No hike: Fed keeps benchmark rate near zero
WASHINGTON--Not yet. Citing global economic weakness and financial market turmoil, the Federal Reserve agreed Thursday...
WASHINGTON--Not yet.
Citing global economic weakness and financial market turmoil, the Federal Reserve agreed Thursday to keep its benchmark interest rate near zero despite the rapidly improving U.S. labor market.
But Fed policymakers' forecast indicates they still expect to bump up the federal funds rate this year for the first time in nearly a decade, with meetings scheduled for October and December. Their projections, however, show they expect to raise it even more gradually over the long-term than they previously signaled.
Richmond Fed chief Jeffrey Lacker was the lone dissenter.
The decision capped the most dramatic run-up to a Fed meeting in recent memory, with economists split on whether the central bank would raise its key rate, which has been near zero since the 2008 financial crisis and affects borrowing costs for consumers and businesses across the economy.
"An argument can be made for a rise in interest rates at this time," Fed Chair Janet Yellen said at a news conference.But she added, "We want to take more time to evaluate the likely impact on the United States" from the overseas slowdown and market gyrations.
She said Fed policymakers also want to see if further improvement in the labor market "will bolster our confidence that inflation will move back" to the Fed's annual 2% target over the medium term..
In a statement after a two-day meeting, the Fed said, "Recent global economic and financial developments may restrain economic activity somewhat and are likely to put further downward pressure on inflation in the near-term."
Fed policymakers now expect just one rate hike this year that would push the funds rate to 0.375% from the current 0.125%, according to their median forecast. They also expect a slower rise that would leave the rate at 2.625% by the end of 2017 and a longer-run normal rate of 3.5%, down from their previous estimate of 3.75%.
The central bank said "the labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment." It said consumer spending and business investment have advanced moderately while the housing market "has improved further." But amid the overseas troubles, it said exports have been "soft."
With the U.S. economy rebounding more strongly in the second quarter after a slowdown early in the year, the Fed raised its median forecast for economic growth this year to 2.1% from 1.9% in June. But after the recent global and market troubles, it lowered its projection for 2016 to 2.3% from 2.5% in June.
And with the 5.1% unemployment rate already below the Fed's previous year-end forecast, it now expects the jobless rate to be 4.8% by the end of 2016, below its June forecast of 5.1%.
Yet the central bank also expects a more modest rise in inflation, providing it more leeway to nudge up rates gently. It slightly lowered its inflation forecast to 1.7% in 2016 and 1.9% in 2017, leaving it below its 2% annual target even in two years.
Supporting the case for a Fed move was a 5.1% unemployment rate that's already at the central bank's long-run target, average monthly job gains of 212,000 this year and healthy economic growth of 3.7% at an annual rate in the second quarter. "The economy has been performing well and we expect it to continue to do so," Yellen said.
Waiting too long to act might force the Fed to hoist rates more rapidly when currently meager inflation eventually heats up, a move that could destabilize markets. Yellen said that could be "disruptive to the real economy." "I don't think it's good policy to have to slam on the brakes," she said
Yellen said she continues to expect tepid inflation to pick up as low oil prices and a strong dollar stabilize, but she said it will take "a bit more time" for those effects to dissipate.Some economists say the 5.1% unemployment rate already heralds a coming surge in wages and prices as employers compete for fewer available workers.
But annual pay growth has been stuck near a sluggish 2% pace, possibly reflecting an excess labor supply that includes part-time workers who prefer full-time jobs and discouraged Americans resuming job searches after years on the sidelines. If that's the case, the Fed may want to keep rates low longer to stimulate the economy so more of those workers can find full-time jobs.
Yellen told reporters the unemployment rate likely "understates the degree of slack in the labor market."
Meanwhile, recent news of China's economic slowdown, and the resulting turmoil in global and U.S. stocks, prompted Fed officials to temper expectations for a rate hike this week.
"The outlook abroad appears to have become more uncertain of late and heightened concerns about growth in China and other emerging market economies have led to notable volatility in financial markets," Yellen said.
She added, "We don't want to respond to market turbulence," but the volatility is prompting the Fed to investigate its cause in the global economy.While U.S. exports to China comprise less than 1% of the nation's gross domestic product, Chinese trade with other countries could have stronger ripple effects on the U.S. economy.
Before the release of the Fed's statement to reporters, a coalition of worker advocacy groups called Fed Up gathered outside holding signs such as, "Whose recovery?" and chanting, "Don't raise the interest rates!"
