Rally Aims To Highlight Racial Employment Disparities In Metro Area
CBS Minnesota - March 4, 2015 - A report to be released on Thursday aims to highlight employment disparities in the...
CBS Minnesota - March 4, 2015 - A report to be released on Thursday aims to highlight employment disparities in the Twin Cities.
The groups Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Economic Policy Institute say they plan to hold a rally at the Neighborhoods Organizing for Change offices on Thursday afternoon to draw attention to the racial differences between wages and jobs available here.
The groups say that, though the economy is adding jobs, the unemployment rate among black residents in the Twin Cities metro area is nearly four times that of white residents.
The groups said that the racial disparities on display in Minnesota are “among the worst in the nation.”
The rally is scheduled for 3 p.m.
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In The Fight For Racial Justice, We Cannot Overlook The Climate Crisis
In The Fight For Racial Justice, We Cannot Overlook The Climate Crisis
"From increases in severe weather such as hurricanes and droughts, to the toxins that are poisoning our soil, air and...
"From increases in severe weather such as hurricanes and droughts, to the toxins that are poisoning our soil, air and water, the human impact of the worsening climate crisis is undeniable. Also undeniable is the disparate impact the effects of the climate crisis have on low income communities and communities of color. We know that the poisoned children and families of Flint, Michigan still have no clean water more than three years after the corrupt and willful negligence of their state government was exposed. A decade after Hurricane Katrina, the residents of the Gulf Coast are still trying to put their lives together. In California, farmers and farm workers alike have lost income and in some cases their entire livelihoods thanks to the drought that plagued the state for the past few years."
Read full article here.
Last-Minute Schedule Changes? Some Cities Say Employers Must Pay
Last-Minute Schedule Changes? Some Cities Say Employers Must Pay
Dec. 1 — More than a dozen states and cities in the past year considered legislation to require retail stores and...
Dec. 1 — More than a dozen states and cities in the past year considered legislation to require retail stores and restaurants to provide extra pay to employees for last-minute work schedule changes. Thus far only a handful of cities have enacted such measures into law.
These predictive or predictable scheduling proposals, also called fair workweek measures, were “very popular” in 2016, John S. Hong, an employment law attorney with Littler Mendelson in San Francisco, recently told Bloomberg BNA.
“But they died on the vine in a lot of states,” Hong said.
In addition to providing “predictability” pay, these measures would require employers to notify workers about their schedules a certain number of weeks in advance under predictive scheduling proposals. They also include “access to hours” provisions that require employers to offer newly available hours to part-time staff before hiring new workers or using contractors or staffing agencies.
Worker advocacy groups praise these measures as providing secure, clear and stable scheduling for workers. But employers counter that these requirements remove the flexibility needed for retailers and restaurants to operate their businesses effectively.
Predictive Scheduling Is ‘The Next Fight.’
Predictive scheduling bills this year were withdrawn or never went to a vote in California, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Rhode Island.
Similar bills or provisions died in Connecticut, Illinois, Maine and Oregon in 2015.
Washington, D.C., also tabled a predictive scheduling proposal this year, while a court rejected a ballot initiative on the issue in Cleveland, Hong said.
Still, employee advocates said the number of jurisdictions that have considered scheduling laws is encouraging.
Introduction of the bills initiates public conversations among workers, employers and policy makers about the issue, they said.
“They begin the legislative process, which can take multiple years,” Elianne Farhat, deputy campaign director of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative.
Predictive scheduling is “the next fight,” following the success of the “Fight for $15" minimum wage initiative, Farhat told Bloomberg BNA Nov. 30.
“The issue will continue to pick up steam and move forward,” she said.
Two Cities Join San Francisco
Two cities this year enacted predictive scheduling laws. Seattle and Emeryville, Calif., followed in the footsteps of San Francisco, which passed the nation’s first ever predictive scheduling law in late 2014
Rules implementing San Francisco’s ordinance went into effect in March 2016. They apply to businesses that have 20 or more employees in the city and at least 40 retail sales establishments worldwide.
Seattle and Emeryville’s laws take effect in 2017.
Seattle’s law applies to retail and quick or limited food-service establishments with more than 500 employees worldwide and full-service restaurants with more than 500 employees and 40 full-service locations worldwide.
Emeryville’s law applies to businesses with more than 55 employees worldwide.
