Unpredictable Work Schedules: As Companies Shave Costs With Just-In-Time Scheduling, Workers, Regulators Fight Back
Unpredictable Work Schedules: As Companies Shave Costs With Just-In-Time Scheduling, Workers, Regulators Fight Back
Brianna Roy-Rankin, 23, is just the kind of worker Target would like to retain and promote. She says she loved her job...
Brianna Roy-Rankin, 23, is just the kind of worker Target would like to retain and promote. She says she loved her job at the retailer's store in Champaign, Illinois. She had great bosses, got along well with her co-workers and enjoyed the employee discounts. But last week, after two years as a sales associate, Roy-Rankin quit her job.
“I couldn’t really plan. I was at the mercy of the scheduling system,” she says. “Otherwise, I honestly, probably, would’ve stayed.”
Roy-Rankin went to college nearby, at the University of Illinois. Before she graduated in May, she says it was a constant challenge to balance her studies and social life with her part-time job -- usually around 20 hours a week at just under $10 an hour.
Target has an unforgiving scheduling system. Roy-Rankin says she would have to submit requests to take time off for spring break or visit her parents weeks, if not months in advance -- otherwise she’d be slotted to work without recourse. She would learn about her weekly work schedule three weeks in advance, which wasn’t too bad. But then her hours would fluctuate drastically. One week, she’d be scheduled for a 8 a.m.-to-noon shift on a particular day; the next, it might be a 5 p.m.-to-11 p.m. closing shift. Eventually, it became too much to juggle.
Roy-Rankin's situation is hardly unique.
A Common Trend
Nearly three in 10 hourly workers in the United States say they rarely get consistent work schedules, according to a study released Tuesday by WorkJam, a firm that specializes in workforce scheduling technology.
What’s more, an astounding 56 percent say they get their schedules a week or less in advance. Both trends run rampant in the fast-growing service sector, especially in low-wage fields like retail and fast food. And while policies of this sort save companies money by allowing them to tailor schedules to an expected flow of customer traffic, workers say it's the source of headaches.
Joshua Ostrega, chief operating officer and co-founder of WorkJam, admits the 56 percent figure came as a bit of a shock. “I think it’s extremely high,” he says. “We were actually quite surprised.”
Workers Employed in the Retail Trade Industries (Seasonally Adjusted) | FindTheData
An especially harsh practice among retailers is what’s known as just-in-time or on-call scheduling. Under this system, workers are required to be “on call” to come in and work on a particular day even if they’re not scheduled to do so.
The industry’s profit margins are tight, says Ostrega, and companies are looking to extract savings however they can. Software-based scheduling systems do the trick by linking labor supply to consumer demand. When store traffic is low, the system calls for fewer employees; when the system projects more patrons, it demands more workers. Employers like it because it keeps them from racking up unnecessary labor costs.
Now, unpredictable scheduling is increasingly drawing the interest of public authorities.
'The Pressure's Mounting'
In April, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent letters to major retailers that inquired about their on-call scheduling and asked whether their policies violated state law. Like seven other states and the District of Columbia, New York has so-called reporting-time laws that require employees to be paid when they report to work, even if no work is provided.
Since the letters went out, a number of high-profile companies have announced changes to their policies. The Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch, which both received the notices, said they would end the practice of on-call scheduling. And Starbucks promised last year to provide more consistent scheduling to baristas. But as a recent story in the New York Times revealed, the cafe chain has failed to do so.
Robert Hiltonsmith, senior policy analyst at Demos, a progressive think tank, expects the positive trends to continue -- even if Tuesday’s survey suggests employers overall aren’t relenting on tough and irregular scheduling demands. “I think it’s a slow burn, but the pressure’s mounting,” he says.
It’s in part a question of economic self-interest, Hiltonsmith says. Burned-out workers tend to quit their jobs fairly quickly, and high turnover is expensive. That’s one of the reasons why Walmart, the nation’s largest private-sector employer, and its top competitors voluntarily hiked wages earlier this year, according to Hiltonsmith. In fact, when Walmart announced it was boosting starting pay to at least $9 an hour, it also promised to notify workers of their schedules at least two and a half weeks in advance.
Reforms like this and others -- shifts that are scheduled the same time every week -- could prevent retailers from losing employees like Roy-Rankin, the kind of people who are otherwise content at work.
There’s also mounting political pressure, which stems from growing public concern over the livelihood of service-sector workers. Hiltonsmith attributes this to the “seismic shifts in the labor force” -- the decades-long decline of manufacturing and growth in service-sector employment.
Contrary to the popular image, retail workers are not teenagers looking to make a quick buck. The median age of a retail trade employee is 38, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“I think people had less concern when it wasn’t people trying to support their families,” Hiltonsmith says. “For better or worse, the service economy is the economy of the country’s future.”
Source: International Business Times
100 groups call for Climate Investment Funds to sunset
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100 groups call for Climate Investment Funds to sunset
Ahead of this week's meeting of the trust funds of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds, 100 groups have called...
Ahead of this week's meeting of the trust funds of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds, 100 groups have called for the CIFs to finally sunset, now that the Green Climate Fund is clearly operational. Two-thirds of the groups are from developing countries.
