24 minute read
Union Matters
REI SoHo workers vote to join RWDSU
By STEPHON JOHNSON
Amsterdam News Staff
Workers at a Seattle-based retail in lower Manhattan successfully voted to unionize.
Earlier this month, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), announced that 86% (88 out of 102) of workers at the REI Co-Op at Lafayette Street in Manhattan voted to join the RWDSU, making the location the first unionized REI store in the country.
“History was made today! We’re excited to welcome the workers of REI SoHo into the RWDSU, marking the first-ever unionized REI store in the whole country,” stated RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum. “These workers have vast expertise in their field and have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to serve the outdoor community. They have stuck together through a horrendous union-busting campaign and have come out the other side stronger.
“The workers of REI SoHo are ready to negotiate a strong contract that will allow them to uphold the co-op’s progressive values while providing the top-notch service REI customers have come to expect. With a seat at the table, workers can make working at REI safe and sustainable for years to come.”
Workers said that REI engaged in a union-busting campaign using similar tactics that Amazon used against its workers in Bessemer, Alabama: captive audience meetings, putting the kibosh on promotional opportunities, and upped the ante by making workers listen to a 25-minute union busting podcast.
In a statement, REI officials noted the 14 workers who voted against forming a union.
“As we have said throughout this process, REI firmly believes that the decision of whether or not to be represented by a union is an important one, and we respect each employee’s right to choose or refuse union representation,” read REI’s statement. “We are, at our core, cooperative. Our employees are the heart of the co-op community, and their expertise, enthusiasm, and joy in helping people get outside make us who we are. We greatly appreciate their hard work and dedication through what continues to be a remarkably challenging time in the world.”
REI is a co-op like operation. Customers are pushed to memberships to receive perks and discounts like other retailers.
“I am proud to be here in this moment with my coworkers at REI SoHo as a part of this new wave of unionization efforts that is sweeping the nation,” stated Claire Chang, member of the REI SoHo Organizing Committee and retail sales specialist-visual at REI SoHo. “As members of the RWDSU, we know we will be able to harness our collective strength to advocate for a more equitable, safe, and enriching work environment. A union is necessary for many of us to achieve more stability and security in our lives which could allow for us to explore and play more outside of work!
“As green vests, we believe ‘a life outdoors is a life well lived’ and in order for that to be viable and accessible to us, we need to be at the bargaining table alongside REI leadership to work out a collective bargaining agreement that works for us,” continued Chang. “Hence, we’re hopeful that REI meets us in good faith during negotiations for our first contract, while keeping our co-op values in mind and applying them to workers, so we can all demonstrate that we really do go further…together!”
REI workers seize their moment
Stuart Appelbaum
President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Twitter: @sappelbaum. www.rwdsu.org
Workers at the REI outdoor sports retail store in Soho have joined the RWDSU, becoming part of a national movement of workers standing up for themselves and demanding a voice at work. Starbucks employees, workers in the tech, new media, and video game industries, and employees at Amazon facilities— all are seizing this moment to improve their jobs and their lives through union membership. Last fall, we saw the “Striketober” wave, where more than 100,000 American workers participated in or prepared for strikes as workers’ leverage increased during the ongoing pandemic.
We are seeing this increased activism because workers are demanding better, and declaring that they are worth more than corporate behemoths have been giving them. Low wages and poor treatment have spurred on the “Great Resignation,” which has caused a labor shortage as working people have stood up and said they’ve had enough.
The 116 retail workers at the REI store in Soho demanded better. They knew that joining the RWDSU could help them deal with workplace issues including pay, a one-year wait for health insurance, scheduling problems, and understaffing. Like so many other working people, they stood up and demanded change at their jobs.
However, like so many other working people, they faced an employer willing to do anything to stop their campaign, rather than addressing their concerns and creating a better workplace. REI touts itself as a “progressive employer” who closes its stores on Black Friday, invests in outdoors organizations, and above all, puts “purpose above profits.” However, when the workers’ started their union organizing campaign, REI, which claims to be a “different kind of company,” started behaving much like many other companies who have gone to great lengths to crush workers’ union campaigns, including behemoths such as Amazon and Wal-Mart. REI hired union-busting lawyer “consultants” to design and execute a classic union-busting campaign. They halted promotion opportunities for workers and held lengthy mandatory meetings where they spread misinformation about the union. And, in a unique, unprecedented new flourish, REI management produced a 25-minute antiunion podcast. It was all designed to intimidate and frighten workers.
