Letter to the Editor: Proposed Legislation in Maryland Would Sacrifice Standards of Charter Schools
Washington Post - March 3, 2015, by Anne Kaiser - I share The Post’s interest in a healthy environment for charter...
Washington Post - March 3, 2015, by Anne Kaiser - I share The Post’s interest in a healthy environment for charter schools in Maryland, as expressed in the Feb. 25 editorial “ Give charter schools a chance.” However, this goal cannot be achieved unless we maintain the high standards for accountability, equity and quality required by Maryland’s charter school law.Over the past decade, I have seen troubling results in states that lowered their standards. A 2014 Center for Popular Democracy report found $100 million in fraud, waste and abuse by charter schools in 14 states and the District. The National Education Policy Center found that charter school teachers face significantly lower compensation and poorer working conditions, leading to high turnover rates and the hiring of unqualified teachers. Michigan, Ohio, Delaware and Pennsylvania have seen wasted taxpayer dollars in their race to expand charter schools.Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) legislation follows in these flawed footsteps by granting a disproportionate share of funding to charter schools at the expense of traditional public schools, permitting uncertified teachers, allowing union-busting by charter school operators and weakening safeguards for accountability. I will work hard through the legislative process to remove these harmful provisions so that we support charters without sacrificing standards.Anne Kaiser, Annapolis The writer, a Democrat, represents District 14 in the Maryland House, where she is majority leader.Source
Aiming for new empowerment of black women
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
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Puerto Rico Is Not Ready for 2018 Hurricane Season, Advocates and Members of Congress Warn
Puerto Rico Is Not Ready for 2018 Hurricane Season, Advocates and Members of Congress Warn
Power 4 Puerto Rico is described as a coalition seeking to push Congress to “put Puerto Rico’s economy on the road to...
Power 4 Puerto Rico is described as a coalition seeking to push Congress to “put Puerto Rico’s economy on the road to future growth and prosperity.” The Tuesday call was led by former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, now the coalition’s campaign director and a senior advisor to the Latino Victory Project. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Frankie Miranda, senior vice president for the Hispanic Federation, and Ana María Archila, co-executive director for the Center for Popular Democracy, were also on the call.
Read the full article here.
Activists Counter Federal Reserve Gathering With Push Against Interest Rate Hikes
The two-day event, ...
The two-day event, Whose Recovery: A National Convening on Inequality, Race, and the Federal Reserve, is organized by the Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy. It serves as a counter-conference to the annual Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City symposium, where Fed officials come together to discuss monetary policy -- and which is currently taking place at the same resort as the Fed Up gathering.
Fed Up’s member organizations brought over 100 primarily low-income grassroots activists from across the country for the gathering. It's a dramatic increase from its inaugural visit to Jackson Hole last year, when the campaign brought a group of 10 activists.
The size of Fed Up’s delegation of activists and presence of prominent economists -- including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz -- attests to the rapid growth of a once-unlikely campaign that began just a year ago. Fed Up has managed to turn the esoteric issue of central bank interest rates into a key element of the progressive agenda -- and a rallying cry for low-income workers.
Rod Adams, a recent college graduate from Minneapolis, said he was attending the convention because he was disappointed in the job market. Despite his college degree, he currently makes $10.10 an hour working at the Mall of America.
“I have seen Wall Street’s recovery and corporate America’s recovery -- where is ours?” Adams demanded, eliciting cheers at a spirited press conference outside the Jackson Lake Lodge on Thursday.
The activists oppose the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates before the economy creates enough jobs to generate substantial wage growth for all workers. They believe that a premature interest rate hike would be especially harmful to workers in communities of color, who continue to suffer higher rates of unemployment than the overall population. Activists say this is partly the result of discrimination in the job market. Fed Up released a report on Thursday that uses original data to show that if there was the same low unemployment rate in every community in America, African-Americans and American Indians would experience the largest income gains.
The delegation plans to present officials attending the exclusive Fed symposium with an online petition opposing an interest rate hike that bears 110,000 signatures. The petition effort was the result of Fed Up's collaboration earlier this month with online progressive heavyweights including CREDO Action, Daily Kos, the Working Families Organization and Demand Progress. Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, gave the petition drive a high-profile boost with a popular video promoting the effort.
A similar petition that Fed Up brought last year had 10,000 signatures.
