Contracting Corporation and its owner, Paresh Shah, cheated dozens of immigrant workers out of their pay and benefits.
Shah told the city he was paying his workers the prevailing wages required under the New York State Labor Law. In reality, however, only about half of the workers received paychecks. Those who did were required to cash the checks and then surrender the money to company supervisors. Those supervisors would take a cut and then redistribute the leftover cash to employees , including those who did not receive paychecks, paying them at rates significantly below prevailing wages.
Before getting their money, many of the workers were required to sign a paper stating that they were, in fact, being paid the prevailing wage.
One supervisor was surreptitiously filmed in the act of counting workers’ surrendered cash in the front seat of his car. (See video at brooklyneagle.com.)
K.S. Contracting reported that it paid its workers combined wage and benefit rates starting at $50 per hour (or roughly $400 a day plus benefits) but actually paid daily cash salaries starting at just $90 per day and going, in some cases, as high as $200.
Part of the paper trail the Comptroller’s Office investigators uncovered in building a case against K.S. Contracting Corporation. Photo courtesy of the Office of the ComptrollerPart of the paper trail the Comptroller’s Office investigators uncovered in building a case against K.S. Contracting Corporation. Photo courtesy of the Office of the Comptroller
Between August 2008 and November 2011, the company cheated at least 36 workers out of $1.7 million in wages and benefits on seven New York City public works projects. The majority of the workers were immigrants of Latino, South Asian, or West Indian descent.
Stringer said that the need to stand up for immigrants was especially important in the time of President Trump.
“Contractors might think they can take advantage of immigrants, but today we’re sending a strong message: my office will fight for every worker in New York City,” he said.
The brazen scheme had gone on for years; an employee first filed a complaint with the office in May 2010.
K.S. Contracting was named as one of the worst wage theft violators in New York in a report by the Center for Popular Democracy in 2015. The full details of what was going on came out at a four-day administrative trial in May 2016.
The company, incorporated in New Jersey, was awarded more than $21 million in contracts by the city’s Departments of Design and Construction, Parks and Recreation and Sanitation between 2007 and 2010. Projects included the District 15 Sanitation Garage and the Barbara S. Kleinman Men’s Residence in Brooklyn, the Morrisania Health Center in the Bronx, the 122 Community Center in Manhattan, the North Infirmary Command Building on Rikers Island, Bronx River Park, and various city sidewalks in Queens.
K.S. Contracting is not the only contractor to rip off its immigrant employees. Since taking office in 2014, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer’s Bureau of Labor Law has assessed more than $20 million and barred 40 contractors from state and city contracts due to prevailing wage violations, according to the Comptroller’s Office.
A number of workers’ rights groups and immigrant organizations praised the comptroller’s investigation.
"At a time when exploitative employers are feeling increasingly emboldened by Trump’s hateful rhetoric, it is imperative that our city's leaders are taking a strong stance in defense of immigrant workers,” Deborah Axt, executive director of Make the Road New York, said in a statement.
“Too many employers in New York City exploit minority and immigrant workers. And it’s no secret that many immigrant workers are fearful of retaliation for standing up for their rights, especially in an environment where they are afraid of being deported,” said Lowell Barton, organizing director of Laborers Local 1010, LiUNA!
By Mary Frost
Source
Piden expandir ID Municipal a otras ciudades
ciudad de Nueva York quiere que otras urbes de la nación copien el ID Municipal que ha sido un éxito en la Gran...
ciudad de Nueva York quiere que otras urbes de la nación copien el ID Municipal que ha sido un éxito en la Gran Manzana, y por ello este jueves el Centro para la Democracia Popular hizo el lanzamiento oficial de una nueva guía para facilitar la implementación de esa identificación en otras ciudades.
El programa, que comenzó a comienzos de este año, ya ha emitido más de 630,000 identificaciones a neoyorquinos, quienes están disfrutando de una variedad de beneficios.
“Nueva York siempre ha estado a la vanguardia de los derechos de los inmigrantes y constantemente ha empujado el desarrollo por la inclusividad y ha reconocido la contribución que han hecho los inmigrantes a este país”, dijo Shena Elrington, directora de Justicia Racial y de los Derechos de los Inmigrantes, del Centro para la Democracia Popular.
