Chicago's minimum wage fight officially kicks off with $15 proposal
Crain's Chicago Business - May 27, 2014, by Greg Hinz - Ending months of preliminaries, a group of 10 or more Chicago...
Crain's Chicago Business - May 27, 2014, by Greg Hinz - Ending months of preliminaries, a group of 10 or more Chicago aldermen tomorrow is expected to introduce legislation to bring a $15 minimum wage to Chicago.
But at least for now, the measure faces a very uphill road, with Mayor Rahm Emanuel believed to favor some increase but not one of that size.
News of tomorrow's development came from Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, who in a conference call with reporters today said that the measure raising the rate from the current $8.25 statewide figure would be phased in over time.
Mr. Sawyer did not provide further details but suggested that small businesses might be given more time to adapt than large companies.
He said "about 10" aldermen will co-sponsor the ordinance, most of them members of the City Council's progressive caucus. Another member of that group, Rick Munoz, 22nd, said he believes that, once introduced, the measure eventually will get support "in the high teens."
"In the high teens" is not enough to pass a bill in the 50-member City Council, where 26 votes are needed for a majority.
Mr. Emanuel last week appointed eight other aldermen to a panel that will recommend within 45 days how much to hike the minimum wage.
In announcing that move, the mayor did not say how much the wage should go up, only that it should rise because "Chicagoans deserve a raise." But, given Mr. Emanuel's extensive backing from business as he nears re-election, my suspicion is that he will end up favoring a hike that's less than that pushed by the Sawyer group. That would allow Mr. Emanuel to present himself as a moderate of sorts — someone who's for the working person but not an extremist.
Mr. Sawyer's announcement came at an event at which Raise Chicago, an advocacy group, released a report suggesting that a $15 minimum wage would bring substantial benefits.
Specifically, it said, the hike would boost wages in the city by a collective $1.5 billion, stimulating economic activity that would create 5,300 new jobs and $43 million in new tax revenue, while slashing job turnover rates "as much as 80 percent."
The move for an increase in the Illinois minimum wage is stalled, at least for now, but the issue has become a very hot subject nationally.
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For Some Starbucks Workers, Job Leaves Bitter Taste
CBS MoneyWatch - September 26, 2014, by Alain Sherter - Liberte Locke, a 32-year-old "barista" at a Starbucks (...
CBS MoneyWatch - September 26, 2014, by Alain Sherter - Liberte Locke, a 32-year-old "barista" at a Starbucks (SBUX) in New York City, is fed up.
"Starbucks' attitude is that there's always someone else can who can do the job," she said in running through her complaints about life at the java giant.
If that isn't necessarily the consensus among Starbucks workers, interviews with nine current and former baristas at the company make clear it's not an isolated opinion, either. Even those who say they like their job paint a picture of a business that underpays front-line workers, enforces work rules arbitrarily and too often fails to strike a balance between corporate goals and employee needs.
Of course, such complaints are nothing new in retail, where low pay and erratic schedules are the norm. But by its own account, Starbucks is no ordinary company and is ostensibly a far cry from the fast-food outlets now facing a nationwide uprising by employees tired of working for peanuts.
That's evident in the company's recruitment pitch. Starbucks invites job-seekers to "become a part of something bigger and inspire positive change in the world," describing it as a chance to discover a "deep sense of purpose."
Damage control
That image suffered a serious blow last month after The New York Times vividly chronicled a Starbucks worker struggling with the company's scheduling practices. The story, which centered on a 22-year-old barista and single mother, amounted to a public relations nightmare for Starbucks. Perhaps not coincidentally, within days of the story's publication top executives were promising reform.
In a memo to employees earlier this month, for instance, Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead vowed to "transform the U.S. partner experience," referring to Starbucks' more than 130,000 baristas. Inviting worker feedback, he said Starbucks will examine its approach to employee pay, revisit its dress code, make it easier for people to ask for time off, and consider other changes aimed at helping baristas balance work and their personal lives.
Among other changes, the company said it would end the practice of "clopening," when an employee responsible for closing a store late at night is also assigned to open it early in the morning.
"We recognize that we can do more for our partners who wear the apron every day," he wrote.
Some baristas did not feel this August memo from Starbucks went far enough in proposing ways to improve work conditions, so they marked it up with their own ideas.