"The Fed should not make a decision to slow down the economy without hearing from the people it will affect," said Ady Barkan, the head of the group.
Source: USA Today
Why markets ignore Trump news
Why markets ignore Trump news
ALSO TODAY: FED UP IN WYOMING — Per release: “On the eve of the Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson...
ALSO TODAY: FED UP IN WYOMING — Per release: “On the eve of the Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, researchers, scholars, and workers will join Fed Up for a panel discussion that will set the tone for this year’s theme: “Changing Market Structure and Implications for Monetary Policy.” Thursday, August 23 - 4:00 pm MDT. “Free Speech Area” directly in front of the Jackson Lake Lodge.
Read the full article here.
Report: Women unduly harmed by unpredictable scheduling
Al Jazeera - 05-12-2015 - Irregular hours and just-in-time scheduling are pervasive throughout the low-wage...
Al Jazeera - 05-12-2015 - Irregular hours and just-in-time scheduling are pervasive throughout the low-wage economy, but they do particular harm to working women, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Center for Popular Democracy.
Women still disproportionately shoulder responsibility for child care and other family obligations, and more than 6 million women have cited those constraints as the primary reasons they are not employed full time, according to the report.
The Center for Popular Democracy argues that juggling family responsibilities with the unsteady work hours that often come with part-time employment leads to additional challenges for women.
“Women working more hours are likely to experience the stressful effects of overwork and may often have no choice but to work overtime hours or lose their job,” the report says. “However, the over 12 million women working part time in hourly jobs are at greatest risk of both highly erratic schedules and of extreme income fluctuation."
Women were found to be slightly more likely to work jobs paid on an hourly basis: 61 percent compared with 56 percent of men. As a result, their income is more likely to fluctuate based on how many hours they are assigned to work per week or month. Additionally, their off time can be difficult to control or predict because of last-minute scheduling.
Erratic hours can be particularly hard on women, who tend to spend more time than men performing household chores and caring for children. A 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found women in households with children under the age of 6 spent roughly an hour a day attending to their physical needs, whereas men spent roughly half an hour.
On a conference call with reporters to discuss the report, Albuquerque, New Mexico, activist Kris Buchmann said she has been “treated like my life outside of work didn’t matter” while working hourly jobs in retail.
“I can’t tell you how many times I was asked to close and then turn around and come back in after five or six hours off,” she said. “It’s not enough for a full night’s sleep or showering or anything else I have to do."
Other times, “they would call me into work, I would show up, and they would say, ‘Oh, never mind. We don’t need you,’” she said. Such unpredictability made it difficult for her to know when she would need to find child care for her son.
University of Massachusetts at Amherst sociologist Naomi Gerstel, who wrote the book “Unequal Time: Gender, Class and Family in Employment Schedules” with Dan Clawson, said erratic scheduling exists “across the entire class spectrum” but falls especially hard on low-wage workers.
If you’re in a stable, full-time position, “you’re more likely to be able to say no or find substitutes” such as baby sitters and other care workers, she said. Additionally, some higher-paying workplaces are “changing occupations to make it possible for especially women workers to take on what’s defined as flexibility."
But perks such as maternity leave have not filtered down the income ladder. And long-term changes in family structure have created a “double-edged sword” for some workers, said Gerstel. Births to unmarried women have risen steadily since the 1940s, according the U.S. Census Bureau, so more single mothers have been forced to negotiate child care on top of their work schedules.
That’s beginning to change in some parts of the country. Carrie Gleason, the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fair Workweek Initiative director, told reporters on a conference call that 11 states “have introduced some form of work hours legislation, and this is an issue that was basically not on the map last year.”
Buchmann is part of a campaign to get predictable scheduling legislation passed in New Mexico. In November, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved a legislative package known as the Retail Worker Bill of Rights, which is, in part, intended to enforce more predictable scheduling for retail workers.
Source: Al Jazeera
If Politicians Actually Want to Make Change, They Have to Think Like Organizers
If Politicians Actually Want to Make Change, They Have to Think Like Organizers
In 2011, after years of entrenched fighting between businesses and labor supporters, and months of negotiation in the...
In 2011, after years of entrenched fighting between businesses and labor supporters, and months of negotiation in the city council, Seattle’s paid sick-leave ordinance came down to a walk in the park. The bill’s sponsor, councilmember Nick Licata, invited his colleague Tim Burgess, the council’s stalwart fiscal conservative, for a stroll around Green Lake. At that point, few council members were willing to support the bill and Licata was nowhere close to the five-vote majority he needed.