El concejal Carlos Menchaca aseguró que este programa “como habíamos anticipado, ha sido particularmente útil para aquellos que tienen una falta de conexión con los gobiernos en todos los niveles. Para esas personas, esta identificación municipal ha cambiado el juego. Es algo que debe ser imitado por otras ciudades”.
La guía explica detalladamente cómo aprobar una ordenanza municipal para poner la identificación en vigencia, los requisitos que se deben pedir a un solicitante y el tipo de sellos de seguridad que deben llevar las tarjetas de identificación, entre otra información
“Esto es algo que todos necesitamos a nivel nacional. Seamos documentados o no. Tenemos que salir de las sombras, si nosotros lo hacemos aquí, se puede hacer en cualquier otra parte”, dijo Patricia Rivera, miembro de la organización se Hace Camino Nueva York.
Otras ciudades donde se están dando identificaciones municipales incluyen Hartford, Connecticut; Newark, Nueva Jersey; Johnson County, Iowa; Los Angeles, California; Oakland, California; Richmond, Virginia; San Francisco, California. Recientemente en Perth Amboy, NJ, las autoridades anunciaron que estudiarán la posibilidad de otorgar el ID.
Las identificaciones municipales permiten a todos los residentes, independientemente de su condición migratoria, identidad de género u otras características, abrir una cuenta bancaria, cambiar un cheque, identificarse en un hospital, registrar a su hijo en la escuela, solicitar para beneficios públicos, presentar una queja ante el departamento de policía, pedir prestado un libro de una biblioteca, o incluso recoger un paquete de la oficina de correos.
Source: El Diario
At Swanky Federal Reserve Retreat, “Computer Glitch” Cancels Minority Protesters’ Hotel Reservations
At Swanky Federal Reserve Retreat, “Computer Glitch” Cancels Minority Protesters’ Hotel Reservations
THE KANSAS CITY Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, attracts central bankers, economists and...
THE KANSAS CITY Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, attracts central bankers, economists and the global elite. The past two years, some new faces came to Jackson Hole: low-wage workers who object to the Fed raising interest rates when too many at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder still struggle.
This year, somebody appears to be ensuring that ordinary people won’t disrupt the party.
The Fed Up campaign, a coalition that brought the workers to Jackson Hole in 2014 and 2015, has filed a formal complaint with the departments of Justice and the Interior, along with the National Park Service, because their hotel reservations for this year’s conference were mysteriously canceled.
Despite paying in advance for spots at the 385-room Jackson Lake Lodge, the Grand Teton Lodge Company told the campaign July 26 that their reservations would not be honored, citing a “computer glitch.” Grand Teton operates the lodge, a publicly owned facility, under a contract with the National Park Service.
Thirty-nine members of the coalition planned to attend this year, but the lodge said computer glitch resulted in overbooking its rooms by 18. Instead of spacing that out among all Jackson Lake lodge guests, the company cancelled all 13 of the Fed Up campaign’s rooms. So nearly three-quarters of the cancelled reservations belonged to the Fed Up group, even though they were told when they booked that 100 rooms were still available at the lodge.
“There is no legitimate explanation for the company’s decision,” wrote Fed Up campaign chair Ady Barkan in the complaint, which alleges possible violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly. “This is egregious and disparate treatment.”
The coalition’s reservations were made in the names of staffers for three of its member organizations – the Center for Popular Democracy, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Economic and Policy Research – using work email addresses.
In an email statement, Alex Klein, vice president and general manager of Grand Teton Lodge Company, said: “This summer we encountered an error with our booking system that resulted in our Jackson Lake Lodge property being oversold by 18 rooms for three peak nights in August. We worked proactively and diligently with guests to relocate them to our nearby Flagg Ranch property, and offered to keep them on a wait list for available rooms should there be cancellations at the Jackson Lake Lodge. We regret inconveniencing any of our guests.”
The Jackson Hole symposium takes place from August 25-27. The event typically features a highly anticipated speech by the Federal Reserve chair – Janet Yellen is expected this year.
In 2014 and 2015, Fed Up brought unemployed workers and local activists to Jackson Hole to highlight how the economy has left behind communities of color and to urge the Fed to hear their voices. Last year, they held an alternative conference in Jackson Hole lodge conference rooms, featuring economists like Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.