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, which convenes the annual Jackson Hole symposium for Fed officials, declined to comment on this year's parallel protest conference.
Kansas City Fed President Esther George met with Fed Up activists during last year's symposium.
Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is not attending this year's symposium, precluding even the possibility of an impromptu encounter with protesters.
“Janet Yellen is missing a great opportunity to see what real people look like,” Adams said. “We are not data on a spreadsheet.”
Proponents of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in the near future argue that the Fed should begin raising rates to prevent excessive price and asset inflation. The Fed has a dual mandate to maintain full employment and stable price inflation.
William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, signaled on Wednesday that they would postpone an interest rate hike that Fed officials had previously indicated would occur in September. Dudley said turmoil in China and other emerging market economies that sparked massive swings in the U.S. stock market earlier in the week made a September rate hike “less compelling.”
Josh Bivens, the progressive Economic Policy Institute’s research and policy director, applauded the Fed’s move away from an interest rate hike, but said the reason for the Fed’s decision confirmed the need for more grassroots activism.
“A week ago the case against raising rates for the labor market was clear as day, but all of a sudden when wealthy people lost money in the stock market the tide turned against a rate increase,” Bivens said at Thursday's press conference. “I’m happy rates are less likely to go up because of that, but it is a terrible reason.”
Source: Huffington Post
New York City Schools' Discriminatory and Damaging School-to-Prison Pipeline
New York City Schools' Discriminatory and Damaging School-to-Prison Pipeline
New York City schools feed young black and Latino youth into a school-to-prison pipeline by leveling criminal...
New York City schools feed young black and Latino youth into a school-to-prison pipeline by leveling criminal punishments on students for small infractions and normal youthful behavior.
Read the full article here.
Voting rights: the fight for our democracy
Voting rights: the fight for our democracy
There is a battle under way for our democracy. The choice that lies in front of us: Will we be a country that...
There is a battle under way for our democracy. The choice that lies in front of us: Will we be a country that guarantees every eligible citizen the right to vote and participate? Or will we allow states and politicians to twist voting rules and ignore constitutional rights in order to limit access to democracy?
That is the choice in front of us, and it is not an abstract choice.
Read the full article here.
Elevated Level of Part-Time Employment: Post-Recession Norm?
Wall Street Journal - November 12, 2014, by Nick Timiraos - Nearly 7 million Americans are stuck in part-time jobs that...
Wall Street Journal - November 12, 2014, by Nick Timiraos - Nearly 7 million Americans are stuck in part-time jobs that they don’t want.
The unemployment rate has fallen sharply over the past year, but that improvement is masking a still-bleak picture for millions of workers who say they can’t find full-time jobs.
Martina Morgan is deciding which bills to skip after her hours fell at Ikea in Renton, Wash. Sandra Sok says she’s been unable to consistently get full-time hours after she transferred to a Wal-Mart in Arizona from one in Colorado.
In Chicago, Jessica Davis is frustrated by her schedule dwindling to 23 hours a week at a McDonald’s even though her location has been hiring. “How can you not get people more hours but you hire more employees?” the 26-year-old Ms. Davis said.
The situation of these so-called involuntary part-time workers—those who would prefer to work more than 34 hours a week—has economists puzzling over whether a higher level of part-time employment might be a permanent legacy of the great recession. If so, it could force more workers to choose between underemployment or working multiple jobs to make ends meet, leading to less income growth and weaker discretionary spending.
Employers added some 3.3 million full-time workers over the past year, but the number of full-time workers in the U.S. is still around 2 million shy of the level before the recession began in 2007. Meanwhile, the ranks of workers who are part time for economic reasons has fallen by 740,000 this year to around 4.5% of the civilian workforce. That is down from a high of 5.9% in 2010 but remains well above the 2.7% average in the decade preceding the recession.
“There’s just less full-time jobs available than there used to be,” said Michelle Girard, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc.
The slow decline in part-time work is particularly acute when broken out by industries. For the retail and hospitality sectors, the number of involuntary part-time workers in October was nearly double its prerecession level. For construction, mining and manufacturing work, by contrast, the share of such part-time labor was just 9% above its pre-recession level.
Other data show that the ability of part-time service workers to find full-time work has been much slower during the current recovery. In goods-producing industries, around two-thirds of involuntary part-time workers in July 2013 had found full-time employment by July 2014, up from 60% in 2009, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. But for service-sector workers, the rate has seen little improvement. Around 48% of involuntary part-time workers in July 2013 had found full-time work one year later, up from around 46% in 2009.
