Why You Should Care About the Federal Reserve’s Secrecy and Elitism
New Republic - Last weekend, Cee Cee Butler, a 34-year-old McDonald’s worker from Washington D.C., became sick with the...
New Republic - Last weekend, Cee Cee Butler, a 34-year-old McDonald’s worker from Washington D.C., became sick with the flu, or at least something that resembled the flu. Her phone had been cut off and she missed work Friday, Saturday and Sunday. “I did a ‘no-call, no-show’ for three days and I’ve never done that in over the year and a half I’ve been working here at McDonald's,” she said. “They terminated me Tuesday morning. So I lost my job, my rent is going up in December, I have two kids—19 and 5, a girl and boy—and I can’t afford to take care of them.”
On Friday, Butler gathered outside the Federal Reserve building with around two dozen activists from labor unions and progressive groups before an afternoon meeting with Fed Chair Janet Yellen. The groups are part of a new campaign called “Fed Up” that is pressuring Yellen and her colleagues to keep interest rates at zero until the recovery strengthens and wages rise. “The economy is not working for the vast majority of people,” said Ady Barkan, a lawyer from The Center for Popular Democracy, which is the lead organizer of the campaign. Fed Up wants to rectify that problem by putting direct pressure on the Federal Reserve itself—a quest that may not captivate the public’s attention but could have a very real effect on the lives of working Americans.
In August, for instance, members of Fed Up staged protests outside of the Federal Reserve’s annual monetary policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Many reporters there said it was the first time they could remember protestors at the conference—but their tactics must have worked, because Yellen agreed to meet with the protesters Friday afternoon in the boardroom where the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) meets eight times a year to set monetary policy. Three other Federal Reserve governors—Vice Chair Stanley Fischer, Jerome Powell and Lael Brainard—joined the meeting and the activists said that Yellen was engaged throughout and was moved by the stories she heard. They hope that this meeting was just the first of many in the future.
The message the Fed Up campaign delivered is the same one voters sent loud and clear last week: The recovery is not being felt by millions of Americans. Exit polls indicated that 45 percent of voters considered the economy the most important issue of the midterms. Wage growth for low-income workers, like janitors and fast food workers, are barely keeping up with inflation. “That’s not an economic recovery,” said Jean Andre, who does location support for film production and is a member of New York Communities for Change. “That’s not the way thing should be.”
But the slow recovery isn’t always noticeable in leading economic indicators. The unemployment rate, for instance, has fallen 2.1 percentage points since the start of 2013 and is now at 5.8 percent, its lowest point in more than six years. As a result, some economists inside and outside the Fed, including inflation hawk Charles Plosser, have called for a hike in interest rates in the near future. “Beginning to raise rates sooner rather than later reduces the chance that inflation will accelerate and, in so doing, require policy to become fairly aggressive with perhaps unsettling consequences,” Plosser, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said Wednesday.
Plosser’s worry about rising inflation, even though it is nowhere to be found, could prove dangerous. If the FOMC listens to the hawks, it will prematurely raise rates and choke off the recovery before workers see wage growth. So far, Yellen has done a good job ignoring Plosser and Co. And, luckily, Plosser and Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and another hawk at the FOMC, announced that they would retire in the spring of 2015, opening up two positions that have a significant impact on monetary policy. Fed Up sees their retirements as a boon—and is keen to have a say in the selection process.
Under the current rules, Plosser and Fisher’s replacements will be chosen by the board of the Philadelphia and Dallas reserve banks, respectively. Each board has nine members, three from banks and six from nonbanks—companies and organizations that are not financial institutions. Because of Dodd-Frank restrictions, only the six non-bank members are involved in selecting the replacements. But of those six members, three are chosen by banks and three are chosen by the Fed board in Washington. Workers and consumers are supposed to be represented on the board, but of the 108 members, 91 are from financial institutions and corporations. Just two are leaders of labor groups and another 15 represent non-profit organizations.
Fed Up has a list of demands to make the replacement process more transparent and to ensure the public has adequate representation within the central bank. They want a public schedule of the process, a list of criteria for how the replacements will be chosen, a chance for members to question the candidates, and public forums where citizens can discuss monetary policy with candidates and the search committee. These reforms, they hope, will keep presidents like Plosser and Fisher—who activists say are disconnected from the daily struggles of their constituents—out of office. “We need a president in Philadelphia who will listen to working people,” said Kati Slipp, the director of Pennsylvania Working Families. “Charles Plosser hasn’t been or he would not believe that our economy has really recovered.” In fact, Fed Up is already getting results. On Friday morning, the Philadelphia Fed announced that it was setting up an email to receive inquiries about the search process. “That would never have happened if this campaign hadn’t happened,” Slipp said. The campaign said it expected the same things from the Dallas Fed.
