Dreamers Deferred As Congress Lets DACA Deadline Pass
Dreamers Deferred As Congress Lets DACA Deadline Pass
"For most of us, DACA was the only opportunity we had to come out of the shadows and show everyone what we are capable...
"For most of us, DACA was the only opportunity we had to come out of the shadows and show everyone what we are capable of doing, regardless of the legal status in which we stand in,” Aguilera said in a testimonial provided by the Center for Popular Democracy to ABC News...“With no clear path forward on the horizon to protect Dreamers, thousands of immigrant youth are left in limbo and in the sights of Trump’s deportation machine,” said Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy in a statement to ABC News.
Read the full article here.
Overnight Finance: Obama huddles with Yellen; Puerto Rico bill markup Wednesday
Overnight Finance: Obama huddles with Yellen; Puerto Rico bill markup Wednesday
TRADING NOTES: President Obama met with Federal Reserve Board Chairwoman Janet Yellen, but interest rates were...
TRADING NOTES: President Obama met with Federal Reserve Board Chairwoman Janet Yellen, but interest rates were apparently not on the agenda.
Obama did not plan to discuss interest rates with Yellen, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest. He argued such a conversation could undercut the chair's independence in setting monetary policy.
"I would not anticipate that, even in the confidential setting, that the president would have a conversation with the chair of the Fed that would undermine her ability to make these kinds of critical monetary policy decisions independently," Earnest told reporters ahead of the meeting.
The closed-door discussion is instead an opportunity to "trade notes" on broader economic trends in the U.S. and abroad, as well as on a new set of regulations on Wall Street financial firms.
Obama and Yellen talked about the growth outlook, "the state of the labor market, inequality and potential risks to the economy," the White House said after the meeting. The Hill's Jordan Fabian has more: http://bit.ly/25VuzIZ.
HOUSE TO MARKUP PUERTO RICO DEBT BILL: The House Natural Resources Committee will begin on Wednesday to mark up legislation aimed at saving Puerto Rico from a massive debt crisis.
Lawmakers have been working to make significant changes to the measure, which is expected to unveiled as early as Monday night, since the panel released a discussion draft on March 29.
The Puerto Rico measure, which put the island's finances under federal oversight and authorize a restructuring of some of its debt, will need to strike a balance and attract bipartisan support and the backing of the White House to move forward.
LEW MAKES CASE FOR GLOBAL ECONOMIC LEADERSHIP: Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Monday made the case for the United States to continue its global economic leadership as the administration faces criticism from Donald Trump and other presidential candidates.
"We know that the global landscape of the next century will be very different than that of the post-war era," Lew said in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. "And if we want it to work for the American people, we need to embrace new players on the global economic stage and make sure they meet the standards of the system we created, and that we have a strong say in any new standards."
"The worst possible outcome would be to step away from our leadership role and let others fill in behind us," he added. The Hill's Naomi Jagoda fills us in: http://bit.ly/1qjTIwe.
GOLDMAN SACHS SETTLES MORTGAGE PROBE FOR $5 BILLION: Goldman Sachs will pay more than $5 billion to settle charges that it engaged in "serious misconduct" when selling risky mortgages leading up to the 2008 financial collapse.
The $5.06 billion civil settlement also saw the Wall Street giant admit it failed to properly inform investors of the risks in the subprime mortgage securities the bank was selling.
"This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail," acting associate attorney general Stuart Delery said in a statement.
One of the government charges, which Goldman has now acknowledged, was that the bank kept internal concerns about the strength of the mortgage market hidden from potential investors. Here's more from The Hill's Peter Schroeder: http://bit.ly/1qjTJQQ.
SANDERS SAYS GOLDMAN'S BUSINESS 'RIGGED': Bernie Sanders charged Monday that the settlement proves Goldman Sachs's business is "based on fraud."
The Justice Department announced Monday that the Wall Street giant would pay over $5 billion to settle charges it sold risky mortgage investments in the lead up to the financial crisis, and didn't tell investors enough about it.
Sanders, who has built his presidential campaign in large part on big bank bashing, said the settlement proves his point.
"What they have just acknowledged to the whole world is that their system ... is based on fraud," he told supporters in New York.
Sanders also complained that the civil settlement did not include any criminal charges, proving the "corruption of our criminal justice system." http://bit.ly/1TNk2Lm
HAPPY MONDAY and welcome to Overnight Finance, where we're wondering why Herbert Hoover gets to join the racing presidents. I'm Sylvan Lane, and here's your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.
Tonight's highlights include securities fraud charges for Texas's attorney general, a trillion-dollar national pension gap and a Tax Day delay.
See something I missed? Let me know at slane@thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://www.thehill.com/signup/48.
ON TAP TOMORROW:
Senate Finance Committee: Hearing on examining cybersecurity and protecting taxpayer information, 10 a.m
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services: Hearings to examine proposed budget estimates and justification for fiscal year 2017 for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission., 10:30 a.m.
House Rules Committee: Business Meeting: H.R. 2666: No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act; H.R. 3340: Financial Stability Oversight Council Reform Act; H.R. 3791: To raise the consolidated assets threshold under the small bank holding company policy statement and for other purposes.
Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act expected to be released.
"Getting Her Money's Worth: What Will It Take to Achieve Equal Pay?" discussion featuring Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), 11:45 am.
BERNIE FANS LEFT'S FLAMES AGAINST FED: Liberal activists are putting a target on the Federal Reserve for the 2016 elections, much to the delight of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Denouncing an agenda that they say tilts toward Wall Street, members of the "Fed Up" coalition on Monday unveiled a set of reforms that would alter how the central bank does business.
"No longer are we focused only on fixing the Fed's monetary policy and internal governance positions," said Ady Barkan, the group's campaign director. "We are now beginning an effort to reform the Federal Reserve itself. Peter Schroeder breaks down the fight: http://bit.ly/23yMSBH.
YOU HAVE THREE MORE DAYS TO PROCRASTINATE: For most people, tax returns are due one week from today.
This year's due date for filing federal individual income tax returns is April 18, not April 15. This is because the District of Columbia is observing Emancipation Day on April 15, which falls on a Friday, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
People living in Massachusetts and Maine have until April 19 to file their tax returns because those states observe Patriots' Day on April 18.
Those who are serving in combat zones or contingency operations or become hospitalized due to injuries from their service can have additional time to pay their taxes. Those affected by federally declared disasters might also have more time, the IRS said: http://bit.ly/1Q3tzHk.
AG GROUPS PUSH FOR PACIFIC TRADE DEAL: The nation's farmers and ranchers are putting their weight behind efforts urging Congress to pass a sweeping Asia-Pacific deal this year.
In a letter to congressional leaders on Monday, 225 food and agricultural groups called on lawmakers to move forward on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership before President Obama leaves office.
"The TPP presents a valuable opportunity for U.S. agriculture; one that we cannot afford to miss," the groups wrote. The Hill's Vicki Needham explains why: http://bit.ly/1S5QCFD.
SEC CHARGES TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged Texas's top law enforcement official with civil securities fraud for allegedly deceiving investors in a computer company.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) received 100,000 shares of Servergy, a Nevada-based technology company, to pitch investors on a server it was selling between 2011 and 2013, according to the SEC complaint. Servergy officials allegedly marketed the server with incorrect information, and Paxton allegedly did not disclose to investors that he would be paid a commission: http://bit.ly/1RPHyG0.
US PUBLIC PENSIONS FACE $3 TRILLION HOLE: The nation's public pension system is facing a $3.4 trillion funding hole that may force cities and states to either cut spending or raise taxes to cover future shortfalls.
The deficit in pension funds is three times more than official figures and is growing, and without an overhaul could weigh on state and local budgets and lead to Detroit-like bankruptcies, according to research reported by the Financial Times.
Joshua Rauh, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who put together the report, told the FT that "the pension problems are threatening to consume state and local budgets in the absence of some major changes."
"It is quite likely that over a 5- to 10-year horizon we are going to see more bankruptcies of cities where the unfunded pension liabilities will play a large role." Here's more from Vicki Needham: http://bit.ly/1Su85op.
CONSERVATIVES FIGHT ENERGY TAX BREAKS IN FAA BILL: Conservative groups that oppose a proposal to include energy tax breaks in the long-term reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration are vowing to take their fight to the House if the Senate moves ahead.
Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners said Monday that if the Senate ends up attaching energy tax provisions to the FAA bill, the organizations will ratchet up pressure on lawmakers across the Capitol to oppose the language or pass a clean-extension of FAA.
"If the Senate isn't going to do anything to stop this, we're going to put pressure on the House," Andy Koenig, senior policy advisor at Freedom Partners, said on a press call. "The House is under no obligation to take up a bunch of energy subsidies if they don't want to." The Hill's Melanie Zanona walks us through the battle: http://bit.ly/1RPHrKH.
DEMS CALL FOR GREATER NONBANK MORTGAGE OVERSIGHT: Two Democratic lawmakers are calling on the nation's top consumer protection agency to ramp up its oversight of nonbank mortgage servicers.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Monday to identify all of and collect more data on the growing number of financial institutions other than banks that service mortgages.
Warren and Cummings pointed to recommendations from a non-partisan government watchdog report published Monday. Warren, a long-time financial industry watchdog, and Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) study. I'll fill you in on the rest here: http://bit.ly/1Sc3ldc.
Did you know 67% of all job growth comes from small businesses? Read More
NIGHTCAP: Five Starbucks locations in DC will start serving alcohol and "small plates," which is millennial for paying more money for less food: https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/04/08/5-dc-starbucks-will-sell-beer-wine-small-plates-next-week/.
By Sylvan Lane
Source
New York charter school audits reveal $28 million in questionable expenses
New York State charter schools have made more than $28 million in questionable expenditures since 2002, according to a...
New York State charter schools have made more than $28 million in questionable expenditures since 2002, according to a new review of previous audits of the publicly funded, privately run schools.
The Center for Popular Democracy’s analysis charter school audits found investigators uncovered probable financial mismanagement in 95% of the schools they examined.
Kyle Serrette, education director for the progressive group, said the review of previously published audits showed the schools need greater oversight.