New Hampshire, San Jose Also Pass Laws
On the predictive scheduling periphery are San Jose, Calif., and New Hampshire, which passed narrower laws in the past year.
San Jose voters approved a ballot initiative in November that focused only on access to hour protections for part-time employees, meaning they would be given extra hours prior to hiring others.
New Hampshire in June didn’t quite enact a predictive scheduling law. Instead, it required employers to consider employee requests for flexible working arrangements and prohibited employers from retaliating against workers who made those requests.
The New Hampshire law is “minimal, but still important,” Liz Ben-Ishai, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg BNA.
Farhat added that Washington, D.C. passed a law guaranteeing a 30-hour minimum workweek for building service workers, although it tabled its broader predictive scheduling law.
Depending on the needs of a particular locality, some cities or states will pass broader scheduling laws, while others pass narrower provisions.
“They’re all part of updating our work hour standards,” Farhat said.
Looking Ahead to 2017
Predictive scheduling bills are pending in New Jersey and Massachusetts, Hong said. But the latter “may die for lack of action” before the end of the year.
A measure also is pending in Minnesota, according to CLASP data, but it may share the same fate as the Massachusetts bill.
Asked if the issue of predictive scheduling will continue to crop up in 2017, Hong said more cities and states may consider such measures. But “ultimately they may die on the vine,” he said.
Ben-Ishai provided a more optimistic outlook for predictive scheduling.
“I think it’s a promising area moving forward,” she said.
State and local lawmakers in Oregon could consider predictive scheduling measures next year, she said. In 2015, a state predictive scheduling bill died in committee, but legislators preempted scheduling ordinances at the local level only until 2017.
Portland, Ore., already has passed a resolution to study and eventually establish workweek principles for city contractors, Farhat said.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in September announced that the city is developing legislation that would require predictable work schedules for about 65,000 hourly fast-food employees in the city.
Predictive scheduling is expected to come back in Washington, D.C. next year “in a very serious way,” Farhat said. And California may onceagain consider a statewide measure, she added.
Don’t Forget About State Preemption Laws
Hong observed that several states have preemption laws that prevent cities, towns and counties from passing workplace laws that conflict with state or federal law.
About 22 states so far have expressly preempted localities from adopting such laws, like those that would raise minimum wages, provide leave benefits or expand workplace anti-discrimination protections. Most of these state have enacted the laws within the last five years., Lawmakers in about 11 other states have introduced similar bills so far in 2016.
At least five states—Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas and Michigan—have laws that could preempt local predictive scheduling laws, Hong said.
Preemption laws don’t necessarily indicate that legislatures are against fair scheduling, he said. “They don’t want local governments doing something potentially inconsistent with state law,” Hong said.
But Ben-Ishai contended that preemption laws can be a strategy taken by lawmakers who “are not friendly to workers’ rights.”
Federal Predictive Scheduling Law?
A federal predictive scheduling bill known as the Schedules That Work Act ( H.R. 3071, S. 1772) was introduced in both houses of Congress in July 2015.
The identical bills were sponsored by democrats and have remained stalled in committee. They are unlikely to be considered for a vote before the year ends.
Ben-Ishai said she expects the bills’ sponsors, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), will reintroduce the legislation in the next Congress.
But given Republican control of both Congress and the White House, Ben-Ishai said, “I don’t think we’re super optimistic about it moving forward.”
Predictive scheduling will have a better chance at seeing “more movement” at the state and local levels, she said.
By: Jay-Anne B. Casuga
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As Federal Reserve Selects New Top Officials, Coalition Calls for Public Input
New York Times - November 10, 2014, by Binyamin Appelbaum - A coalition of community groups and labor unions wants the...
New York Times - November 10, 2014, by Binyamin Appelbaum - A coalition of community groups and labor unions wants the Federal Reserve to change the way some Fed officials are appointed, criticizing the existing process as secretive, undemocratic and dominated by banks and other large corporations.
In letters sent to Fed officials last week, the coalition called for the central bank to let the public participate in choosing new presidents for the regional reserve banks in Philadelphia and Dallas. The current heads of both banks plan to step down in the first half of 2015.
The Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, has agreed to meet on Friday with about three dozen representatives of the groups to hear their concerns.
