San Francisco Labor Council Resolution
Adopted Feb. 27, 2012 by unanimous vote
Oppose City of San Francisco’s Cooperation with FBI and ICE Racial or
Religious Profiling and Surveillance
Whereas, the FBI had its origins during and after World War One and in the 1920s – in a massive campaign to root out, brand as “terrorist”, deport or jail union organizers, anti-war campaigners and immigrants. Portrayed in the press as heroic “gangbusters,” the FBI relentlessly pursued the objective of destabilizing the labor and civil rights movements. Many hundreds of FBI informants and agents were deployed to sabotage labor organizing and the mass campaigns of popular leaders like Marcus Garvey and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The FBI worked to undermine mass popular movements like the veterans’ 1932 Bonus Army occupation in Washington, and Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign for jobs and economic justice [forerunners of today’s Occupy movement]. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the FBI employed the COINTELPRO program to infiltrate and destroy popular organizations in the Black, Puerto Rican, Chicano, Native American and other communities; and
Whereas, the FBI’s domestic “counter-terrorism” efforts over the last decade have led to racial and religious profiling, harassment, surveillance and infiltration operations aimed primarily at communities of color and American Muslim communities – in their homes, places of worship and workplaces, as well as while traveling.
At the same time, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has profiled, demonized and subjected to indefinite detention immigrant workers and families from Latin America and elsewhere; and
Whereas, in September 2010 FBI agents led coordinated, pre-dawn raids or issued Grand Jury subpoenas on 23 trade union, anti-war and solidarity activists in the Midwest. In May 2011, FBI and a police SWAT team smashed into the Los Angeles home of veteran immigrant rights and solidarity activist Carlos Montes. Just as it did in the 1920s, the FBI tried to justify these fishing expeditions by invoking the mantra of “counter-terrorism.” However, many believe the FBI’s real intent was to shut down these outspoken activists and try to intimidate the labor, solidarity and anti-war movements; and
Whereas, since 9/11, the FBI has recruited more than 600 state and local law enforcement agencies to be part of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) organized and run by the FBI in 103 cities nationwide – just as ICE uses “Secure Communities” to effectively deputize local police and use them to target immigrant workers; and
Whereas, local police have been asked to utilize scarce resources for full-time “counter-terrorism” tasks with the JTTF under a secret 2007 agreement with the FBI which was only made public last year. The previously-secret agreement purports to allow police working with the FBI to ignore state and local civil rights protections, and avoid local civilian oversight and scrutiny; and
Whereas, the California State Constitution guarantees an inalienable right to privacy and bans the intrusive surveillance and intelligence practices that are currently being used by the FBI. In addition, SFPD Department General Order requires reasonable suspicion of serious criminal activity, written authorization by the Police Chief and civilian oversight for any intelligence gathering involving First Amendment activities. The City of Refuge Ordinance prohibits the City from assisting Federal immigration enforcement, and the city charter requires that all SFPD activities be subject to local civilian control and oversight; and
Whereas, after a hearing with community members, the S.F. Human Rights Commission issued a report – endorsed by the Board of Supervisors – demanding that SFPD be held to local standards and oversight. In April 2011, the Coalition for a Safe San Francisco, Asian Law Caucus and ACLU raised concerns at a Police Commission hearing after discovering that the SFPD had entered into a secret MOU agreement with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force that violated state and local law and policies. Both the Police Commission and Police Chief stated publicly that they wanted SFPD officers to follow the stronger state and local civil rights standards, but left in place the previously-secret agreement with the FBI that blocks that from occurring.
Therefore be it Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council alert its affiliated Unions to stay vigilant, to respond in the event community members are subjected to abusive FBI or ICE practices in violation of their civil and constitutional rights; and Be it further Resolved, that the Council denounce the racial or religious profiling and surveillance practices of the FBI and ICE. We condemn the continuing raids against immigrant workers and families from Latin America and elsewhere. We condemn the FBI raid on the home of Los Angeles activist Carlos Montes and the FBI raids and subpoenas on 23 anti-war, solidarity and labor activists in the Midwest, and demand restitution; and
Be it further Resolved, that the Labor Council demand that S.F. law enforcement not participate in any racial or religious profiling and surveillance conducted by the FBI, by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, by ICE or by the “Secure Communities” program; and
Be it finally Resolved, that copies be sent to the Mayor of San Francisco; members of the Board of Supervisors; the Chief of Police of San Francisco; and to the office of the FBI Special Agent for this district. ### FBI & ICE racial & religious profiling -
S.F. Labor Council Resolution adopted Feb. 27 2012.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
War on Postal Workers
Cost-cutting plan targets hundreds of US Mail processing facilities
The U.S. Postal Service could close or merge with nearby locations in the next year as part of a three-year, $15 billion cost-cutting plan. The consolidations would affect four processing centers in Maryland: Cumberland, Easton, Gaithersburg and Waldorf. The Virginia sites are Lynchburg, Norfolk and Roanoke. 1Gallery
The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service has announced plans to eliminate dozens of processing centers.If the plan is enacted, parts of some states would have their mail sorted in another state. That possibility rattled Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin, both Maryland Democrats, who blasted plans to move some sorting responsibilities from Eastern Maryland to Delaware.“There is absolutely no statistical or empirical data to justify consideration of this idea,” they said in a letter sent Thursday to Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe.