Here's the letter.
June 14, 2016
Dear Trust Fund Committee Members of the Strategic Climate Fund and Clean Technology Fund:
Now that it has approved projects and is beginning to disburse money, the Green Climate Fund is clearly operational. It is thus also unambiguously clear that it is time for the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds to sunset.
Since their inception, the CIFs were meant to be interim funds. In 2008, the sunset clauses of the Strategic Climate Fund and the Clean Technology Fund said, “…the SCF will take necessary steps to conclude its operations once a new [UNFCCC] financial architecture is effective…” and “the CTF will take necessary steps to conclude its operations once a new [UNFCCC] financial architecture is effective.”[1] That new financial architecture – the Green Climate Fund – is now indisputably effective. The CIFs’ raison d'etre has expired; attempts to reinterpret the obvious must cease.
Unlike the multilateral development bank-driven CIFs, the GCF was set up according to the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. With a governance structure evenly split between developed and developing countries, the GCF is founded on a “country-driven approach” accountable to the institutions and people in developing countries, and has placed a premium on direct access to funds by developing country entities. The GCF promotes a gender-sensitive approach to its funding – the first climate fund to do so from the outset of its activities.
While lessons learned from the CIFs should be applied to the GCF, efforts to spin the CIFs as complementary to the GCF are disingenuous. Resources directed toward the CIFs are resources that should instead be directed to the GCF. Any effort to raise new sources of finance for the CIFs should cease immediately, and there should be no new investments.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
11.11.11-Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement, Belgium
ActionAid International
Aksi for Gender, Social and Ecological Justice, Indonesia
All Nepal Peasants Federation, Nepal
All Nepal Women’s Association, Nepal
Alliance Sud, Switzerland
Alyansa Tigil Mina (Alliance Against Mining), Philippines
Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura, Philippines
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, Thailand
Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development, Regional
ATTAC Japan
BankTrack, Netherlands
Beyond Beijing Committee, Nepal
Both ENDS, Netherlands
Bretton Woods Project, United Kingdom
Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, Philippines
Campaign for Climate Justice, Nepal
Carbon Market Watch, Belgium
Center for Biological Diversity, United States
Center for Environment, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Center for Popular Democracy, United States
Center for Socio-Economic Research and Development, Nepal
Centre for 21st century Issues (C21st), Nigeria
Centre for Social Impact Studies, Ghana
Centre pour l'Environnement et le Développement, Cameroon
Centro Humboldt, Nicaragua
Centro Salvadoreño de Tecnologia Apropiada/Friends of the Earth El Salvador
Christian Aid, United Kingdom
Civic Concern Nepal
Climate Action Network Europe, Regional
Climate Change & Development NGO Alliance, Azerbaijan
Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC), Mexico
CNCD-11.11.11, Belgium
Consumers Protection Association, Lesotho
Digo Bikas Institute, Nepal
Ecological Christian Organisation, Uganda
Ecological Society of the Philippines
Environics Trust, India
Farmers Forum South Asia, Regional
Finance & Trade Watch, Austria
Food & Water Watch, United States
Foundation HELP, Tanzania
Freedom from Debt Coalition, Philippines
Friends of the Earth - England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Friends of the Earth United States
Gender Action, United States
Global Catholic Climate Movement Pilipinas, Philippines
Green Development Advocates, Cameroon
Haburas Foundation/ Friends of the Earth Timor Leste
Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America
Himalaya Niti Abhiyan, India
Human Rights Alliance Nepal
Indian Social Action Forum, India
Indigenous Environmental Network, United States/International
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, United States
Institute for Policy Studies, Climate Policy Program, United States
Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), Regional
International.Lawyers.Org, Switzerland
Jagaran Nepal
Jamaa Resource Initiatives, Kenya
Jeunes Volontaires pour l'Environnement, Niger
Kitanglad Integrated NGOs, Inc., Philippines
Korea Federation for Environmental Movements, South Korea
KRuHA – Peoples Coalition on Water, Indonesia
Labour, Health and Human Rights Development Centre, Nigeria
LDC Watch, International
Leads Nigeria
Les Amis de la Terre France
Migrant Forum in Asia, Regional
National Coastal Women's Movement, India
National Hawkers Federation, India
National Women Peasants Association, Nepal
Nepal Youth Peasants Association, Nepal
Nigerian Conservation Foundation, Nigeria
NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark
PALAG Mindanao, Philippines
Panay Rural Development Center, Inc., Philippines
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, Philippines
Philippine Network for Rural Development and Democratization, Philippines
Policy Analysis and Research Institute of Lesotho
Population, Health, Environment Ethiopia Consortium, Ethiopia
Practical Action, United Kingdom
Reacción Climática, Bolivia
River Basin Friends, India
Rural Reconstruction Nepal
Sahabat Alam Malaysia/Friends of the Earth Malaysia
Sanlakas Philippines
Solidaritas Perempuan, Indonesia
South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication, Regional
South Asia Food Sovereignty Network, Regional
South Asia Peasants Coalition, Regional
Southern Oregon Climate Action Now, United States
Students for a Just and Stable Future, United States
SustainUS, United States
Third World Network, Malaysia
Trade Union Policy Institute of Nepal
VOICE Bangladesh
WomanHealth Philippines
Women Welfare Society, Nepal
Worldview-The Gambia
By Karen Orenstein
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Charter School Cheats: New Report On Charter Industry Exposes $100 million In Taxpayer Funds Meant For Children Instead Lost To Fraud, Waste & Abuse
ProgressOhio - May 16, 2014 - A new report released today reveals that fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are...
