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
More than one thousand march downtown in Black Lives Matter protest
More than one thousand march downtown in Black Lives Matter protest
To first-time organizer Sarafina Davis, Saturday’s Black Lives Matter protest was about one thing: The death of people...
To first-time organizer Sarafina Davis, Saturday’s Black Lives Matter protest was about one thing: The death of people who look like her.
“Our black men are being killed on these streets and there is no accountability,” Davis, a Pittsburgh resident, said.
Spreading fast through social media, Saturday’s demonstration started at Point State Park, where two separate groups gathered before meeting under the I-279 overpass. The protesters then made a loop through Downtown, along Liberty Avenue, Sixth Street, Grant Street and Fort Pitt Boulevard before returning to Point State Park. The march, coming after a week of carnage, lasted nearly three hours.
Police placed the number of protestors between 1,200 and 1,300 strong at its peak on Sixth Avenue.
Davis had never been involved in activism before this weekend but was drawn in because of concern for her children.
“[I realized] that could be my kid,” Davis said, referring to deaths like that of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Early Tuesday morning, Sterling was killed during a police confrontation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in a parking lot where he sold homemade CDs. On Wednesday, Castile, a school cafeteria supervisor, was killed during a traffic stop in St. Paul, Minnesota. Both deaths were filmed and went viral on social media.
An otherwise peaceful protest of hundreds of people in downtown Dallas Thursday night turned violent when 25-year-old Micah Johnson shot police officers, killing five and injuring seven.
At Pittsburgh’s protest, concern for the next generations inspired activist Rod Adams, from Minneapolis, who was in town for the People’s Convention, a weekend gathering of more than 1,500 people from community organizations across the country to discuss confronting social issues such as immigration and economic inequality.
“They are not only killing us, they are killing our future,” Adams said.
After two groups of protesters combined in Point State Park, they marched up Liberty Avenue before hooking onto Sixth Avenue.
Adams was out in front of the demonstration for the majority of the march, which swelled in numbers as it moved through Downtown.
“People were coming out of their businesses and taking off their aprons [to join the march],” Adams said.
The protesters stopped outside the Port Authority Building for 10 minutes to protest the January killing of Bruce Kelley Jr. in Wilkinsburg. Port Authority police shot and killed Kelley, who was black, after he stabbed and killed a police dog. After a five-month review that ended in June, the Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala found the two officers were justified in their use of force.
But Kelley’s case still makes Juliandra Jones, a Pittsburgh resident, concerned about police conduct with black people.
“We need to better train police officers in how to handle situations with minorities,” Jones said. By protesting, she hoped “the government would properly look at its policies.”
While Kelley was armed, reporting by The Guardian has shown that black people are more likely to be killed by police than white people regardless of situation, with 7.13 black people killed per million people, compared to 2.91 white people killed per million.
On Sixth Street, the protest erupted in an optimistic rendition of the chorus from Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” several times, but most chants expressed deep frustration. Protesters — and the occasional bystander — joined in chants of “the whole damn system is guilty as hell” and “if we don’t get [justice] then shut it down” throughout the march.
The protest itself cooperated with city police throughout the day. After walking down Sixth Avenue — with a stop in front of Allegheny County Courthouse — protesters hoped to march onto I-376. But a police barricade — which including some officers in tactical gear — stood in the way.
A call went out for parents to take their kids home, and protesters locked arms and marched towards the entrance to the parkway.
The police line did not budge, and leaders huddled with police officers as the crowd chanted slogans. After 10 minutes of conversation, the protest’s leaders announced the police’s intention to arrest anyone who entered the parkway. Instead, the protesters turned onto Fort Pitt Boulevard and marched back to Point State Park.
There, numerous speakers, including Adams, Davis and Brandi Fisher, another Pittsburgh activist, took to a previously set-up stage to engage the dwindled crowd, which police said was 400 to 500 people, for an hour.
Some made use of spoken word poetry when presenting their point. Despite differences in presentation, they all coalesced around one point — their struggle would be a long one requiring constant action.
“Every time a body hits the ground that looks like my brother or sister, I will be out in the streets,” Adams said. He pressed others to make the same commitment.
Fisher, who is president of the Alliance for Police Accountability, made reference to Thursday night’s shooting in Dallas.
“What the Dallas shooting shows us is that if there is no accountability, there is no justice, there is no peace,” Fisher said, harkening back to the much-used chant “No justice, no peace”.
After the speeches, protesters dispersed from the park. The protest was peaceful, with no arrests or citations reported. Adams was impressed by the turnout produced by a Facebook event and thought it showed the precarious state of the nation.