An important question for policy makers now is whether the elevated level of involuntary part-time work is due to cyclical factors, meaning it will fall as the economy heals, or to structural changes that have made employers more inclined to rely on a larger contingent workforce and avoid converting part-time workers to full-time positions.
On one side are economists like Ms. Girard, who say greater economic uncertainty and rising labor costs—from increases in the minimum wage, regulations or health-care expenses stemming from the Affordable Care Act—explain higher levels of part-time work. “There is a structural element to this at the very least,” she said.
The health-care law requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers to offer affordable insurance to employees working 30 or more hours a week or face fines. “Companies are just more inclined to hire part-time workers, not necessarily because of the health-care law, but for business reasons that make it a more attractive option,” Ms. Girard said.
Anecdotal reports have suggested employers have cut hours to prepare for the implementation of the health-care law, but that hasn’t been borne out by economic data.
An analysis by Bowen Garrett of the Urban Institute and Robert Kaestner at the University of Illinois at Chicago found a small increase in part-time work this year, but the increase occurred for part-time jobs with between 30 and 34 hours—above the 30-hour threshold that would be affected by the health-care law.
Other economists say higher levels of involuntary part-time work are mostly cyclical. Businesses don’t appear to be paying part-time workers more than full-time workers; that would be one clear sign of a shift in hiring preferences.
Elevated levels of involuntary part-time work in service jobs may reflect how low-wage employers ramped up hiring earlier in the recovery. More recently, the sector has absorbed those returning to work after long unemployment spells.
Part-time work in service jobs is “a stepping stone for the unemployed and for people out of the labor force,” said Adam Ozimek, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. Labor markets are “improving in just the way you would expect.”
Labor advocates, meanwhile, say technological changes in how businesses schedule employees are at fault. Software allows employers to schedule and cancel shifts rapidly based on business conditions.
Carrie Gleason, the director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy, a labor advocacy group, said that could explain why more part-time workers say they want full-time work. “There’s now this persistent uncertainty in the jobs that hourly workers have today,” she said.
“I need to spend some time with my kids,” said Ms. Morgan, 32. “Two jobs? It’s too much.”
Ikea employees are guaranteed a minimum amount of hours every week. Those that can work “during peak times when our customers are in our stores have the opportunity to obtain more hours,” said Mona Liss, a company spokeswoman. The company in June also announced it would raise the average minimum hourly wage in its U.S. stores next year by 17%.
Meanwhile, the structural-cyclical debate has important implications for the Federal Reserve. If the changes are structural, wages might begin to rise sooner than expected, putting more pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates. If they’re cyclical, it would suggest that Fed policy can remain accommodative.
Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen routinely highlights the elevated level of part-time work as a key measure of labor slack. “There are still ... too many who are working part-time but would prefer full-time work,” she said at a press conference in September.
Business surveys conducted by the Atlanta Fed have shown there are more part-time workers because “business conditions don’t justify converting them to full time,” said John Robertson, senior economist at the bank. But other businesses have said their reliance on a larger part-time workforce stemmed from the higher costs of hiring full-time workers.
“It would be wrong to say it’s all cyclical, and it would be wrong to say it’s all structural,” Mr. Robertson said. “We’re somewhere in the middle.”
Ulyses Coatl illustrates how any improvement might unfold. He worked for two years as a stylist at a Levi’s apparel store in lower Manhattan but quit his job in September because the hours had become too unpredictable. His schedule varied from as many as 34 hours a week to four hours, but had averaged around 18 hours in recent weeks, he said.
A Levi’s spokeswoman said the company is “always looking at ways to improve retail productivity, including store labor models and processes” that conform to “industry best practices.”
Wal-Mart says the majority of its workforce is full time, and the share of part-time workers has stayed about the same over the past decade. A spokeswoman said store employees can view all of the open shifts in their store, and that there are full-time positions available in the store at which Ms. Sok works.
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No hike: Fed keeps benchmark rate near zero
WASHINGTON--Not yet. Citing global economic weakness and financial market turmoil, the Federal Reserve agreed Thursday...
WASHINGTON--Not yet.
Citing global economic weakness and financial market turmoil, the Federal Reserve agreed Thursday to keep its benchmark interest rate near zero despite the rapidly improving U.S. labor market.
