Candidates Ready for GOP Debate: Alleged NY Backers of Hate Rhetoric
NEW YORK - Protestors called out some prominent New Yorkers ahead of tonight's GOP presidential candidate debate,...
NEW YORK - Protestors called out some prominent New Yorkers ahead of tonight's GOP presidential candidate debate, accusing them of funding a network of groups that promote anti-immigrant hate speech. Connie Razza, director of strategic research for the Center for Popular Democracy Action, said those allegations are confirmed in a new report that identifies New Yorker Barbara Winston as a financial contributor and board member of groups that, for example, worked to restrict undocumented immigrants' access to driver's licenses in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.
"When Donald Trump talks about deporting all of the undocumented immigrants in the United States," she said, "he's really picking up the platform that these wealthy New Yorkers have been investing in, over years." We reached out for comment to Bruce Winston Gem where Barbara Winston serves as president. Asked to respond to the allegation that Barbara Winston funded hate speech organizations, a manager there said, “No, it is not true.” Immigrant advocates say they protested in front of the Harry Winston Jewelers on Fifth Avenue Tuesday, because they say Barbara Winston owns that property.
Daniel Altschuler, managing director of the Make the Road Action Fund and co-editor of the report, "Backers of Hate in the Empire State," said it calls on nonprofit groups, political parties and the news media to sever ties with the New Yorkers cited in the report and the groups they are allegedly funding. "These are folks that have been buttressing the anti-immigrant infrastructure in this country," he said. "It identifies these folks, and demands that they be held responsible for promoting this kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric and false facts." Razza said it has been a major goal of these anti-immigrant groups to get their views front and center in prime-time slots such as tonight's GOP debate. "These wealthy New Yorkers are providing funding both to this anti-immigrant hate network and to the Republican Party," she said, "and starting to mainstream anti-immigrant hate in a way that's really dangerous."
The report is online at cpdaction.org. - See more at: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2015-10-28/immigrant-issues/candidates-...
Source: Public News Service
Activist groups march in Pittsburgh for People's Convention
Activist groups march in Pittsburgh for People's Convention
Hundreds of protesters attending the People's Convention in Downtown Pittsburgh took about two hours to march Friday in...
Hundreds of protesters attending the People's Convention in Downtown Pittsburgh took about two hours to march Friday in hot, humid weather from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center to Station Square.
The march, which started at 2:30 p.m., made stops at the U.S. Steel Building and the Allegheny County Courthouse on Grant Street before ending at Station Square.
Marchers carried hand-painted, cardboard busts of presidential candidate Donald Trump and UPMC CEO Jeffrey Romoff, orange butterflies on bamboo poles, and banners bearing the slogan, "still we rise." Chants rose above the din of after traffic as prosters cried phrases like, "No justice, no peace," and "Ain't no power like the power of the people, because the power of the people don't stop."
At Seventh and Grant Street, police and marchers talked. One woman took a selfie with an officer — typical of the friendly exchanges between protesters and police.
Jose Lopez, of Brooklyn said he attended the march with Make the Road New York, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant rights.
"It's been really great. We have a lot of working people with us. A lot of our folks don't have the wages or the opportunity to meet the community and get off the block. So it's great to be here."
Pittsburgh police maintained a visible presence along the parade route. Officers on motorcycles and bicycles assembled before the march.
The march has been planned for some time, but it comes less than 24 hours after five Dallas police officers were fatally shot during a march protesting the recent shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana by police officers.
Seven other Dallas officers were injured in an incident President Barack Obama said "horrified" America.
Erin Morey, of Mt. Lebanon, came out to show support, particularly for Martin Esqivel Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant who was arrested at his Pittsburgh home and faces deportation.
"Every voice should be heard," said Morey, whose son Max accompanied her. "I want to support an open dialogue."