“The Federal Reserve has huge influence over the number of people who have jobs, over our wages, over the number of hours that we get to work, and yet we don’t have discussion and engagement over what Fed policy should be,” said Ady Barkan, a lawyer with the Center for Popular Democracy, a Brooklyn-based advocacy group that is orchestrating the campaigns. “More people’s voices need to be heard.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. Yellen confirmed the meeting but declined to comment on the issues raised by the groups.
The Philadelphia Fed said in an email that the institution “is conducting a broad search for its next president and will consider a diverse group of candidates from inside and outside the Federal Reserve System.”
James Hoard, a spokesman for the Dallas Fed, said the bank’s board would meet on Thursday to discuss the search process.
The campaign is part of a broader increase in political pressure on the Fed, which is engaged in a long-running campaign to stimulate the economy that some liberals regard as insufficient and some conservatives see as both ineffective and dangerous. Mr. Barkan led a picket line in support of the Fed’s efforts in August outside the annual monetary policy conference at Jackson Hole, Wyo.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have passed legislation that seeks to reduce the Fed’s flexibility in responding to economic downturns, arguing that such efforts are destabilizing.
The Fed acts like a monolith, but it has a complicated skeleton. Most power rests with a board of governors in Washington, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But operations are conducted through 12 regional banks, each of which selects its own president. And those presidents rotate among themselves five of the 12 seats on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy.
The two presidents who have said they plan to step down are, by coincidence, among the most outspoken internal critics of the Fed’s campaign to stimulate the economy. Charles I. Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Fed since 2006, plans to retire at the end of March. Richard W. Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed since 2005, is required to step down by the end of April, though he has not set a date.
Their replacements will be selected by the board of each reserve bank. Each board has nine members, including three bankers, but under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, only the nonbank members can participate in the process. The banks in each reserve district, however, still elect three of those six nonbank members. The other three, including the chairman and vice chairman, are appointed by the Fed board in Washington.
By law, the boards are supposed to represent a diverse set of viewpoints, including “labor and consumers.” But the 72 nonbank board members are predominantly corporate executives. Just eight are leaders of community groups; two more are leaders of labor groups.
Corporate executives exclusively make up the boards of the St. Louis and Richmond regional banks. The Dallas Fed’s board includes the presidents of the Houston Endowment — a charitable organization — and the University of Houston. The Philadelphia Fed has five executives and the president of the University of Delaware.
“I look at that list and it doesn’t strike me that most of those folks are representing the public,” Kati Sipp, director of Pennsylvania Working Families, a nonprofit advocacy group that is one of the signatories of the recent letter, said of the Philadelphia Fed’s board. “We believe it is important for the people who are making economic policy to hear from the regular folks on the ground who are being affected by those decisions.”
The two dozen signatories also include the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, New Jersey Communities United and W. Wilson Goode Jr., a Philadelphia city councilman. The letter asks for the Fed to disclose basic information about the selection process, including the timetable, criteria and, eventually, names of candidates. It also seeks search committee seats and opportunities to question the candidates publicly.
The selection process is secretive, but control has increasingly shifted from the regional banks to the board of governors. Beginning under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, a former Fed chairman, the central bank has sought presidents who can contribute to making monetary policy. The board provides informal guidance during the winnowing process, and candidates travel to Washington to meet with the governors.
As a result of that trend, 10 of the 12 sitting presidents are former Fed staffers, economists or both. Mr. Fisher, a former investor, is one exception. The other is Dennis P. Lockhart, a former banker who leads the Atlanta Fed — and is the next president who will reach retirement age.
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In New York, a Bill to Grant Undocumented Immigrants State Citizenship
Bloomberg Businessweek - June 16, 2014, by Josh Eidelson - While Congress drags its feet on immigration reform, New...
Bloomberg Businessweek - June 16, 2014, by Josh Eidelson - While Congress drags its feet on immigration reform, New York State lawmakers are mulling an immigration bill of their own: It would grant state citizenship to some noncitizen immigrants, including undocumented residents, allowing them to vote and run for office. Under the New York Is Home Act, noncitizen residents who have proof of identity and have lived and paid taxes in the state for three years could apply for legal status that would let some qualify for Medicaid coverage, professional licensing, tuition assistance, and driver’s licenses, as well as state and local—but not federal—voting rights. The responsibilities of citizenship would also apply, including jury duty.