“We can’t afford to have a system that fails to cull the fraudulent charter operators from the honest ones,” said Serrette, whose group compiled the report with the non-profit Alliance for Quality Education. “Establishing a charter school oversight system that prevents fraud, waste and mismanagement will attack the root cause of the problem.”
The state controller’s office and state Education Department have audited 62 of New York’s 248 charter schools, according to Serrette’s report. All told, Serrette’s group estimates wasteful spending at charters could cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year.
Eighteen audits targeted charters in New York City, representing about 9% of the 197 charters in the five boroughs. Each audit found issues.
A 2012 audit found Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School was paying $800,000 in excess annual fees to the management company that holds its building’s lease. A 2012 audit of Williamsburg Charter High School revealed school officials overbilled the city for operations and paid contractors for $200,800 in services that should have been provided by the school’s network. A 2007 audit of the Carl C. Icahn Charter School determined the Bronx school spent more than $1,288 on alcohol for staff parties and failed to account for another $102,857 in expenses.The city spends more than $1.29 billion on charters annually.
State Education Department officials and a spokesman for the state controller’s office declined to comment on Serrette’s report.
Northeast Charter School Network CEO Kyle Rosenkrans said the schools already get plenty of oversight because they are subject to audits and must have their charters renewed at least every five years.
“Charter schools are the most accountable public schools there are,” the charter advocate said. “If we don’t perform or we mismanage our finances, we get shut down.
Source: New York Daily News
How Hurricane Maria Could Change Puerto Rico’s Political Future
How Hurricane Maria Could Change Puerto Rico’s Political Future
In the windowless backroom kitchen of the Loisaida community and arts center in Lower Manhattan, Aris Mejías cradles a...
In the windowless backroom kitchen of the Loisaida community and arts center in Lower Manhattan, Aris Mejías cradles a plastic ziplock with the last of the dark-roast coffee she brought back from her native Puerto Rico. “It’s probably extinct,” she says. “Ay Díos, I think I’m gonna cry.” Mejías’s eyes are red and sunken. Neither she nor Isabel Gandía has slept much since Hurricane Maria tore through the southeast Caribbean in late September. They’ve been too busy coordinating a donation drive to bring emergency aid to Puerto Rico. At 3:30 in the afternoon, Gandía is only just getting around to breakfast.
Read the full article here.
How to Build the Movement for Progressive Power, the Urban Way
As the gears of federal government have ground to a halt, a new energy has been rocking the foundations of our urban...
As the gears of federal government have ground to a halt, a new energy has been rocking the foundations of our urban centers. From Atlanta to Seattle and points in between, cities have begun seizing the initiative, transforming themselves into laboratories for progressive change. Cities Rising is The Nation’s chronicle of those urban experiments.
Cities are where the action is these days. Progressive action, political action. From paid sick days to universal pre-K, fossil-fuel divestment to anti-fracking ordinances, police reform to immigrant rights, the country’s urban centers are leading the way, far outpacing the federal government in vision and action. Just look at the growing movement for a $15 minimum wage. While Bernie Sanders has been raising minimum-wage consciousness on the campaign trail—introducing a bill in July to raise the federal minimum to $15 and calling for the same during the first Democratic presidential debate—it was local politicians, with names barely known beyond their districts, who first heeded the call of struggling workers and made $15 a reality. Before Bernie, in other words, there was Nick Licata and Kshama Sawant, Ruth Atkins, and the Emeryville City Council.
In recognition of this moment, progressive politicians from cities around the country—Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Denver, Philadelphia, and beyond—have joined forces to begin sharing their strategies for creative progressive change. Calling themselves Local Progress, they swap policy solutions to urgent, ongoing injustices like income inequality and police brutality, share model legislation and provide strategic support for legislative campaigns. Kind of like an urban anti-ALEC. Today, just three years after it was formed, more than 400 elected officials from 40 states are part of the effort. And the victories are beginning to add up—from paid parental leave in Boston to paid sick leave in New York City, socially responsible investing in Seattle to the use of eminent domain in Richmond, California, to slash homeowner debt.
This week, Local Progress members from all over the country are meeting in Los Angeles for the group’s fourth national gathering. From October 26 through 28, they aretrading their best ideas and strategies for building progressive local power—and combatting police violence, spreading the Fight for $15, expanding affordable housing, boosting civic engagement, and pushing the fight for LGBTQ rights beyond marriage equality.
Chuy Garcia, who gave Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel a run for his millions in this year’s election, will be on the scene, as will Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre, and dozens of council members, alderman, and supervisors from around the country. If cities are the incubators of promising progressive ideas, this gathering is a bit like the annual science expo.
The Nation has asked four Local Progress stalwarts to share some of the policy solutions they’ll be discussing at the gathering. New York City Council members Brad Lander and Antonio Reynoso, San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos, and Chicago Alderman Scott Waguespack all weighed in, offering thoughts on everything from humanizing the sharing economy to organizing for police reform, protecting sanctuary cities, and pushing back against privatization and regressive tax policy. Here’s what they said.
—Lizzy Ratner
PROTECTING WORKERS IN THE ON-DEMAND ECONOMY
By Brad Lander
Rides from Uber. Home cleaning from Handy. Meals from Seamless. Web design from Upwork. Even doctors from Medicast.
