Biggest U.S. Mass Protest & Rally Ever Staged for $15 Wage Set for April
Sky Valley Chronicle - April 1, 2015 - According to organizers, it's going to be huge. Fast food workers across the...
Sky Valley Chronicle - April 1, 2015 - According to organizers, it's going to be huge. Fast food workers across the country, evidently unmoved by the Reagan era inspired trickle-down theory of economics plan on striking in hundreds of U.S. cities on April 15, tax day in efforts to secure a $15 an hour wage and the right to form unions without retaliation from employers.They say they'll be joined by more than 60,000 people across the country as well as others in 35 countries around the world and that this time workers from new industries will be standing with them – from home care and child care workers, to adjunct professors, to Walmart employees. One report calls the planned action a "series of global labor strikes with protests on college campuses." According to April15.org "Millions of underpaid workers can’t support their families or make ends meet on hourly wages that haven’t kept pace with the bills – or their employers’ profits. On April 15, fast food cashiers and cooks, retail employees, child care workers, home care providers, airport workers, and all of us who believe they deserve better are showing up in cities across the country to say ENOUGH."The April 15 strike action will include rallies and marches on 170 university campuses. CBS News notes that, "Expanding the labor movement to college campuses hearkens back to successful social movements that included pressure from university students, such as the 1980s divestment campaign against U.S. corporations that invested in apartheid-era South Africa. While college students have long served as a vocal social force in American history, though, there's a growing group on campuses seeking higher wages: adjunct professors."The same report quotes Tiffany Kraft, an adjunct professor in Portland, Oregon as saying, "The universities I work for pay me next to nothing and treat me like I'm expendable. I joined the Fight for $15 to demand higher wages and more respect for our role as educators." CBS reported that adjunct professors typically earn about $20,000 to $25,000 per year and get no health benefits or job security, even though "they hold doctorates or other advanced degrees."In many communities brick layers, construction workers and auto mechanics with no college degrees earn that and more.Terrence Wise, a Burger King worker from Kansas City, Missouri, and a national leader for the Fight for $15 push told the Associated Press "This will be the biggest mobilization America has seen in decades," and will feature some 2,000 groups including Jobs With Justice and the Center for Popular Democracy.
SourceYou can find out here where an event near you will take place.
Seis meses después de “María”, Puerto Rico sigue en lucha por reconstrucción
Seis meses después de “María”, Puerto Rico sigue en lucha por reconstrucción
“Tuesday, March 20th from organizations across the nation take to the streets in DC to make sure that @fema, Congress,...
“Tuesday, March 20th from organizations across the nation take to the streets in DC to make sure that @fema, Congress, and the Trump Administration hear our demands.”
Read the full article here.
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.
Charter Schools Had Tough Week
Times Online - October 5, 2014, by The Times Editorial Board - It’s been a tough week for supporters of the charter...
Times Online - October 5, 2014, by The Times Editorial Board - It’s been a tough week for supporters of the charter school movement in Pennsylvania.
On Tuesday, PA Cyber School founder Nick Trombetta and his attorney were back in a federal courtroom trying to have evidence suppressed in his upcoming criminal trial on charges of mail fraud, theft, tax conspiracy and filing false tax returns. Trombetta is accused of siphoning off millions of taxpayer dollars for his own gain.
On Wednesday, a new report was released citing Trombetta as an example of $30 million in fraud and financial mismanagement among the state’s charter schools since 1997.
The report was done by three organizations — the Center for Popular Democracy, Integrity in Education and Action United. It follows a national report in May by the first two groups that claimed $136 million has been lost to waste, fraud and abuse by charter schools.
While the numbers are alarming, we know that all charter schools are not part of the problem. Still, it only takes a few incidents — such as the case against Trombetta — to give the entire movement a black eye.
What we will say is that state’s charter school law is badly in need of revision, particularly in the area of accountability. State legislators need to step in now and address the problems if charter schools are to remain part of the state’s education program.
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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
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When Work Creates Insecurity
Many of us think that any employment, even part time, provides a measure of security. This is not the case for the...
Many of us think that any employment, even part time, provides a measure of security. This is not the case for the millions of low-wage workers who are subject to unstable work schedules. In an effort to minimize labor costs (and with an egregious fixation with statistical models), businesses are hiring part time and using scheduling software that attempts to dynamically match labor hours with demand. This practice, known as ‘just-in-time’ work scheduling, shifts business risk to some of the most vulnerable workers and has serious consequences for families.