“It’s mind-boggling,” says Michael Olivas, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center who specializes in immigration law. “I don’t believe there’s ever been a serious attempt to codify so many benefits and opportunities.”
Democratic State Senator Gustavo Rivera, who’s sponsoring the legislation, sees it as a precedent. “We have a bill here that could be a model of what we need to do across the country,” he says. Rivera acknowledges the bill “certainly will not pass this session,” comparing it to same-sex marriage, a cause which took years to travel from fringe to mainstream. But he expressed hope that the primary defeat of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, widely construed as a final nail in the coffin of near-term federal immigration reform, would create interest in state-level reforms like his. Democratic Assemblyman Karim Camara is introducing the same bill on the other side of the Capitol. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If it did pass and Cuomo signed it—again, not at all likely—the new law would certainly be challenged in court. Olivas says some aspects of the bill are on safe ground (in-state tuition for undocumented students has become widespread), while others involve “unsettled or untested” areas of the law. Olivas says that by “appropriating the term ‘citizen,’” a word he says “is really truly a federal term,” the bill’s authors have made it more vulnerable to legal challenge.
The state law wouldn’t trump federal immigration statutes, so undocumented workers in New York would still be denied some important benefits of citizenship. One big example: They’d be subject to federal laws barring them from legally working in the U.S.
Supporters insist the bill, unlike Arizona’s largely overturned SB 1070, is well within the law. “The problem with the Arizona law and the copycat laws around the country is that they were intruding upon the unique province of the federal government to determine who gets to enter the United States and who gets deported,” says Peter Markowitz, a professor at New York’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He says the bill, which he helped draft, is instead “exercising a firmly established, constitutionally enshrined authority of the state to determine the boundaries of its own political community” and is consistent with Supreme Court precedents that recognize “state citizenship” as well as “federal citizenship.”
“The very nature of our dual-sovereign federal structure,” says Markowitz, “means that New York gets to decide who are New Yorkers.”
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At the RNC, Don’t Just Watch Trump. Watch Who Follows Him.
At the RNC, Don’t Just Watch Trump. Watch Who Follows Him.
In the coming days, our nation’s media will focus enormous attention on the formal anointment of Donald Trump as the...
In the coming days, our nation’s media will focus enormous attention on the formal anointment of Donald Trump as the GOP’s candidate for president at the Republican National Convention. Endless ink will be spilled on Mr. Trump’s entrance, his appearances, and his words. But, as the Republican Party prepares itself to nominate the most anti-immigrant and racist presidential candidate in at least a generation, Americans should not just be watching Mr. Trump—we must pay attention to those who follow him.
It’s no secret that Mr. Trump has defined himself politically, from the very launch of his campaign, by scapegoating immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists,” and doubling down on his bigotry with proposals to, among other things, deport eleven million undocumented immigrants and ban all Muslim immigrants. Mr. Trump’s dominant strategy has been to animate the nativist portion of the Republican primary electorate—a strategy that proved quite successful in the primaries, and that Mr. Trump will continue (albeit in modified fashion) in the general election.
None of this is new. And Republicans will likely lose the White House because Trump has so alienated Latinos, communities of color, and other groups, including women.
But as Latinos and immigrants, we can’t just watch Trump. Our fight is not just about defeating Trump: it’s also about defeating “Trumpism,” the anti-immigrant and hateful policies and rhetoric he embraces.
That’s why have to, and we will, watch who follows him in contested Congressional races around the country. These “down-ballot” elections will determine the prospects for critical federal legislation in 2017 and beyond on issues including: reforming our out-of-date immigration system and ensuring that millions of immigrant families can remain together, ending police brutality, and raising the federal minimum wage.
What we will if we watch the candidates in these congressional races over the next few days is as simple and scary: the lion’s share of one of America’s two principal parties, including hundreds of sitting Congressional representatives, will embrace Trump’s hateful campaign strategy and applaud him as he formally becomes their standard bearer.
Their embrace will take two forms.
First will be incumbents and candidates who wholeheartedly endorse Trump. Hundreds of Republican elected officials have said openly that they will support him, and they will double down through November. Their ranks will grow during and after the convention. These Trump acolytes are people like Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, who has endorsed and then repeatedly stumped for Mr. Trump. At the RNC, voters should pay careful attention to figures like Mr. Zeldin. Despite representing a moderate district where people of color represent roughly 20 percent of the voting-age population, Rep. Zeldin has acknowledged the racism in Trump’s words, but refused to withdraw his support.
