New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has decided to cut free student metrocards in order to fill gaps in hte budget. According to the New York Times, "it will cost families an additional $810 a student per year. This approaches 2 percent of the median yearly household income in New York City per child."
New York is balancing the budget on student’s backs. Beyond that, there will definitely be a rise in the number of children arrested for hopping the turnstiles when they can’t afford cards. Talk about criminalizing youth- MTA policy is a “rail to jail” for low-income students in New York.
Some students have started protesting the measure, which you can read about here: http://ny1.com/5-manhattan-news-content/top_stories/110841/students-rally-against-elimination-of-free-metrocards
The executive director of the Jewish Labor Committee makes her case for legislation that would remove obstacles to workers ability to join unions.
By Sybil Sanchez
Aug 29, 2009: NEW YORK (JTA) -- This Labor Day, take a moment to remember people like Lupe Hernandez.
When she toured a Jewish family's apartment in the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, she felt connected to our history as immigrants struggling to make better lives for ourselves and our families. Hernandez is one of the immigrant workers on strike in the 2007 film "Made in LA" struggling to receive a fair wage and stop sweatshop abuse by organizing.
Labor Day might seem like a quaint throwback, but the struggle for workers' rights is still being fought today in our own backyards.
Our community's relationship to labor is very different today than in yesteryear, but the Jewish obligation to remember our history remains relevant. As Jews, we must respect and support workers' rights, whether it's those of our ancestors or today's immigrants.
While most headlines are focused on health care reform, labor law reform should stay on our agenda -- specifically, the Employee Free Choice Act. This much-needed legislation has three important principles: Workers would more easily be able to join or form a union; employers who break the law in efforts to stop union organizing would face more stringent penalties and workers who have chosen to form a union would have a clear path to an initial collective bargaining agreement with their employer.
Today, 44 percent of newly formed unions are unable to reach initial agreements, a serious problem the current law fails to address.
The majority sign-up route to union recognition provided by the Employee Free Choice Act has a long history and is in widespread use today in the United States and many other countries. But there's a catch: Under current law, workers can form a union via majority sign-up only if their employer agrees to it - which most employers refuse to do, even when worker support for the union is overwhelming.
Supporting this legislation is a no-brainer if one supports workers' right to collectively negotiate for decent wages and working conditions.
The Jewish Labor Committee has been a longtime supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act. We're not alone. A number of other Jewish organizations also have endorsed it, including the Progressive Jewish Alliance in Los Angeles, Chicago's Jewish Council for Urban Affairs, Philadelphia's Jewish Social Policy Action Network, Washington's Jews United for Justice and New York's Uri L'Tzedek. A visit to Rabbisforworkerschoice.org reveals the support of dozens of rabbis.
Ofer Eini, chairman of Israel's federation of labor, the Histadrut, also has weighed in on the issue, conveying his support In a recent letter to John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO.
"The Employee Free Choice Act will bring U.S. law for union recognition into conformity with Israeli law and international human rights standards on the freedom of association in the workplace," Eini wrote. "We believe that U.S. workers, and all workers, should have the same rights as Israeli workers, to organize unions free from employer interrogation, intimidation and harassment.
"In Israel, when workers seek to bargain collectively, they just join together into a union, in the same manner that they join any other organization," he added. "When a sufficient number of workers have joined a union, they can demand recognition from their employer. If the employer refuses, the Labour Courts of Israel can investigate, and when it has determined that the required number of the workers are union members, that they have joined freely and without coercion, the court can require the employer to recognize the union."
According to Eini, the Employee Free Choice Act will "reform U.S. labor law so that the U.S. National Labor Relations Board is, like the National Labour Court of Israel, empowered to protect freedom of association, instead of thwarting it, as it is currently compelled to do by U.S. labor law."
"Unlike the National Labour Court of Israel, the National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] of the United States has no power to require the employer to recognize the workers' union except by first imposing an NLRB election," he said. "But NLRB elections are a cruel violation of the fundamental principles of free and fair and secret elections. In practice, they effectively prevent workers from exercising their right to freedom of association.
"Paid supervisors are trained by anti-union consultants to act as spies in the workplace. Thousands of workers are harassed, intimidated or fired each year by employers who do everything in their power to rob workers of their right to join unions and bargain collectively.
"So long as the employer-employee relationship remains one of power imbalance there is no way to reform an NLRB election to make it approach the standard of a free, fair and secret election.
"But as the experience of Israel teaches us, there is no reason to force workers through such a process. The National Labor Relations Board of the United States, like the National Labour Court of Israel, is fully capable of assessing the validity of union membership and verifying that membership was achieved without intimidation and coercion. It can do so without being required to impose an undemocratic and workers-rights-violating NLRB election. But it can do so only if the Employee Free Choice Act will pass as written."