The progressive groups involved in the Pittsburgh march were hosted by the Center for Popular Democracy. They voiced concerns regarding immigration, labor, environmental and civil rights causes. The group stopped at the courthouse, but officials there had already sent civilian workers home for the day and closed the building at 2:30 p.m.
"Right now, it's going great," said Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay, who walked along with the marchers, shaking hands and chatting with reporters.
"I expected to find the atmosphere more tense," he said.
McLay said the officers he'd spoken with remained positive.
"I'm really, really proud of them," he said. "Right now, they're so focused on the task before them, they're not thinking about feelings," he said.
Some marchers delivered a sharper message with a red banner that said "fire killer cops."
Among others, the groups marched by the offices of the Federal Reserve, Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Bank of New York Mellon and even train tracks, which the groups say carry crude oil, which is targeted by climate change opponents.
Toomey stayed away from his Station Square office on Pittsburgh's South Shore. Instead, the Lehigh Valley Republican held a news conference on the North Shore to express his support for law enforcement.
"It was not a good place to be," Toomey said of Station Square.
Toomey described the viral images of fatal police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota as "very disturbing," and said both incidents need to be thoroughly investigated. But the shooting rampage that left five police officers dead and seven others wounded in Dallas "has no possible justification," Toomey said.
"The vast majority of officers are good, decent, honest and hard-working individuals," Toomey said. "What is completely wrong is the narrative that somehow cops generally are the bad guys. That narrative is something I have been pushing back on because it's wrong."
Toomey's election opponent, Democrat Katie McGinty, also shared support for police and called for thorough investigations of the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota.
In messages posted to Twitter, the city police department offered condolences to Dallas police and Gov. Tom Wolf ordered flags to be flown at half staff.
In Greensburg, the police department posted a lengthy message on Facebook that served, in part, to remind readers that police officers are human beings who are part of a larger community.
Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik held a Mass at noon for about 70 people at Saint Mary of Mercy Church in Downtown to pray for peace and reconciliation in light of the Dallas shootings.
"Yesterday was Dallas, Wednesday was Baton Rouge, Tuesday was St. Paul. And Monday, July 4th our own Wood Street. Violence continues," Zubik said during the sermon.
"Where will it be today, where will it be tomorrow? Will it stop? Do we want it to stop?" he said.
Zubik compared violence to a disease and said that it rips families apart. He asked for attendees to think of the communities affected by violence across the nation, as they are neighbors and that it was senseless to direct blame at "one group of individuals." He said "it's imperative to tear down our own prejudices."
Zubik reminded the group that there's no competition for "whose life matters most," invoking the Black Lives Matter movement. The service ended with a prayer for first responders and others involved in public safety.
"I thought the sermon was incredible," said Marie Atria of Mt. Lebanon, "this is all terrible and it has to stop."
The Church said it was a normal attendance for a midday Friday mass. Pittsburgh has a potential for violence, but the "overwhelming response from the citizens of Western Pennsylvania is they're working for peace," Zubik said.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald released a joint statement regarding the violence in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas:
"Today, our nation is in mourning for the deaths of so many in our community. We are hurt, angry, confused and in pain as we struggle to cope with the violence plaguing us. Our answer to the violence in our community cannot be more violence. Pittsburgh's strength has always been in coming together to solve issues and supporting each other in times of need. We rely on that strength and we need it now more than ever.
"We have great faith that all of us – residents, communities, law enforcement, activists – have the capacity to come together to heal from our pain and anger, no matter how difficult that may be for us. We can do more to honor the lives of those who were killed by working together to stop the violence and have a more peaceful community."
Peduto called for a "peace summit" to be held next week, but a date hasn't been determined.
Reporting by Max Siegelbaum, Megan Guza, Justin Merriman and Matthew Santoni.
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Still important to let our senators know what we think
Still important to let our senators know what we think
What do Credo Action, MoveOn, Idaho Medical Advocacy, CPD Action, Daily Kos, People’s Action, Elizabeth Warren, Mom’s...
