Updates – Page 9 – Alliance for a Just Society

Victory! King v. Burwell Guarantees Millions Will Keep Their Health Care

Today is major victory: the Supreme Court rejected King v. Burwell, an attack against the Affordable Care Act that attempted to deny quality health care to millions of people in the United States.

Here is a joint statement on the King v. Burwell decision today from:

LeeAnn Hall, executive director of Alliance for a Just Society
Fred Azcarate, executive director of US Action
George Goehl, executive director of National People’s Action

Statement:

Today. The Supreme Court rejected an attack on the Affordable Care Act, our country’s health care law. Now, more than 6.4 million people, many with health insurance for the first time, can rest assured that their health coverage won’t be stripped away.

Our work isn’t done. Many people – disproportionately people of color – are still shut out of health care because of cost, the language they speak, or state lawmakers’ refusal to expand Medicaid. It’s time to stop fighting over whether people have a right to health care – and time to make quality health care a reality for everyone.

We call on obstructionists in Congress to end their assault on health care once and for all. Stop trying to repeal, defund, and undermine the Affordable Care Act.

The Alliance for a Just Society, USAction and National People’s Action led grassroots organizations nationwide to fight for health care for everyone in our country. The ACA was a major victory, overwhelmingly popular, and it’s here to stay.

Want to do more?

Click the Health Care for America Now petition to tell obstructionists “Hands Off ACA!”

The law is working, now it’s time to make sure everyone has access to quality health care.

Health Reform and New Tools for Fighting Hospital Debt

Retiree Lee Johnson went in for knee surgery at a hospital in Seattle, and came out with a bill for $30,000, even after his insurance paid its share of the costs. No one at the hospital told him about the availability of charity care. So, to pay off his debt he took on a new one by refinancing his home. He believed it to be the only option in addressing the medical bill.

Soon, he found himself fighting to save his house and avoided foreclosure only after a costly legal battle.

Around the country, hospitals are hitting low-income patients with astronomical debt, demanding deposits before offering needed care, garnishing wages, sending collections agencies after patients, putting liens on property, and taking patients to court. A recent investigation by ProPublica found that “[i]n Missouri alone, hospitals and debt collection firms working for them filed more than 15,000 suits in 2013.”

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is designed in part to prevent this kind of abuse – and it gives community groups new tools for doing just that.

Getting people insured isn’t the only thing the 2010 law does. Although expanding coverage is certainly the ACA’s main goal, it aims to change our health care system more broadly, recognizing that health insurance, standing alone, won’t guarantee affordable care for everyone. (Lee Johnson knows this from his own unfortunate experience.) For that reason, the ACA also calls on non-profit hospitals – key health care institutions – to better meet the needs of their communities and play an active role in promoting community health.

Under new rules, non-profit hospitals must adopt written financial assistance policies and publicize those policies – and provide interpretation and translation. The new rules also introduce limits on how much hospitals can charge patients for certain services and when they can use “extraordinary” collection tactics.

That’s not all. Now non-profit hospitals also must develop community health needs assessments and implementation plans addressing those needs. With these plans, they can go beyond health care and tackle the causes of health problems, such as barriers to healthy diets.

But community organizations shouldn’t wait for hospitals to act on these rules – which leave a lot of blanks to be filled in. If we want to see the ACA implemented well, we need to let hospitals know how we expect them to meet their new obligations.

AJS Statement on Charleston S.C. Shootings

The Alliance for a Just Society joins the world in mourning the brutal deaths of nine people murdered in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, SC this week. We have in our thoughts and prayers the families and lives of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Daniel L. Simmons, Ethel Lee Lance, Myra Thompson, Rev. Depayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Cynthia Hurd, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton.

We may not have known them, but we name them, and vow never to forget the personal victims of racist violence and their stories.

We are appalled by the racist violence and terror. We are angry that more than 50 years since Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. last spoke in that same church that we are still unable to face racism in our country.

Racism dehumanizes and abuses people of color and reinforces vast inequality, while protecting those with power and privilege. Violence, terror and fear are essential pillars of racism – whether it’s the official violence at the hands of the police and military; vigilante violence by the mob, or the action of a “lone gunman.”

But there is no lone gunman. Anyone who has a hand in allowing racism to thrive in any corner of our society, in our homes, our living rooms or taught to our children, has to acknowledge that it must end now. We don’t need any more wake up calls. We have awoken.

