Groups sue feds over foreclosure fighting tactic
The Washington Post - December 5, 2013 - The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Federal Housing Finance...
The Washington Post - December 5, 2013 - The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Federal Housing Finance Agency, asking it to disclose efforts to stop municipalities from using eminent domain to bail out underwater homeowners and make its dealings with the financial industry more transparent.
The ACLU, Center for Popular Democracy and other nonprofits filed a freedom of information lawsuit against the agency Thursday in federal court in San Francisco.Richmond, Calif., was the first city to officially codify the divisive foreclosure fighting plan, which has drawn zealous opposition from Wall Street and Washington. Two lawsuits challenging the use of eminent domain have been thrown out, but will likely be refiled. The city has not yet used eminent domain to seize a mortgage.Irvington, N.J., is moving forward with the strategy, and the city council in Newark took its first steps toward moving forward with a plan Wednesday. Yonkers, N.Y., is considering it, but other places have scrapped the idea because of opposition from banks or legal hurdles.The agency said in August it may initiate legal challenges against municipalities that want to use eminent domain to fight foreclosures and could direct regulated entities to stop doing business in those places. The nonprofits said most of the cities exploring the use of eminent domain have been besieged by foreclosures and have predominantly low-income, minority populations.The nonprofits filed freedom of information requests with the agency in October, seeking communication between agency leadership and representatives of the banking, mortgage and financial industry, and records of meetings between the agency and financiers, among other requests.FHFA acknowledged, but did not complete, the requests, according to the lawsuit, so the groups sued. The nonprofits are asking for the documents to be procured on an expedited basis.“The FHFA has taken an aggressive stance on this issue in a way that has harmed minority communities. The public deserves to know why,” said Linda Lye, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, in a statement.A FHFA spokeswoman said the agency is not commenting on the lawsuit.By using eminent domain, municipalities can circumvent mortgage contracts, acquire loans from bondholders, write them down and give them back to the bondholders with reduced principals. According to Cornell University law professor Robert C. Hockett, who devised the plan, only government has the power to forcibly sidestep mortgage contracts.The tactic only works with so-called private label security mortgages, or ones that are not backed by the federal government.FHFA oversees government-backed loans owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. They cannot be seized by eminent domain.The lawsuit said one of the agency’s “statutory mandates is to help the housing market recover,” and threatening to sue municipalities that try to use eminent domain conflicts with that obligation.“By threatening legal action,” the suit said, the agency “effectively blocks the communities hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis from pursuing one potentially effective solution on behalf of their residents.”The suit also said the agency’s threats to deny credit to communities raises Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act concerns.Members of the financial industry have said they fear using eminent domain could be a slippery slope, and penalizes people who save and invest in mortgage-backed securities.In Washington, Texas Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling and Calif. Republican Rep. John Campbell proposed legislation that would bar the federal government from backing mortgages in places that use eminent domain to seize mortgages. SIFMA, a group that represents security firms, banks and asset managers and 11 other groups sent a letter to Congress opposing the use of eminent domain.Last month, 10 members of Congress sent a letter asking the head of FHFA to rescind its threat to sue places that use eminent domain.Source
Another retailer pulls plug on on-call scheduling
"Following discussions with my office, L Brands' (LB...
"Following discussions with my office, L Brands' (LB) subsidiary Bath & Body Works has agreed to end on-call shifts for employees in all U.S. stores next month," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Wednesday in a statement.
The agreement comes after the Columbus, Ohio-based retailer made the same moves at youth-focused retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) and underwear purveyor Victoria's Secret.
L Brands, which operates nearly 1,600 Bath & Body Works stores in the United States, declined to comment. A company source, however, said the company is phasing out on-call scheduling.
The company's move drew limited praise from one group advocating for workers, which said the change, while positive, still leaves troublesome policies in place.
"Since July, they have been relying on shift extensions at Victoria's Secret, which are on-call shifts by another name," Erin Hurley, an organizer for Rise Up Georgia in Atlanta, a partner of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy. "While we celebrate the step forward, we call on L Brands to take a definitive step toward a fair workweek by giving workers shifts with definite start and end times, and enough hours to support their families," added Hurley, a former Bath & Body Works employee.
Schneiderman in August said Gap (GPS) would this month end its policy of requiring workers to remain on-call for short-notice shifts after his office launched an inquiry, requesting information about scheduling practices from 13 retailers, including Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch and Bath & Body Works.
At the time, the attorney general said his office had received reports of more employers setting shifts the night before or even just a few hours in advance. The practice left workers with little time to arrange for childcare or work other jobs.