We saw a similar situation in New York last year, when “progressive” employer Housing Works, a nonprofit employing more than 600 new RWDSU members in NYC, engaged in the same kind of unionbusting tactics.
Fortunately, workers at both REI and Housing Works saw through the lies and misinformation, and with the aid of RWDSU organizers, were prepared for the union-busting onslaught. But the fact that these companies—espousing progressive values in progressive NYC—thought they could behave this way is frustrating, troubling, and outrageous.
Workers in America are waking up to the fact they deserve better. And unions such as the RWDSU are fighting to help their voices be heard. But as long as employers feel comfortable lying to employees and intimidating them, it’s going to be an uphill battle for too many workers. We all need to speak out against union-busting dirty tricks, and we need to support these workers as they fight for better jobs and better lives. This is their moment, and with our help, it can grow into a flourishing movement.
REI SoHo workers celebrate the vote to join the RWDSU. (Photo courtesy of Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU))
Nonprofit workers rally for ‘fair’ wages at City Hall
By STEPHON JOHNSON
Amsterdam News Staff
Nonprofit workers in New York City took their grievances to City Hall last week, calling for fair wages and benefits.
Earlier this month, over one thousand workers (including employees at food pantries, foster care agencies and domestic violence shelters) rallied in lower Manhattan making the next push in their “Just Pay” campaign to serve nonprofit workers the way they believe to be served.
“We need to ensure our human service workers are at the forefront of all of our conversations about worker justice,” stated Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, chair of the Committee on Labor. “Our human service professionals are the backbone of our afterschool programs, city agencies, community-based organizations, and our schools. They deserve a living wage, a true cost of living adjustment, and a comprehensive wage and benefit schedule.”
According to the group, 8 out of 10 human service workers in the five boroughs are people of color and 60% of them qualify for one form of government assistance if not multiple.
“New Yorkers depend on the tireless efforts of human services workers each day, and it is time for the city to pay these workers what they’re worth,” Michelle Jackson, executive director of the Human Services Council, stated. “If the City Council and Mayor Adams truly value their work, they must dedicate resources to ensure these New Yorkers can afford to live in the communities they serve. Human services workers have been essential during the pandemic and they will remain so as our city strives to recover from the ongoing economic, medical and social impacts of COVID-19.”
By ARIAMA C. LONG
Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member
In honor of Women’s History Month, the Amsterdam News decided to take a look at Black women business owners impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and their road to recovery.
In New York City, womenowned businesses generate over $71 billion in annual revenue, according to the WE NYC Impact report. There are more womenowned businesses in New York City than “any city in the United States” and that number grew between 2012 and 2019. The lion’s share of these businesses are operated by women out of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, said the report.
Minority/Women-owned businesses (M/WBEs) experienced a jump of 26% from 2007 to 2012, “Significant growth has been much slower than all other businesses and women-owned businesses” for Black women-owned businesses. And during the pandemic, an estimated 25% of M/ WBEs shut down between February and March 2020 across the U.S., said the report.
Restaurateur Angela Terry runs the Therapy Wine Bar 2.0 located on Malcolm X Boulevard in Brooklyn. She first opened up in 2009 at a separate location. In 2017, they moved to the Bedstuy location and built a kitchen in order to offer food. While they were under construction in the pandemic, Terry applied for the Social Justice Fund’s EXCELerate Black and Brown business loan program.
“It’s not easy in terms of inflation and staff. It’s been very, very difficult,” said Terry. “We reopened in November 2021 and that loan helped us.”
Through the loan program, Terry and others were able to get back on their feet at a time when inequitable access to the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) capital was rampant. When the PPP program launched, monies were disproportionately distributed to white or male-run business owners.
Former Small Business Services Commissioner and Brooklyn native Gregg Bishop, who now runs the Social Justice Fund, said that after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 by police, the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation decided to take an active approach to addressing racial justice by starting the fund for entrepreneurs of color.
Bishop said that roughly two thirds of the program’s initial $2.5 million in funding have gone to Black women business owners in the city so far.
“Black women tend to be overlooked by the financial market for a number of reasons, including the fact that they tend to have more debt, tend to be more educated so they have more student debt,” said Bishop, “or they have challenges getting capital.”
Bishop said that since a large number of the programs loans are going to Black women that indicates a niche market that isn’t being served. “This is why we do this program,” said Bishop.
The Social Justice Fund loan program sets itself apart by relying on a character witness as opposed to an often discriminatory credit score system and guarantor to assess people’s eligbilty. Terry had a neighborhood pastor write a character-based essay attesting to her work in the business and community to get approved. They also offer additional services to set up business accounts, get technical assistance, or build a budget if needed, said Bishop.