After Republicans destroyed Democrats in the midterms, many liberal commentators argued that a fresh agenda for raising wages could help the Democratic Party win back voters, particularly those in the white working class. But the problem isn’t that Democrats’ ideas—raising the minimum wage, investing in infrastructure and strengthening the safety net—won’t help middle- and lower-class Americans. It’s that the weak recovery has destroyed those ideas’ political salience. It’s a political problem much more than a policy one.
Such arguments almost always ignore monetary policy. After all, no one but Ron Paul fanatics care about the Federal Reserve. And the Fed is independent from the federal government. If a Democratic candidate’s economic message was to fill the FOMC with economists committed to keeping interest rates low or even adopting a different monetary policy regime altogether, voters would likely roll their eyes. It would be a political disaster. But given congressional gridlock, it might also be far more effective at boosting the recovery.
The Fed Up campaign isn’t going to change that. Millions of Americans will not suddenly realize that the most important economic actor in the United States is not the president or Congress but the Federal Reserve. They will not understand that some inflation is needed, especially right now, to convince businesses to invest and consumers to spend money to get the economy back going again. But the campaign may convince some Americans of the Fed’s importance. That’s why Cee Cee Butler, the former McDonald's worker who was fired Tuesday, and Jean Andre, the man who scouts out locations for films, spent a cold Friday morning outside the Fed.
“I just got out of the shelter two years ago and here I am about to be back in one. I’m not trying to go back there,” Butler said. “My daughter will never walk in my shoes. She doesn’t need to. That’s why my voice needs to be heard.”
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Report: Starbucks falls short on vow to make workers' schedules more fair
Despite a public pledge last year to ease scheduling burdens for its baristas, Starbucks has fallen short of its...
Despite a public pledge last year to ease scheduling burdens for its baristas, Starbucks has fallen short of its commitment on a number of fronts, according to a new report released Wednesday based on interviews with the coffee chain’s workers across the country.
The report, titled “The Grind: Striving for Scheduling Fairness at Starbucks” (PDF), said Starbucks baristas across the country were still complaining that they often don’t receive their work schedules soon enough before shifts and that they are under pressure to avoid taking sick days.
The New York-based advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy produced the report, which cited survey data collected from more than 200 Starbucks baristas in 37 states and compiled by Coworker.org, an online platform that supports workplace rights.
“More than six months after Starbucks publicly recommitted to scheduling policies and mandated ten days’ notice, the scheduling issues they sought to address still persist in their frontline stores,” the report said.
After a New York Times investigation in August 2014 highlighted the scheduling travails of a Starbucks worker and single mother named Janette Navarro, the company announced that it would strive to improve work schedules for its employees, whom the company calls “partners.” The workers’ survey cited in Wednesday’s report was conducted in March this year.
“Taking care of our partners is a responsibility I take very personally,” Cliff Burrows, a high-level Starbucks executive, said in an internal company email at the time, according to the New York Times and other news outlets. Burrows was quoted as saying the company would work to aid “stability and consistency” in the schedules of its more than 130,000 baristas.
Burrows pledged then that the company would improve its scheduling software to make it easier on employees to plan their lives.
But the directive has only partially trickled down to the company's more than 12,000 U.S. locations, Wednesday's report says.
“They’ve made some improvements, but they’ve been minor,” said Carrie Gleason, co-author of the report. “A fair workweek at Starbucks exists in some stores,” she said, but “the issue is inconsistency.”
Starbucks did not respond to a request for comment on the report's findings before the time of publication.
The report said many baristas noted a high incidence of so-called “clopening” shifts, in which a person closes and opens in consecutive shifts, often leaving a span of only a few hours in which to return home before working again.
Last year Starbucks' Burrows pledged an end to the dreaded clopening shifts, saying “district managers must help store managers problem-solve issues specific to individual stores to make this happen.”
But the report indicated that such shifts were still widespread, with nearly a quarter of workers regularly getting them.
“I feel that baristas should have a minimum of 10 hours in between shifts. Everyone should have a fair chance to get home, settled, and be able to sleep for eight hours before having to get up for another shift," the survey report quoted an Illinois Starbucks worker as saying.