There’s no doubt the on-demand economy is convenient. Consumers can arrange for services at the tap of a touchscreen. Workers can choose their hours and earn a little extra cash.
But there’s a very dark side to the “sharing” economy: The benefits aren’t usually shared with the workers.
Working “by-the-gig” rarely provides job security, health insurance, paid sick days or family leave, on-the-job training, or retirement contributions. Workers lack the right to organize a union. And eight in 10 freelance workers report having been cheated out of wages they were owed.
President Obama and Democratic presidential candidates are finally talking about the issue. But the Republican Congress will likely block any progress. Marco Rubio recently called for even further deregulation, leaving workers at the mercy of multibillion-dollar corporations.
So cities are taking the lead in writing new rules, working with Local Progress, the National Employment Law Project, forward-thinking unions, and worker organizations to level the on-demand playing field.
In Seattle, City Council member Mike O’Brien is fighting for a bill that would allow drivers for Uber, Lyft, and other “ridesharing” companies to organize and bargain collectively so that workers have some voice in the terms and conditions of their work.
In New York City, we are working with the Freelancers Union to combat wage theft and late payment. When conventional employees are cheated out of wages, the state labor department can enforce and win double damages. The #FreelanceIsntFree campaign (which recently brought its message to the White House) would provide freelancers with similar protection.
Council Member Corey Johnson and I are working with the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance to mandate a “driver benefits fund” (funded by a small fare surcharge) to provide for-hire drivers with healthcare benefits—a first step toward the “Shared Security Account” that Nick Hanauer and David Rolf called for in a Democracy Journal article this summer. And we’re amending New York City’s human-rights laws to make clear they apply to independent workers. There is no reason Uber should be able to discriminate against drivers based on race or religion.
Meanwhile, from San Francisco to Burlington, cities are establishing offices of labor standards and adopting other innovative approaches (like partnering with community-based organizations) to enforce the laws that protect workers. One task: making sure conventional employees aren’t illegally misclassified as independent workers by employers trying to cheat them out of benefits and protections (a big problem for day laborers and domestic workers). These offices can also make sure that companies who need licenses from the city get and keep them only if they respect local, state, and federal laws.
Ultimately, we’ll need national regulation to match the growing on-demand economy. But for now, progressive cities are bringing worker protections into the 21st century—and some real sharing into the sharing economy.
THE MUNICIPAL BATTLE FOR EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW
By Antonio Reynoso
Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Sandra Bland. For more than a year, the senseless deaths of young black men and women by police officers or in police custody have dominated headlines and helped fuel a movement. Under the banner of Black Lives Matter, this movement has been gaining ground in cities, towns, and counties across the country, spreading the call to end racist policing and begin enacting serious police reform. Its powerful message has reached all the way to the presidential campaign trail and beyond. But as the public waits for progress at the national level, change is already happening at the local level, thanks to powerful alliances between community activists and hundreds of local politicians.
In New York City, where I am a City Council member representingneighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, there is a desperate need for sensible reforms of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). For all to many New Yorkers, the excessive use of police force is a daily reality. The excessive surveillance of the Muslim community and a racialized stop-and-frisk policy also take their toll.
In response, organizations and progressive politicians have been fighting to improve accountability and transparency after years of racial profiling by the NYPD. The work has been supported by a broad coalition called Communities United for Police Reform, which has driven a strategic, multi-year campaign to knock on doors, organize the public, influence the public discourse, and pass legislation to implement smart reforms.
Communities want change, and they want to participate in the process of reforming the NYPD. So, working together, we’ve introduced the Right To Know Act as a way to meet their demands. These bills would require NYPD officers not only to identify themselves when stopping civilians but also to explain that the searches are voluntary and may be declined.
This is not the first time we have stood up for the people of our community. In 2013 and 2014, in partnership with Communities United for Police Reform, the City Council passed a series of bills known as the Community Safety Act, which together banned racial profiling by police and made it easier for New Yorkers who have experienced profiling to sue NYPD officers. The act also installed an independent inspector general to oversee the actions of the NYPD.
Of course, New York City is not the only city in our nation where racial profiling, unjust searches, and incidences of police brutality are common occurrences. Nor is it the only city where coalitions of community leaders and elected officials are working to improve the system. In the last year alone, communities have joined together with progressive local legislators to correct the imbalance of justice.
In Los Angeles County, the grassroots organization Dignity and Power Nowwon a transformative campaign, led by formerly incarcerated people and their families, to establish a strong civilian oversight commission for the sheriff’s department, which has an ugly history of violence against civilians on the streets and in county jails.
In Newark, community leaders partnered with Mayor Ras Baraka to create one of strongest civilian complaint review boards in the country, which has both a voice in disciplining police officers and a policy advisory role.
And in Minneapolis, a coalition led by Neighborhoods Organizing for Change succeeded in pressing the City Council to repeal spitting and loitering ordinances that were being disproportionately used to harass and harm black and Latino residents. They also won passage of a data-collection law that will begin to collect and publicize important evidence about the police department’s stop-and-frisk and use-of-force practices.
Members of Local Progress, partnering with community-based allies, have been central to these fights and many more, and we will continue combating such injustices across the United States, fighting for everyone to be treated equally under the law.