“We want to be able to thrive in this moment and stay afloat, more than stay afloat,” said Terry about what’s next for her business. “Perseverance is key. It’s hard ‘cause it’s cliche, but if you persevere you will definitely see all the benefits at the end.”
Ribbon-cutting at the Therapy Wine Bar 2.0 with owner Angela Terry (Contributed photo)
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a taxdeductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://tinyurl. com/fcszwj8w
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Credit card interchange regulation will hurt American consumers and small businesses
By ANGELINO VICEISZA, Ph.D.
As a professor of economics, examining the impacts of economic policy on consumers has always been a priority in my research. Throughout my career I have found that when assessing the effects of economic policymaking, it is critical to determine the potential negative, sometimes unintended, effects a policy could have on consumers, particularly those in marginalized communities.
This past year, part of my research focused on certain credit card policies, namely adding routing mandates to credit card transactions, and placing caps on credit card interchange fees that banks pay to each other. I explored the impact these policies could have on everyday Americans and discovered some alarming realities.
Routing mandates and interchange fee caps started when Senator Durbin (D-IL) introduced an amendment in 2010 to impose these regulations on the debit market. In response, Senator Tester (D-MT) introduced the “Debit Interchange Fee Study Act of 2011” to research the potential impacts of the amendment before implementing it. Even though the study created by the bill would have predicted negative impacts on consumers, it was rejected and Congress pushed ahead with routing mandates and interchange caps.
The point of the Durbin Amendment was to help retailers save money so they could then lower prices for consumers. Although big box stores made more than $90 billion extra in revenue, a Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond study discovered that 77% of merchants failed to change prices and 21 to 25% actually increased their prices after the Durbin Amendment.
Beyond simply failing its intended purpose, the amendment also had the unintended consequence of harming consumers. In total, a study by Professors Vladimir Mukharlyamov and Natasha Sarin found that consumers lost roughly $3 billion on net annually because of the Durbin Amendment. Durbin may have had good intentions, but the data tell another story.
It is no surprise that the largest companies in the U.S. are currently lobbying Congress to extend Durbin Amendment policies to the credit card market. However, the data and historical evidence speak for themselves: imposing interchange fee caps and routing mandates on the credit market would again help the largest companies rake in billions in extra revenue at great cost to consumers—these savings would not be passed down.
Small banks and credit unions would again lose money and try to adapt by increasing fees and hiking interest rates. Of course, low-income consumers and consumers of color who already struggle to access credit would bear the brunt of a more restrictive credit market. The Federal Reserve Board reports that African Americans and Hispanic Americans are already more likely than their white peers to be turned down for a credit card (African Americans at 23% and Hispanics at 20%, compared to whites at only 15%).
My research found that extending Durbin Amendment regulations to credit cards would cost consumers between $2 billion and $3.7 billion, depending on interchange fee reductions. Financially marginalized communities would again fare worst of all. Collectively, despite making up only 11.7% of the credit card population, lower-income and low credit households would lose $434 million, close to 22% of the cost borne by all consumers. These numbers do not even account for the additional losses consumers would face if credit card rewards disappeared, worth $50 billion a year to consumers.
A senseless, merciless war
Listening to President Zelenskyy’s speech before the U.S. Congress and watching the interspersed video depicting a beautiful country being reduced to ruin was heartbreaking. There were moments in the speech that will obviously appeal to those Americans ready to do even more to halt the ongoing atrocity, and at the same time find those unwilling to get more involved that might precipitate a nuclear war with Russia.
In his plea for help Zelenskyy pushed a number of sensitive buttons, and to include Dr. King was certainly an appeal to the millions of Americans who have suffered injustices in this nation. There are sure to be those who believe such a comparison is an inconceivable stretch, but it clearly indicates just how desperate the president is as he witnesses the slaughter of his
people, the total destruction of his EDITORIAL country. What we have to say here will have little impact on what transpires next in the relations between the U.S. and the Ukraine, but the promised aid may be enough to stay the invasion, given the courageous stand taken by the Ukrainian forces. If not, additional armaments may be necessary, particularly if Putin expands the aggression to include other European nations. Already there are indications of an incipient advance into Poland and other surrounding nations. As a newspaper, we should also add our condolences to the families who have recently lost reporters covering the war. Their deaths are as meaningful as the war is meaningless, and they chose to bravely enter the fray to bring us the news that gets more senseless and merciless by the day.