But the majority of workers who do clopening shifts are able to get fewer than seven hours of sleep, the report said.
“Because I was frequently scheduled for clopening shifts, I got just four or five hours of sleep a night. I was doing all I could to get ahead, but Starbucks’ scheduling practices made me question whether that was possible,” said Ciara Moran, a former Starbucks barista wrote in a petition she launched with Coworker.org, asking for further scheduling reforms.
The report released Wednesday said that 48 percent of surveyed Starbucks workers said they received their work schedules a week or less in advance, and that 40 percent reported they had experienced pressure to avoid taking sick days.
"Employees say that it can be extremely difficult to take sick days because they face pressure to work while sick, fear negative consequences or are forced to find their own replacement," the report said.
The report suggested that the experiences of individual workers varied considerably, depending on store locations and personnel.
“Many of us have different experiences at Starbucks, depending on our manager,” Moran said, asking others to support the cause “for consistent protections across the company, starting with healthy schedules across the board.”
“On a corporate level there isn’t that level of accountability. They’re not looking whether their polices are going far enough,” Gleason said. “For Starbucks, it can be a model for the industry for how to deliver a sustainable workweek.”
“I think they need to engage their workforce in a different way,” she said.
Source: Al Jazeera America
Austin, Texas: If We Can’t Be a Sanctuary City, How about a Freedom City?
Austin, Texas: If We Can’t Be a Sanctuary City, How about a Freedom City?
The ACLU has said it supports advocacy for freedom cities. Sarah Johnson, director for Local Progress, said, “There is...
The ACLU has said it supports advocacy for freedom cities. Sarah Johnson, director for Local Progress, said, “There is an interest from all of our members in Texas and in other states across the country in really pursuing the strongest possible policies to protect immigrants at this time.”
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Fed Splits Evident Amid Wait for Yellen: Jackson Hole Journal
Bloomberg News - August 22, 2014, by Jeff Kearns, Simon Kennedy and Michael McKee - Divisions within the...
Bloomberg News - August 22, 2014, by Jeff Kearns, Simon Kennedy and Michael McKee - Divisions within the Federal Reserve over how long to keep easy monetary policy are already in evidence in Wyoming as investors prepare for Chair Janet Yellen’s keynote speech.
Fed Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard told Bloomberg Radio that the U.S. central bank may begin tightening monetary policy earlier than officials previously expected.
“The evidence is leading toward an earlier increase than would have been in the works earlier this year,” said Bullard. “Labor markets have improved quite a bit relative to what the committee was thinking.”
Bullard spoke after Kansas City Fed President Esther George told Bloomberg Television that broad-based employment gains suggest the U.S. economy is strong enough to withstand higher interest rates. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, who voted against the Fed’s policy statement last month, told CNBC he’s concerned about the Fed not adjusting policy appropriately.
By contrast, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart urged more patience, warning in a separate interview with Bloomberg Radio against “moving prematurely and snuffing out some progress.”
* * *
Robots don’t steal jobs, the U.S. labor market is less flexible than it was and workers haven’t suffered unprecedented periods out of work.
Photographer: Bradly Boner/Bloomberg
Fed Chair Janet Yellen arrived at the dinner to be greeted by about 10 people wearing bright green T-shirts emblazoned with “What Recovery?” and carrying placards with labor market data. Close
Those are among the conclusions of papers being presented at the symposium. Here is a review of their contents, which can be read in full on the Kansas City Fed’s website.
Robots and computers don’t steal as many jobs as some believe, and automation actually benefits many workers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor David Autor said in his paper.
A key reason humans aren’t obsolete yet is that simple tasks such as visually identifying a chair, which any child can do, aren’t so easy for engineers to teach to computers, Autor said.
“Journalists and expert commentators overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor and ignore the strong complementarities that increase productivity, raise earnings, and augment demand for skilled labor,” he wrote. “Challenges to substituting machines for workers in tasks requiring flexibility, judgment, and common sense remain immense.”
* * *
The U.S. labor market became less fluid in recent decades partly because of an aging workforce, a shift to older businesses, and the spread of occupational licensing and certification, economists Steven J. Davis and John Haltiwanger wrote in their paper.
The economists define labor market fluidity as “flows of jobs and workers across employers.” The paper found the U.S. “underwent a large, broad-based decline in the pace of labor market flows in recent decades.”
“An aging workforce is a factor behind the slowdown of worker reallocation,” the paper said.
* * *
U.S. workers in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 recession haven’t experienced unprecedentedly long bouts of non-employment, according to a paper by economists Jae Song and Till von Wachter.