CITIES MUST LEAD THE NATION ON IMMIGRANT JUSTICE
By John Avalos
In the last few years, hundreds of cities across America have disentangled their police departments and jails from the federal immigrant-deportation machine, refusing to honor the Feds’ requests that cities detain immigrants past their release date so they could be picked up and deported. These policies protect immigrant families from the devastation of deportation and from crime, because they foster better relationships between the police and immigrant communities. The movement has been a bright spot for our country’s immigrant-rights movement.
But during the last few months, the policies, and in some cases the very idea, of sanctuary cities has come under attack. The catalyst for these changes was an undocumented immigrant named Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez who allegedly shot and killed a young white woman named Kate Steinle. He claims that the shooting was an accident, but her case has become a cause célèbre among opponents of immigrants because Lopez-Sanchez had been deported five times previously, and had recently been released from jail in San Francisco without being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
San Francisco’s Due Process for All Ordinance, the latest update to its Sanctuary City policy, bars the sheriff from detaining people past their release date on behalf of ICE’s Secure Communities, or S-Comm, program. The goal of Due Process for All is to protect immigrants and their families from S-Comm, which created an immigration dragnet, deporting tens of thousands of immigrants and tearing their families apart. Due Process for All also enables immigrants to be integrated into San Francisco’s local law-enforcement efforts by promoting relationships between immigrant communities and the police. San Francisco has been at the leading edge of a national movement: across the nation, over 350 other local governments have recently adopted policies limiting collaboration with federal immigration officials.
But as a result of the widespread effort of local governments to limit coordination with the S-Comm, the federal government has tweaked and renamed its deportation effort the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which calls on local law enforcement to notify Homeland Security of a detainee’s release rather than detaining the individual past his or her release date. Like S-Comm, PEP has the same effect of weakening trust between immigrants and local law enforcement because local law enforcement is seen as an arm of federal immigration efforts.
The politics of race, citizen entitlement, and immigration reform have put San Francisco and other cities’ sanctuary-city policies squarely in the cross hairs of conservative extremists and political opportunists. From the highly polarizing presidential campaign of Donald Trump to the calculated posturing of Hillary Clinton (who supports PEP) to the election-year pandering of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, eager to blame the policy for Steinle’s death, politicians are scapegoating immigrants and undermining the sanctuary city policies that immigrants rely on for their security. Just last week, the US Senate narrowly failed to pass a Republican-backed bill that threatened to withhold federal grants from sanctuary cities and increase penalties for undocumented immigrants who reenter the United States after deportation.
Some cities are already working to resist this pressure. On the same day that Senate Republicans sought to punish sanctuary cities, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming our commitment to the Due Process for All Ordinance and urging our sheriff not to comply with the new PEP program.
Cities around the country should follow suit and adopt a wide array of programs and policies to protect and empower immigrant communities. Like New Haven, they can establish Municipal ID cards to help immigrants navigate daily life; like Chicago, they can ensure that city services are available in multiple languages; like New York, they can provide quality free legal counsel to residents facing deportation; and like Los Angeles, they can conduct outreach programs and offer affordable citizenship preparation courses to help residents naturalize and gain the benefits of citizenship.
This moment is a pivotal one for our nation and the many cities that have sought to protect immigrants against deportation. We either succumb to the rightward push of the politics of race and citizen entitlement or we strengthen our efforts to protect and integrate immigrants and their families in recognition and honor of the contributions they make to our society. Local governments must lead our nation forward.
FIGHT FOR A PROGRESSIVE SOURCE OF REVENUE IN CHICAGO
By Scott Waguespack
The fiscal crisis that’s squeezing cities and towns across this country is perhaps at its most dramatic in Chicago.
Our municipal pension systems are woefully underfunded, the result of decades of failure by city and state governments to pay their share. Our schools are facing an enormous fiscal shortfall that could result in the firing of 5,000 teachers in the middle of the year. And we’re witnessing heartbreaking violence in our communities, the result of an overwhelmed police force and neighborhoods mired in economic hardship.
Simply put, our city has a cash problem.
To his credit, Mayor Rahm Emanuel acknowledged this problem in his recent budget address, railing against the budgeting tricks of previous years and vowing to end the city’s structural deficit. Unfortunately, Mayor Emanuel reached into the same tired bag of tricks in order to solve the problem: regressive tax increases on working families and privatization of public services.
These are tricks we’re all too familiar with here in Chicago. We’ve already been through some of the worst privatization deals in the country, and we know full well from our experiences with parking meters and school janitors that it’s been a fiscal boondoggle resulting in higher costs and worse services for taxpayers. And the mayor’s regressive property-tax proposal is just another way to balance budgets by raising taxes on working families who are already struggling to get by.
Here’s the good news, though: Chicago is one of the wealthiest cities on the planet. There’s an enormous amount of capital flowing through this city every day. Chicago’s City Council Progressive Caucus, which I chair, has been advocating for common-sense tax ideas to direct some of these dollars toward crucial programs and services, easing the burden on working families without selling off public assets.