“This is amazing,” Adams, who protested in Ferguson, Missouri, said. “[But] it shows you the moment we are in in this country.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Stephen Caruso
Source
Anti-gay laws drive significantly higher rates of poverty for LGBT people: report
Out and About Nashville - October 3, 2014 - A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added...
Out and About Nashville - October 3, 2014 - A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added financial burdens faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans because of anti-LGBT laws at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, these laws contribute to significantly higher rates of poverty among LGBT Americans and create unfair financial penalties in the form of higher taxes, reduced wages and Social Security income, increased healthcare costs, and more.
The momentum of recent court rulings overturning marriage bans across the country has created the impression that LGBT Americans are on the cusp of achieving full equality from coast-to-coast. But the new report, Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for Being LGBT in America, documents how inequitable laws harm the economic well-being of LGBT people in three key ways: by enabling legal discrimination in jobs, housing, credit and other areas; by failing to recognize LGBT families, both in general and across a range of programs and laws designed to help American families; and by creating barriers to safe and affordable education for LGBT students and the children of LGBT parents.
Paying an Unfair Price was co-authored by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), in partnership with Center for Community Change, Center for Popular Democracy, National Association of Social Workers, and the National Education Association. It is available online at www.lgbtmap.org/unfair-price (link is external).
“Unfair laws deliver a one-two punch. They both drive poverty within the LGBT community and then hit people when they are down,” said Ineke Mushovic, Executive Director of MAP. “While families with means might be able to withstand the costs of extra taxation or the unfair denial of Social Security benefits, for an already-struggling family these financial penalties can mean the difference between getting by and getting evicted. Anti-LGBT laws do the most harm to the most vulnerable in the LGBT community, including those who are barely making ends meet, families with children, older adults, and people of color.”
The report documents the often-devastating consequences when the law fails LGBT families. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are almost twice as likely to be poor as children raised by married opposite-sex parents. Additionally, 15 percent of transgender workers have incomes of less than $10,000 per year; among the population as a whole, the comparable figure is just four percent. To demonstrate the connection between anti-LGBT laws and the finances of LGBT Americans and their families, the report outlines how LGBT people living in states with low levels of equality are more likely to be poor, both compared to their non-LGBT neighbors, and compared to their LGBT counterparts in state with high levels of equality. For example, the denial of marriage costs gay and lesbian families money; same-sex couples with children had just $689 less in household income than married opposite-sex couples in states with marriage and relationship recognition for same-sex couples, but had an astounding $8,912 less in household income in states lacking such protections.
DISCRIMINATORY LAWS CREATE A DEVASTATING CYCLE OF POVERTY
How do inequitable laws contribute to higher rates of poverty for LGBT people? The report documents how LGBT people in the United States face clear financial penalties because of three primary failures in the law.
Lack of protection from discrimination means that LGBT people can be fired, denied housing and credit, and refused medically-necessary healthcare simply because they are LGBT. The financial penalty: LGBT people can struggle to find work, make less on the job, and have higher housing and medical costs than their non-LGBT peers.
Refusal to recognize LGBT families means that LGBT families are denied many of the same benefits afforded to non-LGBT families when it comes to health insurance, taxes, vital safety-net programs, and retirement planning. The financial penalty: LGBT families pay more for health insurance, taxes, and legal assistance, and may be unable to access essential protections for their families in times of crisis.
Failure to adequately protect LGBT students means that LGBT people and their families often face a hostile, unsafe, and unwelcoming environment in local schools, as well as discrimination in accessing financial aid and other support. The financial penalty:LGBT youth are more likely to perform poorly in school and to face challenges pursuing postsecondary educational opportunities, as can youth with LGBT parents. This, in turn, can reduce their earnings over time, as well as their chances of having successful jobs and careers.
“Imagine losing your job or your home simply because of who you are or whom you love. Imagine having to choose between paying the rent and finding legal help so you can establish parenting rights for the child you have been raising from birth,” said Laura E. Durso, Director LGBT Progress at the Center for American Progress at CAP. “These are just a couple of the added costs that are harming the economic security of LGBT people across the country. It is unfair and un-American that LGBT people are penalized because of who they are, and it has real and profound effects on their ability to stay out of poverty and provide for their families.”