Store managers say that they prefer to hire workers with open availability, so employment is essentially contingent on open availability with no minimum guarantee of hours. Applicants are compelled to conceal outside commitments, including caregiver duties and their own medical needs. Workers who desperately need more hours are unable take a second job, since anything less than full availability is responded to punitively with reduced shifts. Workers are sometimes sent home early or without clocking in at all.
Unpredictable schedules means workers are unable to improve their future earnings through school or training. Over the long term, career trajectories are negatively affected because part-time workers receive lower hourly wages, less training, and fewer opportunities for job promotion. This structural barrier to economic mobility has the potential to create a permanent underclass of worker.
Volatile work schedules also mean volatile incomes, and added uncertainty in daily life. “The amount of hours and days I work changes on a weekly basis so I never know how much my check will be,” a worker testifying for the Fair Workweek Initiative explains. “That means I don’t know how much I can contribute to rent and bills, how much food I can buy for my daughter, or whether I can even afford to do laundry that week.”
Last fall, The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) presented an audio conference to discuss updates to the social safety net to better accommodate volatile work schedules. During the conference, Jessica Webster from the Legal Services Advocacy Project in Minnesota related a story about a mother of one-year-old twins who was working as a security guard while receiving TANF. An unexpected drop in work hours caused interruption in her subsidized childcare, resulting in job loss and homelessness.
Called the “next new human right” by American Prospect, the issue of fair work schedules has gained a lot of traction over the past year. In 2014, a federal bill to address abusive scheduling practices died in committee and was reintroduced by Senator Warren in 2015 with substantially more sponsors. Advocates are not waiting for action from Capitol Hill, however. In 2014, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the Retail Workers Bill of Rights, the first sweeping reforms addressing on-demand scheduling and part-time work in the country. In 2015, several jurisdictions introduced legislation designed specifically to address fair work scheduling.
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) maintains a repository for information pertaining to unstable work schedules and the University of Chicago hosts the Employment Instability, Family Wellbeing, and Social Policy Network (EINet), a group of academics and policymakers who are working to address these issues. The NationalWomen’s Law Center has presented testimony to congress and compiled fact sheets that spell out legal provisions as well as the effects on female-headed households.
Perhaps as a result of increased media coverage, some retailers announced an end to on-call shifts, with mixed results. In December, Kronos, one of the largest software developers in the work scheduling space, announced a partnership with the Center for Popular Democracy to build in features that take worker preference into account. Even more encouraging, some business leaders and academics are questioning whether minimizing labor costs is actually beneficial to the bottom line. Researchers at the Center for WorkLife Law assert that it is possible to improve scheduling efficiency, while considering the needs of workers.
What Community Groups Can Do While the fight for a fair work week continues, it is likely that many constituents of community organizations are facing this kind of uncertainty with both schedule and income. This may impede the work of community groups in many ways, from making it more complicated to determine appropriate affordable rent based on income to making it harder for residents to regularly show up for trainings, appointments, or organizing meetings.
Some of CLASP’s recommendations for adapting social service agencies to this new work environment can apply to community organizations as well. They include:
1. Offering blocks of call-in time, rather than specific appointments.
2. Using sliding fee schedules so that a temporary change in income doesn’t disqualify a family for services.
3. Estimating incomes over a longer time horizon or projecting future income with variability in mind.
4. Lengthening re-qualification periods for services.
5. Developing education and job-search tools that can be accessed intermittently online rather than holding workshops
6. Offering childcare with extended hours and vouchers that permit hours to be purchased in blocks of time that can vary from week to week.
7. Providing information on off-hours public transit options and income-based transportation fees, like those offered by the city of Seattle. Sincepoverty is now growing fastest in the suburbs, those living outside of urban centers have fewer transportation options, especially for non-standard shifts. Logistics can quickly get out of hand for those who commute to multiple part-time jobs or need pick up children from day care at a specific time.
Community-based organizations might also consider taking on an advocacy role with public agencies. When it comes to public benefits, just-in-time scheduling creates an irony that borders on the absurd: while unstable work hours compel many families to rely on public benefits, this same volatility often prevents access to those benefits. A small, temporary increase in income or decrease in work hours can trigger automatic sanctions or program disqualification.
Though under federal funding, accommodations would be allowed under the sorts of circumstances just-in-time scheduling creates, Webster noted that state agencies often fail to exercise this discretion, and clients and administrators alike are often not aware it is possible. State and local agencies can and should realign their processes to address this. But there is also an opportunity for those outside of public agencies to make a difference by organizing to inform recipients of their benefits rights. These efforts would save money by reducing “churn” (i.e., people kicked off benefits only to be put back on them again), improve outcomes for recipients, and remove disincentives to work. CLASP notes that these ideas have broad political support, which could be encouraging news for enterprising community practitioners who would like to develop a role in this area.
