THE MEDIA ARE NOW TELLING US THAT DOMESTIC WORKERS DO NOT WANT TO WORK THE DRUDGERY OF MANUFACTURING JOBS JUST AS WE ARE TOLD THEY DO NOT WANT TO WORK AGRICULTURE.
WHAT WORKERS DO NOT WANT IS TO WORK THESE JOBS FOR THE WAGES CORPORATIONS PAID OVERSEAS!!!! THIS IS FOR WHAT IMMIGRATION REFORM IS BEING BROUGHT NOW. CORPORATIONS WANT TO BRING IMMIGRANTS INTO THE COUNTRY WHO WILL WORK AT THIRD WORLD LEVELS.
Americans want to work at jobs that involve thinking not lifting we are told.
Could the labor environment be any worse than in Maryland? We all heard that Maryland's DLLR Tom Perez was tapped as Obama's Labor Secretary and then we heard the media write of him as a friend of labor....fighting for labor.....and yet Maryland has the least favorable labor environment in the nation.....Baltimore especially. I've talked at great length about poverty wages and wage theft for Hispanic workers.....private contractors skirting all labor laws by bringing their own employees from out of state. IT IS A RACKET! I want to look today at how business simply bails on even the most long-held responsibilities.....notifying employees that they are going out of business!!! IT NEVER HAPPENS IN MARYLAND AND WE ARE SEEING IT THE BALTIMORE AREA WORSE THAN ANY!!!
We have labor laws that protect the worker that says a business will inform their workers of pending closings. For large corporations it can be 60 days and for smaller it can be 30 days. The point is to allow employees to find a new job before losing the old. We are seeing people made desperate in sudden closures that erase all savings anyone can manage as time and again they are forced to look for work.
I spoke with an employee with a small restaurant in my community that simply sent employees packing with no notice. This is a business that was doing alright as far as customers...the problem was between business owners. Last year we listened to the saga of the Sparrow's Point Steel Mill workers who were given no notice of that plant closing and in addition their pension funds were raided for executive pay while in the bankruptcy process. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE ASSAULTS ON LABOR RIGHTS AND ALL OF IT IS ILLEGAL. THE PROBLEM.....WE HAVE NO JUSTICE OFFICIALS WORKING ON THE WORKERS BEHALF. So, crimes are openly committed and the people have no public justice avenues to seek claims for lost wages. Here in Maryland we have Public Justice, Citizens Justice, Consumer Rights Justice, Baltimore Law Justice Center, and the ACLU and almost all of them serve through appointments by the State Attorney General, in Maryland's case Doug Gansler. If the public solicit help from these organizations.....they are allowed to pick and choose what they represent AND THEY NEVER REPRESENT THESE CASES OF LABOR INJUSTICE. We just had the Attorney General's office simply acknowledge an explosion of wage theft complaints but we will not hear of movement on this. What is happening is that the Immigration Bill being written will institutionalize this treatment of what will then be 'guest workers'. ALL OF THIS IS A SUSPENSION OF RULE OF LAW AND IT IS NOT LEGAL. IF RULE OF LAW IS SUSPENDED SO IS STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND WE WANT THESE LOSSES FOR WORKERS RECOVERED REGARDLESS OF THEIR STATUS AS UNDOCUMENTED!!!!
This is the value of unionizing as here in Maryland we have no union strength that would make this very public. It is also a question that Maryland workers should ask of their union leaders as to why they are not demanding laws by enforced!!!!!!!
WE NEED STRONG UNION LEADERS IF WE ARE GOING TO REBUILD THE UNIONS!!!!! CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION CAN EXTEND TO THE UNIONS!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!
What are the Legal Ramifications When a Business Closes Without Notice?
written by: W. A. Swan • edited by: Michele McDonough • updated: 6/26/2010
You’ve become tired of the business or you just can’t afford to keep the business running another week. Can you simply close down a business without proper notice? Not really. There are legal issues which may arise when a business closes without proper notice.
Legal Considerations When Closing a Business
Your business has become more of a hassle or financial burden to run than it should normally be. You can’t see running the business another week. Can you simply close down a business without giving proper notice? There are legal issues which can be caused when a business closes without due notice. Here is how to know when should a small business close its doors.
Employee Issues
When you close a business on short notice it effects many people. If you have employees, they are the first to become directly involved. When should a small business close its doors when there are employees involved? Most states require at least 30 or 60 days advance notice. Without this notice, you may be liable for the income of those employees for that amount of time.
Employees who stop coming to work because business is closing are entitled to 60-day notice under the WARN Act.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act states that an employer cannot order a plant closing or mass layoff that will affect 50 or more employees without a 60-day written notice to each affected employee. An “affected employee” is someone who is expected to experience an employment loss as a result of the closure or layoff. For purposes of the WARN Act, an employment loss is “an employment termination, other than a discharge for cause, voluntary departure, or retirement. . . .” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a group of employees who stopped reporting to work after the owner of the automobile franchise for whom they worked informed them that he would be “closing its doors” in two weeks did not fall within the “voluntary departure” exception to the WARN Act and, therefore, were not provided with the requisite 60-day notice of business closure. Collins v. Gee West Seattle LLC, 9th Cir., No. 09-36110, January 21, 2011.
Prior to September 26, 2007, Gee West Seattle LLC employed approximately 150 employees at its franchise locations. On that date, Gee West informed its employees, in a written memo, that it was actively pursuing sale of the business, but that it would be closing its doors on October 7, 2007. The memo also stated that if Gee West had not found a buyer by October 7, it would be terminating all of its employees other than Accounting and Business Office personnel. Following that memo, employees began to stop reporting to work. By October 5, only 30 Gee West employees reported to work. Because the business could not operate with that few employees, Gee West ceased doing business on that date.