But Fed policymakers' forecast indicates they still expect to bump up the federal funds rate this year for the first time in nearly a decade, with meetings scheduled for October and December. Their projections, however, show they expect to raise it even more gradually over the long-term than they previously signaled.
Richmond Fed chief Jeffrey Lacker was the lone dissenter.
The decision capped the most dramatic run-up to a Fed meeting in recent memory, with economists split on whether the central bank would raise its key rate, which has been near zero since the 2008 financial crisis and affects borrowing costs for consumers and businesses across the economy.
"An argument can be made for a rise in interest rates at this time," Fed Chair Janet Yellen said at a news conference.But she added, "We want to take more time to evaluate the likely impact on the United States" from the overseas slowdown and market gyrations.
She said Fed policymakers also want to see if further improvement in the labor market "will bolster our confidence that inflation will move back" to the Fed's annual 2% target over the medium term..
In a statement after a two-day meeting, the Fed said, "Recent global economic and financial developments may restrain economic activity somewhat and are likely to put further downward pressure on inflation in the near-term."
Fed policymakers now expect just one rate hike this year that would push the funds rate to 0.375% from the current 0.125%, according to their median forecast. They also expect a slower rise that would leave the rate at 2.625% by the end of 2017 and a longer-run normal rate of 3.5%, down from their previous estimate of 3.75%.
The central bank said "the labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment." It said consumer spending and business investment have advanced moderately while the housing market "has improved further." But amid the overseas troubles, it said exports have been "soft."
With the U.S. economy rebounding more strongly in the second quarter after a slowdown early in the year, the Fed raised its median forecast for economic growth this year to 2.1% from 1.9% in June. But after the recent global and market troubles, it lowered its projection for 2016 to 2.3% from 2.5% in June.
And with the 5.1% unemployment rate already below the Fed's previous year-end forecast, it now expects the jobless rate to be 4.8% by the end of 2016, below its June forecast of 5.1%.
Yet the central bank also expects a more modest rise in inflation, providing it more leeway to nudge up rates gently. It slightly lowered its inflation forecast to 1.7% in 2016 and 1.9% in 2017, leaving it below its 2% annual target even in two years.
Supporting the case for a Fed move was a 5.1% unemployment rate that's already at the central bank's long-run target, average monthly job gains of 212,000 this year and healthy economic growth of 3.7% at an annual rate in the second quarter. "The economy has been performing well and we expect it to continue to do so," Yellen said.
Waiting too long to act might force the Fed to hoist rates more rapidly when currently meager inflation eventually heats up, a move that could destabilize markets. Yellen said that could be "disruptive to the real economy." "I don't think it's good policy to have to slam on the brakes," she said
Yellen said she continues to expect tepid inflation to pick up as low oil prices and a strong dollar stabilize, but she said it will take "a bit more time" for those effects to dissipate.Some economists say the 5.1% unemployment rate already heralds a coming surge in wages and prices as employers compete for fewer available workers.
But annual pay growth has been stuck near a sluggish 2% pace, possibly reflecting an excess labor supply that includes part-time workers who prefer full-time jobs and discouraged Americans resuming job searches after years on the sidelines. If that's the case, the Fed may want to keep rates low longer to stimulate the economy so more of those workers can find full-time jobs.
Yellen told reporters the unemployment rate likely "understates the degree of slack in the labor market."
Meanwhile, recent news of China's economic slowdown, and the resulting turmoil in global and U.S. stocks, prompted Fed officials to temper expectations for a rate hike this week.
"The outlook abroad appears to have become more uncertain of late and heightened concerns about growth in China and other emerging market economies have led to notable volatility in financial markets," Yellen said.
She added, "We don't want to respond to market turbulence," but the volatility is prompting the Fed to investigate its cause in the global economy.While U.S. exports to China comprise less than 1% of the nation's gross domestic product, Chinese trade with other countries could have stronger ripple effects on the U.S. economy.
Before the release of the Fed's statement to reporters, a coalition of worker advocacy groups called Fed Up gathered outside holding signs such as, "Whose recovery?" and chanting, "Don't raise the interest rates!"
"The Fed should not make a decision to slow down the economy without hearing from the people it will affect," said Ady Barkan, the head of the group.