But in an interview, Donahoe said his advisers spent the past few months studying the feasibility of shuttering as many as 264 sites by reviewing network delivery models. The study determined that six sites would require further review, 35 would remain open and the affected sites would start closing or merging at some point after a moratorium on closures ends in mid-May. Donahoe said the consolidation plans remain “very fluid.” “None of this is set in stone,” he said. Making the announcement this week, he said, would permit affected workers to begin weighing their options.“Some people will retire, some may become letter carriers, some maintenance employees may be vehicle mechanics, depending on how things work,” he said. “We are still awaiting some decisions from a legislative perspective that may lead to some changes. But if we don’t get legislation, we would have to start closing locations.”
Legislative action is expected next month when the Senate begins consideration of a bipartisan reform plan that would permit the Postal Service to close thousands of post offices, end Saturday mail delivery and recoup billions of dollars paid into federal and postal retirement accounts.Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), who led a push to delay any further postal consolidations until May, called the new plans “deeply flawed” because closing processing centers would further slow mail delivery.
“Slowing down mail delivery service will result in less business and less revenue,” Sanders said. The Postal Service hopes to eventually operate a delivery network with fewer than 200 processing facilities, and closing the 223 sites could mean the loss of as many as 35,000 mail processing jobs, mostly through attrition, as part of a broader goal of trimming 150,000 positions by next year. The cutbacks also mean the Postal Service would no longer be able to guarantee overnight delivery of some first-class mail....(edited)
Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union, encouraged his members to continue pressing lawmakers and customers to voice their opposition to the changes.“We face an uphill battle, so it is crucial that union members continue to make their voices heard,” Guffey said
ed.okeefe@washingtonpost.com
The U.S. Postal Service could close or merge with nearby locations in the next year as part of a three-year, $15 billion cost-cutting plan. The consolidations would affect four processing centers in Maryland: Cumberland, Easton, Gaithersburg and Waldorf. The Virginia sites are Lynchburg, Norfolk and Roanoke. 1Gallery
The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service has announced plans to eliminate dozens of processing centers.If the plan is enacted, parts of some states would have their mail sorted in another state. That possibility rattled Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin, both Maryland Democrats, who blasted plans to move some sorting responsibilities from Eastern Maryland to Delaware.“There is absolutely no statistical or empirical data to justify consideration of this idea,” they said in a letter sent Thursday to Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe.
But in an interview, Donahoe said his advisers spent the past few months studying the feasibility of shuttering as many as 264 sites by reviewing network delivery models. The study determined that six sites would require further review, 35 would remain open and the affected sites would start closing or merging at some point after a moratorium on closures ends in mid-May. Donahoe said the consolidation plans remain “very fluid.” “None of this is set in stone,” he said. Making the announcement this week, he said, would permit affected workers to begin weighing their options.“Some people will retire, some may become letter carriers, some maintenance employees may be vehicle mechanics, depending on how things work,” he said. “We are still awaiting some decisions from a legislative perspective that may lead to some changes. But if we don’t get legislation, we would have to start closing locations.”
Legislative action is expected next month when the Senate begins consideration of a bipartisan reform plan that would permit the Postal Service to close thousands of post offices, end Saturday mail delivery and recoup billions of dollars paid into federal and postal retirement accounts.Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), who led a push to delay any further postal consolidations until May, called the new plans “deeply flawed” because closing processing centers would further slow mail delivery.
“Slowing down mail delivery service will result in less business and less revenue,” Sanders said. The Postal Service hopes to eventually operate a delivery network with fewer than 200 processing facilities, and closing the 223 sites could mean the loss of as many as 35,000 mail processing jobs, mostly through attrition, as part of a broader goal of trimming 150,000 positions by next year. The cutbacks also mean the Postal Service would no longer be able to guarantee overnight delivery of some first-class mail....(edited)
Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union, encouraged his members to continue pressing lawmakers and customers to voice their opposition to the changes.“We face an uphill battle, so it is crucial that union members continue to make their voices heard,” Guffey said
ed.okeefe@washingtonpost.com
Friday, February 10, 2012
12 Major Faults With Mortgage Settlement
The Top Twelve Reasons Why You
Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement
by Eve Smith "Naked Capitalism"
1. We’ve now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. It’s $2000 per loan. This is a rounding error compared to the chain of title problem these systematic practices were designed to circumvent. The cost is also trivial in comparison to the average loan, which is roughly $180k, so the settlement represents about 1% of loan balances. It is less than the price of the title insurance that banks failed to get when they transferred the loans to the trust. It is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged. It’s a great deal for the banks because no one is at any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over 300 years of real estate law.