ProgressOhio - May 16, 2014 - A new report released today reveals that fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.
“Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” authored by the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education, echoes a warning from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General. The report draws upon news reports, criminal complaints and more to detail how, in just 15 of the 42 states that have charter schools, charter operators have used school funds illegally to buy personal luxuries for themselves, support their other businesses, and more.
The report also includes recommendations for policymakers on how they can address the problem of rampant fraud, waste and abuse in the charter school industry. Both organizations recommend pausing charter expansion until these problems are addressed.
“We expected to find a fair amount of fraud when we began this project, but we did not expect to find over $100 million in taxpayer dollars lost. That’s just in 15 states. And that figure fails to capture the real harm to children. Clearly, we should hit the pause button on charter expansion until there is a better oversight system in place to protect our children and our communities,” said Kyle Serrette, the Director of Education Justice at the Center for Popular Democracy.”
“Our school system exists to serve students and enrich communities,” added Sabrina Stevens, Executive Director of Integrity in Education. “School funding is too scarce as it is; we can hardly afford to waste the resources we do have on people who would prioritize exotic vacations over school supplies or food for children. We also can’t continue to rely on the media or isolated whistleblowers to identify these problems. We need to have rules in place that can systematically weed out incompetent or unscrupulous charter operators before they pose a risk to students and taxpayers.”
You can read the report by going to www.integrityineducation.org or www.populardemocracy.org.
Source
‘We’ll Give You Whatever We Have:’ How Organizations Are Fighting to Bring Relief to Puerto Rico
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‘We’ll Give You Whatever We Have:’ How Organizations Are Fighting to Bring Relief to Puerto Rico
The sixth-floor windows wouldn’t hold in the winds, they knew. So the doctors and staff at the University Pediatric...
The sixth-floor windows wouldn’t hold in the winds, they knew. So the doctors and staff at the University Pediatric Hospital in San Juan moved the entire neonatal intensive-care unit, the NICU, down three floors as Hurricane Maria closed in. The predicted damage came. Windows cracked, water poured in. The air-conditioning units blew away.
Read the full article here.
Fed Up Statement: Market Turmoil Should Remind Fed that Economy Is Too Weak to Slow It Down
Shawn Sebastian, Policy Analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy, released the following statement on behalf of the...
Shawn Sebastian, Policy Analyst at the Center for Popular Democracy, released the following statement on behalf of the Fed Up campaign:
“The Fed Up campaign has been saying for more than a year that the economy is too weak to warrant interest rate hikes. Although the stock market was performing well and Wall Street was reaping major profits, the real economy has seen stagnant wages and insufficient job growth.
“The past week’s events vindicate our argument. The economy is too weak, and the performance of the stock market is not a legitimate basis for making interest rate decisions. Just as the market inflated itself over previous months, and witnessed a “correction” recently, it will likely continue to fluctuate in the months ahead. Fed officials who pointed to an inflated stock market as a justification to raise interest rates have been proven wrong: the health of the economy should be measured by the labor market, not the stock market, and the labor market is far from recovered.
“The Fed must continue focusing on the fundamentals: building a labor market that works for all communities, and that features rising wages and good jobs for everybody who wants to work. Creating genuine full employment is the Fed’s mandate, and the past few days vindicate the message that the Fed Up campaign’s worker leaders and economists have said all along: this economy is far too weak for the Fed to intentionally slow it down.”
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The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
Businesses Support Raising The Minimum Wage. Why Doesn’t The Business Lobby?
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Businesses Support Raising The Minimum Wage. Why Doesn’t The Business Lobby?
Raising the minimum wage. More paid sick leave and family leave. More stable scheduling for workers. When a major...
Raising the minimum wage. More paid sick leave and family leave. More stable scheduling for workers. When a major Republican-friendly polling shop surveyed CEOs across the country about these typically left-leaning policies, one thing was made clear: they overwhelmingly support them.
So when it came to presenting the results to the Council of State Chambers of Commerce, which commissioned the research, the pollsters had a challenge on their hands — how to reconcile the widespread opposition to these policies by many business lobby groups with their popularity among the people actually running businesses.
In a recorded webinar, David Merritt, the managing director of polling firm LuntzGlobal, described the “empathy” CEOs feel for workers along with their support for labor-friendly policies. “If you ask about them in isolation, of course we want to take care of people who are caring for a loved one. Of course we want to give folks more benefits or more leave or more income.”
In the presentation, obtained by liberal advocacy group the Center for Media and Democracy, Merritt told the business lobbyists that executives expressed widespread support for a number of policies that are vehemently opposed by conservative politicians.
Based on their survey of 1,000 executives, LuntzGlobal found 80% supported raising their state minimum wage, 82% supported increasing paid parental leave requirements and 73% supported increasing paid sick leave. The Washington Post first reported details of the presentation.