In February 2008, Gee West’s employees filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming that the Company violated the WARN Act by not providing 60 days of notice regarding the business closure. In November, 2009, the district court granted Gee West’s motion for summary judgment, holding that the 120 employees who left Gee West between September 26 and October 7, 2007 left of their own free will, and therefore, did not suffer an “employment loss” because they fell within the “voluntary departure” exception. According to the district court, because fewer than 50 employees suffered an employment loss, the situation was not covered as a plant closure by the WARN Act.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit rejected the lower court’s analysis and reversed that determination. Instead, the Court found that the starting point in an analysis of this situation was whether 50 or more individuals would reasonably have been expected to experience an employment loss as a consequence of the closure. The Court found that in the Gee West scenario, all 150 employees fell within that parameter. The second step was to determine whether those individuals suffered “employment loss” when the business closed. While Gee West argued that all employees who stopped coming to work departed from their employment voluntarily, the Court disagreed, finding that such argument would allow an employer to escape responsibility under the WARN Act’s 60-day notice requirement in every situation in which a group of employees left the company based upon that company’s imminent closure, and took the number of remaining employees under 50.
This was an “issue of first impression” for the Ninth Circuit, meaning that the factual scenario has not been addressed by that Court before now. However, until the economy stabilizes further, this scenario is one that companies may be experiencing with more frequency than in the past. Therefore, employers should be aware of the provisions of the WARN Act, and should comply with the 60-day notice of closure to employees, should 50 or more individuals be expected to experience an employment loss because of that closure.
Below you'll see the real feelings about immigration reform ....not those Hispanics who have been charged by Third Way democrats to shout out in support. Hispanics know that what is being put forward by Third Way corporate democrats will hurt not help with citizenship. There is a complete disregard for people as the goal becomes to maximize wealth and labor is the primary source. Look more locally and you see plans to take ever more of community assets from the largely underserved population surrounding a Hopkins. Hispanic families are being welcomed but as with the blacks who have been longtime residents....no computer access for example and schools allowed to go downhill are a shared taste of declining quality of life. Think bringing ever more immigrants from third world countries will do more to recover our middle-class lifestyle? That's right!!! Not in your life and you can bet Mary Pat understands the policies she fights for is hurting most of her constituents. In the article below about a library remodel, which is a good thing, the communities using the library.....lower Greenmount, Barclay, and Harwood are not mention because they are all underserved. Can you imagine all of these families descending on Roland Park library?
A society that ignores injustice for one will find that injustice acts as a cancer that eats its way throughout that society. That is why third world countries see life consumed by crime, corruption, and injustice. That is to where your Third Way corporate democrat is taking the US....and all of Maryland pols are Third Way. This is not a black, white, Hispanic, or poor issue......this will effect all of us!!
THIRD WAY = THIRD WORLD
The Immigration Paradigm: The Shell Game By Rodolfo F. Acuña
When I was in high school I never thought I would appreciate the conjugation of verbs and the declension of nouns. It was boring; however, I must admit that it introduced me to a deductive system of formal argument consisting of premises and conclusions that allowed me to test whether the deductions were true or false.
Today, we take short cuts, upgrade our syllogisms to paradigms, and we try to sell our ideas as exemplars. The premise is put forward and sold as the truth, arguing that a majority of the experts agree with our proposition. Like religion the pseudo paradigm is based on a higher authority.
In our minds our proclamation becomes a universally recognized statement of fact, and it sets our model for future arguments. The proposition thus supports our conclusions, and has the effect of helping us convince others of our premise.
The problem is that we do not test the argument. We make assumptions, presenting theories, values, and practices that distort reality. In this instance, deductive reasoning bypasses the facts that normally join existing statements or that are determined through repeated observations.
Without this habit of reasoning, we drift into George Orwell’s 1984 and the fictional language of Newspeak that allows Big Brother to influence our conclusion through doublespeak. In the case of today’s society, we have many competing big brothers assisted by little brothers who want to justify their big brothers.
Take the question of immigration. Even liberal pundits on MSNBC are spinning it as a victory. Christopher Hayes reasoned recently that a year ago we had nothing and that now we have something. Thus there has been progress. He moves the bar to 2012 and ignores that in 2007 we had more, and concludes that something is better than nothing based on 2012.
To be fair, I have heard the same argument from Latinos who view any agreement as a victory. I cannot understand their reasoning. We are taking a bath on immigration, i.e., it looks as if a guest worker program will be part of the grand bargain, and it is likely that there will be a long, slippery and tenuous pathway to citizenship.
We are buying into the argument that the undocumented are cutting in the line, cheating their way into the country. At the present time, the dealmakers are tying the pathway to citizenship to border security, and who is to say that the border is not already secure or when it will be secure enough to satisfy the naysayers.
It is not fair; indeed it is racist. I do not remember a national uproar when Pat Buchannan proposed a law giving preferences to the Irish, or objections to the countless exceptions we made for Nazi rocket scientists and refugees from Central Europe, Cuba or Nicaragua. Under U.S. law, if you have enough money, you can buy yourself a first class ticket to the front of the line.
Experts question the premise that the border is not secure. The U.S.-Mexican border is certainly more secure than the U.S.-Canadian border. Certainly security cannot be measured by the fences, drones and troops on the border. Lest we forget many of the so-called the 9/11 terrorists came by way of the Canadian border.
In any event, the border is not at risk because of undocumented workers but because U.S. policies have ruined the ability of small Mexican farmers to stay on their land. The border is insecure because of the U.S. War on Drugs, which is bankrupting both countries. It is insecure because people are poor, and hunger has no borders.
But let’s further test the premise that Latin Americans are getting special treatment. This is an argument made even by the Left who justified the 1965 Immigration Act because in part it was part of the Civil Rights legislation and a slice of its reforms. It is true that it ended the U.S.’s racist National Origins policy that based entrance on race; it allowed previously excluded Asians and Middle Easterners to enter the country. On the positive side the 1965 Act implemented a policy of family reunification through Family Preferences.
However, it is also a fact that Latin Americans were not a quota before the 1965 Immigration Act. The United States reneged on promises of Pan Americanism and shell games that followed such as the Good Neighbor Policy.
Liberals bargained this special relationship away. The reform amounted to kicking Latinos out of the line in order to be fair to Asians and other Third World people. The question is why was this deal ever made? Why was it necessary to rob Peter to pay Paul?