Although Starbucks workers welcome this pledge to respect the apron, they fear the company is more intent on dousing the PR flames than on genuinely improving employees' experience. After the retailer last month sent an email to workers outlining possible solutions to the kind of scheduling problems and related issues detailed by the Times, a group of baristas gave the proposal a C- and posted online a marked-up version of the memo listing their own demands (image above).
"We hope you're ready for a commitment to give us schedules that don't mess with taking care of kids, going to school or holding onto that second job we need because Sbux wages don't make ends meet," wrote the baristas, who are working with a union-backed labor group, the Center for Popular Democracy.
Retail jungle
Despite the recent media focus on Starbucks, the company's labor practices are generally no worse than those of many large retailers. In some ways they're better, with the company offering health care to part-time, as well as full-time, workers; unusually generous 401(k) matching contributions; annual stock grants to employees; and tuition reimbursement.
Starbucks highlights such benefits as an example of its commitment to employees. "Sharing success with one another has been core to the company's heritage for more than 40 years," Alstead said in the September memo.
Meanwhile, some baristas say they enjoy their work and feel valued by Starbucks. "It's a decent place to work, and my manager and co-workers are great," said one employee who asked not to be identified.
But other current and former workers claim Starbucks has changed in recent years, saying that corporate leaders' intense focus on slashing costs has short-circuited its professed commitment to workers. Mostly, they say Starbucks doesn't listen to employees and even punishes those who identify problems.
"The biggest problem is that baristas don't have a voice," said Sarah Madden, a former Starbucks barista who left the company this spring after two years with the coffee vendor. "They can't speak to issues that they know exist. Workers know how to fix them, but when [they] speak up there are serious repercussions -- your hours get cut, you're transferred to another store or isolated from other people."
Employees interviewed for this article said one result of Starbucks' cost-containment push is that stores are frequently understaffed, hurting customer service and forcing managers to scramble to find staff. That problem is common across the big-box stores that dominate the retail sector, experts said.
"One the one hand, retailers overhire, but they're also understaffed, so everybody's running around and then there aren't enough people on the floor," said Susan Lambert, a professor at the University of Chicago and an expert in work-life issues. "Companies are effectively loading all the risk onto workers so that they're not the ones incurring the risks inherent in business."
Starbucks denies that its stores are short-staffed. "We're proud of the level of service we provide in our stores," said Zack Hutson, a spokesman for the company. "We know that the connection our partners have with customers is the foundation of the Starbucks experience. It wouldn't be in our best interest. We want our customers to have the appropriate service level when they come to our stores."
To be sure, Starbucks is hardly the only U.S. corporate giant to keep a gimlet eye on its bottom line -- among Fortune 500 companies that approach to management is the rule, not the exception, and CEOs across the land defend it as an inviolable fiduciary duty to shareholders.
But baristas say Starbucks' focus on profits and cost-cutting has increasingly led its leadership to tune workers out. Locke, who has worked for the company since 2006 and who earns roughly $16,000 a year, said she yearned for the Starbucks of old.
"When I started they had a training program and taught you how to be a coffee expert. There was more of a culture of supporting each other as co-workers. Store managers were sympathetic. I really enjoyed it."
Asked why she stays at Starbucks, Locke said her employment options are limited because she lacks a college education and because her only professional experience is in retail.
Living wage?
According to workers, the best thing Starbucks can do for its apron-wearers is to raise their pay and offer full-time hours instead of the 20 to 30 hours that most employees work.
Samantha Cole, a barista in Omaha, Neb., said she struggles to get by on her supervisor's salary of $11.25 an hour. Such pay may be better than what she would earn working for other retailers, but the 30-year-old mother of two say it's still not a living wage.
"I'm definitely not making enough money," said Cole, who has been with the company for six years. "A lot of us are right there with what fast-food workers are making."
Such frustrations are also evident in comments on the Facebook page Starbucks uses to communicate with employees and where it is asking baristas for input regarding the company's labor practices. Wrote one employee: "I've worked for the company for 7 years in January, and I don't make enough to support myself on one job so I work 2 jobs, 6 days a week.... I've seen a lot of amazing partners leave because they don't make enough."
Starbucks declined to disclose compensation data, citing competitive reasons and saying that pay varies widely according to workers' experience and where in the U.S. stores are located. It didn't respond to emails requesting clarification regarding other aspects of its labor policies.