“If you’re fighting against a minimum wage increase, you’re fighting an uphill battle,” Merritt said in the presentation. “Because most Americans, even most Republicans, support raising a minimum wage.”
He went on to coach participants on how to oppose those policies anyhow.
“A lot of you guys have minimum wage battles at the state level. If you are fighting those fights, the best way to fight it is not to talk about the minimum wage,” he said. “If you can, turn it into a federal issue and talk about the Earned Income Tax Credit.”
Joe Crosby, Director of the Council of State Chambers, which commissioned the research, said in a statement that the survey was intended “to benchmark trends on current political issues” and “it primarily covered mid-sized and larger companies, not the smaller businesses that are most affected by wage and leave mandates.”
LuntzGlobal, founded by prominent Republican pollster and consultant Frank Luntz, was unable to comment, per the terms of its contract wit the Council of State Chambers, Crosby said.
“We have known for years”
Advocates for these worker-friendly policies said the findings are proof their cause has many allies in the business community — even if those allies aren’t often the most outspoken voices representing business interests in Washington and state houses.
“We have known for years what this research confirms: that an overwhelming share of business leaders support paid sick days, paid leave and other family friendly policies,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a group that advocates for paid leave.
At one point in the call, Merritt held up language from the group Ness belongs to (below) as polling higher among executives than any other.
“I wouldn’t have changed anything about this statement,” Merritt said in the presentation. “This was the clear winner — from the National Partnership for Women and Families… Perfect, perfect language.”
Business lobby groups like the various state-level chambers of commerce are “not currently representing the views of their members — and doing that at the expense of single moms and hard-working parents,” said Elianne Farhat, who runs the Fair Workweek Initiative, a campaign of the Center For Popular Democracy, a liberal advocacy group. “In every place fair workweek laws are moving, the chambers of commerce have been the loudest voices of opposition.”
But Crosby, the Director of the Council of State Chambers, said the real question at issue is whether labor regulations should be forced onto all businesses by law, not whether businesses support the goal of better pay and working conditions. “Of course business owners support raising wages and benefits for their employees; those are goals they work for every day,” he wrote in an email to BuzzFeed News. “But one-size-fits-all government mandates simply don’t work.”
A spokesperson for the National Restaurant Association, the industry’s largest trade group and one of the loudest voices opposing minimum wake hikes, said its members are more sensitive to labor costs than those in other industries. “The Council of State Chambers represents a diverse range of businesses, including tech and manufacturing companies, that could adapt to increased labor costs more easily” than restaurant and fast food owners, said NRA spokesperson Christin Fernandez.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the federal body representing the country’s business community, echoed concerns that pro-labor policies would negatively affect employers.
“The U.S. Chamber, based on input from our members, continues to believe that imposing higher labor costs on employers, especially small businesses, will force them to cut back elsewhere, and will ultimately price low and un-skilled workers out of entry level job opportunities,” said Randy Johnson, senior vice president of Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits for the Chamber, in a statement.
Asked about the chamber’s position on paid family and sick leave, as well as predictive scheduling, all of which polled well in the survey, spokeswoman Blair Holmes wrote that the Chamber is “careful to be responsive and in synch” with the business community it represents.
“The only point we will make is to say we have not lobbied on these issues in any of the states,” she said, adding that the federal group “is not in a position to comment on the positions these state chambers may have taken” with respect to raising the minimum wage or paid leave and “will not comment on state or local versions of predictive scheduling legislation.”
On its website, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lists among its 2016 priorities: “Oppose efforts to increase the minimum wage and to index the minimum wage to inflation,” and “Oppose attempts to make FMLA [Family and Medical Leave Act] leave paid or to mandate paid sick leave.”
By Cora Lewis
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New York City Council Passes Bill Forcing Employers to Provide Paid Sick Leave
The New American - May 9th, 2013 - On Wednesday the New York City Council...
The New American - May 9th, 2013 - On Wednesday the New York City Council voted 45-3 to pass the New York City Earned Sick Time Act, a bill that will require employers with more than 20 employees to provide five paid sick days to each of them every year while mandating that those employees using their sick days can’t be fired. The law would become effective on January 1, 2014, and companies with more than 15 employees would be required to comply with the law starting in 2015.
Even if Mayor Bloomberg vetoes the bill, the council will likely override it, making the law effective anyway. This will impact the employers of more than one million employees who currently have no paid sick days provided for them. The costs to be borne by those employers weren't provided in any public announcements.
The AFL/CIO explained why such legislation was needed:
In addition to the potential loss of wages for working families, the lack of paid sick days forces many people to go to work when they are contagious and [make] co-workers and customers sick.
No paid sick time also decreases [the] productivity for workers who show up unable to perform to their normal level of ability.
The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) was joyous over the vote, calling it “a historic agreement to give over one million New Yorkers the right to take paid days off from work to care for themselves or a sick family member. The new legislation represents a major step forward for workers’ rights.” The CPD was joined by Make the Road New York; 32 BJ SEIU, the largest property service workers union; NYC City Council’s Progressive Caucus; the Working Families Party; A Better Balance; and the NY Paid Sick Leave Coalition.