Their findings “suggest that the potential for hysteresis in the aftermath of the Great Recession is moderate,” the paper said. Hysteresis posits that people out of work for too long have a harder time finding work, leading to a persistent decline in the employment-to-population rate
* * *
Policy makers would benefit from a better understanding of labor markets, economist Giuseppe Bertola argued in a paper that weighed the impact of rules making those markets rigid or flexible.
Rules that protect workers from job losses and provide more generous unemployment benefits can soften and smooth shocks to the economy, said Bertola.
* * *
George opened the symposium late yesterday by putting the presenters on the spot.
The last conference devoted to labor markets was 20 years ago, George told the group of almost 200 as they ate steak and salmon dinners beneath elk antler chandeliers.
The presenters and discussants back then included five future Nobel Prize winners and two academics who would go on to be central bankers: Bank of England Deputy Governor Charles Bean and Stanley Fischer, the Bank of Israel governor who became Fed vice chairman in June. Fischer sat at one of the front tables last night.
“So for those of you that will be on the program,” George said to laughter, “We’re either setting you up for a blessing or a curse.”
This year’s topic is “Re-Inventing Labor Market Dynamics.” In 1994 it was “Reducing Unemployment: Current Issues and Policy Options.”
George said she went through the 1994 proceedings only to find central bankers and economists are still grappling with some of the same basic issues today.
“I saw that the discussion included things like the decline in demand for low-skilled workers due to technology and the challenge of the long-term unemployment,” George said. “And questions were raised by that symposium, as they are today, about the usefulness of the unemployment rate as a measure of economic slack.”
It reads like a list of the most vexing issues the Fed faces now and will be attempting to tackle today and tomorrow.
* * *
Fed Chair Janet Yellen arrived at the dinner to be greeted by about 10 people wearing bright green T-shirts emblazoned with “What Recovery?” and carrying placards with labor market data.
The protesters had traveled to Wyoming to highlight the plight of “struggling workers from around the country” who want the Fed to pursue “full employment that reduces poverty and expands the middle class,” according to the Center for Popular Democracy, a Brooklyn-based organization. The backs of their T-shirts had a graph comparing the performance of wage growth among the top 1 percent and the rest.
Ady Barkan, a staff attorney with the group, spoke briefly with Yellen at the door of the lodge’s Explorers Room. “She said she understands the issues we’re talking about and is doing everything they can,” he said, after she had entered the room.
Yellen has regularly cited weak labor markets as a scourge of the economy she’s trying to boost with easy monetary policy.
Shemethia Butler, who works part time at a McDonald’s Corp. restaurant in Washington, was one of those to make the trip. The 34-year-old said that while she isn’t up on monetary policy, she wants policy makers to know she fears higher interest rates for her and her community. She said she works 25 to 35 hours a week for $9.50 an hour at a job she’s had for just over a year. Before that she was unemployed for two years.
“There’s no recovery,” Butler said. “The economy is broken because there aren’t enough jobs for people like me.”
* * *
Yellen’s speech will be the main event of the first full day of the conference. She will speak at 8 a.m. Mountain Time today.
Her address will be followed by the presentation of the paper by Davis and Haltiwanger.
Autor will then discuss job polarization before a panel on demographics featuring Karen Eggleston of Stanford University, David Lam of the University of Michigan and Ronald Lee of the University of California, Berkeley.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will deliver the keynote luncheon speech.
Tomorrow, Von Wachter and then Bertola will present their papers.
The final panel will provide an overview of labor markets and monetary policy. It will include Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and Brazilian central bank chief Alexandre Tombini.
* * *
The conference is lacking Wall Street participants for the first time.
An exception is Jacob Frenkel, chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, who is attending in his capacity of chairman of the board of trustees of the Group of 30, a private-sector group of mainly former policy makers which advises central banks and governments. Tim Adams, president of the Institute of International Finance, is also present.
Draghi, Kuroda and Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz provide international central banking firepower.
Among academics in attendance are Alan Blinder of Princeton University, Harvard University’s Kenneth Rogoff and Martin Feldstein, and John Taylor of Stanford University. President Barack Obama’s administration is represented by Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and Jeffrey Zients, director of the National Economic Council.
* * *
The backdrop for the symposium and Yellen’s speech was set by the release of the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s July discussions.
Fed officials in July raised the possibility they might raise rates sooner than anticipated, as they neared agreement on an exit strategy. Some participants were “increasingly uncomfortable” with the pledge to keep interest rates low for a “considerable period,” the minutes said.