The lost lives of the nine men and women, moms, dads, sisters, uncles, grandparents, brothers, children, friends, teachers, and all that they were and meant, cannot simply be mourned… they must be a catalyst for change – and we must be that change.

Today is the 150th Anniversary of Juneteenth Day, the first celebration of the end of slavery. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that Texas can forbid people from putting the Confederate Flag on their state license plates, and yet, many Southern states still fly confederate flags. Our country still struggles to acknowledge that #BlackLivesMatter.

We believe that “no one is free until we are all free.” We’re still not free.

More Low Paying Jobs Means Families Continue to Struggle

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the Employment Situation Summary, commonly known as the “jobs report,” for May. While many news outlets had headlines lauding May’s jobs numbers, at least some are beginning to come around to a fact that we have been stating for months: too many of these new jobs are in low-wage work.

Rather than being good jobs that pay enough to meet basic needs, these jobs leave working families without the ability to make ends meet.

Nonfarm payroll, which includes all industries that are not farm-related, increased by 280,000 in May. Most of that increase comes from service-providing industries like retail. Unfortunately, a significant portion of these jobs are in traditionally low-paying industries, with three of the top four increases in service-providing industries that have average hourly earnings below $15 per hour.

This includes industries we’ve called out before like leisure and hospitality (which includes food service) and retail, as well as professional and business services. Additionally, within professional and business services, a large portion of the growth came from temporary help services – jobs that do not ensure stable employment.

The May Jobs Report showed a continuation of a trend away from high-paying jobs and toward low-paying and even temporary employment. As we reported in “Low Wage Nation,” there are not enough good-paying jobs to go around, and growth in low-wage industries only exacerbates the problem.

With seven job seekers for every job opening that pays at least $15 per hour, too many working families will continue to struggle, even with May’s job growth.

However, there is some hopeful news in the May Jobs Report, as well. The industry with the highest increase in employment was Education and Health Services, with most of that increase coming from Health Care and Social Assistance.

As mentioned in “Low Wage Nation,” occupations in this industry pay relatively high wages, and are a great investment for states as they create good jobs and help working families care for their own health, as well. While the BLS data does not specify where this job growth originated, it is likely that at least some of it is due to continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the growing number of states that have expanded Medicaid.

Moving forward, we hope that this strong increase in health care jobs continues. However, investment in even more high-paying industries also needs to be a priority, as does increasing wages across the board so that all jobs can become good jobs. Until then, as long as employment growth continues to happen largely in lower-paying industries, working families will struggle to make ends meet without enough high-paying jobs to go around.

Questions Fly Over $400 Million Donation. But They’re the Wrong Questions

Last week, author Malcolm Gladwell stirred up the 1% hornet’s nest by sarcastically calling out a hedge fund manager, John Paulson, for his $400 million donation to Harvard University. The billionaire’s donation to the richest university in the world will benefit the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Upon hearing the news, Gladwell, the New Yorker writer and “Tipping Point” author, took to the Twittersphere to unload a deluge of missives aimed at poking fun at the hornet’s nest.Continue reading “Questions Fly Over $400 Million Donation. But They’re the Wrong Questions”

Banning Racial Profiling is Long Overdue

It didn’t get much media attention, but the U.S. Congress banned the use of federal funds for racial profiling last week by voice vote. This adds to the existing federal rules which ban federal law enforcement agencies and joint task forces from racial profiling (excluding airport security. We have our eye on you TSA!).

Of course this law comes in the midst of unprecedented public awareness of police misconduct and violence and a shifting debate about mass incarceration and racial disparities in policing. There are even state bills in a number of local legislatures that are on their way to banning racial profiling locally.

“When law enforcement profiles a person based on skin tone or appearance, they diminish that individual’s humanity,” said Rep. Grijalva (D-AZ) co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “It sews the seeds of distrust in the victim and their community, and sends a message that those enlisted to serve and protect will, in fact, do neither.

“Those sentiments could not be further from the truth for countless men and women who risk their lives as first responders, which makes the need to ban profiling all the more urgent.”

To most of us it seems obvious. Making people suspects simply because of their skin color is not just offensive and discriminatory, it is ineffective policing. Banning these explicitly racist policies is long overdue and a welcome change.