It's worth noting that low pay isn't unique to Starbucks -- in retail it is the norm. As of 2012 (the latest year for which data is available), the median hourly income for retail salespeople is $10.29 per hour, or $21,410 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hourly pay for full-time retail workers range from a high of $14.42 to $9.61 for lower-paid people, according to Demos, a liberal-leaning think tank in New York. Part-timers typically make much less, with the average cashier earning $18,500 a year.
"Until [Starbucks] gives a living wage to every employee, they can't claim to be a good employer," Locke said, who added that it has been roughly two years since her last pay raise.
"Race to the bottom"
Another priority for baristas: stable, regular schedules. Like most large retailers, Starbucks uses scheduling software to try to match the number of workers it has in a store at any given time to the amount of business it gets. Workers also may be scheduled according to the sales they generate or their facility in promoting certain products. The technology also can enable other savings, such as limiting overtime.
For employees, however, that approach -- known as "just-in-time" or "on-call" scheduling -- often results in lower income and chaotic hours.
Stephanie Luce, a professor of labor studies at City University of New York's Murphy Institute, characterizes the widespread adoption of scheduling and so-called workforce optimization technologies as a "new race to the bottom."
"Companies that have already reduced operating costs by making deals with irresponsible subcontractors and using the cheapest available materials are now cutting corners in the form of the 'just-in- time scheduling' of their workforce," she and her co-authors wrote in a recent report. "These 'lean' manufacturing practices take advantage of sophisticated software and an increasingly desperate workforce to cut labor costs to the bone."
By the same token, tighter control of worker schedules helps Starbucks contain payroll costs. But it also means employees who had expected to work a certain number of hours every week can see their schedules dramatically cut back and fluctuate wildly. The result? Smaller paychecks and a disturbance to family life.
"It makes it very hard for parents to participate in an intimate family routine and structure it in such a way that experts agree is good for children," Lambert said.
Irregular schedules also make it hard for workers who do need extra income to work a second job, schedule appointments and plan other aspects of their lives.
Baristas said Starbucks posts their schedule only days in advance and that they are often subject to change. Following the Times story, Starbucks said it would post schedules at least one week in advance. That's not enough time, several workers said, asking the company to provide at least two or three weeks notice, as retailers ranging from Walmart (WMT) and H&M to Victoria's Secret (LB) do.
Meanwhile, despite Starbucks' promise to end clopening, the practice continues, some workers said, although the company insists that this is only in cases when people request such shifts.
"Partners should never be required to work opening and closing shifts. That policy is clear," Starbucks' Hutson said, adding that the company is studying ways to give workers more input in their schedules. "If there are cases where that's not happening, we want to know about that."
Given the scrutiny on Starbucks, the company can count on baristas to do just that.
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#WeRise Supporters Rally at the NH Statehouse
Concord Patch - March 13, 2015, by Tony Schinella - About 40 people gathered at the Statehouse this week to protest a...
Concord Patch - March 13, 2015, by Tony Schinella - About 40 people gathered at the Statehouse this week to protest a political system rigged on behalf of big corporations and the wealthy, according to a press statement.
The rally was part of a “Day of Action” involving thousands of protesters in 16 states across the country.
In Concord, the event drew activists from NH Citizens Action, the NH Rebellion, American Friends Service Committee, Open Democracy, Granite State Progress, People For the American Way, Every Child Matters and other New Hampshire organizations.
“Congress needs to stop acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of multinational corporations,” said Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and Head Stamper of StampStampede.org told the protesters. “When billions of dollars are being poured into our elections, government stops serving the people and serves the corporations instead.”
Cohen cited a Sunlight Foundation study showing that politically-active corporations get back $760 in government benefits for every dollar they spend influencing politics. “People watch this stuff happening, and they’re angry about it. People in both parties are angry about it. Our elected officials are supposed to be serving us, their constituents, and instead they’re spending our tax dollars subsidizing corporations.”
“It’s time to take our government back,” Cohen said. “If ‘We the People’ can’t out-spend the corporations, we can at least out-shout them. That’s why StampStampede.org is turning US currency into millions of miniature political billboards, by legally stamping it with messages like ‘Not to Be Used for Bribing Politicians.’ Every stamped dollar bill is seen by about 875 people. That means if one person stamps three bill a day for a year, the message will reach almost 1 million people. It’s a petition on steroids,” said Cohen.