“I figured, in some ways, the swing vote would be Burgess,” Licata explained. “Given his standing in the business community, if he supported it, then other council members would come out and support it. It would have a domino effect.”
Walking side-by-side around the park’s lakeside path, Licata learned that Burgess wanted only minor concessions. Licata brought those back to his coalition of sick-leave supporters, who agreed to most of them. The bill, which had been stuck for years in legislative limbo, began to move. Burgess voiced his support, other councilmembers followed, and Licata wrangled the votes necessary to pass one of the country’s first laws requiring all employers to provide paid sick time to workers.
Laws like this help make Seattle the progressive city it is. In the past five years alone, Seattle has become the first major city to enact a $15 minimum wage; banned the use of plastic bags; sanctioned homeless encampments on city property; helped lead the charge on statewide votes for legal marijuana and marriage equality, and more. To hear most residents tell it, this progressive streak is as inevitable as good coffee or the craggy face of Mount Ranier—the natural outcome of a city peopled by good liberals who want to do the right thing.
But, as the long fight to win paid sick leave suggests, Seattle’s progressive laws are anything but inevitable. The city’s businesses fight tooth and nail against every attempt to improve worker rights and pay, threatening an exodus to friendlier climates. And while Seattle residents say they want the city to be affordable and want to help the rapidly growing homeless population, they also show up in force to protest affordable-housing measures and proposals to open more temporary homeless encampments.
What has fueled Seattle’s progressive victories, then, isn’t some mystery potion or innate Northwestern goodness, but the same hard work that has forced progress in other cities: grassroots organizing, tenacity, and political allies like Nick Licata. For 18 years, Licata has been one of the most reliable forces inside City Hall pushing and prodding Seattle to be a more humane city.
Since his election in 1998, Licata has had his hands in every piece of progressive legislation to pass through City Hall. He fought years of serious opposition to pass the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance, championed paid sick leave and the $15 minimum wage, created Seattle’s first lobbyist-registration law, pushed for sanctioned homeless encampments, and much more. He also fought against public funding of sports stadiums, a bill to outlaw panhandling, and plenty of other attempts at city-sanctioned discrimination.
Throughout his time in office, Licata was doggedly consistent in both his political ideology and his commitment to progressive causes. Among his colleagues, he was often the one vote to the left of all others, but they respected his attention to detail and willingness to work with everyone. Licata’s consistency and legislative success helped him build a citywide progressive base that reelected him every time he ran. Occasionally, it even won him accolades outside his adopted city. The Nation named him Most Valuable Local Official in 2012.
Beyond advancing progressive policy, Licata’s time in office helped carve out a space for the current progressive bloc of councilmembers, including Kshama Sawant, Mike O’Brien, and Licata’s longtime legislative aide turned successor, Lisa Herbold. It is of course overly simplistic to draw a straight line from Licata to those that came after him, but his ability to stay true to his values while getting things done helped pull Seattle’s traditionally centrist electeds to the left and proved that voters support progressives.
“Nick, for so long, fostered and cultivated this progressive wing of Seattle,” said O’Brien. “One of the things I learned from Nick is you don’t need to shy away from progressive values. You can embrace them.”
Since his election in 1998, Nick Licata has had his hands in every piece of progressive legislation to pass through Seattle's City Hall.
Last December, Licata finished his final term as a city councilor—a move he was careful not to frame as retirement. He is not ending his political work, just changing the form it takes. Some of his time will be spent working with Local Progress, the nonprofit network of progressive local politicians he helped found in 2012. Some of it will be spent promoting his recently published book, Becoming A Citizen Activist, which is part memoir and part how-to guide for navigating local government. All of it is in service of Licata’s theory of the city as a tool for movement-based social and political change.
“With Congress deadlocked and state governments largely taken over by the right wing, large urban areas are the last bastions of progressive strength,” he explained. “But it’s hard to manifest that into political power. We need to start going where our strength is and building out from that.”
* * *
Licata’s attempt to seed state and national change by fomenting shifts at the local level is, in many respects, the logical conclusion of a career built on grassroots activism.
Licata was born in Cleveland in 1947, the son of traditional working-class Catholics who never graduated from high school. His turn towards progressive politics began during his college years at Bowling Green State University, where he helped found the school’s chapter of Students for Democratic Society, and solidified in 1970, when he was a graduate student at the University of Washington protesting the war.