But forbidding racial profiling as a policy is not enough. We have to also track and eradicate de facto discrimination and directly address disparate impacts of policing whether they are intended or explicit or not.

And that is easier said than done especially because we don’t track the data well enough or sometimes we don’t track it at all.

This week, the UK Guardian launched a new website to use “crowdsourcing” to track police-involved shooting and killings since the U.S. Department of Justice is apparently incapable of doing so. There are new measures being introduced that would mandate police reporting in such cases.

Just as important is robust reporting on the race and national original of the victims of police violence, arrest and imprisonment in order to expose the racial dimension of policing more than we know today.

One thing’s for sure, it is nearly impossible to address structural racism without a commitment to first “see” its impact. We should all welcome the banning of explicit racial profiling, but a key step toward real robust police accountability and reform is forcing police to report on their own activities and track the data by race.

(PHOTO: longislandwins CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Seattle Election Initiative Aims to Take Big Money Out of Campaigns

This article was contributed by Rosalind Brazel, communications manager for Washington Community Action Network (Washington CAN!)

The Honest Elections Initiative campaign aims to take big money out of politics and give low income people a real voice in electing leaders who represent them.

On Monday, June 1, more than 32,000 signatures were delivered to the Seattle City Clerk. Initiative 122 would change the way City of Seattle campaigns are financed.

Seattle voters would receive vouchers, four of them for $25 each, that could be given to the candidates or campaigns of their choosing. I-122 would also set limits on the maximum contribution an individual could make to a campaign.

New lobbying, disclosure and enforcement measures are also infused into this initiative to amplify the voice of the voter. The funds would come from a property tax – about $8 a year for the average homeowner.

Washington CAN! Leader Chettie McAfee was a guest speaker at the Honest Elections press event outside Seattle City Hall on Monday.

“The interests of banks and big developers do not align with the interests of people like me: women, people of color, and people with low incomes. A system where money influences who becomes an elected official, is a system where money influences political priorities and the direction of this city.”

If the clerk validates at least 20,360 of the signatures submitted, I-122 will appear on the November ballot. If passed, this would be the only system of its kind in the U.S.

Ban the Box: Two Big Wins for the Fair Hiring Campaign in Florida

Last week, small business owners, activists, and faith leaders gathered on the steps of the Daytona Beach City Hall to announce the City of Daytona’s plan to “ban the box” and open up opportunities to all applicants by removing the criminal conviction question from city job applications.

The effort, commonly known as “ban the box” because of the box that job applicants are routinely asked to check if they have ever been convicted of a crime, was more than six months in the works.

In January members of the Main Street Alliance of Florida began meeting with city leaders, providing testimony at City Commission meetings, and placing several editorials in local and national newspapers to promote adoption of the fair chance policy.

Several City Commissioners and City officials attended the press event June 1, and voiced their commitment to a fair chance for all job applicants. They echoed the concerns of Main Street Alliance leaders, discussing the economic impact of locking previously convicted applicants out of the job market.

Jim Sexton, human resources manager for the City of Daytona Beach, told reporters that background checks would still be conducted, but they would only be done when a position had been offered.

“When the application goes to the hiring department they won’t know the applicant’s record. They will view that person the way a new-born baby views the world, without bias,” said Sexton.

Daytona Beach was the second city to ban the box in what turned out to be a huge month for supporters of fair hiring. Two weeks prior to Daytona’s announcement small business owners and faith leaders sent a letter to Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer letting him know about their plan to bring the “ban the box” campaign to Orlando following the decision in Daytona Beach.

Before leaders could shift their full attention to Orlando, the mayor there announced his executive order to remove the criminal conviction from applications for city jobs.

Orlando’s decision now means that four of the five most populated cities in Florida have passed policies that reduce barriers to employment for people with prior convictions.

Miami is the only remaining major city that does not have a policy in place, providing an ideal next step for the Main Street Alliance of Florida leaders and their allies.

Los Angeles is Biggest City to Enact $15 Minimum Wage

Los Angeles has become the biggest city in the nation to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, Los Angeles City Council members voted 13-1 today to more than double the federal wage by 2020.

Los Angeles City Council members signaled two weeks ago that they would raise the minimum wage, and took the final vote today at their regular meeting.