Bill Lipton of the Working Families Party was equally ecstatic: "This is a sweet victory. It provides economic security for New Yorkers, and a shot in the arm for the paid sick days movement across the country."
The bill was first introduced by council member Gale Brewer, a permanent politician and long-time progressive political activist, back in July 2009 but went nowhere for nearly four years, owing to resistance by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Quinn’s change to allow a vote coincided nicely with her announcement in March to run to succeed Mayor Bloomberg.
Brewer exulted in the victory:
After 4 years of non-stop advocacy and coalition building, I want to thank the Paid Sick Days Coalition members and my Council colleagues with all my heart for support [of my bill] and never giving up.
I also extend my thanks to Speaker Quinn and her staff for their contributions to this legislation….
The argument over [paid sick leave] was always about common sense and fairness. I believe this law enshrines the principle that American exceptionalism is not just about large profits and small elites, but a workplace that is safe, fair and respectful of the lives of workers.
Approximately one million New Yorkers will now have the fundamental right to a paid day off when they or a family member falls ill, and no worker will be fired if they must stay home. This is a tremendous accomplishment of which all fair-minded New Yorkers can be proud.
Four major cities have already passed paid sick leave laws — Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. — while similar measures are being considered in 20 others. On the national level, two other progressives, Sen. Tom Harken (D-Iowa) and Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-Conn.), are pushing the Healthy Families Act, which proposes essentially the same thing as Brewer’s bill: seven paid sick days each year required to be paid for by employers with more than 15 employees. The National Partnership for Women & Families outlined the benefits of such national legislation:
• Paid sick days provide families with economic security;
• Providing paid sick days is cost effective to employers;
• Paid sick days reduce community contagion;
• Paid sick days can decrease health care costs.
Each of these assumptions can be rebutted successfully, but none does it better than Ayn Rand, who always asked “At whose expense?” and Henry Hazlitt in his book Economics in One Lesson, which also asked about the unseen consequences of such meddling. The "broken window fallacy" is also helpful in understanding what progressives refuse to see: Someone must pay for such mandates, usually someone silent or impotent, without enough political influence to stop such “progress” — usually the taxpayers or employers unlucky enough to have a successful business large enough to be included in the mandate.
Some of the unseen consequences would naturally include higher employment costs to the business owners, as these are, in effect, pay raises to employees. The business owners' higher costs would be reflected in higher prices to consumers, which would likely reduce competitive advantage in a market niche. More likely, however, owners will discover that they can’t afford all the people working for them and will be forced to reduce their payrolls through terminations or attrition. That will increase social costs, as those no longer working will start receiving unemployment benefits provided by the state.
In the longer run, however, making employers less competitive will shrink rather than expand the general economy. Some will not hire new workers. Others may decide to retire, deciding that it’s no longer worth the effort, as government becomes more and more intrusive. Still others may choose to move out of the city, or the state, to more tax-friendly environments, further reducing the city’s economic output.
The biggest cost of all, however, is the continued and growing acceptance of government intervention as a way to solve perceived social “problems” and giving progressives more opportunities to expand the power and reach of government
Perhaps the best rebuttal is to review the bill of rights of another country, well-known to historians, which also had a progressive agenda very similar to that of Quinn, Brewer, and the AFL/CIO. It stated:
Citizens … have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality….
Citizens … have the right to rest and leisure … the reduction of the working day to seven hours … [and] the institution of annual vacations with full pay….
Citizens … have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work … ensured by the extensive development of social insurance for workers and employees. [Emphasis added.]
These are, of course, the rights enshrined in the 1936 Constitution of the USSR.
A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com.
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Texas’ War on Local Control is Part of National Trend
Nearly 150 progressive officials gathered in Austin last weekend to build the fight against GOP-controlled state...
Nearly 150 progressive officials gathered in Austin last weekend to build the fight against GOP-controlled state legislatures.
Read the full article here.
Joseph Stiglitz explains why the Fed shouldn't raise interest rates
The answer should clearly be "no." The preponderance of economic data indicates that the predictable costs of premature...
The answer should clearly be "no." The preponderance of economic data indicates that the predictable costs of premature tightening — slower job and wage growth — far outweigh the risk of accelerating inflation.
Six years into a lackluster U.S. expansion, price growth for personal consumption expenditures — excluding food and energy — has averaged less than 1.5% annually in the recovery, well below the Fed's unofficial 2% inflation target. It slowed to 1.3% so far in 2015.
Global economic forces are poised to drive inflation still lower. Last week, oil prices fell to $42, a low not seen since February 2009. Europe's growth remains anemic and is likely to remain so: The IMF forecast for 2015 is just 1.5%. And while it is difficult to piece together a precise picture of what is happening in China, most experts see growth slowing markedly, with effects in other emerging markets.
With a weaker euro and yuan, our exports will decrease and our imports increase. Together, this will put pressure on domestic businesses and the job market, which is hardly robust.
Despite a headline unemployment rate of 5.3%, the true labor market situation faced by working families in the United States remains dire. Millions remain trapped in disguised unemployment and part-time employment. As of July, the nation faced a jobs gap of 3.3 million — the number needed to reach pre-recession employment levels while also absorbing the people who entered the potential labor force. The true unemployment rate, including those working part time involuntarily and marginally attached, is more than 10.4%.