The Histadrut leader concluded by calling on "all who desire that our countries' laws reflect our shared ideals of workplace social justice to support Employee Free Choice."
In this respect, Israeli law is pointing the way to a society that treats its workers with justice and dignity. Can we do any less?
The dual meaning in the headlines about GM's plan to eliminate the Pontiac brand is not lost on me. I grew up in a neighborhood in Pontiac, Michigan. The place. Headlines like "GM to cut 1/3 of workers, kill Pontiac" and "GM to pull the plug on Pontiac" are reminders to me that though GM has just recently decided to kill the Pontiac brand, they pulled the plug on my home town a long time ago.
My mother's family has lived in Pontiac since 1960. I grew-up in her childhood home in a neighborhood quite different than the one she knew. We lived with my grandfather and he and my mother remember Pontiac as an up-and-coming area for young families. They remember a city with jobs, new homes, and good schools. Pontiac can boast that it is the home to Automation Alley and the county seat of one of the wealthiest counties in America. Yet, the auto industry is dying and working class families in Pontiac were hit by this downturn hard and early. As for the wealth of Oakland County, Pontiac has an average household income of $31,207 compared to the Oakland County average of $61,907. You can drive a mile from our family home, leave Pontiac and enter Bloomfield Hills where the median household income is $170,790. You can’t help but see the disparity in wealth. I remember feeling anger and jealousy as a kid at the huge houses, fancy new cars, swimming pools, and giant swing sets in the backyards.
Click here to download a beautiful PDF of a bookmark with JFSJ's 2009 Pesach message--perfect for holding the page in your haggadah while leaving two hands free to juggle parsley and salt water.
Text of the message below:
The economic collapse has left many of us feeling powerless and despondent. The world, it seems, has drifted into a new Mitzrayim, a term that refers geographically to the land of Egypt, but literally means a narrow or constricted place.
It is not easy to escape from Mitzrayim. According to the Torah, the ancient Israelites endure slavery for hundreds of years before summoning the strength even to pray for liberation. Frightened when freedom comes, the people continue to long for a return to the security of slavery.
At one point, God comments, “They will know that I am Adonai their God who brought them out of Mitzrayim to dwell among them.” (Exodus 29:46) Rashi, an eleventh century scholar reads this verse conditionally: “On the condition that I dwell among [the people], I have brought them out of Egypt.”
That is – as long as the people allow the divine presence to dwell among them, they will remain free from Mitzrayim. But the moment the people stop actively trying to make the divine presence manifest, they will metaphorically return to the constricted space of Mitzrayim.
By giving tzedakah, by working for policies that will create opportunity for everyone, and by helping to create a more just society, we too can make the divine presence evident among us, even – or especially – in difficult times, and will lift ourselves collectively out of the narrowness of Mitzrayim.
Lately, I've been involved in a number of conference calls and other conversations about how Jewish communities can support members who have lost jobs, have lost (or face) losing homes, or are no longer able to live on retirement savings. These conversations are important: after all, one of the primary functions of Jewish communities is supporting their own members. Since Jewish communities have existed, they have maintained communal funds that distribute money, food, and medicine to those in need. Members of Jewish communities have long helped one another find jobs, endure illnesses and other hardships, and survive rough times. In fact, many of us choose to affiliate with Jewish communities precisely because of the promise that these communities will celebrate and mourn with us, and will support us through good times and bad.
So it's totally appropriate and commendable that synagogues are starting job banks for members, donors are stepping up contributions to day schools in order that children will not have to drop out, and rabbis are quietly using their discretionary funds to help out-of-work members.
But what's missing from many of the conversations of which I have been a part is the question of the Jewish community's commitment beyond our own boundaries.
Jonathan Chait at The New Republic was able to drum up considerable indignation at "wealthy idiots" and the "idiot reporter" earlier this week, when he stumbled across an ABC News report on Americans trying to cut their income to just below $250,000. Their logic, such as it was, involved avoiding the higher tax bracket by simply making a dollar less than a quarter-million a year.
Chait's response: "Oh my God, the stupidity."
That wasn't his only response. He also pointed out "the tax code doesn't work that way," and instead of being taxed on all your earnings at a higher rate because you suddenly earned more, "only every dollar over $250,000 is taxed at a higher rate." What made the piece interesting was not just the sheer stupidity of the subjects of the piece (and the reporter, for encouraging theirs and others stupidity), but Chait's incredulity in the face of it. Does he really believe masses of Americans are well informed about our tax code?
I'm not just talking about the subtle nuances of our tax code. Can a college kid deduct their tuition? Who knows without a trip to H&R Block? What I'm talking about is the writ large nature of our tax code. I'd be curious to see what percentage of Americans would be able to accurately describe the way our tax code works and what percentage would be in the same boat as the ABC reporter and her rich subjects, but I'd be willing to bet real money a sizable minority, if not a majority couldn't get it right.