Source: USA Today
Report: Women unduly harmed by unpredictable scheduling
Al Jazeera - 05-12-2015 - Irregular hours and just-in-time scheduling are pervasive throughout the low-wage...
Al Jazeera - 05-12-2015 - Irregular hours and just-in-time scheduling are pervasive throughout the low-wage economy, but they do particular harm to working women, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Center for Popular Democracy.
Women still disproportionately shoulder responsibility for child care and other family obligations, and more than 6 million women have cited those constraints as the primary reasons they are not employed full time, according to the report.
The Center for Popular Democracy argues that juggling family responsibilities with the unsteady work hours that often come with part-time employment leads to additional challenges for women.
“Women working more hours are likely to experience the stressful effects of overwork and may often have no choice but to work overtime hours or lose their job,” the report says. “However, the over 12 million women working part time in hourly jobs are at greatest risk of both highly erratic schedules and of extreme income fluctuation."
Women were found to be slightly more likely to work jobs paid on an hourly basis: 61 percent compared with 56 percent of men. As a result, their income is more likely to fluctuate based on how many hours they are assigned to work per week or month. Additionally, their off time can be difficult to control or predict because of last-minute scheduling.
Erratic hours can be particularly hard on women, who tend to spend more time than men performing household chores and caring for children. A 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found women in households with children under the age of 6 spent roughly an hour a day attending to their physical needs, whereas men spent roughly half an hour.
On a conference call with reporters to discuss the report, Albuquerque, New Mexico, activist Kris Buchmann said she has been “treated like my life outside of work didn’t matter” while working hourly jobs in retail.
“I can’t tell you how many times I was asked to close and then turn around and come back in after five or six hours off,” she said. “It’s not enough for a full night’s sleep or showering or anything else I have to do."
Other times, “they would call me into work, I would show up, and they would say, ‘Oh, never mind. We don’t need you,’” she said. Such unpredictability made it difficult for her to know when she would need to find child care for her son.
University of Massachusetts at Amherst sociologist Naomi Gerstel, who wrote the book “Unequal Time: Gender, Class and Family in Employment Schedules” with Dan Clawson, said erratic scheduling exists “across the entire class spectrum” but falls especially hard on low-wage workers.
If you’re in a stable, full-time position, “you’re more likely to be able to say no or find substitutes” such as baby sitters and other care workers, she said. Additionally, some higher-paying workplaces are “changing occupations to make it possible for especially women workers to take on what’s defined as flexibility."
But perks such as maternity leave have not filtered down the income ladder. And long-term changes in family structure have created a “double-edged sword” for some workers, said Gerstel. Births to unmarried women have risen steadily since the 1940s, according the U.S. Census Bureau, so more single mothers have been forced to negotiate child care on top of their work schedules.
That’s beginning to change in some parts of the country. Carrie Gleason, the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative director, told reporters on a conference call that 11 states “have introduced some form of work hours legislation, and this is an issue that was basically not on the map last year.”
Buchmann is part of a campaign to get predictable scheduling legislation passed in New Mexico. In November, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved a legislative package known as the Retail Worker Bill of Rights, which is, in part, intended to enforce more predictable scheduling for retail workers.
Source: Al Jazeera
NYTimes Letter to the Editor: Deportations for Minor Offenses
New York Times - April 13, 2014 To the Editor: Re “...
New York Times - April 13, 2014
To the Editor:
Re “More Deportations Follow Minor Crimes, Data Shows” (front page, April 7):
It’s a mistake to focus the debate about immigration enforcement on the question of which immigrants are sufficiently “criminal” to deserve deportation. When the Obama administration talks about deporting people with convictions, they are talking about people who have already served their sentences for those convictions.
If you are a citizen who commits an offense, you pay the penalty issued by the criminal legal system, and then you are free to try to rebuild your life. If you are a noncitizen who commits that same offense and pays that same penalty, you can be subjected to the double punishment of permanent exile from your home and family.
This two-tiered system of justice is morally abhorrent regardless of how serious the underlying offense may have been. It’s an unfairness compounded by the well-documented unfairness of the criminal legal system itself, which disproportionately targets poor people and minorities.
Let’s not rely on our corrupt criminal justice system to justify the operations of our corrupt immigration system.
EMILY TUCKER Brooklyn, April 7, 2014
The writer is staff attorney for immigrant rights and racial justice at the Center for Popular Democracy.
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29 days ago
30 days ago