On the other hand, conservatives in 1965 accepted the bargain because they believed that the Germans, the British and northern Europeans would continue to immigrate in large numbers. That they did not continue to flood our borders speaks loads to the positive results of the Marshall Plan – people do not come to the United States unless there is an economic incentive and conditions in their own countries are bad.
So, the reasoning of nativists that Latinos are cutting in the line holds no water. The argument that anything is better than nothing is also fallacious. I could offer countless examples of historical facts that disprove the syllogism, but reason makes no difference to the double speakers.
This is also true of the argument that we are somehow winning on gun control legislation because we are getting a gun law through the senate. No matter that assault weapons will be permissible and meaningful background checks have joined the fishes in the ocean. According to the cheerleaders, we got something.
I am not going to dwell on this but let’s not forget that the Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked for gun controls. The only thing that was different was that they did not want the guns in the hands of blacks and minorities.
In 1967, according to these double speakers, the Black Panthers led by Bobby Seale “invaded” Sacramento, California with an army of thirty black men and women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols. In June Reagan signed the Mulford Act prohibiting the carrying of firearms in any public place.
(Note that in Arizona white Tea Partyers and Minutemen parade around with guns at their side.) However, in the instance of the Black Panthers there was little talk about the Second Amendment. Conservatives demanded gun control laws and got them. The people with the guns were the wrong color.
The reactions of progressives underscores the consequences of doublespeak. Instead of being mad as hell at President Barack Obama and Senator Harry Reid, progressives are borrowing a page from President George W. Bush when he turned to his FEMA director, Michael Brown and said “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”, while New Orleans sank in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The truth be told, when it comes to Immigration Reform and gun control we have lost the battles. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that we have won – we haven’t.
I have always been of the philosophy that you hit while things are hot. When we set up the Mexican American Studies Department in the spring of 1969, the administration told me that we only had to get twelve courses approved to be a department. We could do the rest latter. I did not and still do not trust them so I wrote up forty-seven proposals and got them approved while it was hot.
Today, I have mellowed, and I propose (tongue in cheek) that we charter the National Chicana/o Rifle Association (NCCRA) – wondering what the reaction will be from conservatives and liberals alike.
Rodolfo F. Acuña
Saturday, 13 April 2013
_____________________________________________
Since Waverly Library is one of the only locations in an area with a heavy population of underserved needing this library as a computer resource it seems strange that none of that was spoken of in the discussion of the closure and the computer lab. Quite literally, the poor who outnumber the middle-class in the areas around the library have no other options for computer access. We know they would not be going to Roland Park and Govans is not in the area. So what is Mary Pat's plan for the majority of her constituents with this?
The use of computers as computer labs means that the ability of the public to use the computers for any other use than to resource employment will be used no doubt to take much of the computer access from the general public. Waverly is a small library with only a dozen computers as it is.....one will expect the number of general access computers to grow according to population need and not have computer labs take those that exist.
We welcome an upgrade to a library much in need and challenge community leaders to do a better job than referring people to other libraries they know will not meet the need!!
City presents latest plans for upgrading Waverly Library Popular branch would be closed for about a year for renovations
A rendering by the architectural firm Buchart Horn shows how the Waverly Library would look like inside after a planned renovation. (Courtesy of Buchart Horn and Enoch Pratt / April 12, 2013)
By Larry Perl, lperl@tribune.com 9:55 a.m. EDT, April 12, 2013
The Waverly library would be about 2,000 square feet bigger than it is now, with a wall of glass, more computers, modernized equipment and separate areas for children and teens, as planned in a $6 million renovation project, Baltimore City library system officials told an audience of 50 people at a public meeting Thursday.
"We are here, finally, to talk about renovation," said Carla Hayden, chief executive officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system. "There have been some bumps and starts."
The meeting drew residents from Waverly, Oakenshawe, Guilford and Charles Village, for whom the library is a neighborhood branch. Many residents and their city councilwoman, Mary Pat Clarke, have been pushing for more than six years to expand or rebuild the aging, brick and concrete library, which has a reputation as looking like a fallout shelter or a fort.
A year ago, Clarke said the city needed to go "back to the drawing board" on renovation plans, because she felt they didn't go far enough. As recently as January 2013, Sandy Sparks of Charles Village and Mark Counselman of Oakenshawe were among residents who met at Sparks' house to strategize on how to convince the city to spend more money and rebuild.
Hayden acknowledged the public sentiment, saying Clarke has been asking her for years, "Why can't we just build a new one?"
But that can't happen, said Roswell Encina, a library system spokesman, who attended the meeting at the Waverly library, 400 E. 33rd St.
"For $6 million, there's no way we can demolish this building," Encina said. "But that's a pretty penny the Waverly community is getting. By the time this is renovated, it will look like a brand new building."
Plans call for an abundance of glass and upgraded lighting to brighten the building, said Patricia Costello, director of neighborhood services for the library system. The front doors would open automatically, and the entrance turnstile would be eliminated, she said. The circulation desk would be more centrally located and shelving would be lower for easier access, she said.
Other features would include a secure drop box, a security station inside the front entrance, a computer lab for programs such as work force development training (in addition to public access computers), a children's area with its own story room, and a redone parking lot. The building would also benefit from technology and office equipment upgrades, including a public fax machine, and ceiling projectors and a sound system in the meeting room. The stage in the room would be removed and re-used for the circulation desk, library system officials said.
Worrisome to Clarke and some residents at the meeting is that the library would be closed for about a year during construction, which is tentatively slated to start in late summer or fall. Mobile libraries would be used, and other library branches are in the area, including in Roland Park, Hampden, Govans and Northwood, officials noted.
Reaction to the updated plans was mixed.
Joe Stewart, of Waverly, said the planned bank of windows on the front of the building "are one of the most appealing parts" of the plan.
But Counselman, who has complained in the past that the building was in deplorable condition and should be torn down, was unimpressed, saying, "I don't see how this is so much better than what we have now."
Sparks said the plans were somewhat better.
"I'd still like to see the community (meeting) room expanded," she said, but added that overall, "They have a better plan than they did before."