Second will be legislators who are uncomfortable with the Trump brand, but quietly copy his playbook. Many Republicans are concerned that Trump’s divisive rhetoric may hurt the Republican brand and their poll numbers—so they stop short of full-throated endorsement, and in some cases are skipping the convention—but will mirror his demagoguery. Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania offers a perfect example. Locked in a re-election fight with Democrat Katie McGinty, Toomey has not endorsed Trump for fear of its political downside. Instead, he has echoed Trump’s nativist appeals, leading efforts in the Senate to punish localities that have sought to improve community-police relations and public safety for all residents by distancing local law enforcement from immigration enforcement. To justify this politically-motivated policy fight, Sen. Toomey has suggested that immigrants are criminals and murderers—despite research consistently showing that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born residents.
This behavior from legislators like Zeldin and Toomey will not be lost on Latinos, voters of color, and other voters who stand for inclusion and diversity.
Latino and immigrant voters across this country are angry and we are energized. This is why residents protested outside Rep. Zeldin and Sen. Toomey’s offices this past weekend. And it is why, over the coming months, community organizations across the country, working with national groups like the Center for Community Change Action and Center for Popular Democracy Action, will be talking to millions of voters in our communities to make sure that they know the importance of voting all the way down the ballot.
No number of photo ops at local cultural events will erase the damage that legislators like these are doing to themselves, and to the Republican Party writ large, by embracing the politics of Trump.
As the GOP prepares for its convention, let there be no mistake: our communities are watching. And, to those who have embraced the politics of Trump, we say: we see you. And, in November, we will hold you accountable for vilifying us.
By ADANJESUS MARIN AND WALTER BARRIENTOS
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U.S. Department of Education Launches Crackdown on Ohio Charters
Charter Schools are defined by their freedom from regulation and oversight, but that freedom has been so regularly...
Charter Schools are defined by their freedom from regulation and oversight, but that freedom has been so regularly abused by unscrupulous operators that it seems the U.S. Department of Education is finally deciding to crack down, under pressure in this case from Ohio’s U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.
Three months ago, on June 20, 2016, Senator Brown wrote a letter to John King, now U.S. Secretary of Education, demanding increased oversight of a large grant—$71 million—the federal Department of Education made to Ohio on September 28, 2015 to expand charter schools. The grant application had been written by David Hansen, who, by September, had already been fired by the Ohio Department of Education for hiding the abysmal academic record of the state’s so-called “dropout recovery schools” and omitting their scores from a system he was creating as the Ohio Department prepared to begin holding charter schools more accountable. Hansen had also bragged in his federal grant application that Ohio had already begun more aggressively regulating charters. After the U.S. Department of Education awarded Ohio the $71 million grant at the end of September 2015, however, it was pointed out that the Ohio legislature had not yet passed the regulations for which Hansen (in July) had given the state credit. (The Ohio Legislature later adopted the most basic and minimal charter school oversight when it passed Ohio House Bill 2 on October 7, 2015).
When Ohio Senator Brown wrote to U.S. Secretary John King in June, 2016, the $71 million Ohio grant had been put on hold for months, as the U.S. Department of Education investigated Ohio’s dealings with charter schools. In his June 20 letter, Senator Brown wrote:
“In your November 2015 response letter to the members of the Ohio Congressional delegation, you outlined a number of steps ED has taken and will continue to take to verify the accuracy and completeness of ODE’s grant application. I appreciate these steps, but more must be done to provide order to the state’s chaotic charter school sector. In light of this report, I ask that you examine the performance of Ohio charter schools who have received CSP (federal Charter Schools Program) grants to determine whether grant recipients are failing or closing at a higher rate than those in other states and how the academic performance of CSP grant recipients in Ohio compares to CSP grant recipients nationwide. I further ask that when Ohio has satisfied all necessary conditions for this grant money to be released that you appoint a special monitor to review every expenditure made pursuant to this grant in order to ensure that all funds are being spent for their intended purpose. Ohio’s current lack of oversight wastes taxpayer’s money and undermines the ostensible goal of charters: providing more high-quality educational opportunities for children. There exists a pattern of waste, fraud, and abuse that is far too common and requires extra scrutiny.”