This year, Fed Up planned to hold a teach-in outside of the lodge, and secured permits for a protest. They still expect 120 members, their largest contingent ever, to attend the proceedings, but they will have to stay in alternative accommodations that are a 20- to 30-minute drive away, separate from symposium guests and the press.
The majority of Fed Up members planning to attend the conference are African-American and Latino, which is why the campaign wants the Justice Department to investigate the matter as a violation of laws ensuring nondiscriminatory treatment in public accommodations. They also want to know if the Kansas City Federal Reserve was at all involved with the decision.
Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George has consistently drawn criticism from the Fed Up coalition for wanting to raise interest rates and slow down the economy.
The lodge’s general manager told Fed Up that their reservations were pulled because they were booked in a group of 13, making it easier to cancel them. This, the campaign believes, also violates First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly.
“I recognize that our presence is not desired by either the company or the organizers of the symposium,” Barkan wrote. “But the physical and virtual segregation of Federal Reserve decision-makers far away from the voices and opinions of working class people of color is precisely what the Fed Up coalition is trying to dismantle.”
The incident comes at a sensitive time for the Federal Reserve, which has already been criticized by 127 members of Congress for a lack of diversity among its leadership, which is disproportionately white, male, and either current or former executives of large corporations and financial institutions. Activists believe this homogeneity in race, gender, and background drives central bank decisions that cater to the wealthy and neglect communities of color.
Barkan’s letter to Justice and the Interior concludes: “Once again, the voices and faces of working class people of color have been marginalized … and an opaque, inaccessible, and incredibly powerful quasi-governmental institution has received a bit more insulation from the opinions of the people over whose lives it has so much power.”
The Intercept has reached out for comment to the Justice Department, the Interior Department, and the National Park Service, but did not immediately hear back.
Top photo: National Park Rangers stand silhouetted inside the lobby of Jackson Lake Lodge during the Jackson Hole economic symposium in August 2015.
By David Dayen
Source
Economic Recovery? Not for Ferguson or Black America
MSNBC - March 13, 2015, by Jane Timm - “America is coming back,” President Obama declared late last month, touting...
MSNBC - March 13, 2015, by Jane Timm - “America is coming back,” President Obama declared late last month, touting strong job creation and rising wages. “We’ve risen from recession.” But for Ferguson, Missouri – and black America as a whole – the recovery still hasn’t come.
“Black unemployment rates are still at the height of the national unemployment rates during the Great Recession,” the Center for Popular Democracy’s Connie Razza told msnbc. “We’re still in a recession in black America.”
Indeed, while American unemployment is down to 5.5%, black unemployment is at 10.4%. While wages have risen over the last 15 years by 45 and 48 cents for Latino and white workers, respectively, they’ve fallen 44 cents for black workers, according to a study produced by Razza at the left-leaning organization. The net wealth of African-American families, too, is hurting. “As the wealth of the other groups is stabilizing in the wake of the recession, the wealth of the African-American community is declining,” Razza added.
Blacks have long faced unemployment rates that are double those of white workers – according to Pew, it’s been that way since 1954 – but sources say the recession has hurt black America, and the St. Louis region, particularly hard. “It’s not just a recession of jobs, it’s a recession of income; it’s a recession of wealth in the sense that a whole lot of homes in Ferguson are still under water. It’s a three-way disaster for people in that part of St. Louis county,” Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, told msnbc. “In places like Ferguson, it’s not coming back quickly.
The most recent racial employment breakdown indicates that Missouri’s problems may be worse than the rest of the country’s, too. In Missouri, black unemployment was 15.7% in the fall of 2014 – triple the state’s 4.5% white unemployment at the time.
“It’s not just unemployment,” Robertson added. “It’s the poor wages, it’s the under-employment, it’s the part-time work.”
And economic inequality is fueling the protests and activist movement, sources said. “There’s a real sense of despair especially for those young folks. You just don’t have the economic opportunities for young people. Especially young people coming out of sub-standard school districts … not having the tools prepared for the economy,” Ferguson activist Umar Lee told msnbc. “And then there’s a shortage of jobs, leaving young people at a disadvantage, and so they just drop out.”
“That’s the driving force, we believe,” former state Sen. Maida Coleman told msnbc. She’s heading up Gov. Jay Nixon’s Office of Community Engagement, a state office formed in the wake of August’s protests to focus on low-income and minority communities. “What’s happening now is that we see a real need to address these high levels of unemployment, just as we are addressing education,” Coleman said. “The hopelessness needs to be addressed.”