She said she and other critics may have played a role in the new plans.
"I think we forced the issue," she said.
What Sparks still really wants is demolition and a rebuild, but she said that's no longer a realistic option.
"The door was slammed shut on demolishing this," she said. "That was pretty obvious."
_______________________________________________
Whether it is school closings, conversion of schools to vocational charters, or creating online technology as the basis for much of class content......all of this is directed at both black and Hispanic families for a large part, but at all working class and poor as a hole. What the 1% are saying is that now that corporations and the rich are not paying taxes and now that we will have a much larger percentage of workers as guest workers and undocumented who often don't pay taxes.....there will not be money enough for quality schools for all.
Affluent development is based on quotas......20 underserved families per school for example. 20 underserved families in a neighborhood. All of this is illegal and we need people getting mad and taking this to court. We know the ACLU-MD is captured as regards race and income issues....but there is power in voice!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!
ALL OF THIS AFFECTS A PERSON'S ABILITY TO OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT THAT PAYS OTHER THAN POVERTY WAGES.....WHETHER STRONG SCHOOLS OR ACCESS TO COMPUTERS THAT MANY PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD. LOSS OF THESE RIGHTS ALL WORK AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS AND POOR!!
Are School Closings Racist?
Sunday, 14 April 2013 10:24 By Curtis Black, Community Media Workshop | News Analysis
Students are dismissed after school is let out at Robert Emmert Elementary School, which is scheduled to close, in Chicago, March 21, 2013. After weeks of uncertainty, principals at 54 public schools in Chicago officially learned from city officials Thursday that their schools would close, representing the largest group of campuses to be shut down at one time by a city in recent memory. (Photo: Nathan Weber / The New York Times)Some people think so.
At the most basic level, there’s the fact that decisions about African American communities are being made without their consent.
Of 54 school closings proposed by CPS, 51 are in low-income African American areas; 90 percent of students being impacted are black.
“If you look at the people making the decisions and the communities they’re talking about, you have white males saying they know what’s best for African American students,” said Austin schools activist Dwayne Truss.
“Barbara Byrd-Bennett is not calling the shots,” he said. “Mayor Emanuel and David Vitale and Tim Cawley are calling the shots. She’s just an expert in closing schools who they brought in to do that. She’s just the messenger.”
Comments Elce Redmond of the South Austin Coalition, “She’s put in place to implement these policies so they can hide behind her.”
Byrd-Bennett “would not have been hired if she was not on board with [Emanuel's school closing agenda] — and with the priority of providing opportunities for private educational interests to make money bringing in mediocre interventions for black children,” said Jitu Brown of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization.
Three high schools
For Brown, it’s about the school system’s priorities — and that’s a civil rights and human rights issue.
“The priority has been to disinvest from minority communities and invest in failed programs, invest in charter schools and contract schools,” he said. “The priority has been that minority children don’t have the same quality of education.
“Example: Look at North Side College Prep, they have 22 AP classes. Lakeview High, with about 18 or 20 percent African American students, a few blocks from the mayor’s house, they have 12 AP classes. Dyett High School, 99 percent African American and 95 percent low-income, no AP classes.
“Look at world languages. North Side College Prep has everything from Chinese to French, German, Japanese, Latin, and Spanish — levels 1 to 4 plus AP. Lakeview has Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish, Spanish for native speakers, levels 1 to 4 and AP Spanish. Dyett has Spanish 1 and 2.
“The expectations have been lowered — and they’ve been lowered by the district.”
Dyett is now being phased out, with new students sent to Phillips High School. That’s an AUSL “turnaround” school — and it’s at the lowest academic standing, with scores significantly lower than Dyett’s and lower rates of graudation and of graduates enrolled in College (Dyett has 63 percent for the last category.)
“No school with predominantly white enrollment would face that,” said Brown.
‘Mediocre interventions’
“Now we know that only 1 in 5 charter schools outperforms public schools,” he said. “That’s true nationally and it’s true in Chicago. We’ve known since 2009 that only 18 percent of the school that replaced closed schools [which have impacted black students almost exclusively] are high-performing, and that includes charter and contract schools.
“That’s despite the advantages of having selective enrollment tools like applications and lotteries, of not having to follow [CPS's] Student Code of Conduct, so they can push students out — and they do,” he said.
“And there’s no way they would go into a white community with an intervention that has a record of only 1 out of 5 high-performing schools.
“So it is institutional racism,” Brown said. “Beecause the real motivation is not school quality; the purpose of closing schools and privatizing schools is not to invest in school quality any more than it ever has been.
“They’re not interested in making sure black children have access to a world-class education. If they were they would replicate the good neighborhood schools that work. They have run a system that intentionally ensures that children on the South and West Sides go to test factories instead of schools.”
“You’re not providing a quality education to a certain group of people,” he said. “And then to be so bold as to attempt to profit off the mess you’ve made….
“At bottom it’s a human rights issue,” Brown said. “The children at Dyett deserve the same type of schooling they have at North Side College Prep.”
Truss concurs: “If you look at where the majority of magnet and selective enrollment schools are located, they’re in predominantly white neighborhoods, and they get the extra funding and the extra support,” he said.
Destabilizing communities
Another issue is the impact school closings will have on struggling communities.
Thousands of African American educators and school staff will be losing their jobs — at a time when black unemployment in Chicago is far higher than most big cities, Truss points out.
“School closings will absolutely make things worse with the foreclosure crisis,” said Redmond. “All the plans they’re coming up with are strangling the community, and it needs to be called what it is — some call it ethnic cleansing — but part of the corporate strategy for the city is to weed out these neighborhoods.
“They’ll deny it up and down but that’ the fact, that’s what’s happening to these communities,” he said
“I am concerned that when you close these [school] buildings, the effect it’s going to have is that people won’t want to stay in an area without a school they can walk to,” said Valerie Leonard of Lawndale Alliance. “Just like when International Harvester closed — people left in droves. That’s likely to happen now, especially because it’s so much more dangerous. The farther you have to go the more likely you’ll have trouble.
“When you have policies that further destablize the commuity, that’s a concern,” she said. “Especially when it’s being brought to their attention, and they are still going forward.”