At the same time, “many participants” still saw “a larger gap between current labor market conditions and those consistent with their assessments of normal levels of labor utilization.”
* * *
* * *
Some recent stories on the U.S. labor market:
* * *
The opening day of Jackson Hole has been associated with stock-market gains in each of the past seven years. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose an average 1.3 percent on each of them from 2007 to 2012, following speeches by then-Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who skipped last year’s conference.
The biggest climb was the 1.9 percent of 2009, when Bernanke said the economy appeared to be “leveling out.” Gains also followed his signals of 2010 and 2012 that fresh asset-purchases were imminent.
The bar is therefore set high for Yellen who identifies slack labor markets as a reason for easy monetary policy. Economist Ed Yardeni says the “Fairy Godmother of the Bull Market” won’t let us down.
Still, Steven Englander of Citigroup Inc. says that because “dovishness is increasingly anticipated,” Yellen may have to intensify her support for low interest rates if risk-assets such as stocks are to rally anew.
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Democratic activist Ady Barkan launches six-figure ad blitz in CD8 race
Democratic activist Ady Barkan launches six-figure ad blitz in CD8 race
Ady Barkan, the progressive health care activist whose video pleadings with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake last year briefly...
Ady Barkan, the progressive health care activist whose video pleadings with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake last year briefly became a viral hit, is starting a group to tout select Democratic candidates across the country, starting with Hiral Tipirneni's congressional bid in Arizona.
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Rivera and Camara Put Up Immigration Bill They Admit Won’t Pass This Session
New York Observer - June 16, 2014, by Will Bredderman - Four days before the legislative session in Albany ends for the...
New York Observer - June 16, 2014, by Will Bredderman - Four days before the legislative session in Albany ends for the summer, Bronx State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Brooklyn Assemblyman Karim Camara have proposed sweeping legislation granting full citizenship rights to undocumented immigrants living in New York state–legislation which even they admit will not get passed this session.
The bill that Mr. Rivera and Mr. Camara have sponsored will grant the right to vote in state and local elections, college financial aid, access to Medicare, drivers’ licenses, medical and chiropractic licenses and full civil rights protections to the three million-odd foreign nationals currently living in New York State without proper paperwork. The immigrants would be required to show proof of identity, proof they have lived in the state for three years, proof they have paid state taxes for three years, proof they have and will continue to obey state laws and a willingness to do jury duty.
“This is a bold idea. And we do not expect anything to pass quickly. But this sets things in motion,” Mr. Rivera, comparing the legislation to the push to legalize same-sex marriage, said at a press conference in Battery Park.
“The defeat of Cantor has made it clear we have to act quickly to protect the rights and privileges of all people living in this state,” Mr. Rivera said.
The bill would only pertain to the undocumented immigrants’ interactions in New York State, and would do nothing to alter federal recognition of citizenship, federal border security, or federal deportation policies.
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At Republican Retreat, Protest Power Was On Display As Progressives Eye Midterm Elections
At Republican Retreat, Protest Power Was On Display As Progressives Eye Midterm Elections
The protesters’ action at the Republican retreat was organized by the Center for Popular Democracy Action, in...
The protesters’ action at the Republican retreat was organized by the Center for Popular Democracy Action, in coordination with local affiliates.
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New Program Arms Immigrants Facing Deportation with Legal Aid
WNYC - November 20, 2013, by John Hockenberry - Fifty years ago, in a case called Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme...
WNYC - November 20, 2013, by John Hockenberry - Fifty years ago, in a case called Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court mandated that those accused of a crime must be provided a lawyer, regardless of their ability to pay. With that decision the public defense system was born.
While Gideon has changed the equation for many indigent defendants, the law doesn't apply to all cases—just those in criminal court. Immigrants facing detention or deportation have no right to a court-appointed attorney and are left to advocate for themselves. In New York, at least 60 percent of detained immigrants lack access to counsel during their immigration proceedings.
But the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project is looking change that.
With funding from the New York City Council and Cardozo Law School in Manhattan, the Project—the first of its kind in the country—provides indigent immigrants representation in detention and deportation proceedings, regardless of whether they can pay.
The Project is the result of a task force of attorneys, activists and experts, chaired by Judge Robert Katzman, chief judge of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the task force, immigrants facing deportation in New York courts that have the help of an attorney are 500 percent more likely to win their case than those who lack counsel. Judge Katzmann says he hopes the Immigrant Family Unity Project will allow more immigrants access to justice, while helping immigrant families to stay together.