Elinor R. Tatum: Publisher
and Editor in Chief Kristin Fayne-Mulroy: Managing Editor Nayaba Arinde: Editor Cyril Josh Barker: Digital Editor
Angelino Viceisza is associate professor of Economics at Spelman College and research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. The views expressed in this article are personal and do not represent those of the organizations with which he is or has been affiliated. The study that forms the basis for this article can be found at https://bit.ly/3nFo8d6.
Ethiopia’s national dialogue can bring hope to the American Ethiopian community
By WASSY TESFA
Ever since the conflict in Northern Ethiopia began in November 2020, the American Ethiopian community has felt perplexed and frustrated. We had to watch the conflict unfold with a sense of helplessness at not being able to save our friends and family. Our repeated attempts to clarify the situation and secure attention and support from political leaders in the United States have fallen on deaf ears.
However, the diaspora has shown remarkable unity and resilience. We are largely united around our collective desire to see the motherland, Ethiopia, succeed. We have impacted policy changes, we have highlighted the atrocities being committed by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and we have robustly made the case for strengthening U.S.–Ethiopia relations, not weakening them as some would like.
As a community we have been able to put our political differences aside in the pursuit of peace for Ethiopia. I am the VP of an organization called the Global Ethiopian Advocacy Nexus (GLEAN) and I am a leading member of the American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee (AEPAC). The two organizations have outlined how we believe the U.S. can help secure peace in Ethiopia: disarm the TPLF, stop the TPLF from blocking aid to the people of Afar, Amhara and Tigray, and support the Ethiopian government’s efforts for an inclusive national dialogue.
The proposed national dialogue deserves special attention as a possible way of creating understanding and ending the ongoing and devastating conflict. The prospect of the national dialogue has ushered in a new era of real hope and peace. The process announced late last year began just a few weeks ago with the confirmation of 11 commissioners who will lead the dialogue and reconciliation efforts. The Commission has been given a clear mandate to bring about an end to the political polarization in the country on a range of issues, including the ethnic divisions that plague Ethiopia, the constitution, the type of federalism the country needs to implement, the rights of the individual citizen, the control of the means of production particularly the use and ownership of land, respect for universal human rights, and the implementation of the rule of law, among others.
More importantly Ethiopians at home and American Ethiopians in the diaspora expect the national dialogue to emancipate the nation from a colonialist crafted and TPLF implemented ethnic federalism. The Ethiopian diaspora across the world must closely monitor and get involved in this national dialogue constructively.
The TPLF is yet to see the writing on the wall. Its advance on Addis Ababa failed and their withdrawal, defeated, back to Tigray should have been the start of
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the New York Amsterdam News. We continue to publish a variety of viewpoints so that we may know the opinions of others that may differ from our own.
ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS
President Biden lacks a comprehensive strategy. In 24 hours, yet another breathless flip flop on one element of the RussianUkraine policy crisis. Recently, the Biden administration claimed they will restrict Russian oil exports to the United States—or is it to the west in general? Or is it just to limit the purchasing of 500,000 BPD from Russia here in America? Whatever the case, the administration needs to be clear on their strategy to the American people and our allies.
The daily press release from the White House is not how to execute a foreign policy plan in a crisis, while the world sits on the brink of another major military conflagration in Europe.
Does the administration have a comprehensive policy objective and plan for engagement with Russia on Ukraine and the wider Russian national security issues? The short answer is that we see no evidence of any comprehensive strategy being executed. This White House, nor any White House team, cannot survive with poor leadership and no comprehensive strategy. There is only so much bandwidth available in every White House to manage the day-to-day operations. It is well understood in national security policy events, intelligence developments, and primary military operations that your decision-making matrix, regardless of how good it may be, begins to fray and collapse when you have to run at full speed managing from crisis to crisis, with no time to reflect on the impact of your decisions, especially if you’re not operating against a strategic policy objective with a solid plan that everyone supports. Then, as you try to seize the initiative and build momentum for a policy strategy that will diffuse the crisis, it can become like life on a hamster wheel, where no matter how fast you run, you don’t seem to get anywhere.
Biden made a statement earlier in the week threatening to cut off all of Putin’s oil export revenue, or some aspect of that huge policy lever (like so many WH statements, it takes time and revisions to get an accurate read on what was actually said, what it meant, and when it might happen). This impulsive statement is a significant escalation step that should not be taken lightly or impulsively because the noise from Capitol Hill is getting louder. The solution to de-escalation and reaching a cooling-off period with a ceasefire is something that takes a comprehensive series of decisions and international moves in concert with an overt policy objective. Impulsive, feel-good political pronouncements don’t solve international crisis situations.