“Unfortunately the mayor isn’t listening at all,” said Redmond.
WHAT WORKERS DO NOT WANT IS TO WORK THESE JOBS FOR THE WAGES CORPORATIONS PAID OVERSEAS!!!! THIS IS FOR WHAT IMMIGRATION REFORM IS BEING BROUGHT NOW. CORPORATIONS WANT TO BRING IMMIGRANTS INTO THE COUNTRY WHO WILL WORK AT THIRD WORLD LEVELS.
Americans want to work at jobs that involve thinking not lifting we are told.
Could the labor environment be any worse than in Maryland? We all heard that Maryland's DLLR Tom Perez was tapped as Obama's Labor Secretary and then we heard the media write of him as a friend of labor....fighting for labor.....and yet Maryland has the least favorable labor environment in the nation.....Baltimore especially. I've talked at great length about poverty wages and wage theft for Hispanic workers.....private contractors skirting all labor laws by bringing their own employees from out of state. IT IS A RACKET! I want to look today at how business simply bails on even the most long-held responsibilities.....notifying employees that they are going out of business!!! IT NEVER HAPPENS IN MARYLAND AND WE ARE SEEING IT THE BALTIMORE AREA WORSE THAN ANY!!!
We have labor laws that protect the worker that says a business will inform their workers of pending closings. For large corporations it can be 60 days and for smaller it can be 30 days. The point is to allow employees to find a new job before losing the old. We are seeing people made desperate in sudden closures that erase all savings anyone can manage as time and again they are forced to look for work.
I spoke with an employee with a small restaurant in my community that simply sent employees packing with no notice. This is a business that was doing alright as far as customers...the problem was between business owners. Last year we listened to the saga of the Sparrow's Point Steel Mill workers who were given no notice of that plant closing and in addition their pension funds were raided for executive pay while in the bankruptcy process. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE ASSAULTS ON LABOR RIGHTS AND ALL OF IT IS ILLEGAL. THE PROBLEM.....WE HAVE NO JUSTICE OFFICIALS WORKING ON THE WORKERS BEHALF. So, crimes are openly committed and the people have no public justice avenues to seek claims for lost wages. Here in Maryland we have Public Justice, Citizens Justice, Consumer Rights Justice, Baltimore Law Justice Center, and the ACLU and almost all of them serve through appointments by the State Attorney General, in Maryland's case Doug Gansler. If the public solicit help from these organizations.....they are allowed to pick and choose what they represent AND THEY NEVER REPRESENT THESE CASES OF LABOR INJUSTICE. We just had the Attorney General's office simply acknowledge an explosion of wage theft complaints but we will not hear of movement on this. What is happening is that the Immigration Bill being written will institutionalize this treatment of what will then be 'guest workers'. ALL OF THIS IS A SUSPENSION OF RULE OF LAW AND IT IS NOT LEGAL. IF RULE OF LAW IS SUSPENDED SO IS STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND WE WANT THESE LOSSES FOR WORKERS RECOVERED REGARDLESS OF THEIR STATUS AS UNDOCUMENTED!!!!
This is the value of unionizing as here in Maryland we have no union strength that would make this very public. It is also a question that Maryland workers should ask of their union leaders as to why they are not demanding laws by enforced!!!!!!!
WE NEED STRONG UNION LEADERS IF WE ARE GOING TO REBUILD THE UNIONS!!!!! CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION CAN EXTEND TO THE UNIONS!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!
What are the Legal Ramifications When a Business Closes Without Notice?
written by: W. A. Swan • edited by: Michele McDonough • updated: 6/26/2010
You’ve become tired of the business or you just can’t afford to keep the business running another week. Can you simply close down a business without proper notice? Not really. There are legal issues which may arise when a business closes without proper notice.
Legal Considerations When Closing a Business
Your business has become more of a hassle or financial burden to run than it should normally be. You can’t see running the business another week. Can you simply close down a business without giving proper notice? There are legal issues which can be caused when a business closes without due notice. Here is how to know when should a small business close its doors.
Employee Issues
When you close a business on short notice it effects many people. If you have employees, they are the first to become directly involved. When should a small business close its doors when there are employees involved? Most states require at least 30 or 60 days advance notice. Without this notice, you may be liable for the income of those employees for that amount of time.
Employees who stop coming to work because business is closing are entitled to 60-day notice under the WARN Act.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act states that an employer cannot order a plant closing or mass layoff that will affect 50 or more employees without a 60-day written notice to each affected employee. An “affected employee” is someone who is expected to experience an employment loss as a result of the closure or layoff. For purposes of the WARN Act, an employment loss is “an employment termination, other than a discharge for cause, voluntary departure, or retirement. . . .” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a group of employees who stopped reporting to work after the owner of the automobile franchise for whom they worked informed them that he would be “closing its doors” in two weeks did not fall within the “voluntary departure” exception to the WARN Act and, therefore, were not provided with the requisite 60-day notice of business closure. Collins v. Gee West Seattle LLC, 9th Cir., No. 09-36110, January 21, 2011.
Prior to September 26, 2007, Gee West Seattle LLC employed approximately 150 employees at its franchise locations. On that date, Gee West informed its employees, in a written memo, that it was actively pursuing sale of the business, but that it would be closing its doors on October 7, 2007. The memo also stated that if Gee West had not found a buyer by October 7, it would be terminating all of its employees other than Accounting and Business Office personnel. Following that memo, employees began to stop reporting to work. By October 5, only 30 Gee West employees reported to work. Because the business could not operate with that few employees, Gee West ceased doing business on that date.