Paying an Unfair Price offers broad recommendations for helping strengthen economic security for LGBT Americans. Recommendations include: instituting basic nondiscrimination protections at the federal and state level; allowing same-sex couples to marry in all states; allowing LGBT parents to form legal ties with the children they are raising; and protecting students from discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“At a time when so many American families are struggling to make ends meet, the report's findings point to an even bleaker reality for those who are both LGBT and people of color," said Connie Razza, Director of Strategic Research at the Center for Popular Democracy. "Unchecked employment discrimination and laws that needlessly increase the costs of healthcare, housing and childcare are doing profound harm to our economic strength as a nation. This report offers real-life policy solutions that, if implemented, would protect some of our most vulnerable individuals and families."
“Reducing the unfair financial penalties that LGBT people face in this country because they are LGBT is not that complicated. It is a simple matter of treating LGBT Americans equally under the law. For example, extending the freedom to marry, including LGBT students in safe schools laws, and ending the exclusion of LGBT people from laws meant to protect families when a parent dies or becomes disabled,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.
Source
Toys 'R' Us and the Death of Retail
Toys 'R' Us and the Death of Retail
When Debbie Beard found out the company she'd worked at for 29 years, Toys R Us, was closing down, she was shocked--she...
When Debbie Beard found out the company she'd worked at for 29 years, Toys R Us, was closing down, she was shocked--she knew the company had been having financial difficulties for a while, but didn't realize it was that bad. The more she learned, though, about the way the company had been looted by private equity firms Bain Capital and KKR, the more she determined that no one else should have to go through this. Debbie and other Toys R Us workers are organizing to demand severance pay from the company, and beyond that, organizing to stop the kind of leveraged buyouts that saddle viable companies with unsustainable debt. She joins me along with Carrie Gleason of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy to explain what can be done.
Read the full article here.
The Government Should Guarantee Everyone a Good Job
The Government Should Guarantee Everyone a Good Job
Progressives have begun to dream more boldly. We have graduated from a public option to single payer. From lower...
Progressives have begun to dream more boldly. We have graduated from a public option to single payer. From lower sentences to eliminating cash bail. From motor-voter to automatic-voter registration. From affordable to free college. And from a $15 minimum wage to guaranteed good jobs for all.
Read the full article here.
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
Hillary Clinton wants to shake up the Fed
Hillary Clinton wants to shake up the Fed
Hillary Clinton wants the Federal Reserve to look a lot different. The Democratic candidate's campaign said Thursday...
Hillary Clinton wants the Federal Reserve to look a lot different.
The Democratic candidate's campaign said Thursday that it supports a plan presented by Democratic lawmakers calling for more diversity at the Federal Reserve and removing bankers from the boards of regional branches.
A statement from Clinton campaign spokesperson Jesse Ferguson argued that the changes were necessary in order to make the central bank more representative of the American people (emphasis ours):
The Federal Reserve is a vital institution for our economy and the well-being of our middle class, and the American people should have no doubt that the Fed is serving the public interest. That's why Secretary Clinton believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole and that commonsense reforms -- like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks -- are long overdue. Secretary Clinton will also defend the Fed's so-called dual mandate -- the legal requirement that it focus on full employment as well as inflation -- and will appoint Fed governors who share this commitment and who will carry out unwavering oversight of the financial industry.
The biggest issue raised in Secretary Clinton's statement is that employees of banks make up a considerable portion of the boards of the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks.
The original letter, signed by Congressional Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and presidential candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was sent to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday morning. It cited some gains made by the Fed, but said there is more work to be done.
"However, despite these gains, we remain deeply concerned that the Federal Reserve has not yet fulfilled its statutory and moral obligation to ensure that its leadership reflects the composition of our diverse nation in terms of gender, race and ethnicity, economic background, and occupation, and we call on you to take steps to promptly begin to remedy this issue," said the letter.
The Democrats' letter also cited statistics that showed that 92% of regional bank presidents are white; 100% of the current voting members of the Federal Open Markets Committee are white, and 75% of the regional bank directorships are male.
The Fed's leadership is made of three levels. The lowest level is made up of the 12 regional banks' boards of directors. Those elect the next level, the presidents of the regional branches. At the top level are the seven members of the Fed's Board of Governors appointed by the US president, including the chair.
The seven governors and the regional presidents make up the Federal Open Markets Committee, which determines monetary policy for the US.
The letter from Democrats also advocated for caution in monetary-policy decision-making at upcoming meetings, taking into consideration how policy would affect average Americans.
"Moreover, as you make crucial monetary policy decisions in 2016, we urge you to give due consideration to the interests and priorities of the millions of people around the country who still have not benefited from this recovery," said the letter.
"We share the vision that you laid out in Chicago two years ago: an economy in which all working families 'get the chance they deserve to build better lives'."