Biden needs help. His team is failing. The stakes are high and getting more dangerous by the day. Throwing ideas at the wall to see if one of them sticks is not a policy plan. Instead, it’s a terrifying example of presidential weakness and a team of incompetent political people actually having to act responsibly and effectively in a pressure cooker environment, and they all clearly lack the tools to perform. Some presidents are tested and quickly rise to the occasion like John F. Kennedy after a bumpy start, but the Biden administration looks more and more like the Carter presidency. President Carter took three years before his administration hit the point of no return. Biden has gotten to that point in 12 months.
Biden has fallen into the policy and management trap of measured response, incremental escalation, crisis decision making, strategic patience, etc. All these word salad phrases were created to describe a weak and ineffective decision-making matrix and personal style. A unique style that is driven by the question, “How is this decision going to play politically?” It doesn’t incorporate the question of “will this work and advance our position in the crisis?” Biden’s strategy is ineffective, and Putin is now and will remain able to anticipate and manage the USG policy of throwing ideas at the wall to see which one sticks. Before Biden makes a decision that causes more problems and complexity, the president should dispatch a presidential envoy who can engage with substance, experience, and most significantly, credibility with the Russian army and Putin. Former secretaries of defense and state, Robert Gates and Condoleeza Rice, come to mind. They are some of our most experienced statesmen. If the White House sent a message to Moscow asking Putin to meet with either, I’m confident they would get a meeting. There are many reasons for this view—some public knowledge, some that are not.
Those of us old enough to remember the Carter presidency watched this current leadership style play out in four short years that destroyed a presidency and changed the world for the worse. We have a fantastic body of research and knowledge on how to examine presidential candidates and the historical precision of records to clearly judge how well they performed and accurately measure success or failure.
Armstrong Williams (@ARightSide) is manager / sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year. www.armstrongwilliams.co | www.howardstirkholdings.com
CHRISTINA GREER PH.D.
This week I am turning my column over to Ojani-Pierre Ruphin Walthrust, a MPA student at Columbia SIPA concentrating in Urban Policy. He is a 2020 Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellow and will be entering the Foreign Service as a U.S. diplomat in Fall 2022 after graduating. *The opinions expressed are Ojani-Pierre Ruphin Walthrust’s and not those of the Department of State.*
Mayor Eric Adams recently embraced the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) facial recognition technologies by the police in New York City and advocated for their use for “investigative purposes” in order to crack down on the 38.5% rise in major crime. The software has often been used in criminal justice and throws up a flag when it spots a match with a degree of probability, but is not fully accurate. Adams expressed his desire to use “facial recognition” and “new tools that can spot those carrying weapons to identify problems.” However, his plan fails to consider their disproportionate impact on Black Americans. He must address the systemic bias within AI facial recognition and come up with more concrete, proactive actions before he decides to use it.
Surveillance of Black people in the U.S. dates back to the 18th century lantern laws that demanded Black, mixedrace and Indigenous enslaved people carry candle lanterns with them if they walked around the city after sunset, and not in the company of a white person. Those who did not comply faced many punishments. In the 20th century, the FBI tracked the political activity of every single Black college student in the country. During the War on Drugs, President Reagan had wiretaps and sneak-and-peak warrants to prosecute people for drug offenses, knowing that this would target Black and Brown people in the U.S. disproportionately.
Black Americans have been surveilled by the government for too long and these technologies will further increase the disproportionate targeting of people of color, specifically Black Americans, and violate personal privacy since they are largely unregulated. Proponents of these technologies argue that they can save law enforcement time and lead to increased public safety. They also note benefits in solving banking fraud. However, the algorithms within these technologies can be racially biased because the programmers often do not include a lot of diverse input data. For example, Black scholars Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru found that facial analysis algorithms misclassified Black women about 35% of the time, while nearly always getting it right with white men. If the NYPD uses facial recognition technology as is, it could lead to an increase in wrongful arrests, lengthy detentions and potentially more deadly police violence.
If Mayor Adams wishes to use these technologies, he must first address the problematic history that these AI facial recognition technologies have had on Black Americans. Then, he must form a taskforce with representatives from the NYPD, the community, and tech companies to check their progress and accuracy. Lastly, he should aim to fix the problem systemically by working with the state and federal government and increasing scholarships and grants for programs which attract more data programmers of color and more women.