In February 2008, Gee West’s employees filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming that the Company violated the WARN Act by not providing 60 days of notice regarding the business closure. In November, 2009, the district court granted Gee West’s motion for summary judgment, holding that the 120 employees who left Gee West between September 26 and October 7, 2007 left of their own free will, and therefore, did not suffer an “employment loss” because they fell within the “voluntary departure” exception. According to the district court, because fewer than 50 employees suffered an employment loss, the situation was not covered as a plant closure by the WARN Act.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit rejected the lower court’s analysis and reversed that determination. Instead, the Court found that the starting point in an analysis of this situation was whether 50 or more individuals would reasonably have been expected to experience an employment loss as a consequence of the closure. The Court found that in the Gee West scenario, all 150 employees fell within that parameter. The second step was to determine whether those individuals suffered “employment loss” when the business closed. While Gee West argued that all employees who stopped coming to work departed from their employment voluntarily, the Court disagreed, finding that such argument would allow an employer to escape responsibility under the WARN Act’s 60-day notice requirement in every situation in which a group of employees left the company based upon that company’s imminent closure, and took the number of remaining employees under 50.
This was an “issue of first impression” for the Ninth Circuit, meaning that the factual scenario has not been addressed by that Court before now. However, until the economy stabilizes further, this scenario is one that companies may be experiencing with more frequency than in the past. Therefore, employers should be aware of the provisions of the WARN Act, and should comply with the 60-day notice of closure to employees, should 50 or more individuals be expected to experience an employment loss because of that closure.
Below you'll see the real feelings about immigration reform ....not those Hispanics who have been charged by Third Way democrats to shout out in support. Hispanics know that what is being put forward by Third Way corporate democrats will hurt not help with citizenship. There is a complete disregard for people as the goal becomes to maximize wealth and labor is the primary source. Look more locally and you see plans to take ever more of community assets from the largely underserved population surrounding a Hopkins. Hispanic families are being welcomed but as with the blacks who have been longtime residents....no computer access for example and schools allowed to go downhill are a shared taste of declining quality of life. Think bringing ever more immigrants from third world countries will do more to recover our middle-class lifestyle? That's right!!! Not in your life and you can bet Mary Pat understands the policies she fights for is hurting most of her constituents. In the article below about a library remodel, which is a good thing, the communities using the library.....lower Greenmount, Barclay, and Harwood are not mention because they are all underserved. Can you imagine all of these families descending on Roland Park library?
A society that ignores injustice for one will find that injustice acts as a cancer that eats its way throughout that society. That is why third world countries see life consumed by crime, corruption, and injustice. That is to where your Third Way corporate democrat is taking the US....and all of Maryland pols are Third Way. This is not a black, white, Hispanic, or poor issue......this will effect all of us!!
THIRD WAY = THIRD WORLD
The Immigration Paradigm: The Shell Game By Rodolfo F. Acuña
When I was in high school I never thought I would appreciate the conjugation of verbs and the declension of nouns. It was boring; however, I must admit that it introduced me to a deductive system of formal argument consisting of premises and conclusions that allowed me to test whether the deductions were true or false.
Today, we take short cuts, upgrade our syllogisms to paradigms, and we try to sell our ideas as exemplars. The premise is put forward and sold as the truth, arguing that a majority of the experts agree with our proposition. Like religion the pseudo paradigm is based on a higher authority.
In our minds our proclamation becomes a universally recognized statement of fact, and it sets our model for future arguments. The proposition thus supports our conclusions, and has the effect of helping us convince others of our premise.
The problem is that we do not test the argument. We make assumptions, presenting theories, values, and practices that distort reality. In this instance, deductive reasoning bypasses the facts that normally join existing statements or that are determined through repeated observations.
Without this habit of reasoning, we drift into George Orwell’s 1984 and the fictional language of Newspeak that allows Big Brother to influence our conclusion through doublespeak. In the case of today’s society, we have many competing big brothers assisted by little brothers who want to justify their big brothers.
Take the question of immigration. Even liberal pundits on MSNBC are spinning it as a victory. Christopher Hayes reasoned recently that a year ago we had nothing and that now we have something. Thus there has been progress. He moves the bar to 2012 and ignores that in 2007 we had more, and concludes that something is better than nothing based on 2012.
To be fair, I have heard the same argument from Latinos who view any agreement as a victory. I cannot understand their reasoning. We are taking a bath on immigration, i.e., it looks as if a guest worker program will be part of the grand bargain, and it is likely that there will be a long, slippery and tenuous pathway to citizenship.
We are buying into the argument that the undocumented are cutting in the line, cheating their way into the country. At the present time, the dealmakers are tying the pathway to citizenship to border security, and who is to say that the border is not already secure or when it will be secure enough to satisfy the naysayers.
It is not fair; indeed it is racist. I do not remember a national uproar when Pat Buchannan proposed a law giving preferences to the Irish, or objections to the countless exceptions we made for Nazi rocket scientists and refugees from Central Europe, Cuba or Nicaragua. Under U.S. law, if you have enough money, you can buy yourself a first class ticket to the front of the line.
Experts question the premise that the border is not secure. The U.S.-Mexican border is certainly more secure than the U.S.-Canadian border. Certainly security cannot be measured by the fences, drones and troops on the border. Lest we forget many of the so-called the 9/11 terrorists came by way of the Canadian border.
In any event, the border is not at risk because of undocumented workers but because U.S. policies have ruined the ability of small Mexican farmers to stay on their land. The border is insecure because of the U.S. War on Drugs, which is bankrupting both countries. It is insecure because people are poor, and hunger has no borders.
But let’s further test the premise that Latin Americans are getting special treatment. This is an argument made even by the Left who justified the 1965 Immigration Act because in part it was part of the Civil Rights legislation and a slice of its reforms. It is true that it ended the U.S.’s racist National Origins policy that based entrance on race; it allowed previously excluded Asians and Middle Easterners to enter the country. On the positive side the 1965 Act implemented a policy of family reunification through Family Preferences.
However, it is also a fact that Latin Americans were not a quota before the 1965 Immigration Act. The United States reneged on promises of Pan Americanism and shell games that followed such as the Good Neighbor Policy.
Liberals bargained this special relationship away. The reform amounted to kicking Latinos out of the line in order to be fair to Asians and other Third World people. The question is why was this deal ever made? Why was it necessary to rob Peter to pay Paul?
On the other hand, conservatives in 1965 accepted the bargain because they believed that the Germans, the British and northern Europeans would continue to immigrate in large numbers. That they did not continue to flood our borders speaks loads to the positive results of the Marshall Plan – people do not come to the United States unless there is an economic incentive and conditions in their own countries are bad.