During the earlier meeting, Kevin Litwin of Main Street Alliance of California, spoke in support of raising the wage even higher.Watch his testimony here: https://youtu.be/C2kEs8D3ZIY

“I am the Chief Operating Office at Joe’s Parking, and a member of the Main Street Alliance. Together we are support raising the L.A. minimum wage to $15.25. When Joe’s Auto Parks was founded in 1959 minimum wage was just $1 an hour. We didn’t pay the minimum then, and we don’t pay the minimum now. For over 50 years we have been committed to offering fair wages and attracting the best and brightest employees to manage our locations. That’s how we grew to one of the largest operations here in downtown L.A. We strongly hope you pass this and raise the wage to $15.25,” said Litwin.

The Council chambers were packed with more than 100 residents of the city, the vast majority supporting the minimum wage increase, and dozens of workers and community leaders providing comment echoing Litwin’s support.

After hearing the support and concerns of those in attendance the Council turned in a 14-1 vote in favor of raising the city’s wage to $15 gradually over the next 5 years. The full council vote next week before being written into law. The first wage bump will occur in July of 2016 when wages will rise to $10.60 an hour annually on their way to $15 by 2020.

Los Angeles joins Seattle and San Francisco, cities that recently passed laws to phase in a $15 minimum wage over several years. Chicago passed a minimum wage increase that plateaus at $13.

Cities and states throughout the country are discussing and debating minimum wage increases, including Maine, where Maine People’s Alliance is circulating petitions for a minimum wage referendum.

Job Gap Research is Key as New York Groups Fight for Fair Wages

Fast food workers in New York took another big step toward winning fair wages two weeks ago when Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the convening of a new Wage Board to examine and make recommendations about increasing the minimum wage in the state’s fast food industry.

Cuomo’s office has now announced the next steps in the Wage Board process, including plans for four public hearings in June – in Buffalo, New York City, Long Island and Albany – to take public testimony.

Alliance for a Just Society salutes the broad coalition of community and labor groups in New York. Their disciplined organizing, savvy strategizing, and major mobilizations demonstrating strength in numbers, have raised the public demand and built the grassroots momentum to make this progress possible.

Alliance affiliates Citizen Action of New York, Make the Road New York, and Restaurant Opportunities Center United of New York have all played important roles in the ongoing organizing for fair wages in the state.

They helped secure a $2.50 increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers through the Wage Board process in February, raising the tipped minimum wage to $7.50 an hour – and marking a major step forward for the One Fair Wage campaign to end subminimum wages. This victory was a big win. It has since proved doubly significant: by demonstrating the potential of the Wage Board process, it paved the way for the governor to employ that process again now.

These organizations mobilized hundreds of grassroots members to join Fight for $15 events in New York City and in cities across the state on April 15, elevating fast food workers’ demands for $15 an hour and union rights and building momentum in the ongoing push to raise wages.

They coordinated legislative strategies in Albany to pass a strong minimum wage bill (phasing up to $15 an hour in New York City and its suburbs, and $12.60 an hour statewide) through the State Assembly on May 4. These moves raise the stakes for the governor to take executive action on wages in light of the legislative gridlock in the State Senate.

As the new Wage Board convenes and as the coalition partners in New York organize to ensure that grassroots voices calling for a $15 wage are heard at every public hearing across the state, the Alliance’s research on what constitutes a living wage in New York provides an important benchmark for the Board’s investigation.

According to the installment of our Job Gap Economic Prosperity Series, the living wage for a single worker in New York State is $18.47 an hour. In New York City, with its higher costs of living, the living wage for a single worker is $22.49 an hour. For families with children, the living wage levels are significantly higher once child care costs are factored in).

Under New York State law, a Wage Board can recommend changes to the minimum wage in a specific industry if it finds that wages are insufficient to provide for the life and health of workers. Based on the Job Gap living wage research, that’s clearly the case with fast food wages in New York today. Looking at what it actually costs to make ends meet in New York, this much is clear: the time for a $15 wage floor is now.

The new Wage Board can make $15 an hour a reality for New York’s fast food workers. The coalition of partners in New York is gearing up to mobilize for the raise fast food workers need, pushing toward another big victory on fair wages.

But we know the fast food Wage Board won’t be the end of the fight for fair wages in New York. Instead, for organizers and grassroots leaders in communities across the state it’s the next landmark on the road to winning an increase in the minimum wage for all workers in New York.

LeeAnn Hall is the executive director of Alliance for a Just Society, a national organizing network with affiliates in 20 states.