There are over 30,000 stampers across the country and hundreds in New Hampshire. StampStampede.org has also recruited over 50 small businesses in the state to set up small point-of-purchase stamping stations where customers can stamp their dollars, buy a stamp and learn more about the influence of money in politics.
“Our goal is to stamp 3.4 million bills – that’s 10% of the currency in New Hampshire – before next February’s presidential primary,” said Cohen, “It’s monetary jiu-jitsu – we’re using money to get money out of politics”
The nationwide “Day of Action” was sponsored by National People’s Action, Center for Popular Democracy, and USAction. “All across the country, families are taking to the streets, parks and state capitols to send a clear message: ‘Our statehouses and our cities belong to us. It’s time for legislators to enact our bold agenda to put people and planet first.’”
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In The Battle To Raise Minimum Wages, Businesses Opposed Are Outgunned
In The Battle To Raise Minimum Wages, Businesses Opposed Are Outgunned
This is the third post in a series about ballot measures to raise the minimum wage in Colorado and three other states....
This is the third post in a series about ballot measures to raise the minimum wage in Colorado and three other states. The first post introduced a restaurateur in Denver who supports the increase and the national organization that persuaded him to go public with that support, is here. The second looked at how the provision could widen inequality among servers and kitchen workers.
There are 32 mostly state and local business associations that have signed on to Keep Colorado Working, the coalition formed to fight Amendment 70, which would raise the state’s minimum wage through a constitutional amendment. Only one of them, however, has actually contributed money to fight the ballot measure: The Colorado Restaurant Association and its political action committee have spent $359,000, which makes it the single largest Colorado contributor to campaign, which has raised $1.7 million to date.
Indeed, while dozens of local food services businesses have chipped at least $105,000 to the effort, which has raised $1.7 million to date, more than $1 million has come into the coalition’s coffers from out of state, including $850,000 from a shadowy business group called the Workforce Fairness Institute. Other large national contributors include Darden, the Olive Garden’s parent corporation, and the National Restaurant Association.
But all this is far less than the $2 to $3 million that opponents had anticipated spending to try and defeat the amendment. And it is dwarfed by the $5.2 million that advocates for the vote, working under the name Colorado Families for a Fair Minimum Wage, have raised. Most of their money has come from national unions and union-backed organizations like The Fairness Project and progressive philanthropies like the Center for Popular Democracy and the Civic Participation Action Fund.
In a campaign awash with money, the efforts of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, which has been organizing Colorado businesses to support the amendment, are fairly modest. Business for a Fair Minimum Wage founder and C.E.O. Holly Sklar won’t say how much her group is spending in Colorado, but the effort is being funded by Dr. Bronner’s, the organic soap-maker with a long history of activism. (She declines to further identify its funders, except to say that they comprise businesses and foundations.) Dr. Bronner’s has made raising the minimum wage a top company priority, even relabeling some of its soap bottles with “Fair Pay Today!” “People should be able to make ends meet on the wages they get,” says David Bronner, C.E.O. of his family’s company, which is registered as a benefit corporation. “They should not have to rely on inefficient government programs like food stamps and housing assistance. Taxpayers should not have to subsidize companies using the welfare system to keep wages low.”
Bronner says his company has given about $75,000 to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. “We really like what they’re doing,” he says. “I think it’s really important that policy makers hear from business owners, that business owners too see value in raising the minimum wage, and it isn’t just about labor groups and worker rights.”
Outside of Colorado, business groups have mounted little more than token opposition. In each of Arizona, Maine, and Washington, where advocates have raised over $1 million to promote their respective ballot measures, opponents have raised $100,000 or less, according to state campaign finance records. The Arizona Restaurant Association sued to try and prevent the minimum wage from making the November ballot, but hasn’t spent any money combating it since then. (The group’s president and C.E.O., Steve Chucri, didn’t respond to requests for comment.) The state chamber of commerce has agreed to kick in $20,000.
In Maine, the state restaurant association has spent nearly $78,000 to fight the ballot amendment through its political action committee, but apart from small contributions from Darden ($7,500) and the National Restaurant Association ($2,500), the opposition has recorded no contributions from out of state.