Last Wednesday, September 14, 2016, the U.S. Department of Education finally released the $71 million grant, but, as Patrick O’Donnell reports for the Plain Dealer, there are now many conditions:
“In a letter to the Ohio Department of Education today, the grant was declared ‘high risk’ because of the poor academic performance of the state’s charters and the struggles the state has had in implementing portions of House Bill 2, the state’s charter reform bill passed last fall by the state legislature… The letter states: ‘As part of this high-risk designation, we are imposing certain High-Risk Special Conditions on ODE’s CSP (Charter Schools Program) SEA (State Education Agency) grant that will help ODE and the Department more clearly determine ODE’s ongoing compliance with applicable requirements’ so that it will be more transparent and so that any issues can be identified and fixed quickly.”
Here are the conditions as reported by O’Donnell:
• “(T)he state cannot give out grants to schools as it has in the past. It must have prior approval from the U.S. Department of Education before transferring any money.
• “The department must evaluate dropout recovery schools better.
• “The state must report its progress four times each year.
• “ODE must hire an independent monitor of the grant program.
• “The state must create a Grant Implementation Advisory Committee.
• “And it must do demanding ratings of the oversight agencies known as ‘sponsors’ in Ohio, but as ‘authorizers’ in most other states.”
Ohio’s problems with the controversial $71 million Charter Schools Program grant are not the first time anyone has noticed the federal Department of Education’s failure to oversee the Charter Schools Program. A year ago in June, 2015, the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools—a coalition of national organizations including the American Federation of Teachers, Alliance for Educational Justice, Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, Center for Popular Democracy, Gamaliel, Journey for Justice Alliance, National Education Association, National Opportunity to Learn Campaign, and Service Employees International Union—sent a letter to then-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan complaining that while the Department had granted $1.7 billion to states for expansion of charter schools since 2009, the Department of Education’s own Inspector General had been raising alarms about the Department’s own lack of any kind of quality control.
The Alliance’s letter to Arne Duncan cited formal audits from 2010 and 2012 in which the Department of Education’s own Office of Inspector General (OIG), “raised concerns about transparency and competency in the administration of the federal Charter Schools Program.” The OIG’s 2012 audit, the members of the Alliance explain, discovered that the Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, which administers the Charter Schools Program, and the State Education Agencies, which disburse the majority of the federal funds, are ill equipped to keep adequate records or put in place even minimal oversight. The State Education Agencies that lack capacity to manage the programs are the 50 state departments of education.
In the June 2015 letter to Arne Duncan, the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools enumerates the problems discovered by the Department of Education’s own Office of Inspector General: that the Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) did not maintain records of the charter schools funded through grants to states, that OII “lacked internal controls and adequate training in fiscal and program monitoring,” that none of the three states selected as samples for investigation by the Office of Inspector General—Arizona, California, and Florida—sufficiently monitored the charter schools funded through the Department of Education’s State Education Agency grants, that 26 charter schools in these three states were shown by the Office of Inspector General to have closed after being awarded $7 million, and that even when the schools closed, nobody tracked “what happened to assets that had been purchased with federal funds.”
Thank you, Senator Sherrod Brown for doggedly demanding that the U.S. Department of Education improve oversight of the federal Charter Schools Program. Please keep on keeping on.
By Jan Resseger
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Gap Inc. to end on-call scheduling after inquiry by New York attorney general
A spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based retailer said Thursday the decision also applies to Gap's other brands,...
A spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based retailer said Thursday the decision also applies to Gap's other brands, including Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta and was part of an effort to "improve scheduling stability and flexibility" for workers.
Spokeswoman Laura Wilkinson said the change will apply "across our global organization" and will be fully implemented by the end of this month. Wilkinson said the company is working to establish scheduling systems giving store employees at least 10 to 14 days' notice.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office sent letters to Gap and 12 other retailers earlier this year questioning them about on-call scheduling, which required hourly workers to stay on-call for shifts set the night before or the same day, giving them little time to arrange for child care or work other jobs.
"Workers deserve stable and reliable work schedules, and I commend Gap for taking an important step to make their employees' schedules fairer and more predictable," said Schneiderman, a Democrat.
Abercrombie & Fitch also ended the practice this month.
Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, said in a statement that Gap's decision reflects not only Schneiderman's concerns but also a new ordinance in San Francisco requiring chain retailers to set schedules in advance. Similar proposals are pending before other city governments.