All of which is why I think Chait got it wrong in a second post, following up on his earlier one, when he wrote:
Commenter "ratnerstar" has the right idea here: It's time to stop educating these ignorant rich people and start taking advantage of them. We have some number of high-income people out there who earnestly think they can increase their take-home pay by decreasing their salaries.This is one of the great scamming opportunities of all time, with the side bonus that the targets richly deserve their fate.
He's kidding, obviously. I think.
Nevertheless, the root issue here is education, and not just for the wealthiest earners who should know better. Liberals, back in the ancient days when they would routinely lose elections despite polling better on the issues, would lament this disconnect. Why were so many Americans supporting Republicans when it was obviously not in their economic self-interest to do so, when they said they agreed with Democrats?
Education. People aren't dumb, but in a world as big and complicated as ours is, why are we still so routinely surprised by people's failure to grasp the basic mechanics of that world? The Jewish tradition champions education, and it's not just because literacy is a prerequisite for Torah study. Judaism understood earlier than most that an educated, informed population was better able to chart its best course. We understood that to allow somebody to remain uneducated wasn't an act of politeness, it was an egregious crime against that person. Why would any ethical human being allow another human being to live in ignorance and likely suffer from their ignorance?
Clearly the tax code is complex, and it's just one plank in our economic system. We keep doling out billions, and I think it's safe to say at this point that a majority of people in this country are not what one might call well-versed on the complexities of the crisis and its solutions. Even some of the experts tasked with fixing the mess are basically winging it in some respects.
So how do we bridge the educational divide? How do we ensure that a lack of information and understanding on the part of the citizens who will benefit from these solutions doesn't overturn the attempts at implementing those solutions? Well, that's complicated.
In our ongoing effort to save the world from almost certain financial meltdown, one of the most terrifying trends of a plunge in the global standard of living appears to be gaining legs: hunger. It's sort of like a movie-within-a-movie or play-within-a-play but a hunger-crisis-within-a-financial-crisis is a little less quaint.
It's become more than cliche to compare our various economic crises of the past year to the Great Depression. So this week I picked up Hard Times, a collection of interviews the late Studs Terkel conducted with people who lived through the actual Great Depression. Whether or not you'd see any parallels with today, it makes for great reading, especially for those folks interested in labor history.
A recurring theme of Hard Times is that most people had absolutely no information about what was happening, or why, even as it dragged on for years and years and years. Another theme is the way protesters were marginalized (frequently with billy clubs). As one man reflected years later,
People would regard a depression today as man-made. In the past, depressions fell in the same category as earthquakes and bad weather. An act of Providence or God. [Today] I don't think there'd be the acquiescence of the Thirties. I think there'd be a rebellion ... There was some of this [rebellion] in the Thirties, the left wing. There was anger and frustration ... these were the nuts, the fringe. They wouldn't be in the fringe today...
Do you think he's right about this? I've been going back and forth. On the one hand, since we know so much about how the economy works these days, it's easier to feel that there is some story in the crisis, some themes, some lessons to be learned.
On the other hand, these days, even when actual humans admit that they and their companies lost billions of dollars because of bad decisions they and their employees made, it's all on such an incomprehensibly broad scale, and there are so many tangled relationships of causality, that in some sense it all still feels like an act of God. It's hard to gin up any outrage against the latest Wall Street Buffoon staring out of your local paper, because you know next week they'll dig up someone who did something even stupider.
But if - God forbid - a deeper crisis emerged, and if it went on for year after year after year, would Americans demand something more from their government than they did in the Great Depression? And would they get a response?
Some more excerpts, below (an excessive number of excerpts, because I just love the simple language Terkel pulls out of people):
Since I first wrote about the Apollo Project a couple of years ago, much has advanced. Just this past weekend, President Elect Barack Obama pledged a public works project on a vast scale that would emphasize green investment to achieve economic recovery. Indeed, the progress from vision to reality is truly impressive.
The announcement comes amid a growing consensus that to overcome the country’s economic crisis in a manner that is sustainable and forward thinking, the government needs embark on a "Green New Deal" investing in initiatives to repair infrastructure, increase the production and consumption of renewable energy, encourage energy efficiency, and upgrade the electricity grid. This sentiment has been echoed by leaders across the political spectrum, as well as abroad.
Of course, the Jewish community was a critical part of the original New Deal coalition, the grouping of voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for FDR who faced a right-wing backlash. That coalition not only proved to be a lasting political alignment that survived well into the late 1960s but also supported his economic recovery policy agenda.
Now that there is buzz of a "Green New Deal" it seems natural to ask what today's coalition will look like and assess in what way the Jewish community will be involved in these momentous changes.
I've become very interested in the movements around green jobs and a green economy. This video is a (very) brief intro to Van's thinking; i'll review his book when i'm done reading it. Curious to hear other recommended reading on the subject...