So, the reasoning of nativists that Latinos are cutting in the line holds no water. The argument that anything is better than nothing is also fallacious. I could offer countless examples of historical facts that disprove the syllogism, but reason makes no difference to the double speakers.
This is also true of the argument that we are somehow winning on gun control legislation because we are getting a gun law through the senate. No matter that assault weapons will be permissible and meaningful background checks have joined the fishes in the ocean. According to the cheerleaders, we got something.
I am not going to dwell on this but let’s not forget that the Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked for gun controls. The only thing that was different was that they did not want the guns in the hands of blacks and minorities.
In 1967, according to these double speakers, the Black Panthers led by Bobby Seale “invaded” Sacramento, California with an army of thirty black men and women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols. In June Reagan signed the Mulford Act prohibiting the carrying of firearms in any public place.
(Note that in Arizona white Tea Partyers and Minutemen parade around with guns at their side.) However, in the instance of the Black Panthers there was little talk about the Second Amendment. Conservatives demanded gun control laws and got them. The people with the guns were the wrong color.
The reactions of progressives underscores the consequences of doublespeak. Instead of being mad as hell at President Barack Obama and Senator Harry Reid, progressives are borrowing a page from President George W. Bush when he turned to his FEMA director, Michael Brown and said “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”, while New Orleans sank in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The truth be told, when it comes to Immigration Reform and gun control we have lost the battles. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that we have won – we haven’t.
I have always been of the philosophy that you hit while things are hot. When we set up the Mexican American Studies Department in the spring of 1969, the administration told me that we only had to get twelve courses approved to be a department. We could do the rest latter. I did not and still do not trust them so I wrote up forty-seven proposals and got them approved while it was hot.
Today, I have mellowed, and I propose (tongue in cheek) that we charter the National Chicana/o Rifle Association (NCCRA) – wondering what the reaction will be from conservatives and liberals alike.
Rodolfo F. Acuña
Saturday, 13 April 2013
_____________________________________________
Since Waverly Library is one of the only locations in an area with a heavy population of underserved needing this library as a computer resource it seems strange that none of that was spoken of in the discussion of the closure and the computer lab. Quite literally, the poor who outnumber the middle-class in the areas around the library have no other options for computer access. We know they would not be going to Roland Park and Govans is not in the area. So what is Mary Pat's plan for the majority of her constituents with this?
The use of computers as computer labs means that the ability of the public to use the computers for any other use than to resource employment will be used no doubt to take much of the computer access from the general public. Waverly is a small library with only a dozen computers as it is.....one will expect the number of general access computers to grow according to population need and not have computer labs take those that exist.
We welcome an upgrade to a library much in need and challenge community leaders to do a better job than referring people to other libraries they know will not meet the need!!
City presents latest plans for upgrading Waverly Library Popular branch would be closed for about a year for renovations
A rendering by the architectural firm Buchart Horn shows how the Waverly Library would look like inside after a planned renovation. (Courtesy of Buchart Horn and Enoch Pratt / April 12, 2013)
By Larry Perl, lperl@tribune.com 9:55 a.m. EDT, April 12, 2013
The Waverly library would be about 2,000 square feet bigger than it is now, with a wall of glass, more computers, modernized equipment and separate areas for children and teens, as planned in a $6 million renovation project, Baltimore City library system officials told an audience of 50 people at a public meeting Thursday.
"We are here, finally, to talk about renovation," said Carla Hayden, chief executive officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system. "There have been some bumps and starts."
The meeting drew residents from Waverly, Oakenshawe, Guilford and Charles Village, for whom the library is a neighborhood branch. Many residents and their city councilwoman, Mary Pat Clarke, have been pushing for more than six years to expand or rebuild the aging, brick and concrete library, which has a reputation as looking like a fallout shelter or a fort.
A year ago, Clarke said the city needed to go "back to the drawing board" on renovation plans, because she felt they didn't go far enough. As recently as January 2013, Sandy Sparks of Charles Village and Mark Counselman of Oakenshawe were among residents who met at Sparks' house to strategize on how to convince the city to spend more money and rebuild.
Hayden acknowledged the public sentiment, saying Clarke has been asking her for years, "Why can't we just build a new one?"
But that can't happen, said Roswell Encina, a library system spokesman, who attended the meeting at the Waverly library, 400 E. 33rd St.
"For $6 million, there's no way we can demolish this building," Encina said. "But that's a pretty penny the Waverly community is getting. By the time this is renovated, it will look like a brand new building."
Plans call for an abundance of glass and upgraded lighting to brighten the building, said Patricia Costello, director of neighborhood services for the library system. The front doors would open automatically, and the entrance turnstile would be eliminated, she said. The circulation desk would be more centrally located and shelving would be lower for easier access, she said.
Other features would include a secure drop box, a security station inside the front entrance, a computer lab for programs such as work force development training (in addition to public access computers), a children's area with its own story room, and a redone parking lot. The building would also benefit from technology and office equipment upgrades, including a public fax machine, and ceiling projectors and a sound system in the meeting room. The stage in the room would be removed and re-used for the circulation desk, library system officials said.
Worrisome to Clarke and some residents at the meeting is that the library would be closed for about a year during construction, which is tentatively slated to start in late summer or fall. Mobile libraries would be used, and other library branches are in the area, including in Roland Park, Hampden, Govans and Northwood, officials noted.
Reaction to the updated plans was mixed.
Joe Stewart, of Waverly, said the planned bank of windows on the front of the building "are one of the most appealing parts" of the plan.
But Counselman, who has complained in the past that the building was in deplorable condition and should be torn down, was unimpressed, saying, "I don't see how this is so much better than what we have now."
Sparks said the plans were somewhat better.
"I'd still like to see the community (meeting) room expanded," she said, but added that overall, "They have a better plan than they did before."
She said she and other critics may have played a role in the new plans.
"I think we forced the issue," she said.
What Sparks still really wants is demolition and a rebuild, but she said that's no longer a realistic option.