What do Credo Action, MoveOn, Idaho Medical Advocacy, CPD Action, Daily Kos, People’s Action, Elizabeth Warren, Mom’s Rising, Our Revolution, Change.Org, AARP, and the Economic Policy Institute have in common?
Well, possibly lots of things — each is an advocacy group working to change America.
Read the full article here.
Protest Matters: Senate Asks F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh After Flake Is Confronted by Sexual Assault Survivors
Protest Matters: Senate Asks F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh After Flake Is Confronted by Sexual Assault Survivors
The Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly halted the effort to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Friday,...
The Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly halted the effort to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Friday, agreeing to a request from Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, to delay a final vote for one week, to give the FBI time to investigate three allegations of sexual assault and harassment against the judge.
Read the full article here.
A National Solution
New York Times - June 25, 2014, by Peter Markowitz - For too many years our nation’s discourse around immigration has...
New York Times - June 25, 2014, by Peter Markowitz - For too many years our nation’s discourse around immigration has been distorted by anti-immigrant activists who have advanced bold but regressive state immigration policies. State laws in Arizona and elsewhere have powerfully, but inaccurately, framed the immigration issue through the lenses of criminality and terrorism. While these laws have not generally fared well in court, their impact on our national perception of immigration has impeded federal immigration reform. Meanwhile, states like New York continue to suffer the consequences of our broken immigration laws. Our families continue to be fractured by a torrent of deportations. Our economic growth continues to be impeded by the barriers our immigrant labor force faces. And our democracy continues to be undermined by the exclusion of a broad class of New York residents.
The New York Is Home Act, recently introduced by New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Assembly Member Karim Camara, with support from the Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road New York, charts a path forward on immigration — a path that like-minded states and ultimately the federal government could follow. The legislation would grant state citizenship to noncitizens who can prove three years of residency and tax payment and who demonstrate a commitment to abiding by state laws and the state constitution.
The bill is an ambitious but sensible assertion of a state’s well-established power to define the bounds of its own political community. Unlike the Arizona law, this legislation is carefully crafted to respect the unique province of the federal government. As misguided and brutal as the federal immigration regime is, New York cannot alter federal deportation policy. However, it is absolutely within New York’s power to facilitate the full inclusion of immigrants in our state. By granting state citizenship, we would extend the full bundle of rights a state can deliver — the right to vote in state elections, to drive, to access higher education, among others — and we would define the full range of responsibilities that come along with citizenship, including tax payment, jury service and respect for state law. By reorienting our national conversation on immigration around the more accurate and productive themes of family, economic vitality and political inclusion, this legislation will move us toward a real solution to our nation’s immigration quagmire.
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Progressive Activists Keep Up Campaign to Thwart Rate Rises
NEW YORK—A group of activists lobbying the Federal Reserve to hold off on raising interest rates is pressing its...
NEW YORK—A group of activists lobbying the Federal Reserve to hold off on raising interest rates is pressing its campaign amid signs from the central bank that it is moving closer to lifting borrowing costs.
Members of the Fed Up Coalition, a left-leaning organization affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy and connected with labor unions and community groups, met with Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and other central bank governors late last year.
They recently have met with the leaders of the Boston, Kansas City and San Francisco Fed banks, and are scheduled to meet next with Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockharton Aug. 12 and with New York Fed President William Dudley on Aug. 14.
Most Fed officials, including Ms. Yellen, have indicated they expect to start raising short-term interest rates this year if the economy keeps improving. They have held their benchmark rate near zero since December 2008 to bolster the economy.
The activists say they want the Fed to hold off a bit longer to ensure the expansion benefits all Americans, not just the wealthiest.
They also want the Fed to become more open about its actions and how it selects the presidents of the 12 regional reserve banks.
And they want the Fed to engage with banks to promote affordable housing.
“Over the last few weeks we’ve had a lot of success engaging with Fed officials,” said Ady Barkan, who leads the Center for Popular Democracy Fed campaign. His group is “seeing that [Fed officials] are really being responsive” to the case they are making, he said.