Poor labor market conditions are also reflected in wages and incomes. So far this year, wages for production non-supervisory workers, which tracks closely to the median wage, fell by 0.5%. Median household income — a better indicator of how well the economy is doing as seen by the typical American than GDP — at last measure was lower than it was a quarter-century ago.
It is hard to see why the Fed would choose slower job and wage growth for most Americans just to protect against the theoretical risk of moderately higher inflation. But, then again, it's often hard to understand the Fed's policy choices, which tend to contribute to widening inequality in the United States.
Too often, after the end of one recession, the Fed, fearing inflation, has used monetary policy to dampen the economic expansion. Its maneuvers keep inflation low but unemployment higher than it otherwise would be, negatively affecting all workers, not just those out of a job. Workers in jobs face greater stresses, downward pressure on wages and diminished opportunities for upward career mobility. The costs of higher unemployment are borne disproportionately by people in lower-income jobs, who also tend to be disproportionately people of color and women.
After the 2008 crisis, the Fed tried to stimulate the economy by buying bank debt, mortgage-backed securities and Treasury assets directly from the market — so-called quantitative easing — which disproportionately benefited the rich. Data on wealth ownership show clearly that the portfolios of the rich are weighed more toward equity, and one of the main channels through which quantitative easing helped the economy was to increase equity prices.
So quantitative easing was yet another instance of failed trickle-down economics — by giving more to the rich, the Fed hoped that everyone would benefit. But so far, these policies have enriched the few without returning the economy to full employment or broadly shared income growth.
The Fed has been forthright in pointing out the limits of monetary policy to help the economy. Fiscal policy could lead to stronger and more equitable growth, but the Republican-led Congress has demanded austerity.
Still, there is more the Fed could do. It could do more to curb excessive debit card fees and the anti-competitive charges that credit and debit cards impose on merchants. These fees lead to higher prices and lower real incomes of workers. It could also do more to encourage lending to small and medium-sized businesses.
Easiest of all, it could choose not to raise interest rates. All policy is made under uncertainty. In this case, however, the risks are one-sided: Ordinary Americans in particular will be hurt by a premature rate rise, as the economy slows, unemployment increases and there is even more downward pressure on wages.
Joseph E. Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, a professor at Columbia University and chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute.
Source: The Los Angeles Times
LIKE WOODY GUTHRIE BEFORE THEM, ROOTS MUSICIANS TAKE ON TRUMP THROUGH SONG
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LIKE WOODY GUTHRIE BEFORE THEM, ROOTS MUSICIANS TAKE ON TRUMP THROUGH SONG
If there are two American figures one would least expect to be connected, they may well be Woody Guthrie and Donald...
If there are two American figures one would least expect to be connected, they may well be Woody Guthrie and Donald Trump. Guthrie, one of the most revered political songwriters ever to put pen to paper, has next to nothing in common with Republican presidential nominee Trump, a man who represents everything against which Guthrie fought as a folk singer and activist. But the two do have one connection: Trump's father, the late New York real estate mogul Fred C. Trump.
In the early 1950s, Guthrie was briefly a tenant of Trump's Beach Haven apartment complex, a Brooklyn property the elder Trump developed using an FHA subsidy specifically designated for affordable public housing. Years after Guthrie moved out of Beach Haven, in 1964, Trump would be investigated for profiteering, having, as Will Kaufman wrote in a story on Guthrie and Trump for The Conversation earlier this year, "overestimat[ed] his Beach Haven building charges to the tune of $3.7 million." And in 1973, six years after Guthrie's death from Huntington's disease at the age of 55, Trump was sued by the Justice Department for discriminating against Black people, eventually settling outside of court.
"In 1950, Woody and his family rented an apartment in the complex called Beach Haven that was owned by Fred Trump," Deana McCloud, Executive Director of Tulsa's Woody Guthrie Center, says. "After they moved in, it came to [Guthrie’s] attention that the elder Mr. Trump would not lease apartments to African-Americans, which did not sit very well with Woody, as an advocate for civil rights."
It was the racism of "Old Man Trump" that stoked the most intense anger in Guthrie, inspiring him to write two sets of writing -- the first being the better known "Beach Haven Ain't My Home," a re-working of an existing Guthrie song called "Ain't Got No Home" and one that is often referred to as "Old Man Trump," and the second, "Racial Hate at Beach Haven." Both writings are available on view at the Guthrie Center and, since Kaufman's piece was published, have been fodder for outlets as large as NPR and the New York Times, once again relevant in light of the 2016 election. As seen in the images provided by Kaufman, Guthrie punctuated his lyrics with exclamation points, a seemingly small detail that McCloud finds very telling.
"What’s really interesting for me is, I looked at the lyrics for ‘Beach Haven Ain’t My Home’ and -- of course, we have thousands of examples of Woody’s handwriting and very seldom does he use exclamation points -- in this particular lyric, every line is followed by an exclamation point," she says with a slight laugh. "His emotions are very apparent in the lyrics. It was just an issue with him, the idea that people should be separated and kept apart in anything, but especially when it comes to allowing them to live together and learn together and cooperate with each other."