"The door was slammed shut on demolishing this," she said. "That was pretty obvious."
_______________________________________________
Whether it is school closings, conversion of schools to vocational charters, or creating online technology as the basis for much of class content......all of this is directed at both black and Hispanic families for a large part, but at all working class and poor as a hole. What the 1% are saying is that now that corporations and the rich are not paying taxes and now that we will have a much larger percentage of workers as guest workers and undocumented who often don't pay taxes.....there will not be money enough for quality schools for all.
Affluent development is based on quotas......20 underserved families per school for example. 20 underserved families in a neighborhood. All of this is illegal and we need people getting mad and taking this to court. We know the ACLU-MD is captured as regards race and income issues....but there is power in voice!!!
VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!
ALL OF THIS AFFECTS A PERSON'S ABILITY TO OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT THAT PAYS OTHER THAN POVERTY WAGES.....WHETHER STRONG SCHOOLS OR ACCESS TO COMPUTERS THAT MANY PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD. LOSS OF THESE RIGHTS ALL WORK AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS AND POOR!!
Are School Closings Racist?
Sunday, 14 April 2013 10:24 By Curtis Black, Community Media Workshop | News Analysis
Students are dismissed after school is let out at Robert Emmert Elementary School, which is scheduled to close, in Chicago, March 21, 2013. After weeks of uncertainty, principals at 54 public schools in Chicago officially learned from city officials Thursday that their schools would close, representing the largest group of campuses to be shut down at one time by a city in recent memory. (Photo: Nathan Weber / The New York Times)Some people think so.
At the most basic level, there’s the fact that decisions about African American communities are being made without their consent.
Of 54 school closings proposed by CPS, 51 are in low-income African American areas; 90 percent of students being impacted are black.
“If you look at the people making the decisions and the communities they’re talking about, you have white males saying they know what’s best for African American students,” said Austin schools activist Dwayne Truss.
“Barbara Byrd-Bennett is not calling the shots,” he said. “Mayor Emanuel and David Vitale and Tim Cawley are calling the shots. She’s just an expert in closing schools who they brought in to do that. She’s just the messenger.”
Comments Elce Redmond of the South Austin Coalition, “She’s put in place to implement these policies so they can hide behind her.”
Byrd-Bennett “would not have been hired if she was not on board with [Emanuel's school closing agenda] — and with the priority of providing opportunities for private educational interests to make money bringing in mediocre interventions for black children,” said Jitu Brown of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization.
Three high schools
For Brown, it’s about the school system’s priorities — and that’s a civil rights and human rights issue.
“The priority has been to disinvest from minority communities and invest in failed programs, invest in charter schools and contract schools,” he said. “The priority has been that minority children don’t have the same quality of education.
“Example: Look at North Side College Prep, they have 22 AP classes. Lakeview High, with about 18 or 20 percent African American students, a few blocks from the mayor’s house, they have 12 AP classes. Dyett High School, 99 percent African American and 95 percent low-income, no AP classes.
“Look at world languages. North Side College Prep has everything from Chinese to French, German, Japanese, Latin, and Spanish — levels 1 to 4 plus AP. Lakeview has Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish, Spanish for native speakers, levels 1 to 4 and AP Spanish. Dyett has Spanish 1 and 2.
“The expectations have been lowered — and they’ve been lowered by the district.”
Dyett is now being phased out, with new students sent to Phillips High School. That’s an AUSL “turnaround” school — and it’s at the lowest academic standing, with scores significantly lower than Dyett’s and lower rates of graudation and of graduates enrolled in College (Dyett has 63 percent for the last category.)
“No school with predominantly white enrollment would face that,” said Brown.
‘Mediocre interventions’
“Now we know that only 1 in 5 charter schools outperforms public schools,” he said. “That’s true nationally and it’s true in Chicago. We’ve known since 2009 that only 18 percent of the school that replaced closed schools [which have impacted black students almost exclusively] are high-performing, and that includes charter and contract schools.
“That’s despite the advantages of having selective enrollment tools like applications and lotteries, of not having to follow [CPS's] Student Code of Conduct, so they can push students out — and they do,” he said.
“And there’s no way they would go into a white community with an intervention that has a record of only 1 out of 5 high-performing schools.
“So it is institutional racism,” Brown said. “Beecause the real motivation is not school quality; the purpose of closing schools and privatizing schools is not to invest in school quality any more than it ever has been.
“They’re not interested in making sure black children have access to a world-class education. If they were they would replicate the good neighborhood schools that work. They have run a system that intentionally ensures that children on the South and West Sides go to test factories instead of schools.”
“You’re not providing a quality education to a certain group of people,” he said. “And then to be so bold as to attempt to profit off the mess you’ve made….
“At bottom it’s a human rights issue,” Brown said. “The children at Dyett deserve the same type of schooling they have at North Side College Prep.”
Truss concurs: “If you look at where the majority of magnet and selective enrollment schools are located, they’re in predominantly white neighborhoods, and they get the extra funding and the extra support,” he said.
Destabilizing communities
Another issue is the impact school closings will have on struggling communities.
Thousands of African American educators and school staff will be losing their jobs — at a time when black unemployment in Chicago is far higher than most big cities, Truss points out.
“School closings will absolutely make things worse with the foreclosure crisis,” said Redmond. “All the plans they’re coming up with are strangling the community, and it needs to be called what it is — some call it ethnic cleansing — but part of the corporate strategy for the city is to weed out these neighborhoods.
“They’ll deny it up and down but that’ the fact, that’s what’s happening to these communities,” he said
“I am concerned that when you close these [school] buildings, the effect it’s going to have is that people won’t want to stay in an area without a school they can walk to,” said Valerie Leonard of Lawndale Alliance. “Just like when International Harvester closed — people left in droves. That’s likely to happen now, especially because it’s so much more dangerous. The farther you have to go the more likely you’ll have trouble.
“When you have policies that further destablize the commuity, that’s a concern,” she said. “Especially when it’s being brought to their attention, and they are still going forward.”
“Unfortunately the mayor isn’t listening at all,” said Redmond.
RSS Feed