There has been a push among Democrats in Congress urging the Fed to keep interest rates near their historically low levels in order to allow more workers to find jobs and increase wages.
Chair Yellen said in her regular testimony before Congress that she is sympathetic to the position.
By Bob Bryan
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We Can Fight Back Against Trump’s Islamophobia
We Can Fight Back Against Trump’s Islamophobia
Taif Jany is a rising young policy expert who was born and raised in Iraq and now lives in Washington, DC. His family...
Taif Jany is a rising young policy expert who was born and raised in Iraq and now lives in Washington, DC. His family is Mandaean, not Muslim, but his birthplace and brown skin make him feel like a target all the time. He sometimes looks over his shoulder when he walks through DC, where he works as policy coordinator for the Young Elected Officials (YEO) Network Action, a program of People for the American Way. Over the last year, his feelings of insecurity have only gotten worse.
This article was produced in partnership with Local Progress, a network of progressive local elected officials, to highlight some of the bold efforts unfolding in cities across the country.
“Personally I feel intimidated when I walk around the street,” said Jany. “I feel like I’m an easy target, even though I’m not Muslim. I hear from some of my Muslim friends about daily harassment in cities, suburbs, everywhere.”
And that was before Donald Trump won the presidential election.
Jany and his friends have good reason to be scared. Muslims, along with Arabs and South Asians more broadly, are under assault in the United States. While anti-Muslim bigotry has a long and grotesque history in this country, the shape and nature of the bias has intensified during the last few years, with Muslims suffering the fallout in deeds as well as words. In 2015, 78 mosques were targeted for arson or other forms of vandalism, more than triple the number of mosques targeted in the two years prior. Since 2010, ten states have passed “anti-Sharia” laws, with a majority of the rest pushing to add “anti-Sharia” measures to their books, never mind the fact that Sharia poses zero threat, legal or otherwise, to American constitutional law. And hate crimes are on the rise across the country, with official reports of anti-Muslim crimes jumping from 154 in 2014 to 174 in 2015.
Then there is the rhetoric—poison-tipped words and proposals deployed, not merely by fringe-racist characters like Pamela Geller but also by leading political figures who have turned Muslim bashing into campaign-season sport. Trump has rightly garnered the most attention with his pitch for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” seeking to come to the country, followed by the allegedly toned-down version of that pitch—his call for “extreme vetting.” He has also said he would “implement” a database to track Muslims. But he has hardly been the only one to embrace bigotry. Almost all of his Republican primary competitors trafficked, at some point or another, in anti-Muslim slurs, with Ben Carson comparing Syrian refugees to “rabid dogs” and Mike Huckabee describing Muslims as “uncorked animals.” And such rhetoric hurts; it has real, often violent, consequences. One recent Georgetown University study found that anti-Muslim attacks corresponded with calls from prominent politicians to ban Muslim immigrants.
That’s why Jany, along with hundreds of politicians and local leaders across the country have begun pushing back. Under the aegis of the American Leaders Against Hate and Anti-Muslim Bigotry Campaign, progressive officials at every level of local government have begun introducing legislation and pressing for policies that combat Islamophobia. From school-district initiatives in California and elsewhere that require schools to monitor religious bullying, to advertising and education campaigns in cities like New York that aim to teach non-Muslims about Muslim communities, local officials are joining forces with Muslim constituents to show what true leadership looks like. In the last month alone, the city councils of Columbus (Ohio) and New York City passed resolutions condemning Islamophobia—and affirming support for Muslim communities.
“We were regressing into more and more Islamophobia,” said Daneek Miller, who represents southeast Queens as the New York City Council’s only Muslim member and who helped pass the New York resolution. “These last six months or so, with Trump, have made things worse. We had to do something to reverse the trend.”
These new efforts are taking root in cities and towns across the country, creating oases of tolerance in some of the most unlikely states. In Kansas City, Missouri, the school board recently passed a resolution that condemns hate speech against Muslims and those who might be mistaken for Muslims, and explicitly supports its Muslim students. The Metro Nashville Public School Board in Tennessee adopted a similar resolution on October 11.
The American Leaders Against Hate campaign is the joint creation of Local Progress, a network of hundreds of progressive local officials, and the YEO Network Action, which came together earlier this year in the hope of transforming isolated local initiatives into a national platform against Islamophobia. Even before the campaign began mobilizing officials, the occasional mayor or city council would attempt isolated interventions. (In Muncie, Indiana, home state of Trump running mate Mike Pence, for instance, the City Council passed a unanimous resolution promoting religious freedom this past March.) Since the campaign’s launch, these interventions have accelerated rapidly in number as well as kind.