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Think The Minimum Wage Will Be Safe Under Labor Secretary Puzder? Not So Fast.
Think The Minimum Wage Will Be Safe Under Labor Secretary Puzder? Not So Fast.
This year was supposed to be a good one for America’s workers. After all, nearly 12 million workers won higher wages in...
This year was supposed to be a good one for America’s workers. After all, nearly 12 million workers won higher wages in 2016, the result of sustained and coordinated efforts around the country. There’s a catch though: if these wages aren’t enforced, American workers will never even see them.
And despite widespread support, state and local lawmakers and business communities have already begun threatening to not comply with the wage hikes. In Maine, Governor Paul LePage ordered his administration to stop enforcing a minimum wage hike that 60 percent of his state’s residents voted for, telling employers who violate the law that they would be off the hook.
At the other end of the country in Flagstaff, Arizona, 54 percent of city residents backed a $15 minimum wage in elections last year, but business groups are fighting to move enforcement from a local authority to a state commission, which would likely delay the processing of claims. The state as a whole has backed higher wages, approving a proposition to raise the state’s minimum to $12 by 2020 last year.
In the face of such attacks at the city and state level, it’s imperative to have a federal Labor Department committed to ensuring that workers aren’t cheated out of their wages - wages not only earned through hard work but also guaranteed by law.
This won’t be the case if Andy Puzder becomes Labor Secretary. As chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, Puzder consistently flouted basic labor standards.
Puzder, whose confirmation hearing has already been put off multiple times, could easily fail to enforce the wage increases that prevailed in referendums throughout the country, and he’s likely to put even the existing protections we have in jeopardy - including the minimum wage, which currently stands at a paltry $7.25.
It’s the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, a term that we seem to be asserting with every cabinet appointee, but that rings even more true with Puzder.
Just last week, CKE Restaurants was hit with nearly two dozen charges of stealing wages. Multiple workers said they had worked for weeks without seeing a paycheck. One was only paid after he stopped coming to work in protest.
CKE has also come under fire for paying employees with pre-paid debit cards that incur fees on certain ATMs, in effect shorting employees their full paycheck.
If Puzder runs the Labor Department like he runs his company, these kinds of abuses will be allowed to flourish nationwide – and workers will lose one of their most important outlets for addressing their concerns.
For working Americans, it could be a disaster of epic proportions
And CKE is far from the only chain that regularly skirts labor laws. In fact, wage theft runs rampant across the restaurant industry, as well as retail and other low-paying service jobs. A National Employment Law Project study found that more than two-thirds of low-wage workers in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles had experienced wage theft in the previous workweek. The Economic Policy Institute in 2014 calculated that wage theft cost Americans as much as $50 billion every year
Some states, realizing the scope of the problem, have taken steps to improve oversight in recent years. In New York, 2010 workers won the strongest protections against wage theft in the country. After passage of a significantly higher minimum wage last year, Governor Cuomo followed up with a 200-person task force to ensure wages are being paid.
Yet state action can only do so much. The Department of Labor sets standards for wage enforcement around the country and is the front-line agency for filing many wage theft cases. A 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that weak oversight during the Bush years had left thousands of workers stranded with nowhere to turn.
We have made too much progress to turn back now. Taking the teeth out of oversight hurts workers and hurts the overall economy. Members of Congress need to make clear that Puzder’s persistent record of wage theft disqualifies him from the job of Labor Secretary – and, if Puzder is confirmed, states must show that they are willing to stand up for workers on their own.
By JoEllen Chernow
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First meeting of Trump’s voting commission makes clear that suppression is the goal
First meeting of Trump’s voting commission makes clear that suppression is the goal
Vice President Mike Pence claimed during the first meeting on Wednesday of the White House’s Commission on Election...
Vice President Mike Pence claimed during the first meeting on Wednesday of the White House’s Commission on Election Integrity that the group will go about its work with “no preconceived notions.” Just minutes later, commissioners took turns insisting there is mass fraud across the country that could influence elections.
Kansas Secretary of State and commission co-chair Kris Kobach claimed in his introduction that as many as 18,000 non-citizens could be registered to vote in Kansas, without mentioning the shady math and questionable studieshe used to arrive at that number. The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky insisted that massive fraud is occurring across the country. And even New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Garder, a Democratic commissioner, argued against making voting easier, saying it doesn’t require a massive amount of fraud to influence elections.
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1 month ago
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