In New York, if workers shows up for a shift that they end up not being needed for, they're legally entitled to four hours of pay. Schneiderman's investigation delved into possible violations of that law.
"Employees deserve stable and reliable work schedules to adequately plan for childcare, transportation and other basic needs," Schneiderman said, adding that his inquiry had yielded "positive results for tens of thousands of workers."
Roughly a dozen states and a few municipalities have passed legislation addressing on-call scheduling, and a bill, the Schedules That Work Act, was reintroduced on Capitol Hill in July, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, among the sponsors.
"You can't win what you don't fight for," Warren told a news conference in acknowledging that the bill stood little chance of being enacted by the Republican-led Congress.
Source: CBS News
Lacker to Tell Congress the Fed Doesn’t Need an Overhaul
Lacker to Tell Congress the Fed Doesn’t Need an Overhaul
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker is set to tell a congressional panel Wednesday the U.S....
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker is set to tell a congressional panel Wednesday the U.S. central bank’s structure is effective, and that he is reluctant to see it altered in any major way.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lacker said the U.S. central bank—with its Washington-based board of governors and 12 quasiprivate, quasigovernmental regional banks across the country—“works well.”
The Federal Reserve, created more than a century ago, might seem like “an archaic structure, but the choices and trade-offs they were facing then are still relevant choices and trade-offs now. Our federated structure reflected a desire to ensure that the diversity of views were reflected in monetary policy,” he said.
Mr. Lacker spoke to the Journal on Thursday in his office overlooking the James River, ahead of speech in which he argued the Fed was increasingly likely to face trouble if it doesn’t raise short-term interest rates soon.
The veteran central banker—he is the longest-serving regional Fed bank president—and Kansas City Fed President Esther George are scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Committee on Financial Services’ Monetary Policy and Trade subcommittee. They will discuss the structure of their banks and “how it relates to the conduct of monetary policy and economic performance.”
The Fed in recent years has faced critics from the right and left who would like to change the way the central bank operates. Some Republican lawmakers, for example, want to give Congress more scrutiny over the Fed’s interest-rate-setting policy actions via formal government audits, something central bankers have long argued would make policy-making more political and ultimately less effective.
Some left-leaning activists and Democrats, including the campaign of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, have called for bankers to be removed from the boards overseeing the regional Fed banks.
Members of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign, working with a former top Fed staffer, have gone further. They have called for the regional Fed banks, which are technically owned by private banks via nonvoting shares, to be moved fully into government. The group also has sought a more open process to select bank presidents, and to take stock of their performance once they are on the job.
“I completely understand the heightened attention the Fed has gotten” in light of the dramatic actions it took over the course of the financial crisis and its aftermath, Mr. Lacker said. “We’re America’s central bank. And I think it’s a discussion worth having.”
Some of the criticism of the Fed owes to misunderstandings, Mr. Lacker said. But he added, “I’d agree we could do a better job of explaining our governance.”
By and large, Mr. Lacker said the current setup has proved to be the best in terms of setting policy and achieving the independence most economists believe is critical for effective central banking, a view shared by other regional Fed bank chiefs.
He said the regional banks, part-private and part-public organizations, are afforded independence to provide views protected from political interference. Turning the regional Fed banks into fully governmental institutions would compromise that and relieve the board of governors of a vital counterweight, Mr. Lacker said.
“Preserving that diversity of views, preserving the independence of the reserve bank president’s role in monetary policy, is an exceptionally high value,” he said.
Mr. Lacker also said the regional Fed banks’ boards of directors, drawn from a mix of local business and community leaders, as well as bankers, provide insight into local economic developments. These directors also offer operational insight to the central bank, a large service provider to financial institutions on a variety of fronts, he said.
The U.S. central bank, which is a major financial industry regulator, has long faced criticism because bankers serve on the boards of directors of the regional Fed banks. Critics say it is a conflict of interest because it allows banks to oversee their supervisor. Fed officials reject this view, saying that its regulatory activities, while carried out largely by the regional banks, are directed out of Washington.
“I think we all appreciate the—you know, I think [former Treasury Secretary and New York Fed President] Tim Geithner called it the optics issue, or optics problem” of the ownership structure and board composition, Mr. Lacker said. “As a practical matter, it’s not an issue.”
Mr. Lacker said that private bank ownership of the regional Fed banks isn’t like corporate ownership because the banks’ shares don’t have voting rights. He also said the regional boards have “a classic American governance role” and he rejected the idea that there would be any conflicts of interest faced by the board members.
Mr. Lacker said he welcomes meeting with Fed critics.