"Working people in hourly jobs are starting to speak out about the impact that employers' scheduling practices has on their lives," Gleason said in a statement.
Source: US News & World Report
Aiming for new empowerment of black women
Three Democratic congresswomen have teamed up in a new effort to help African-American women overcome economic and...
Three Democratic congresswomen have teamed up in a new effort to help African-American women overcome economic and social barriers. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL), Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY), and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) have launched the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, the first caucus devoted to public policy that eliminates the significant hurdles and disparities faced by black women. The three hope that the new caucus gives the same attention to black women that President Obama’s My Brother's Keeper initiative has given to black men and boys.
The caucus is an outgrowth of a MoveOn.org petition from the #SheWoke Committee, a group of seven women asking congressional leaders to find ways to improve the lives of black women. That committee includes Ifeoma Ike, the co-founder of Black and Brown People Vote; philanthropic strategist Nakisha Lewis; and Sharon Cooper, sister of Sandra Bland, the Illinois woman who died in police custody in Texas after being stopped for a traffic violation.
The formal launch for the caucus is April 28, when the three congresswomen will lead a symposium at the Library of Congress titled “Barriers and Pathways to Success for Black Women and Girls.” The event will featuring academics, advocacy leaders, business executives, and media personalities. Among the speakers on two different panels are Melissa Harris-Perry, the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University and now editor-at-large at Elle magazine (now that she’s no longer at MSNBC); Beverly Bond, founder and CEO of Black Girls Rock!, the annual award show that honors women of color; and Monique Morris, co-founder and president of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute and author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools.
An evening event (both the daytime and evening meetings are open to the public) will give members of Congress “an opportunity to address organizations focused on black women, other civic leaders, and individuals who are committed to advancing the quality of life of black women in America,” according to the congressional office of Rep. Watson Coleman.
“I hope that what we will do is to highlight the issues facing black girls and black women—the issues that are impacting their lives,” Watson Coleman said. The range of issues to be addressed in the April 28 symposium include black women’s experiences with law enforcement; disparities in health care, including clinical trials; inequality in salaries; unemployment; domestic violence; and many other topics.
The April 28 events are only the first in what Watson Coleman hopes will be a series of public hearings, ongoing symposiums, and other avenues of gathering information. “We will coordinate all of this information, and we will be presenting public policy.
“There’s so much to do here,” Watson Coleman said. “We’re not trying to make this a quick fix.” Some answers could come in the form of legislation, some might be sought through presidential executive orders, and some might come from elsewhere. “It can be either and all,” she said. “Public policy has left us out of this area. We’re going to be guided by what we learn from experts. We’re not committed to any one thing.”
Watson Coleman said that while the caucus would be coordinated by the three congresswomen chairs, all of the House’s black congresswomen—20 in all—and several black congressmen are on board, too. “All of them have signaled interest,” she said.
Although there’s no coordination of effort, it’s possible that the caucus’s eventual direction may be getting some monetary support from another source. One day after the caucus was announced on March 22, the NoVo Foundation, run by Warren Buffet’s son Peter and his wife, Jennifer, pledged $90 million to “support and deepen the movement for girls and young women of color” in the U.S. "This work is about dismantling the barriers that prevent them from realizing that potential and leading us toward a truly transformative movement for change," said Jennifer Buffett, co-president of the NoVo Foundation. The monetary pledge is part of the foundation’s initiative, “Advancing Adolescent Girls' Rights,” which works to empower girls all over the world.
Another source for information is Grantmakers for Girls of Color, a website that “captures new knowledge and insights about girls and young women of color, with a focus on the structural barriers that prevent them from achieving their full potential.” The site was initially started by the NoVo Foundation, the Foundation for a Just Society, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and other partners. It serves as a shared resource across the philanthropy community, and it will grow and expand based on suggestions and feedback from those givers.
National unemployment rates for both men and women of color are more than double the jobless rates for whites, according to the most recent figures from the Dept. of Labor. Although the unemployment rate for African-American men was higher in every age group than the rate for black women, rates for young black men and women were especially high, ranging from 10.7 percent for black women from 20 to 25 years old to 13.6 percent for men in the same age group, with even higher figures for those under 20 years old.