It’s not clear — even to some of the principals — why Colorado became the battlefield of choice in the fight over minimum wage at the expense of media outlets in Arizona, Maine, and Washington. “Why they’re not putting money to fight it here is a mystery to me,” says Maine Restaurant Association president and C.E.O. Steve Hewins of the national organizations, though he allows that “Maine to a degree is off a lot of radar screens.”
The National Restaurant Association declined to respond directly to Hewins’s charge of neglect. But in an emailed statement, the organization’s spokesman, Steve Danon, wrote, “While we work in partnership, our state restaurant associations take the lead on these issues, as they know what works best for restaurateurs in their state. We’ve been vocal on opposing drastic increases to the minimum wage overall.” The Workforce Fairness Institute and Darden didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But Tyler Sandberg, who is managing the Keep Colorado Working campaign, suggests that perhaps national groups are drawn to the Colorado initiative because, as a constitutional amendment, it “is the worst-written of all of them.” But he also says he’s made a point of soliciting those contributions. “When we saw all the national money coming in on the other side, we realized we would have to fight fire with fire and seek national contributions as well.”
Sklar says her pro-wage-hike business group is focusing on Colorado because the Arizona and Washington measures also include paid sick leave, which is beyond her group’s scope, and in Maine a local small-business coalition is pressing the case.
In any event, the vast sums spent in Colorado appear to have made little difference. Polls in all four states show the wage increase winning by similar margins, with 55 percent to 60 percent of voters backing it.
By Robb Mandelbaum
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Dem lawmakers hear demands for ‘reparations’; but let’s call it THIS so nobody gets ‘uncomfortable’
Leaders of the Black Lives Matter group received widespread applause from a crowd of Democratic state legislators,...
Leaders of the Black Lives Matter group received widespread applause from a crowd of Democratic state legislators, Friday, for suggesting the government award the black community reparations for “systematic discrimination in law enforcement.”
“Thinking about decriminalization with reparations—the idea is we that have extracted literally millions of dollars from communities, we have destroyed families,” said Marbre Shahly-Butts, deputy director of racial justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, during her address at the State Innovation Exchange in Washington, D.C. “Mass incarceration has led to the destruction of communities across the country. We can track which communities, like we have that data.”
“And so if we’re going to be decriminalizing things like marijuana, all of the profit from that should go back to the folks we’ve extracted it from,” she continued.
The focus of state legislators should be “state budgets and then reparations,” Shahly-Butts said.
“‘Reparations’ makes people kind of uncomfortable, so we can call it ‘reinvestment’ if you want to. Use whatever language makes you happy inside,” she said.
Fellow panelist Dante Barry, executive director of the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, also recommended some type of “reinvestment” to help black youth and said New York City would be better off investing $100 million in the black community rather than hiring more police.
“In terms of response around black youth unemployment, it gets back to this whole piece around reinvestment,” Barry said. “What would you do with $100 million? How would we better use that money to provide jobs for unemployed youth, to provide housing, to have mental health access. … It’s really about how do we rethink some of our budgetary needs and how we’re putting power behind the way that we can really incorporate reinvestment in communities.”
If there were one policy he would want state legislators to prioritize, Barry said it would be a ban on all guns on campus.
Source: Biz Pac Review
Wells Fargo’s at the Bottom of the Heap
BeyondChron - March 14, 2013, by Christina Livingston - When it comes to foreclosing on Californians, it looks like...
BeyondChron - March 14, 2013, by Christina Livingston - When it comes to foreclosing on Californians, it looks like Wells Fargo may take the prize. According to a report released this week, Wells Fargo is responsible for more homes in the foreclosure pipeline in California than any other single lender.
Wells Fargo is servicing the most loans, but they are providing less principal reduction to struggling borrowers than either Bank of America and Chase – who themselves should be doing more! Wells Fargo trails behind Bank of America and Chase when it comes to the amount of principal reduction given with first lien loan modifications, according to the Monitor of the multi-state Attorneys General settlement with the five big mortgage servicers.
This is the very same Wells Fargo that just had its most profitable year ever in 2012, with earnings of $19 billion.
The report, California in Crisis: How Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Pipeline Is Damaging Local Communities, by ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), the Center for Popular Democracy and the Home Defenders League, shows the harm coming to homeowners, communities and the economy unless Wells Fargo reverses its course and averts some or all of the impending foreclosures.
Click here to download the report.