A reimagined "Old Man Trump," recorded by Santa Barbara band U.S. Elevator, made its way into current headlines just a few days ago as part of the "30 Days, 30 Songs" project, an initiative spearheaded by acclaimed author Dave Eggers (famous for works like 2000's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the more recent novel A Hologram for the King; he also documented his time at a Sacramento Trump rally for the Guardian) and Zeitgeist Artist Management's Jordan Kurland, who is known for his integral role in the careers of artists like Death Cab for Cutie and Bob Mould. The project, which kicked off October 10, is a playlist of anti-Trump songs, proceeds from which will benefit the Center for Popular Democracy, written and/or performed by a diverse roster of artists that includes Aimee Mann, Jim James, R.E.M., and Adia Victoria. At press time, the initiative has grown to become "30 Days, 40 Songs," and could continue to grow larger as Election Day draws nearer. "30 Days" follows the pair's 2012 effort "90 Days, 90 Reasons," a series of essays by figures like Roxane Gay and George Saunders that argued for the re-election of President Barack Obama.
"One of the things that really struck [Eggers] about the rally was the music that was being played," Kurland says. "It was so off-base from Trump’s message, you know? It was Elton John’s 'Tiny Dancer' or Bruce Springsteen or the Who -- clearly just songs that didn’t make sense contextually, but also songs that there’s no way the artists would have approved. So Dave came back with the idea to get artists to write songs that should be played at Trump rallies, with that meaning they could be songs either directly about Donald Trump or songs that celebrate all the things that Donald Trump is against, like diversity and freedom of speech, etcetera, etcetera."
Nashville artist Adia Victoria -- who speaks powerfully on race, class, and Southern culture in both her music and in interviews -- contributed the sparse, sobering "Backwards Blues" to the playlist. When sharing the song on Facebook, she wrote, "Perhaps the greatest irony is how a campaign fueled by outright lies reveals a deep-seated kernel of truth of what far too many Americans hold up as sacred: massive wealth, the sway of celebrity, branding, power, and greed. I don't want to say that he's the president we deserve, yet here we are."
Many other musicians outside of the "30 Days" project have found themselves getting political in recent months, too. Ani DiFranco recently released the song "Play God" which, while not overtly anti-Trump, champions women's reproductive rights, a message that flies in the face of Trump's endlessly mysognistic rhetoric and behavior. "As we prepare for our first woman president, isn't this the perfect time for all of us to put women's civil rights into law?" DiFranco asks. "Make reproductive freedom a Constitutional amendment. With the Supreme Court in flux, we cannot afford to leave our rights in the balance."
Revered Nashville/Austin songwriter Radney Foster contributed to the conversation with "All That I Require" -- what he describes as an "anti-fascism history lesson" that, to name only one example, feels especially chilling in light of Trump's third debate comments about his reluctance to concede the election were Clinton to win the presidency.
"The voices of extremism and fascism are ringing more loudly in our national debate than ever before in my lifetime," Foster says. "Questioning the free press and the peaceful transition of power never ends well. All of the sloganeering in the song are taken from Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco -- demagogues from the right and the left. I hope the song is something that will make us all, Democrat or Republican, do some soul-searching about what kind of country we want to be.”
One of the most powerful, acclaimed albums of 2016, the Drive-By Truckers' latest release American Band, was described by Slate's Carl Wilson as "the perfect album for the year of Trump." DBT songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley address a number of difficult topics, including racism, immigration, and police brutality, on the LP, with songs like "Ramon Casiano" and "What It Means" two standouts (among a consistently stellar batch of songs) whose narratives have chilling parallels: The first describes the death of Mexican teenager Ramon Casiano at the hands of Harlon B. Carter; the second refers to the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, as well as cases like the police killing of Michael Brown. The album grapples with many of the very issues for which Trump stands, providing alternative viewpoints from, as Wilson describes, a group of men "embodying the stereotypical demographics of a Trump voter (white, male, middle-age, non–college-educated)."
Akron, Ohio, songwriter Joseph Arthur released his anti-Trump number, "The Campaign Song," which juxtaposes audio and video of clips of Trump shouting catchphrases like "Build That Wall" with lyrics like "Trump is a chump," earlier this month and invoked Guthrie's legacy as a political songwriter, as well as his unfortunate connection to the Trump family. "Woody Guthrie wrote a protest song about Donald Trump’s grandfather," Arthur wrote on his website. "So this is like carrying the torch for Woody. I used the lingo of a by-gone era to accentuate that aspect like ‘America really should boot bums like this out’ and ‘Old scratch’. I wanted to use the lingo of Trump’s elders as subtle form of linguistic manipulation designed to send him under his bed shivering like the whimpering maggot that he is.”
A particularly biting critique of Trump, his policies and his deeply flawed Trump University comes from folk singer/songwriter Anthony D'Amato, who released the song "If You're Gonna Build a Wall" and its accompanying video via MoveOn's Facebook page last week. D'Amato was inspired to write the song, which references Trump's desire to build a wall between Mexico and the United States and includes lines like "Oh if you're gonna build a wall / You better be ready the day it falls," after covertly attending a Trump Rally in Long Island.