Fundamentally, we need to advance legal and cultural recognition that, especially for those who are resource-constrained, time is tremendously valuable, and that human needs are not nearly as scalable as mathematical models imply.
Source: Rooflines
The John Gore Organization & Scarlett Johansson's Our Town Benefit Raises $500,000 for Hurricane Maria Community Relief Fund
The event played to a full house and a very enthusiastic crowd. With more than 3,500 tickets sold, it was one of the...
The event played to a full house and a very enthusiastic crowd. With more than 3,500 tickets sold, it was one of the largest audiences the play has ever been presented to in one night. Johansson was joined on stage for opening remarks by director Leon and Xiomara Caro, Director of New Organizing Projects for the Center of Popular Democracy and coordinator for The Maria Fund, sharing an inspiring message about the purpose of the event and the relief effort. They brought the crowd to their feet when they revealed that the evening’s efforts resulted in half of a million dollars raised to help Puerto Rico in their hour of need.
Read the full article here.
How the Labor Movement is Thinking Ahead to a Post-Trump World
How the Labor Movement is Thinking Ahead to a Post-Trump World
The American labor movement, over the past four decades, has had two golden opportunities to shift the balance of power...
The American labor movement, over the past four decades, has had two golden opportunities to shift the balance of power between workers and bosses — first in 1978, with unified Democratic control of Washington, and again in 2009. Both times, the unions came close and fell short, leading, in no small part, to the precarious situation labor finds itself in today.
Read the full article here.
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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The issue Democrats need to address in the debate
In just two years, more than 13 million workers have received a raise, most notably in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle,...
In just two years, more than 13 million workers have received a raise, most notably in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Massachusetts and just last month in New York, where wages for fast-food workers were raised.
Work strikes and broad-based mass mobilizations are inspiring and filling a much-needed void. This worker-led movement is stepping in where the federal government has failed.
Nearly 50 percent of workers earn less than $15 an hour and 43 million are forced to work or place their job at risk when sick or faced with a critical care giving need. When Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Martin O'Malley, and Lincoln Chafee take the stage in Las Vegas on Tuesday night for the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 election, will they be addressing this powerful and significant constituency?
Will they provide relief for working families by presenting real policy solutions that go to the core of what it means to thrive? Or will they trade sallies and barbs in a bid to prevail in a popularity contest, overshadowing the experience of millions of working families in America?
Democratic contenders are likely to lament the fate of a declining middle class squeezed by the rapacious appetites of the 1 percent. This is important, but the candidates will also need to focus on ensuring that the middle class grows through a fair minimum wage, and struggling American workers, many of whom are women and people of color, can take paid sick time off without being penalized.
Not in recent decades have we seen such a vibrant backdrop of resistance and organizing around wages and workers' rights in this country, and Democratic candidates must not squander this golden opportunity to raise awareness around these issues and set an agenda that goes to the heart of what Americans need.
And the workers have been heard: a $15 minimum wage has been passed in the nation's largest cities. In addition, laws raising the minimum wage to more than the federal standard of $7.25 an hour have passed in a number of states and cities. There are now campaigns to raise the floor and standards for workers are being led in 14 states and four cities.
We've seen how lives can change when workers are paid a salary allowing them to make ends meet. Unable to adequately provide for her family on $9 an hour, health-care worker and single mother Sandra Arzu is one of the workers who fought fora $15 minimum wage in Los Angeles. The raise will fundamentally change her life and ability to put food on the table for her family and pay the rent.
Higher wages are vital to improving the lives of low-wage workers but it's not a cure-all. It's also important for low-wage workers to have access to paid sick days to take care of themselves and their families without fear of retribution. A Center for Popular Democracy report published earlier this month reveals 40 percent of surveyed Starbucksworkers reported facing barriers to taking sick days when they were ill.
The candidates need to address in a real way what workers must manage daily. Like a Starbucks barista from Washington State who describes coming to work sick out of fear she would lose her job if she took the day off. She says she rested on cardboard spread out on the floor so she could step in when there was heavy foot traffic in the store.
The federal government has an opportunity to dignify the lives of all workers in this country and address persistent inequality by enacting nationwide policies raising the minimum wage and enforcing paid sick leave. Millions of workers have issued a clarion call to the Democratic candidates and it's now their turn to respond with aggressive policy solutions to address the divide in this country.
We will be watching closely on Tuesday night to see if the candidates have heard the call from this key Democratic constituency — a constituency the Democratic party can't afford to lose.
Source: CNBC
1 month ago
1 month ago