The report uses data from Foreclosure Radar to look at loans currently in the foreclosure pipeline in California – meaning loans that have a Notice of Default or Notice of Trustee Sale. Of the 65,466 loans in the foreclosure pipeline, close to 20% of them are serviced by Wells Fargo.
If Wells Fargo’s 11,616 distressed loans go through foreclosure, California will take a next $3.3 billion hit: Each home will lose approximately 22 percent of its value, for a total loss of approximately $1.07 billion; homes in the surrounding neighborhood will lose value as well, for an additional loss of about $2.2 billion; and government tax revenues will be cut by $20 million, as a result of the depreciation.
And not surprisingly, African American and Latino communities will be particularly hard-hit. The report includes maps for seven major cities showing minority density and dots for each of Wells Fargo’s distressed loans. In city after city, they are heavily clustered in neighborhoods with high African American and Latino populations.
“My community has been absolutely devastated by the foreclosure crisis, and I put a lot of the blame at the doorstep of Wells Fargo,” says ACCE Home Defenders League member Vivian Richardson. “Wells Fargo’s heartless and unfair foreclosure practices are sending far more homes into foreclosure than is necessary.”
“Our communities and our entire State are still reeling from the housing crisis, and will be for years to come,” said San Francisco Supervisor David Campos. “As this report shows, the numbers of homes still facing foreclosure is enormous. Principal reduction is clearly a critical strategy for saving homes and stabilizing the economy. Wells Fargo and the other major banks should be doing more of it.”
The report recommends:
1. Wells Fargo should commit to a broad principal reduction program. This means that every homeowner facing hardship should be offered a loan modification, when Wells has the legal authority to do so. The modification should be based on an affordable debt-to-income ratio, achieved through a waterfall that prioritizes principal reduction and interest rate reductions. Junior liens must also be modified.
2. Wells Fargo should report data on its principal reduction, short sales, and foreclosures by race, income, and zip code. Wells Fargo must be more transparent about its mortgage practices. The bank has an egregious history of harming California’s African American and Latino communities through predatory and discriminatory lending. To show the public that it has reformed, Wells Fargo must make this data available. The people of California need to know that Well Fargo is no longer discriminating against people of color and is fairly and equitably providing relief to homeowners and to the hardest hit communities.
3. Wells Fargo should immediately stop all foreclosures until the first two demands are met In the event that it takes a few months to set up a fully functioning principal reduction program, Wells Fargo needs to immediately stop all foreclosures. Wells Fargo has done enough harm. It’s time to stop. California deserves a break.
ACCE is waging a campaign to push Wells Fargo to be a leader in California, their home state, in saving homes – beginning with their performance to comply with the Attorneys General Settlement and with the Homeowner Bill of Rights, but not ending there.
Click here to sign on to a letter to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf to support the campaign demands.
Author info: Christina Livingston is the Executive Director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. ACCE is a multi-racial, democratic, non-profit community organization building power in low to moderate income neighborhoods to stand and fight for social, economic and racial justice. ACCE has chapters in eleven counties across the State of California. For more information visit http://www.calorganize.org/ or follow ACCE on twitter@CalOrganize
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Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
Commentary: I need the economy to give me a fair chance
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's...
I'VE ALWAYS enjoyed talking with people, and, as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in the hotel industry. It's been my dream to work with guests at the front desk to make sure they have the best experience possible.
As an African-American woman, I knew that lucky breaks weren't going to be handed to me, so I did everything I could to achieve my dreams. I went to school and got my bachelor's degree in hospitality and hotel management in 2000 from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
However, apart from a brief internship after college at the Best Western and a year at the Hilton working at the switchboard, which was almost a decade ago, I haven't been able to find work in my chosen field - a field in which I have a degree.
I've heard people say the recession is over because the unemployment rate is about 5 percent. But I can tell you that things are still really bad in the black community. Currently, unemployment for blacks is about 9 percent.
I've always been politically active and serve as the judge of elections in my voting district. So when I heard about a campaign that calls on the Federal Reserve to ensure that everybody gets decent paying work, including black folks, I was eager to join.
When I got my degree 16 years ago, the economy was in decent shape. Armed with my degree, the internship experience and good recommendations, I didn't expect to have any problems getting a job in a hotel. I applied to two dozen jobs and, after being turned down at all of them, I had to take other kinds of jobs in food service or customer service.