Mr. Barkan said a recent meeting with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard was particularly fruitful. Mr. Bullard said in an interview with the Journal Friday the Fed has a balancing act when it comes to setting interest rate policy.
He favors raising interest rates this year and says the central bank’s September meeting is likely a good time to start.
“I think I have the better policy for the type of people they want to help,” Mr. Bullard said. “If you go for too much in monetary policy you can get some sort of financial bubbles and imbalances that fall apart and cause a recession,” and modest rate rises soon will help reduce those risks.
The activist group also is calling for greater representation on regional banks’ boards of directors for noncorporate interests. By law, the regional Fed directors are drawn from a mix of financial industry professionals, community and business leaders. Each board oversees individual reserve bank operations, and the directors from outside the financial sector manage the selection of new reserve bank presidents.
Mr. Barkan said Fed boards are dominated by the perspectives of leaders from large institutions. While he welcomes union and nonprofit representation on the boards, Mr. Barkan said the diversity should extend further and include a more ground-level perspective on how the economy is functioning.
Jean-Andre Sassine, age 48, of New York City, plans to attend the group’s meeting with Mr. Dudley. Mr. Sassine, who said he works on television and advertising productions, became interested in the Fed when his family ran into difficulties during the recession. He said that led him to ask questions about the role the central bank was playing to help everyday people.
When he went with the group to the meeting with Ms. Yellen, Mr. Sassine said he walked away with “the sense they aren’t used to dealing with people. It seems like they just get reports” and work off that data, and little else, to make their decisions, Mr. Sassine said.
“We are supposed to have input and recognition and we don’t have it,” Mr. Sassine said. “It can’t all be corporate heads and bankers…We’ve got to have real people who buy groceries” on the Fed’s various advisory boards, he said.
The Fed has tried to broaden its public outreach in recent years. The central bank this year has been recruiting people to serve on a new Community Advisory Council, which will meet twice a year with Washington-based Fed governors. Ms. Yellen last year visited a job-training program in Chicago and a nonprofit in Chelsea, Mass., that helps unemployed people find work.
Mr. Dudley has conducted a number of public tours of the New York Fed’s district, in which he has met with business leaders, academics, community groups and others. In a Wall Street Journal interview in March 2014 he explained he had been using the tours to make the Fed seem less abstract. And he also said the visits had in particular deepened his understanding of the housing crisis and sharpened his response to those troubles.
Staff at the regional Fed banks who have met with the activists say their meetings are part of regular efforts to engage with their communities, and can offer valuable insight into the state of the economy.
In a statement, the Atlanta Fed said it regularly meets with community based interest groups “through its various outreach programs including community and economic development, economic education, and supervision and regulation.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Hillary Clinton to support Federal Reserve change sought by liberals
Hillary Clinton to support Federal Reserve change sought by liberals
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said she would support changes to the top ranks of the Federal...
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said she would support changes to the top ranks of the Federal Reserve, an issue recently championed by progressive groups amid debate over how long the central bank should keep supporting the American economy.
The Fed is led by a seven-member board of governors based in Washington and a dozen regional bank presidents based across the country, from New York to Kansas City to San Francisco. The governors are nominated by the White House and approved by the Senate, but regional bank presidents are selected by their boards of directors, whose occupants are chosen by the banking industry and by the Fed governors in Washington.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Clinton’s campaign said she supports removing bankers from the boards of directors and increasing diversity within the Fed.
"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,” spokesman Jesse Ferguson said. “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.”
The statement puts Clinton on the same page as her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. In an op-ed in the New York Times in December, he said removing bankers from the Fed’s governance would mean “the foxes would no longer guard the henhouse.”
On Thursday, Sanders and top Democratic lawmakers called on the Fed to increase the number of minorities in leadership positions. They also urged the central bank to consider the high unemployment rate among some racial groups as it debates whether to keep pulling back its support for the American economy.