Many are activists “trying very hard to do what they can to improve lives. And you know, you can’t help but come away from conversations like that with a deep appreciation of the struggles and challenges that many of our—you know, many people in our country face,” Mr. Lacker said. He added, “I commend them for their interest in us and the willingness to engage in conversation with us.”
By Michael S. Derby
Source
Sorry: You Still Can't Sue Your Employer
Sorry: You Still Can't Sue Your Employer
From Applebee's to Uber, employers require workers to waive their rights to class-action lawsuits—but there's something...
From Applebee's to Uber, employers require workers to waive their rights to class-action lawsuits—but there's something cities can do to help them.
Read the full article here.
AG-elect Ellison announces transition team
AG-elect Ellison announces transition team
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes...
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes state legislators, prominent attorneys, union members — and even a past political opponent.
Read the full article here.
Host of issues converge to bring about scrutiny of NY Fed pick
Host of issues converge to bring about scrutiny of NY Fed pick
Progressive groups focus on unemployment. The "Fed Up" campaign has advocated keeping monetary policy stimulus in place...
Progressive groups focus on unemployment. The "Fed Up" campaign has advocated keeping monetary policy stimulus in place longer to drive unemployment lower. Fed officials, including John Williams, have favored raising the federal funds rate in small steps to avoid stimulating the economy too much and generating a large burst of inflation that could prove difficult to control.
Read the full article here.
13 Retailers Questioned By N.Y. Attorney General About Worker Scheduling
LA Times - April 13, 2015, by Samantha Masunaga - he scheduling practices of 13 retailers, including Gap Inc., Target...
LA Times - April 13, 2015, by Samantha Masunaga - he scheduling practices of 13 retailers, including Gap Inc., Target Corp. and Abercrombie & Fitch Co., are being scrutinized by New York Atty. Gen. Eric T. Schneiderman.
In a letter sent to the retailers, the attorney general's office said it had received reports that a growing number of employers, particularly in the retail industry, were requiring hourly employees to work on-call shifts. The office said it had “reason to believe” the 13 retailers might be using this kind of scheduling.
A New York state law requires that employees who are asked to come into work must be paid for at least four hours atminimum wage or the number of hours in the regularly scheduled shift, whichever is less, even if the employee is sent home.
California has a similar law that says employees must be paid for half of their usual time — two to four hours — if they are required to come in to work but are not needed or work less than their normal schedule.
The letter was also sent to J. Crew Group Inc.; L Brands, which owns Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works; Burlington Stores Inc.; TJX Cos.; Urban Outfitters Inc.; Sears Holdings Corp.; Williams-Sonoma Inc.; Crocs Inc.; Ann Inc., which owns Ann Taylor; and J.C. Penney Co.
The letters ask the retailers for more information about how they schedule employees for work, including whether they use on-call shifts and computerized scheduling programs.
Rachel Deutsch, an attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, a New York worker advocacy group, said on-call scheduling can make it difficult for workers to arrange child care or pick up a second job.
“These are folks that want to work,” she said. “They’re ready and willing to work, and some weeks they might get no pay at all even though they set aside 100% of their time to work.”
Danielle Lang, a Skadden fellow at Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles, said the attorney general’s action could have repercussions in other states.
“The New York attorney general is a powerful force,” she said. “It’s certainly an issue that’s facing so many of our low-wage workers in California, and anything that puts a highlight on this practice and really pressures employers to think about these practices is a good thing.”
Sears, Target and Ann Inc. said in separate statements that they do not have on-call shifts for their workers. J.C. Penney said it has a policy against on-call scheduling.
TJX spokeswoman Doreen Thompson said in a statement that company management teams “work to develop schedules that serve the needs of both our associates and our company.”
Gap said in a statement that the company has been working on a project with the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of the Law to examine workplace scheduling and productivity and will see the first set of data results in the fall.
“Gap Inc. is committed to establishing sustainable scheduling practices that will improve stability for our employees, while helping toeffectively manage our business,” spokeswoman Laura Wilkinson said.
The remaining companies did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
Source
Avengers Assemble! Scarlett Johansson shows off her chic pixie cut as she joins her co-stars including Robert Downey Jnr for benefit reading of classic play Our Town
Avengers Assemble! Scarlett Johansson shows off her chic pixie cut as she joins her co-stars including Robert Downey Jnr for benefit reading of classic play Our Town
She's known for her role as heroine Black Widow in the Marvel Avengers series, with the latest installment, Infinity...
She's known for her role as heroine Black Widow in the Marvel Avengers series, with the latest installment, Infinity War, set to hit UK cinemas in April 2018.