Finally, after many years, I got my switchboard job at the Hilton. Even though I was getting only $10 an hour, I was excited to finally be working at a hotel and thought I would just stay there and work my way up. But the recession hit in 2008, and I was laid off a year later.
That's when things became really tough. The recession hit African-American women, even college-educated ones like me, particularly hard. I've worked on and off since 2008, but finding good work has become almost impossible. At one point, I was traveling two hours each way to get to my job at a state-run liquor store.
I eventually had to quit when I suffered severe medical issues. I was diagnosed with a neurological condition and uterine fibroids, all within a matter of months. A couple of years ago, I was able to work again and joined a job skills program. The program placed me at a job where I work part-time - only 20 hours a week - as a cashier and food server at a university dining hall.
The unemployment rate apparently counts people like me as employed, even though I don't work enough hours to pay my bills. I'm overqualified and underpaid (I earn $11.25 an hour), but since I'm working - even though I'm still on Medicaid and food stamps - I'm used as evidence to say the recession is over.
Involuntary part-time unemployment is a more accurate figure to look at. It's over 15 percent for blacks! That's a whole lot of people who aren't making ends meet, but are still being counted as working.
People need to know that the Federal Reserve has incredible power over the economy and people's lives. It might seem very abstract, but it's not. If the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates low, the economy will continue to grow and people like me will be able to find full-time jobs or better paying work. If it raises rates because it claims the economy is doing well, it will be tougher for everyone to find jobs.
I'm going to Jackson Hole, Wyo., next week to join a protest against the Federal Reserve, which holds a symposium there every year. We want the president of the Philadelphia Fed, Patrick Harker, and the rest of the Fed, to see what regular folks go through beyond the numbers in the headlines.
Every week, I still go online to look for jobs at large hotel chains. I know that one of these days I will work at a hotel again. I just need the economy to give me a fair chance.
Salwa Shabazz lives in Philadelphia and is a member of the Fed Up campaign, an initiative of the Center for Popular Democracy.
By Salwa Shabazz
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Under Trump, local governments become activists
Under Trump, local governments become activists
Christine Knapp had been on maternity leave for nearly three months, but on Wednesday the director of the mayor’s...
Christine Knapp had been on maternity leave for nearly three months, but on Wednesday the director of the mayor’s Office of Sustainability hoisted a diaper bag on her shoulder, packed her 11-week-old daughter, Sabine, into a stroller, maneuvered into a creaky elevator in City Hall, and rode up to the mayor’s reception room. This was just too important to miss.
Read the full article here.
'Welcome to Florida!'
'Welcome to Florida!'
“The Hispanic Federation, a group that outraised most of the other groups for Puerto Rico relief efforts, called a...
“The Hispanic Federation, a group that outraised most of the other groups for Puerto Rico relief efforts, called a meeting in October in New York, which led to the creation of Power For Puerto Rico, a coalition that includes longtime Latino civil rights organization Unidos.us, Make the Road, the Center for Popular Democracy, and Hedgeclippers (an organization focused on exposing the connections between Wall Street and Puerto Rico’s debt crisis).”
Read the full article here.
Activist groups march in Pittsburgh for People's Convention
Activist groups march in Pittsburgh for People's Convention
Hundreds of protesters attending the People's Convention in Downtown Pittsburgh took about two hours to march Friday in...
Hundreds of protesters attending the People's Convention in Downtown Pittsburgh took about two hours to march Friday in hot, humid weather from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center to Station Square.
The march, which started at 2:30 p.m., made stops at the U.S. Steel Building and the Allegheny County Courthouse on Grant Street before ending at Station Square.
Marchers carried hand-painted, cardboard busts of presidential candidate Donald Trump and UPMC CEO Jeffrey Romoff, orange butterflies on bamboo poles, and banners bearing the slogan, "still we rise." Chants rose above the din of after traffic as prosters cried phrases like, "No justice, no peace," and "Ain't no power like the power of the people, because the power of the people don't stop."
At Seventh and Grant Street, police and marchers talked. One woman took a selfie with an officer — typical of the friendly exchanges between protesters and police.
Jose Lopez, of Brooklyn said he attended the march with Make the Road New York, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant rights.
"It's been really great. We have a lot of working people with us. A lot of our folks don't have the wages or the opportunity to meet the community and get off the block. So it's great to be here."