We’ve advocated for creating a special property-taxing district that covers the skyscrapers in downtown Chicago. Too often, owners of these buildings hire politically connected firms to get enormous discounts on their assessments; a more fair valuation would generate substantial new revenue.
We support reforming the billion-dollar mayoral slush fund called “tax-increment financing.” We support fixing the problems in the infamous parking-meter privatization deal. We introduced an amendment that would tax big-box stores for the undue stress they put on our stormwater system, and have called for expanding the sales tax to include luxury services like pet grooming or portfolio management.
In short, the Progressive Caucus has progressive revenue ideas that will work for all of Chicago. We’ve convened a series of town hall meetings across the city, drawing crowds of hundreds of concerned neighbors, and have introduced a series of amendments to move this budget in the right direction.
As progressive leaders who love this city, our caucus knows we need new revenue to educate our children, care for those in need, and provide growth and opportunity in every community. For our city to prosper, those dollars must come from those who can most afford to pay, not from the pockets of working families.
New York Plans $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage for Fast Food Workers
The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages...
The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages for workers all across the country. On Wednesday, it paid off for the people who started it.
A panel appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo recommended on Wednesday that the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants throughout the state to $15 an hour over the next few years. Wages would be raised faster in New York City than in the rest of the state to account for the higher cost of living there.
The panel’s recommendations, which are expected to be put into effect by an order of the state’s acting commissioner of labor, represent a major triumph for the advocates who have rallied burger-flippers and fry cooks to demand pay that covers their basic needs. They argued that taxpayers were subsidizing the workforces of some multinational corporations, like McDonald’s, that were not paying enough to keep their workers from relying on food stamps and other welfare benefits.
The $15 wage would represent a raise of more than 70 percent for workers earning the state’s current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. Advocates for low-wage workers said they believed the mandate would quickly spur raises for employees in other industries across the state, and a jubilant Mr. Cuomo predicted that other states would follow his lead.
“When New York acts, the rest of the states follow,” said Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, citing the state’s passage of the law making same-sex marriagelegal. “We’ve always been different, always been first, always been the most progressive.”
The decision, announced in a conference room in Lower Manhattan, set off a raucous celebration by hundreds of workers and union leaders outside.
Flavia Cabral, 53, a grandmother from the Bronx who works part-time in a McDonald’s for $8.75 an hour, pointed out the scars where fry baskets had seared her forearms. “At least they listened to us,” she said, referring to the panel. “We’re breathing little by little.”
Bill Lipton, state director of the Working Families Party, called the decision a victory for the “99-percenters.” Mr. Lipton, who has campaigned for better pay for low-wage workers for years, said, “There’s clearly a new standard for the minimum wage, and it’s actually a living wage for the first time in many, many decades.”
The decision comes on the heels of similar increases in minimum wages in other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to raise the county’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, matching a move the Los Angeles City Council made in June.
But a more complicated political terrain in New York forced Mr. Cuomo to take a different route.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has demanded a higher minimum wage in the city to account for its higher cost of living. But neither he nor the City Council has the power to set wages citywide.
When lawmakers in Albany balked at the idea, Mr. Cuomo convened a board to look at wages in the fast-food industry, which is one of the biggest employers of low-wage workers in the state, with about 180,000 employees.
After hearing testimony from dozens of fast-food workers, the board members decided the state should mandate that fast-food chains pay more. Advocates often pointed to the giant pay packages the chains gave to their top executives.
The board’s decision removed the last significant hurdle to raising wages, since the acting labor commissioner, Mario Musolino, who must act on the recommendation, is widely expected to accept it.
The board said the first wage increase should come by Dec. 31, taking the minimum in the city to $10.50 and in the rest of the state to $9.75. The wage in the city would then rise in increments of $1.50 annually for the next three years, until it reaches $15 at the end of 2018. In the rest of the state, the hourly wage would rise each year, reaching $15 on July 1, 2021.
The mandate should apply to all workers in fast-food restaurants that are part of chains with at least 30 outlets, the board said. They defined fast food as food and drinks served at counters where customers pay before eating and can take their food with them if they choose.
The restaurant industry has chafed at these decisions. “We continue to say that we think it’s unfair that they singled out a single segment of our industry,” Melissa Fleischut, the executive director of the New York State Restaurant Association, said.
McDonald’s, a multinational corporation that paid its chief executive more than $7.5 million last year, said in April that it would raise the minimum wage it pays workers in company-owned stores to $9.90 by July 1 and to more than $10 next year.
Source: The New York Times
Mysterious "Computer Glitch" Conveniently Cancels Hotel Rooms For Fed Protesters At Jackson Hole Event
Mysterious "Computer Glitch" Conveniently Cancels Hotel Rooms For Fed Protesters At Jackson Hole Event
Over the last two years, the Fed Up Campaign has routinely brought a coalition of low-wage workers to Jackson Hole,...
Over the last two years, the Fed Up Campaign has routinely brought a coalition of low-wage workers to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to protest Federal Reserve hike rates amidst the unequal “economic recovery.” The Jackson Hole event is invite only, closed to the public and costs $1,000 per person to attend.
It appears that this year, Janet Yellen and company went out of their way to ensure there would be no such protests diverting the attention of the nation's most esteemed economists.