But the problem extends beyond Ferguson; when there are jobs to be had, black Americans struggle to get hired.
A 2013 study found that black college grads had twice the unemployment rate of white college grads and that racial inequality actually grew during the recovery. A 2014 study by nonpartisan education and economic advocacy group the Young Invincibles found that black workers need college credit to compete with white high school drop-outs thanks to racial discrimination.
Getting an interview may be half the battle, too. A 2003 study found that very white-sounding names received 50% more callbacks for interviews than a very black-sounding name.
For these reasons, Razza and the Center for Popular Democracy are urging the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low. The Fed had vowed to keep rates low until employment dipped below 6.5% and the recovery came in earnest, but Razza argued that the country needs to be closer to “full employment”—that is there are close to the same number of jobs as people who want to work—before the Fed can really stop intervening. “The fact that black Americas are still experiencing a recession is really … the canary in the coal mine of the recovery,” she said.
Source
Mayoral Hopefuls Cool to Plan to Lift Up Low-Wage Workers
Labor Press - February 13, 2013, by Marc Bussanich - While the city’s economy has been recuperating from the Great...
Labor Press - February 13, 2013, by Marc Bussanich - While the city’s economy has been recuperating from the Great Recession, low-wage workers in the city face enormous difficulties in making ends meet in one of the nation’s most expensive cities. A new report, Workers Rising, reveals policy decisions the next mayoral administration can make to improve conditions and pay for low-wage workers.
Presented at a symposium on low-wage worker organizing at the Murphy Institute, the authors of the report, UnitedNY and The Center for Popular Democracy, write that the city should raise standards by guaranteeing at least five days of paid sick leave. The city should also regulate high-violation industries, establish a Mayor’s Office of Labor Standards to investigate complaints by workers and pass a resolution that’ll allow the city to pass a higher minimum wage than the state.
According to the report, the city’s economy is shedding living wage jobs, but is adding low-wage, service sector jobs such as restaurants (42,000) and retail trade (27,000).
Prince Jackson works as a security officer for the Air Serv Corporation at Kennedy airport and is part of a committee of security officers organizing for better pay and the appropriate equipment to do their jobs that ensures the safety of passengers.
He worked all night, but said it was important for him to be at the event.
“I’m very tired, but I will do anything that I can do to raise the standards for my fellow workers at the airport.”
Alterique Hall is a retail worker who said he’s behind his rent because he’s paid very low wages.
“It’s difficult. Some days I just want to lie down and cry because I’m being paid and treated poorly. We need to fight for higher wages to better our futures,” said Hall.
A car wash worker who worked for seven years at a carwash owned by John Lage in SoHo, owner of multiple carwashes throughout the city, will soon be laid off because Lage is selling the property to a developer. The workers at the SoHo facility voted to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in November, but Lage said the property was up for sale before the election.
Council Member Gale Brewer welcomed the proposal to create a local office for labor standards.
“All the other cities and states that have paid sick leave have such an office. Right now, the only way to get a complaint on many of these issues is on a complaint-by-complaint basis. There isn’t currently any organization; the state doesn’t have enough staff. You need a local office that will be a partner with the employee and employer to come up with safe standards,” Brewer said.
Also joining Ms. Brewer were two mayoral hopefuls—Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former comptroller and 2009 mayoral candidate, William Thompson. They both said they support the movement to help low-wage workers, but they did not say they would enact the authors’ proposals if elected mayor.
Source
Trump’s Immigration Policy ‘Fever Dream’
Trump’s Immigration Policy ‘Fever Dream’
“The administration is “creating an environment of profound hostility,” as Ana Maria Archila, the co-executive director...
“The administration is “creating an environment of profound hostility,” as Ana Maria Archila, the co-executive director for the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), told me. (Archila was one of the women who passionately confronted Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator last week during the Senate hearing on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, shortly before the senator urged an FBI investigation into the sexual-assault allegations.) Together with Make the Road New York (MRNY), CPD published an alarming data brief estimating that if the administration were able to effectively implement its “zero-tolerance” policy—its attempt to prosecute all people who cross the border outside of a port of entry—the number of migrants in private detention centers would rocket from between 290 to 580 percent in the next two years.
Read the full article here.
6 days ago
6 days ago