Pittsburgh police maintained a visible presence along the parade route. Officers on motorcycles and bicycles assembled before the march.
The march has been planned for some time, but it comes less than 24 hours after five Dallas police officers were fatally shot during a march protesting the recent shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana by police officers.
Seven other Dallas officers were injured in an incident President Barack Obama said "horrified" America.
Erin Morey, of Mt. Lebanon, came out to show support, particularly for Martin Esqivel Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant who was arrested at his Pittsburgh home and faces deportation.
"Every voice should be heard," said Morey, whose son Max accompanied her. "I want to support an open dialogue."
The progressive groups involved in the Pittsburgh march were hosted by the Center for Popular Democracy. They voiced concerns regarding immigration, labor, environmental and civil rights causes. The group stopped at the courthouse, but officials there had already sent civilian workers home for the day and closed the building at 2:30 p.m.
"Right now, it's going great," said Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay, who walked along with the marchers, shaking hands and chatting with reporters.
"I expected to find the atmosphere more tense," he said.
McLay said the officers he'd spoken with remained positive.
"I'm really, really proud of them," he said. "Right now, they're so focused on the task before them, they're not thinking about feelings," he said.
Some marchers delivered a sharper message with a red banner that said "fire killer cops."
Among others, the groups marched by the offices of the Federal Reserve, Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Bank of New York Mellon and even train tracks, which the groups say carry crude oil, which is targeted by climate change opponents.
Toomey stayed away from his Station Square office on Pittsburgh's South Shore. Instead, the Lehigh Valley Republican held a news conference on the North Shore to express his support for law enforcement.
"It was not a good place to be," Toomey said of Station Square.
Toomey described the viral images of fatal police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota as "very disturbing," and said both incidents need to be thoroughly investigated. But the shooting rampage that left five police officers dead and seven others wounded in Dallas "has no possible justification," Toomey said.
"The vast majority of officers are good, decent, honest and hard-working individuals," Toomey said. "What is completely wrong is the narrative that somehow cops generally are the bad guys. That narrative is something I have been pushing back on because it's wrong."
Toomey's election opponent, Democrat Katie McGinty, also shared support for police and called for thorough investigations of the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota.
In messages posted to Twitter, the city police department offered condolences to Dallas police and Gov. Tom Wolf ordered flags to be flown at half staff.
In Greensburg, the police department posted a lengthy message on Facebook that served, in part, to remind readers that police officers are human beings who are part of a larger community.
Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik held a Mass at noon for about 70 people at Saint Mary of Mercy Church in Downtown to pray for peace and reconciliation in light of the Dallas shootings.
"Yesterday was Dallas, Wednesday was Baton Rouge, Tuesday was St. Paul. And Monday, July 4th our own Wood Street. Violence continues," Zubik said during the sermon.
"Where will it be today, where will it be tomorrow? Will it stop? Do we want it to stop?" he said.
Zubik compared violence to a disease and said that it rips families apart. He asked for attendees to think of the communities affected by violence across the nation, as they are neighbors and that it was senseless to direct blame at "one group of individuals." He said "it's imperative to tear down our own prejudices."
Zubik reminded the group that there's no competition for "whose life matters most," invoking the Black Lives Matter movement. The service ended with a prayer for first responders and others involved in public safety.
"I thought the sermon was incredible," said Marie Atria of Mt. Lebanon, "this is all terrible and it has to stop."
The Church said it was a normal attendance for a midday Friday mass. Pittsburgh has a potential for violence, but the "overwhelming response from the citizens of Western Pennsylvania is they're working for peace," Zubik said.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald released a joint statement regarding the violence in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas:
"Today, our nation is in mourning for the deaths of so many in our community. We are hurt, angry, confused and in pain as we struggle to cope with the violence plaguing us. Our answer to the violence in our community cannot be more violence. Pittsburgh's strength has always been in coming together to solve issues and supporting each other in times of need. We rely on that strength and we need it now more than ever.
"We have great faith that all of us – residents, communities, law enforcement, activists – have the capacity to come together to heal from our pain and anger, no matter how difficult that may be for us. We can do more to honor the lives of those who were killed by working together to stop the violence and have a more peaceful community."
Peduto called for a "peace summit" to be held next week, but a date hasn't been determined.
Reporting by Max Siegelbaum, Megan Guza, Justin Merriman and Matthew Santoni.
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