After grad school, Licata moved into PRAG House, a commune that would serve as home base for 25 years of organizing and activism that eventually launched his political career. Like a true Renaissance lefty, he had hand in almost all the consequential battles of the age, as well as some of the less consequential ones. He published a directory of Seattle community groups and social services called the People’s Yellow Pages; helped form Coalition Against Redlining; launched an alternative weekly called the Seattle Sun; helped organize an annual 24-hour dance marathon called Give Peace A Dance to raise money for nuclear disarmament TV ads; and co-founded Citizens For More Important Things to fight public funding of new baseball and football stadiums in Seattle, among other things.
Much of Licata’s activist career was paid for by his work as an insurance broker, a kind of Wallace Stevens of the activist left. But after 15 years of this arrangement, Licata was unhappy and his bosses expected him to become a manager.
He left to run for city council.
* * *
In Licata’s first run at council, he was the underdog against Aaron Ostrom, a popular city staffer with establishment backing. Despite being outspent and running without major endorsements, Licata was able to organize his broad activist networks to show up at the polls and elect him.
“I was somewhat isolated [as a progressive]. I could tell my new colleagues thought I was going to be temporary. The first day in office I didn’t have a chair, though I think it was an oversight,” Licata said.
Nonetheless, Licata managed to prove his efficacy. Years of working in insurance gave him a keen eye for detail and in his first year in office, he found an extra $50,000 that had not been allocated in the budget.
Licata’s attempt to seed state and national change by fomenting shifts at the local level is the logical conclusion of a career built on grassroots activism.
“It’s a trite term, but I think I earned their respect,” said Licata. “Not that I was brilliant, but I dug into things more than usual.”
He also proved he knew how to work the system. Licata’s first major victory was killing Seattle’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics.
“It was almost like drowning the golden child. Even I was very supportive to start. Who doesn’t like the Olympics?”
But as he dug into the contract and read about other host cities, Licata realized Seattle would have to take on any financial liabilities from the games and likely wind up with a pile of debt.
“The people we’re supposed to serve most, not the tourists, not the people coming in, not the investors, not the businesses, but the people living here? They don’t gain. In fact a lot of them lose,” Licata said.
He started his uphill battle with his most conservative colleagues, highlighting the financial case against hosting the Olympics. He got his message out to local journalists who started covering the issue. He also hosted a public forum downtown in the go-to journalist watering hole. The room was packed with people who had come to listen to a panel of experts make the case against the Olympics (the pro side declined his invitation). He commissioned a countywide poll that showed people were against the bid when they knew about the debt. The council slowly came around and, in the end, eight of nine members signed a letter in opposition to the bid. Because no councilmember was willing to sponsor a resolution in support, the issue died.
Licata’s organizer approach to legislating and willingness to work with everyone was a recurring theme of his time in office and served him well in his proudest victories.
Getting the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance—a basic law that requires landlords to register rental properties so the city can make sure they’re up to code—took six years of negotiations between advocates and the Rental Housing Association.
The Paid Sick and Safe Time bill was a similarly big lift that required years of brokering negotiation between labor, activists, and businesses. Councilman O’Brien says that tenacity was an example of Licata at his best.
“He’s watching it and figuring out ‘where are my votes, who’s with me, now where do I get the next vote? I think we need to have a brown bag, we need a town hall, I need to build momentum. What are the obstacles that keep you from supporting this? Can we work on that?’” O’Brien explained.
Licata’s organizer approach to legislating and willingness to work with everyone was a recurring theme of his time in office
He continued, “The bill that came out in the end wasn’t exactly how anyone wanted it in the start, but it was great. He had the ability when he was driving something to be really aware of the politics on the floor, what changes he needed to make, how to manage that dynamic.”
Licata readily admits he can’t take sole credit for $15 Now’s success or many of the city’s big progressive victories. But he’s proud of the role he’s played as an activist on the inside connecting the fist-raised activists he came up with and the establishment whose support and votes are critical for political success.
“I’m not very good at sports analogies. But I think I’m like the midfielders in soccer. They make sure the ball gets to the striker or keeps the ball away from their own goalie. But they don’t end up on the front cover.”
Now that he’s left office, Licata wants to see if he can take his mid-fielding talents national to see if cities’ progressive momentum can combat state and national conservatism.
* * *
The idea that like-minded local politicians need to work together to bolster regional and national progressive policy is at the heart of Local Progress, the nonprofit Licata co-founded with New York City Councilman Brad Lander in 2012. They point to the minimum-wage movement as example of their success. The $15 Now effort started in Seattle then spread to other cities and gained enough momentum to get introduced at state and national levels.