In a letter to Fed Chair Janet Yellen, the lawmakers argued that more minority representation would help broaden the Fed’s internal discussions about the health of the economy. In addition to Sanders, 10 senators signed the letter, including banking committee members Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Robert Menendez of New Jersey. More than 100 congressmen joined the effort, which was led in the House by Michigan Rep. John Conyers and gained support from California Rep. Maxine Waters, ranking member of the House financial services committee.
“Given the critical linkage between monetary policy and the experiences of hardworking Americans, the importance of ensuring that such positions are filled by persons that reflect and represent the interests of our diverse country, cannot be understated,” the letter states. “When the voices of women, African-Americans, Latinos, and representatives of consumers and labor are excluded from key discussions, their interests are too often neglected.”
Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumptive nominee, did not return a request for comment.
The leaders of the Fed are responsible for steering the ship of the American economy, setting a benchmark interest rate that can influence the cost of borrowing money for everything from a car, to a home to a factory. They also regulate the country’s biggest banks and help ensure the nation's financial system can withstand another crisis, making them among the most influential policymakers in the world.
Those officials tend to be white males. Yellen is the first woman to serve as chair in the central bank’s 101-year history. Only three Fed governors have been African American, and there have been no black regional bank presidents. No one now in the top brass is Hispanic.
In addition, an analysis by the progressive Center for Popular Democracy found that 83 percent of the boards of directors are white and three-fourths are male. The group also found that 39 percent of directors come from the financial industry, while 11 percent are from community groups, labor organizations or academia.
There are nine seats on the boards of directors. Under current law, three are required to be filled by representatives of the banking industry. However, they are not allowed to participate in choosing reserve bank presidents — the officials who would be responsible for setting the nation’s monetary policy. The bank president must also win approval from the Fed's politically appointed board of governors, based in Washington.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Fed’s board of governors said it is committed to fostering diversity of all types within its leadership and that its track record has improved.
“To bring a variety of perspectives to Federal Reserve Bank and Branch boards, we have focused considerable attention in recent years on recruiting directors with diverse backgrounds and experience,” the statement said. “By law, we consider the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor, and consumers. We also are aiming to increase ethnic and gender diversity.”
The criticism comes in the midst of a controversial debate within the central bank. The Fed hiked interest rates in December for the first time since the Great Recession, citing the strength in the U.S. recovery. It had anticipated increasing rates four more times this year but has since downgraded that expectation amid weakness in the global economy. Investors around the world are now carefully watching to see what the Fed will do when it meets again in June.
Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen was joined by her three predecessors Ben Bernanke Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan at a discussion in New York City on the global economy. (Reuters)
The Center for Popular Democracy and its activist coalition, Fed Up, are pressuring the central bank not to raise its benchmark interest rate until the unemployment rate falls to 4 percent. Sanders has endorsed that target in the past, though the letter released Thursday said only that the central bank should give “due consideration” to the unevenness of the recovery.
“It is unacceptable that discussion of the job market for these populations would be an afterthought, or worse, ignored entirely, and we are concerned that the lack of balanced representation may be a significant cause of this oversight,” Democratic lawmakers said in their letter to Yellen.
Democrats have generally supported the central bank’s aggressive stimulus efforts following the 2008 financial crisis, but the prospect of higher interest rates is prompting some to question the Fed’s stance. In congressional testimony earlier this year, Yellen said there are limits to the central bank’s ability to help disadvantaged communities.
"It’s important to recognize that our powers, which involve setting interest rates, affecting financial conditions, are not targeted and can't be targeted at the experience of particular groups,” she said. “I think it always has been true and continues to be true that when the labor market improves, the experience of all groups does improve."
The Fed established an internal diversity office in 2011 as part of sweeping congressional reforms of the country’s financial system. The latest annual report for the Washington-based board of governors found minorities made up just 18 percent of top management in 2015, down from 21 percent the previous year. However, more than half of mid-level managers and administrative and support workers are minorities.