According to a formal complaint filed by Ady Barkan, the Campaign Director for the Fed Up Campaign, to the DOJ and the Department of the Interior, “In early May, members of our coalition made three separate reservations for a total of 13 rooms at the Lodge for the nights of August 24, 25, and 26. We paid for the rooms. We requested and paid for rollaway beds that would allow us to sleep three guests to a room, for a total of 39 guest accommodations.
On July 26, my colleague Ruben Lucio received a phone call and then a follow-up email from Zachary Meyers, the Director of Hotel Operations at the Company, informing us that the Company would not honor our paid-for reservations and we could no longer stay at the Lodge. Meyers informed Lucio of a “reservations system glitch that caused the overbooking of Jackson Lake Lodge affecting your reservations” and explained that “the system issue caused us to take reservations for rooms that we don’t actually have inventory to honor. I’m very sorry for the unfortunate mishap with our systems at GTLC that led to this regrettable situation.”
The complaint also states that of the 18 rooms that were affected by the supposed “glitch,” all 13 rooms that were allocated to the Fed Up Coalition were coincidentally all cancelled. Of course, the hotel denied any knowledge that these rooms were protesting the oligarchs at the Fed.
“There is no legitimate explanation for the Company’s decision. As Klein explained to me, the Company books out its conference and sleeping rooms on a first-come first-serve basis. However, faced with an alleged computer glitch that affected only the three nights we were present, the Company decided to honor reservations made after ours and cancel our reservations. Our reservations constituted only 3 percent of the rooms at Jackson Lake Lodge (13 out of 385), yet the Company decided that our group would bear 72 percent of the total burden for its mistake (13 rooms out of 18 overbooked reservations). This is egregious disparate treatment.
In addition, Klein’s stated rationale for selecting our 13 rooms for cancellation is an explicit and intentional targeting of our First Amendment right to assemble on government property: he selected us precisely because we are a group of multiple guests. Because we were arriving in groups of 5, 5, and 3 rooms, we would not be allowed at the Lodge. (Yet Klein notably did not remove rooms from the reservation block belonging to the Kansas City Federal Reserve, even though its block was far larger than ours and would have been even “easier” to cancel.)”
According to the Intercept, the Fed Up coalition is still planning to attend the conference. “They still expect 120 members, their largest contingent ever, to attend the proceedings, but they will have to stay in alternative accommodations that are a 20- to 30-minute drive away, separate from symposium guests and the press.”
We are sure that the Fed, already criticized for its lack of diversity, had no say in this mysteriously convenient “glitch.”
By Tyler Durden
Source
New Report Details Plans for Low-Wage Worker Justice
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013, by Jason Lewis - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to...
The Village Voice - February 14, 2013, by Jason Lewis - When a worker in this city has to endure a three-hour walk to work because his minimum wage salary doesn't allow for him to afford public transportation, that's a problem.
Low-wage workers across the city have stood up in the past year to demand that such insecurity be eradicated and to pressure employers to finally begin to provide them with just compensation for their labor.
Building on the progress generated by these worker-led movements--in industries such as retail, fast-food, airline security and car washing--UnitedNY, the Center for Popular Democracy and other advocacy groups held a symposium and released a report yesterday analyzing the state of the city's low-wage worker movement.
"It's very difficult to try and make ends meet on $7.25 minimum wage in New York City," Alterique Hall, a worker in the fast-food industry, said during a news conference following the event. "Some nights you want to lay down cry because you [feel] like 'what's the point of going to work and putting all of myself into a job, [if] I'm going to be miserable when I get off work, miserable when I go home...and don't want to wake up and go to work the next day...to get disrespected, treated poorly and paid poorly.'"
Hall, who's been active in the push for fairer wages in the fast-food industry, is the worker who is often forced to embark on the three-hour treks to work. Hall said that his boss will sometimes said him home as a penalty for his tardiness--without considering the ridiculous journey he has to travel just to get to there.
"Working hard, and working as hard as you can, isn't paying off for them," mayoral hopeful and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, said during the news conference. "They're being underemployed, They're being underpaid. They're being taken advantage of. They're being ignored. They're becoming a permanent underclass in the city of New York."
The UnitedNY and CPD report lays out four specific initiatives that workers and advocates must pressure the city to implement in order to help better the plight of low-wage workers. The reports calls on the city and employers to :
[Raise] standards for low-wage workers. [Regulate] high-violation industries where labor abuses are rampant. [Establish] a Mayor's Office of Labor Standards to ensure that employment laws are enforced. [Urge] the State to allow NYC to set a minimum wage higher than the State minimum--due to the higher cost of living in the City.The report pays close attention to the need for City Council to pass the paid sick-leave bill, and increase the minimum wage in the city to $10/hour--a salary that would net a worker with regular hours about $20,000/year in earnings.
"We can't continue to be a Tale of Two Cities, where the path to the middle class keeps fading for thousands of New Yorkers," said New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. "We must break the logjam and pass paid sick leave in the City Council. We have to protect low-wage workers fighting union busting employers. We can't tolerate inaction any longer. It's time for real action to fight for working families."
During one of the symposium workshops, a panel of labor experts discussed the obstacles facing low-wage workers in their fight to obtain such rights.