And Scarlett Johansson put her superhero status towards a good cause on Sunday, as she was spotted arriving at rehearsals for a benefit reading of Our Town.
The 32-year-old actress showed off her chic blonde pixie cut as she checked her script on the way into Atlanta's Fox Theatre, where she was joined by some of her Avengers co-stars.
Read the full article here.
America’s Biggest Corporations Are Quietly Boosting Trump's Hate Agenda
America’s Biggest Corporations Are Quietly Boosting Trump's Hate Agenda
Corporate Backers of Hate campaign calls on companies to end practices that benefit from Trump's agenda......
Corporate Backers of Hate campaign calls on companies to end practices that benefit from Trump's agenda...
Read full article here.
The Retail Industry is Marginalizing Women and People of Color. This Has to Change.
The Retail Industry is Marginalizing Women and People of Color. This Has to Change.
Source: In These Times...
Source: In These Times
The National Retail Federation is fond of pointing out that “retail means jobs.” And it’s true: the retail industry today provides one in ten private-sector jobs in the U.S., a number set to grow in the next decade.
Yet new findings show those jobs may be keeping retail workers and their families from rising up the career ladder, exacerbating our country’s growing inequality. The findings from the Center for Popular Democracy demonstrate that, for women and people of color especially, working in retail often means instability and low pay. Both groups make up the lion’s share of cashiers, movers, and other poorly paid positions and barely figure in the upper ranks of management. In general merchandise—including big-box stores such as Target and Wal-Mart—women hold more than 80 percent of cashier jobs, the lowest-paid position. And in the food and beverage industry, women make up approximately half of the workforce but less than a fifth of managers.
People of color in the retail industry are often relegated to the least lucrative jobs as well. In home and garden stores like Home Depot and Lowes, for example, employees of color account for 24 percent of the total workforce—but 36 percent of jobs that pay least.
The findings are especially disappointing given the opportunities available for those who succeed. Certain areas of retail, such as home and garden stores and car dealers, offer living wages to workers—but both women and people of color are largely shut out of these sub-sectors. And management jobs across the industry provide wages and benefits that can allow workers to support themselves and their families—but they are closed off to many.
Reducing these disparities will take more than a bigger paycheck. Retailers must make a concerted effort to establish policies that ensure women and people of color are equally represented in management positions and develop more robust training programs for workers just starting out that give them the chance to advance.
Many retailers have training policies in place, but they can be far from meaningful. Wal-Mart, for example, recently announced it was raising wages to $10, dependent on completion of a six-month training program—an onerous requirement to earn a pitifully low wage that lags well behind the retail sector average. Real training can introduce employees to a range of job duties and responsibilities, incentivizing them to learn specialized skills that allow workers to pick up shifts, advance to higher-paying positions, and bring home a full-time paycheck. Sectors like finance long ago recognized internal barriers to promotion and created programs to promote equal opportunity. Why do we not expect the same of retail?
Retailers that lack such programs, from Walmart to Gristedes, have faced multi-million-dollar class-action lawsuits from women harmed by policies that prevented them from moving upward. Companies that fail to enact real advancement policies can expect similar pushback.
Moreover, workers at the lowest levels are doubly punished with erratic, last-minute scheduling that wreaks havoc on their lives. These schedules are particularly difficult for women. Unable to find childcare at the last minute or unwilling to miss bedtime every night, moms in retail are often deemed ineligible for promotion. Ironically, climbing up the job ladder is the only way to obtain stable hours that let working women and their families thrive.
As these practices have grown worse, many workers have started fighting back, demanding schedules that let them plan their lives, be there for their families and pursue education.
Facing outside pressure, policymakers have also stepped in and accelerated the pace of change. Retailers demonstrated how fast they could change last year when they received a letter from New York’s Attorney General into their use of on-call scheduling. Within months, major retailers like The Gap agreed to significant reforms—and a quarter of a million workers no longer had to put their life on hold for a shift.
State and city policymakers are also leading the way to raise workplace standards, pursuing policies to raise wages to $15 per hour, secure improved work schedules, and guarantee earned sick time. Creating higher-paying, more secure retail jobs will boost the economy, as the low-income retail workforce will likely use any additional earnings to cover basic expenses.
Yet if industry leaders want retail to mean good jobs, they must step up to the plate. Retail workers are the neighbors who shop in our local small businesses; parents trying to help their kids with homework; students working their way through college. It’s clear that retail jobs are holding too many women and people of color back. Rather than superficial fixes, we need bold solutions that move all retail workers forward and allow their families to thrive.
1 month ago
1 month ago