The organization is young and only recently raised enough money to hire staff, but it has succeeded in recruiting 400 members in 40 states, the majority of whom are elected officials. Local Progress’ work is a mix of big-picture enthusiasm building and nitty-gritty policy work.
Licata is working part-time with Local Progress to explore how best to accomplish regional organizing. The work is rooted in a feeling that there’s no choice but to focus on cities.
Lander said, “There’s still a lot cities can do on their own through legislation and policy, as we’ve been seeing. When cities get together they can make changes in their states. Then start to make those changes nationally.”
"I think you can change the world and you have to. You just have to go about it strategically and it takes some time.” —Nick Licata
Michael Kazin, Georgetown University history professor and co-editor of Dissent magazine, agreed that ever-more-progressive city politics have helped shift the national conversation. But without a corresponding movement of national progressives activists, local politicians can only do so much.
“There has to be a left populist movement. It can’t at all dismiss the importance of race and gender and sexual orientation and environment. All that’s right. But you’re not going to win majority without having a majority,” said Kazin.
He continued, “You need a lot of young people who are excited about politics and activists, and not just at election time.”
That is, in some ways, what Licata hopes to engender with his new book. As the name implies, Becoming A Citizen Activist is Licata’s attempt to share the lessons he’s learned to help people effectively navigate city politics.
Perhaps the most important of those lessons is that success comes from barely perceptible micro-victories that build into movements and major victories in the long term.
“Everyone becomes disappointed in the gap between the ideal and the deliverable,” said Licata. “You’re not going to change the world overnight. I think you can change the world and you have to. You just have to go about it strategically and it takes some time.”
Licata’s 18 years in office and over 40 years of community activism in Seattle are certainly evidence of that. His many losses and half wins and small steps forward have added up to marked change in Seattle over time. Of course, like most cities, Seattle is still a deeply inequitable place with a growing gap between rich and poor. But Licata’s work has helped give progressives a platform from which to combat those inequities. And given that, it seems possible that bringing that same detail-focused, local approach to the national stage might eventually bring about national progressive change.
By Josh Cohen
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Activists Protest Universities Over Investments In Puerto Rico Bondholders
Activists Protest Universities Over Investments In Puerto Rico Bondholders
A coalition of social and economic justice groups has launched a one-week campaign to end what they view as problematic...
A coalition of social and economic justice groups has launched a one-week campaign to end what they view as problematic university investments. The New York-based Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and partner organizations including three Make the Road branches will hold six protests along the East Coast, calling on Columbia, Harvard and Yale to pull their investments out of hedge funds that hold Puerto Rican debt and have advocated austerity measures in the U.S. territory, leading to mass school closings and higher tuition costs.
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.
Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker to Retire in October
Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker to Retire in October
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker, one of the Fed system’s most outspoken advocates for higher...
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker, one of the Fed system’s most outspoken advocates for higher short-term interest rates in recent years, will retire Oct. 1 after 28 years at the bank, the regional Fed bank said Tuesday.
The Richmond Fed’s board of directors has formed a search committee led by Chairwoman Margaret Lewis to find a new president, and has hired the firm of Heidrick & Struggles to assist in the search, the bank said. The bank intends to conduct “a nationwide search to identify a broad, diverse and highly qualified candidate pool for this leadership role,” it said.
Mr. Lacker became the second Fed official to announce his plans to retire in 2017. Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart will step down at the end of February.
“Jeff has been an outstanding leader for the Richmond Fed and has made many contributions to the Federal Reserve System,” Ms. Lewis said in a statement announcing his departure.
A Richmond Fed spokesman said Mr. Lacker wants to return to teaching, writing and academic research, though he had no details on where Mr. Lacker may go after he leaves the bank later this year.
Mr. Lacker joined the Richmond Fed in 1989 and served in various leadership positions before becoming president in August 2004. For the past decade he has anchored the Fed’s hawkish wing, warning of the risks of rising inflation and dissenting often in favor of a higher benchmark federal-funds rate, which officials held near zero for six years following the financial crisis.
He was a voting member of the Fed’s policy committee in 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2015, and dissented a total of 15 times out of 32 meetings.
Mr. Lacker also argued against the Fed’s interventions in financial markets throughout the financial crisis, and has said financial instability was worsened by expectations that the Fed would always provide a backstop for financial firms in trouble.
Over the past year, he has also argued against efforts to overhaul the Fed system, including measures that would subject the Fed’s interest-rate decisions to greater congressional scrutiny or tie its policy to a mathematical formula.