Some 2 million African Americans are unemployed and looking for work, as jobs have been slower to return to the black community after the Great Recession. A 2015 report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy painted a bleak employment picture for the black community. Most jobs that came back after the recession have been lower-wage jobs in the service and retail sector. The report stated that on an hourly basis during the past 15 years, average wages for black workers have fallen by 44 cents, while Hispanic and white workers’ wages have risen by 48 cents and 45 cents, respectively. As the report said: “The recovery has not yet reached Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.”
In addition, the National Women’s Law Center, in a recent report about lifetime wage gaps between men and women, said that the gap over a 40-year career between white men and African-American women is $877,480.
So good for three African-American congresswomen for shining a spotlight on black women and the myriad problems they face. Let’s hope they can identify some real solutions.
By Sher Watts Spooner
Source
Uniting to Improve Wages and Conditions for Workers
Huffington Post - February 26, 2013, by Camille Rivera - In March of 1968 -- just three weeks before he was...
Huffington Post - February 26, 2013, by Camille Rivera - In March of 1968 -- just three weeks before he was assassinated -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared in a speech that one of the great lessons of the civil rights struggle was that it was not just about integration -- but also about economic justice.
"We know now that it isn't enough to integrate lunch counters," Dr. King said. "What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't have enough money to buy a hamburger? ... What does it profit one to be able to attend an integrated school, when he doesn't earn enough money to buy his children school clothes?"
Unfortunately, 45 years later, we can still ask those questions.
New York is one of the richest cities in America, but it also has one of the widest income inequality gap in the nation: A report last year found that the top one percent of income earners made 32 percent of the income.
We have far too many hard-working New Yorkers, many of them people of color, working at or below minimum wage, often without overtime and benefits. They work in car washes, fast food restaurants, as airport security guards and in food service and small supermarkets.
That's Why UnitedNY, Make the Road NY, New York Communities for Change and labor organizations like the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and 32BJ SEIU supported the workers when they formed an unprecedented coalition across all industries last summer, and held a big rally and march in New York City on July 24.
Since then, there have been actions, a boycott and a one-day fast food walk out -- all of which generated a great deal of public support. Five car washes have voted to join RWDSU; some supermarkets have settled unfair labor practices suits and agreed to pay a combined $750,000 in lost wages and back pay.
That's also why UnitedNY and the Center for Popular Democracy released a report on the ongoing plight of low-wage workers in New York City at a "Workers Rising" symposium on Feb. 13. The report spelled out the problem -- and organizing efforts -- and offered a list of recommendations to improve wages and working conditions for those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
The recommendations range from supporting legislation to allow paid sick days for workers, to establishing a Mayor's Office of Labor Standards to ensure that employment laws are enforced, to urging New York State to allow the City to set a minimum wage higher than the State minimum, due to the higher cost of living in the five boroughs. These proposals are the result of conversations with workers who have struggled for far too long to make ends meet. They are the result of hearing from families who have lost loved ones who could not afford to take time off from work to get the medical care they needed before it was too late.
Hundreds of workers, advocates and community members turned out for the symposium, which featured lively panel discussions about strategies to help lift low-wage workers into the middle class. The energy inside those rooms was electric; the air was thick with hope and dreams.
A gaggle of elected officials was on hand for the Workers Rising event, including two declared mayoral candidates -- Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former city comptroller Bill Thompson - as well as City Council members and others.
The report came just one day after President Obama said in his State of The Union speech that America should not be a place where working people who make minimum wage are still in poverty.
"That's wrong," he told a joint session of Congress. "In the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty."
Obama called for raising the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour, with indexing tied to cost of living increase. That's certainly a lot better than $7.25, which is the minimum wage at the federal level and in the State of New York, but nowhere near enough in New York City.
The UnitedNY/CPD report said raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour would allow full-time workers to make just $20,000 a year. The report also noted that more than 110,000 full-time workers live in poverty.
Any way you look at it, an increase in the minimum wage is overdue, and needs to be enacted immediately. If it can't be approved on the federal or state levels, those of us here in New York City must find a way to increase it locally. It is clear that $7.25 an hour is not enough to make ends meet, and the time for change is now.
All in all, the symposium helped to foster real conversation between elected officials, policy experts, and the low-wage workers themselves about the economic issues that are plaguing New York's workforce. Symposium attendees left the conference energized, engaged and filled with hope. They would have made Dr. King proud.
Source: Huffington Post
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