The campaign has thus far come up with about a dozen policy solutions to reduce Islamophobia. Some of them are relatively easy lifts that can be done on a local level. For instance, school districts can write into their bylaws explicit support for Muslim students, and a commitment to hold those who discriminate based on race or religion accountable for their actions. Many school districts have begun to take bullying more seriously; the American Leaders Against Hate campaign suggests being extra-vigilant about bullying based on religion or skin color, including a formalized tracking system for incidents.
Schools can also work anti-bullying and pro-diversity information into their curricula. They can train teachers and guidance counselors to not only know more about Muslim cultures but also to know how to spot bias within themselves and their students, and how to deal with it. While these measures are relatively minor tweaks on their own, together they add up to providing more inclusive environments for Muslim kids and others whose place of birth or religion make them susceptible to Trump-style bigotry.
Other policy changes, such as establishing anti-profiling measures for police, will need to clear more hurdles. But the first step toward clearing those hurdles is to get local elected leaders together to create a national platform capable of tackling bigger issues. The American Leaders Against Hate campaign, for instance, has recommended that states curb surveillance, which disproportionately affects Muslim communities. In the age of NSA data mining, that might be a big ask, but local officials are already making some headway. In June, Santa Clara County, California, passed a landmark ordinance that will help inform citizens about new technology the government is using for policing and surveillance, and make the legal framework for using those technologies transparent and open for debate.
While many of the efforts have been warmly received, a few have run into the buzzsaw of anti-Muslim hysteria either during or after their passage. In Kansas City, for instance, the school-board resolution condemning anti-Muslim hate speech caused an uproar that spread well beyond the city. Despite the fact that the resolution doesn’t require any major changes to school curricula, conservative websites warned of “creeping Sharia law,” and the school district received thousands of angry, sometimes violent, e-mails, many originating from an extremist group called Act for America. The barrage was so intense that the school district had to set special e-mail filters so that its employees could conduct normal business.
That backlash, Kansas City Board of Education chair Melissa Robinson said, was further proof of the amount of work needed to combat Islamophobia. “It’s an illumination of the hate that’s going on around our country,” Robinson said. “As an African-American woman, thinking about the history of what it means to be black in this country, I can relate to what they’re going through in a very deep way.”
Robinson says Kansas City Public Schools joined the American Leaders Against Hate campaign because they understood that Islamophobia wasn’t limited to the city’s school district. The campaign allows local action, like the kind Robinson is doing in Kansas, to have national impact.
Progressives at every level of local government have begun introducing legislation that combats Islamophobia.
While policy is the end goal of the nationwide campaign, its organizers also see it as a chance for ramping up pro-diversity rhetoric. Just as Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on Muslims have led to an increase in anti-Muslim violence, members of the American Leaders Against Hate campaign are hoping that by highlighting Islamophobia and the need for diversity and tolerance, they’ll be able to spur action in the other direction. That’s why the first part of the campaign has involved getting hundreds of local leaders to sign a letter pledging their support for Muslim communities: to show there is a large and effective counterweight to hateful rhetoric.
As the letter demonstrates, countering hateful rhetoric doesn’t have to involve arduous policy change. Instead, it can involve leaders using their positions of power to call for greater tolerance. Under New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, the city has begun an ad campaign to not only promote tolerance, but also ensure that Muslim New Yorkers feel welcome in the city. And in Minnesota, which has the largest Somali population in the United States, Abdi Warsame, a City Council member and Local Progress stalwart, has been using his platform to call for greater understanding between the Muslim and non-Muslim community, and to push for city services to be accessible to people who speak different languages, a boon to the city’s large Somali population.
“It’s very important to highlight the issue of Islamophobia in the same way we’d highlight anti-Semitism or homophobia, and start having a dialogue and discourse,” Warsame said. “We want to bring people together to discuss this issue. It’s not just about Muslims. It’s about who we want to be as cities, as states, as a country.”
By Peter Moskowitz
Source
Thomas DiNapoli urged to stop investments that hurt P.R.
Activist groups are asking state Controller Thomas DiNapoli to halt investments in two private equity firms they blame...
Activist groups are asking state Controller Thomas DiNapoli to halt investments in two private equity firms they blame for worsening the foreclosure crisis in Puerto Rico.
In a letter to DiNapoli, the anti-hedge fund group Hedge Clippers and other organizations say the state Common Retirement Fund should make no new investments in the Blackstone Group and TPG Capital.
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.
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