"I wrote this song last Summer during the primaries," D'Amato says. "I was home from tour with a broken finger and bombarded by election news every day. The rhetoric was dark and divisive and ran counter to a lot of the ideals I always felt like this country was built on. Trump's campaign was the initial spark, but the song touches on race and class and privilege, too. History doesn't look kindly on those who build themselves up by excluding and demonizing the less powerful. If you're going to do that, you'd better be prepared for the consequences."
Pioneer Valley band Parsonsfield also felt compelled to write about Trump's hypothetical wall, expressing their frustration in the song "Barbed Wire," a stirring track off their recently released album Blooming through the Black. "It's funny how the loudest voices championing freedom are the ones who want to erect the clearest symbol of restrictiveness," the band's Chris Freeman says. "It will never happen, but the rhetoric is frightening enough. The song references the wall in the sense that they are often built as a mechanism to keep others out. The builder usually fails to see that they are also the ones being kept in.”
Like his father's before him, Donald Trump's policies seek to exclude rather than unite. And like Guthrie before them, today's musicians are using their platforms to voice progressive platforms, the latest entrants into the long, continually evolving songbook of American protest music. Protest music is most commonly attributed to the 1960s -- just look at this year's somewhat unusual, certainly polarizing winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature -- but it's a tradition that's been around in America for centuries. To name just two, non-'60s American milestones that birthed political music, the Civil War inspired a number of tunes, including "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and "Song of the Abolitionist"; and the gay rights movement of the '80s and '90s brought us "Rebel Girl" by Bikini Kill and "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper.
Trump is, of course, not the first politician to inspire musicians' ire (and he certainly won't be the last), although he has accomplished the not-so-desirable feat of doing so before the election results have even been tabulated. Bright Eyes, Radiohead, and, perhaps most famously, the Dixie Chicks were among the many artists who called out 43rd President George W. Bush through song. Ronald Reagan had the Ramones and Prince as detractors. And, in case you thought musicians only targeted Republicans, Democratic President Bill Clinton's indiscretions have been documented by artists as high-profile as Beyoncé -- though it's important to note that Monica Lewinsky is often, problematically, the target, instead of Clinton himself.
"The way that music makes a difference in society is still apparent today," McCloud says. "You still have those people who are raging against injustice and we know that Woody’s work is as relevant today as it was whenever he was writing it. The specific names might have changed a little, some specific details may have changed. But when you look at the lyrics that Woody wrote, and that Pete Seeger wrote, and Phil Ochs wrote, we’re still struggling with this huge divide between the people who have so much and those who struggle just to get by every day."
And while many artists choose to express political views through song, others take stances by withholding their music from candidates with whom they disagree. Just this year, the Trump campaign has received cease and desist letters (or, some cases, some very angry rhetoric) from the Rolling Stones, Adele, R.E.M. (who, along with Sleater-Kinney, just released their own "30 Days" tune), and several other artists regarding the usage of their songs at Trump rallies and events.
"Music and protest, for a very long time, have gone hand in hand," Kurland says. "For this particular project, it’s to get people inspired about the election or voting that have maybe been somewhat apathetic to it. Certainly Bernie Sanders captured a lot of people’s attention and imagination amongst younger voters and it just felt like, in May or June, there were people who were disappointed and people who weren’t really seeming like they were very engaged. So the idea of doing this is a way of getting people motivated by hearing a well-written song about an important topic. The goal with this project, and the other projects we've worked on in the past, is to appeal to younger voters who maybe don't fully grasp the importance of this election or understand how different the two candidates really are. I get so sick of hearing, 'Hillary is the lesser of two evils.' That couldn't be further from the truth."
While Guthrie isn't alive to sing us through these last few weeks leading up to election day, many of the issues for which he fought are, unfortunately, still issues today. McCloud believes he would have been just as disappointed by Donald's political rhetoric as he was by Fred's housing practices. "I certainly don’t want to put my thoughts into Woody’s voice by any means, but based on my knowledge of what he wrote and his perspective of things, I think, like many of us, it would be deeply troubling to him to see the lack of civility and the divisive nature of today’s political climate," she says. "This idea of getting together, walking together, talking together, solving problems is almost nonexistent in what we see today, and I think that would be deeply troubling to him."
Though it appears as though Hillary Clinton has all but clinched the election, the work to heal from and evolve past the divisive, racist, bigoted rhetoric in which the United States became ensnarled throughout this election is only just beginning. It's another chapter in a long, bloody story that is centuries long -- one that Guthrie, like his modern counterparts, immortalized in song, offering small glimpses of hope, wisdom, and catharsis for all of us hoping for a better world.
McCloud sums up Guthrie's feelings -- which were messy, uncomfortable, unresolved, but ultimately hopeful -- when she recounts his writing "Racial Hate at Beach Haven." "What I really love is the way he ends it," she says. "The last paragraph -- it’s so lyrical. It’s, ‘Let’s you and me shake hands together and get together and walk together and talk together and sing together and dance together and work together and play together and hold together and let’s get together and fight together and march together until we lick this goddamned racist hate together, what do you say?’ That’s Woody. He was upset. He was angry. But he still understood that this is a problem, and let’s sit down and talk about it and solve the problem instead of just being separate and having our own opinions. Let’s solve the problem."
By BRITTNEY MCKENNA
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