"[We've] shifted from a General Motors economy to a Wal-Mart economy," Dorian Warren, a professor of public affairs at Columbia University, said during the discussion. "[The job market is filled with] part-time jobs, low wages, no benefits, no social contract, no ability to move up in the job the way 20th century workers were able to."
Warren says that the quality of jobs in the American economy will only decline if something isn't done. He noted that 24 percent of jobs were low-wage in 2009. By 2020, that number is expected to nearly double and hit 40 percent. To make matters worse, technological "advances" are expected to increase unemployment rates by 3-5 percent moving forward.
"We're looking at an economy only of low-wage work in the future, but also of high and permanent levels of unemployment," Warren said.
The panel was moderated by acclaimed labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse of the N.Y. Times and included Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, Deborah Axt, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, M. Patricia Smith, the solicitor of labor for U.S. Department of Labor and Ana Avendano of the AFL-CIO.
Several panelists stressed the need to combat attacks from right-minded forces seeking to erode worker wage and benefit rights. Falcon says that those fighting for worker rights must correct popular narratives, many of which categorize wage and benefit increases for workers as business-killers.
"When we talk about the minimum wage, the immediate response from business is, we're going to lose jobs because, we're only going to be able to hire a few people. We have to have an answer to that objection," Falcon said. "Through raising the minimum wage, you create job growth in terms of people being able to put more money into the economy. You're [putting] less pressure on social welfare systems...the system is still subsidizing business [when the public provides] welfare and other social services."
Warren* argued a similar point.
"I think we have to be much more explicit about targeting the right the way that they've targeted us. There's a reason why the right has gone after public sector unionism," Warren* said. "They know that's where the heart of the labor movement is in terms of funding and in terms of membership. We have to get smarter about which parts of the right do we target to destroy ideologically, organizationally so that we can advance further our movements."
Source
NY Democrats Seek Citizen Rights for Illegal Immigrants
New York Post - September 15, 2014, by Carl Campanile - Illegal aliens in New York could score billions in Medicaid...
New York Post - September 15, 2014, by Carl Campanile - Illegal aliens in New York could score billions in Medicaid and college-tuition money — along with driver’s licenses, voting rights and even the ability to run for office — if Democrats win control of the state Senate in November, the Post has learned.
A little-known bill, dubbed “New York is Home,” would offer the most sweeping amnesty available anywhere in the country to nearly 3 million noncitizens living in the Empire State.
It would bar police from releasing any information about them to the feds, unless it involves a criminal warrant unrelated to their immigration status.
Under the proposed legislation, undocumented immigrants could also apply for professional licenses and serve on juries.
The plan hinges on Democrats — who now control both the governorship and the state Assembly — wresting control of the Senate from Republicans, who oppose immigration amnesty.
Bronx Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who is sponsoring the legislation in the upper chamber, said he thinks the bill would be in position to be passed “if we have a stable Democratic majority in the Senate.”
He also likened his measure to the campaigns to legalize same-sex marriage and medical marijuana.
“It’s something I believe in,” Rivera said Sunday night. “It’s something the state can do and should do.
Democratic Brooklyn Assemblyman Karim Camara, the chief Assembly sponsor, agreed that taking the Senate was key, saying “The bill would have a better shot at passing with a Democratic Senate.”
“I look forward [to] having a robust conversation about how significant this bill is.”
But the GOP plans on using the proposal to warn voters how radical New York would become if Democrats take charge.
Republicans are already referring to it as the “illegal immigrants benefits legislation” and will make the bill their poster child in elections in more conservative upstate and suburban districts.
“This bill could pass if the Democrats are in charge of the Senate. They’re out of their minds,” said Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn).
“This is astounding. This undermines our nation’s immigration laws and procedures.”
Said state Conservative Party chairman Mike Long: “This is absolutely amnesty. It disregards the laws of the United States. It’s unconscionable,” Long added.
The bill was introduced during the waning days of the legislative session in June, and is backed by immigrant-rights groups including Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy, and La Fuente.
GOP officials maintain that amnesty for illegal aliens would open the door to fraud and abuse and increase the risk of terrorism.
For example, the bill would let illegals vote in local and state elections, but they would be barred by federal law from voting for presidential or congressional candidates.
Mayor de Blasio pushed through a new city law that created a municipal ID card that provides some benefits to noncitizens.
Camara, chairman of the New York State Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, insisted that only immigrants who prove they have been living productively would get benefits under his bill.
They would also have to show that they have been living in New York for at least three years and have paid taxes to the state.
Source
What does the working class want? Better schedules.
What does the working class want? Better schedules.
Mirella Casares is a mother of two who juggles jobs at Victoria's Secret and Olive Garden to support her family. Her...
Mirella Casares is a mother of two who juggles jobs at Victoria's Secret and Olive Garden to support her family. Her schedules are posted monthly, but they frequently change, sometimes with as little as a few hours’ advance notice. Every night before going to bed, Mirella looks at her schedule and knows it could change the next day, forcing her to rejigger her day, scramble to find childcare, and, if her hours are cut, struggle to pay the bills that week and that month.
Read the full article here.
29 days ago
29 days ago