“I’m hoping that our leaders in Congress and the administration understand that our independence is of value and is important to the credibility of the country’s commitment to price stability and I hope they’re willing to proceed accordingly,” he said after the November presidential election.
Mr. Lacker said in a statement Tuesday he felt fortunate “to have participated in some of the most extraordinary policy deliberations in our nation’s history. It’s been my deepest privilege to lead the Richmond Fed and the dedicated people who work here.”
The search to replace Mr. Lacker is likely to face scrutiny from activists and congressional Democrats who have called for more diversity among the Fed’s upper ranks, as well as more openness about how it selects its regional bank leaders.
Following Mr. Lockhart’s announcement last year, the left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign said it hoped the next Atlanta Fed president would be black or Hispanic, which would be a first for a regional Fed bank.
In an unusual move, a group of African-American House members wrote to Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and the chairman of the Atlanta Fed’s board urging them to consider candidates of diverse racial, ethnic, gender and professional backgrounds. The lawmakers also noted that most of the presidents worked at major financial firms before their appointments.
“We hope that candidates from distinctive sectors like academia, labor, and nonprofit organizations are given due consideration,” they wrote.
Before joining the Richmond Fed, Mr. Lacker was an assistant professor of economics at the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University and previously worked at Wharton Econometrics in Philadelphia, the bank said.
The bank posted information about its search process on its website Tuesday.
By Kate Davidson
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Ana María Archila: Low Wage Workers are Paving the Way to Democracy
GRITtv - February 18, 2014, by Laura Flanders - Bill de Blasio campaigned on ushering in a new era in New York City...
GRITtv - February 18, 2014, by Laura Flanders - Bill de Blasio campaigned on ushering in a new era in New York City and actively pursued low-wage voters. Now that he is Mayor, what can the people who elected him do to influence what happens next? It is a question grassroots groups grapple with around the country. On GRITtv this week, Ana María Archila shares a few ideas. Archila was a founder of one of the most effective community groups in New York; now she's heading up a regional initiative that seeks to build popular democracy, not only at the ballot box, but in between elections.
From the school to prison pipeline and stop and frisk to immigration reform and workplace safety regulations, New Yorkers are eager to seize the moment for political change, says Archila. For evidence, consider the crowds that gathered at the Talking Transition Tent which was set up in downtown, immediately following last fall's elections.
Mayor Bill de Blasio seems to be listening. Less than two months into his term he has expanded paid sick leave for hundreds of workers around the city, one of the central demands of low wage workers. But how do people ensure that this momentum continues?
"He is only listening because low wage workers are extremely organized," Co-Executive Director for the Center for Popular Democracy Ana María Archila tells GRITtv. "New Yorkers are demanding more."
In addition to paid sick leave, organizers with Make the Road New York (the community organization that Archila describes as her "organizing home") are campaigning for a raise in the minimum wage and increased work place safety regulations. Organizing locally and creating small scale initiatives, like worker or consumer co-ops, can help engage people and address some immediate needs, but ultimately, low wage Americans need to build political power.
"The biggest co-operative we have is our own government and we need to make sure that it works for us," she says.
For more on ushering in a new progressive era, watch our interview with Joo-Hyun Kang on ending the Stop and Frisk regime.
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Fed Chair Candidate Kevin Warsh Draws Opposition From Left and Right
Fed Chair Candidate Kevin Warsh Draws Opposition From Left and Right
On a Wednesday in mid-September, a group of progressive activists concerned about the stewardship of the American...
On a Wednesday in mid-September, a group of progressive activists concerned about the stewardship of the American economy packed a meeting room on Capitol Hill with staff of Senate Democrats. Part strategy session and part pep talk, the gathering had a very specific aim.
“We’ll do whatever we can do to prevent Kevin Warsh from taking on the role of chair of the Federal Reserve,” Jennifer Epps-Addison, president of the Center for Popular Democracy, told the gathering.
Read the full article here.
Healthcare protesters arrested at Republican Senate offices
Healthcare protesters arrested at Republican Senate offices
At least 20 health care activists with pre-existing conditions were arrested during sit-ins at Republican senators’...
At least 20 health care activists with pre-existing conditions were arrested during sit-ins at Republican senators’ offices on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, with the numbers of arrests poised to skyrocket into the hundreds.
The sit-ins were organized by a coalition of liberal interest groups to protest the lack of protections for people with pre-existing conditions in the Republican health care bill, which has temporarily stalled in the Senate. As they obstructed access to the senators’ offices, tens of activists were arrested by Capitol Police in a show of civil disobedience.
Read the full article here.
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