The report outlines several steps the Fed is taking to improve the recruitment and promotion of minority employees, such as a teaching and mentoring partnership with Howard University, a prestigious historically black college in the District.
By Ylan Q. Mui
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May Day Protesters Gather Outside JP Morgan Chase HQ in Manhattan
May Day Protesters Gather Outside JP Morgan Chase HQ in Manhattan
New Yorkers kicked off May Day protests early on May 1, marching from Bryant Park to the JP Morgan Chase headquarters...
New Yorkers kicked off May Day protests early on May 1, marching from Bryant Park to the JP Morgan Chase headquarters in Manhattan, where they attempted to block the entrance. Over a dozen arrests were made, according to local reports.
The protesters outside JP Morgan were joined by others outside the Wells Fargo building as part of a larger Take on Corporate Backers of Hate March, targeting the corporate entities for financing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers and private prisons across the country.
Read full article here.
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."
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Bank Workers Tell Their Bosses: Stop Making Us Sell Shady Products To Poor People
ThinkProgress - April 9, 2015, by Alan Pyke - The newest line of criticism for the banking industry is coming from...
ThinkProgress - April 9, 2015, by Alan Pyke - The newest line of criticism for the banking industry is coming from within, as a group of rank-and-file banking employees prepare to demand that their employer stop ordering them to use predatory sales tactics and start treating them as a valued piece of the workforce.
A group of tellers, loan officers, and customer service representatives from the country’s largest commercial banks will rally Monday outside office towers in Minneapolis to call attention to their own low pay and to consumer-harming sales policies they say are imposed on them by management. As part of the demonstrations, workers will ask to meet with executives at Wells Fargo to deliver a petition calling for the bank to do away with high-pressure sales quotas for its customer service staff.
In a new report from the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), one teller “says she has to ‘practically chase customers out of the door hawking unwanted credit and debit card accounts'” or face reproach from her manager, despite corporate policy that ostensibly prohibits disingenuous or high-pressure tales tactics.
“What they want, what they need, isn’t important to us. Selling them a product is,” a call-center worker at another bank said, summarizing the approach her managers take toward customers.
The CPD report details how the largest banks exacerbate inequality on the macro level and prey upon trusting customers on the micro-level. It argues that the largest American consumer banks are contributing to economic inequality and mining huge profits while freezing tens of millions of un-banked Americans out of basic financial services.
The kinds of basic banking products that are essential to working people trying to save for their retirement or their children “are what industry insiders consider ‘low-value’ or ‘low-margin’ services,” CPD notes, and “are not currently a priority for the big banks.” Instead, banks have put tellers and call center employees under ever more pressure to sell people credit cards and additional bank accounts regardless of whether those products suit the customer’s real needs. At one bank, customer service staff must “make 40 percent of the sales of the top seller to avoid being written up.”
For providing this warped version of “customer service” and surviving the high-pressure work environment the banks create for them, frontline workers are rewarded with falling pay. Pay for tellers fell by more than 5 percent from 2007 to 2013 after adjusting for inflation. Bank workers who conduct interviews for people requesting loans have seen their wages drop by 3.2 percent, and customer service reps have gotten a 2.5 percent cut in that same window.
Out of every 10 bank tellers in the country, three are enrolled in food stamps or another public assistance program. Considering that most such programs have far fewer people enrolled than are eligible for them, it’s likely that the ratio of tellers who qualify for public aid is even higher. Taxpayers spend nearly $900 million a year providing benefits to bring bank tellers and their families up to a subsistence-level income, which means everyone in the country is helping to subsidize bank profits.
Those profits are massive, as the CPD report notes. For every dollar in revenue that the 10 largest consumer banks in America bring in, they manage to keep 20 cents as pure profit after paying workers, overhead, and taxes. That large profit margin leaves plenty of room to pay workers enough to avoid poverty.
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