2. That $26 billion is actually $5 billion of bank money and the rest is your money. The mortgage principal writedowns are guaranteed to come almost entirely from securitized loans, which means from investors, which in turn means taxpayers via Fannie and Freddie, pension funds, insurers, and 401 (k)s. Refis of performing loans also reduce income to those very same investors.
3. That $5 billion divided among the big banks wouldn’t even represent a significant quarterly hit. Freddie and Fannie putbacks to the major banks have been running at that level each quarter.
4. That $20 billion actually makes bank second liens sounder, so this deal is a stealth bailout that strengthens bank balance sheets at the expense of the broader public.
5. The enforcement is a joke. The first layer of supervision is the banks reporting on themselves. The framework is similar to that of the OCC consent decrees implemented last year, which Adam Levitin and yours truly, among others, decried as regulatory theater.
6. The past history of servicer consent decrees shows the servicers all fail to comply. Why? Servicer records and systems are terrible in the best of times, and their systems and fee structures aren’t set up to handle much in the way of delinquencies. As Tom Adams has pointed out in earlier posts, servicer behavior is predictable when their portfolios are hit with a high level of delinquencies and defaults: they cheat in all sorts of ways to reduce their losses.
7. The cave-in Nevada and Arizona on the Countrywide settlement suit is a special gift for Bank of America, who is by far the worst offender in the chain of title disaster (since, according to sworn testimony of its own employee in Kemp v. Countrywide, Countrywide failed to comply with trust delivery requirements). This move proves that failing to comply with a consent degree has no consequences but will merely be rolled into a new consent degree which will also fail to be enforced. These cases also alleged HAMP violations as consumer fraud violations and could have gotten costly and emboldened other states to file similar suits not just against Countrywide but other servicers, so it was useful to the other banks as well.
8. If the new Federal task force were intended to be serious, this deal would have not have been settled. You never settle before investigating. It’s a bad idea to settle obvious, widespread wrongdoing on the cheap. You use the stuff that is easy to prove to gather information and secure cooperation on the stuff that is harder to prove. In Missouri and Nevada, the robosigning investigation led to criminal charges against agents of the servicers. But even though these companies were acting at the express direction and approval of the services, no individuals or entities higher up the food chain will face any sort of meaningful charges.
9. There is plenty of evidence of widespread abuses that appear not to be on the attorney generals’ or media’s radar, such as servicer driven foreclosures and looting of investors’ funds via impermissible and inflated charges. While no serious probe was undertaken, even the limited or peripheral investigations show massive failures (60% of documents had errors in AGs/Fed’s pathetically small sample). Similarly, the US Trustee’s office found widespread evidence of significant servicer errors in bankruptcy-related filings, such as inflated and bogus fees, and even substantial, completely made up charges. Yet the services and banks will suffer no real consequences for these abuses.
10. A deal on robo-siginging serves to cover up the much deeper chain of title problem. And don’t get too excited about the New York, Massachusetts, and Delaware MERS suits. They put pressure on banks to clean up this monstrous mess only if the AGs go through to trial and get tough penalties. The banks will want to settle their way out of that too. And even if these cases do go to trial and produce significant victories for the AGs, they still do not address the problem of failures to transfer notes correctly.
11. Don’t bet on a deus ex machina in terms of the new Federal Foreclosure Task Force to improve this picture much. If you think Schneiderman, as a co-chairman who already has a full time day job in New York, is going to outfox a bunch of DC insiders who are part of the problem, I have a bridge I’d like to sell to you.
12. We’ll now have to listen to banks and their sycophant defenders declaring victory despite being wrong on the law and the facts. They will proceed to marginalize and write off criticisms of the servicing practices that hurt homeowners and investors and are devastating communities. But the problems will fester and the housing market will continue to suffer. Investors in mortgage-backed securities, who know that services have been screwing them for years, will be hung out to dry and will likely never return to a private MBS market, since the problems won’t ever be fixed. This settlement has not only revealed the residential mortgage market to be too big to fail, but puts it on long term, perhaps permanent, government life support.
As we’ve said before, this settlement is yet another raw demonstration of who wields power in America, and it isn’t you and me. It’s bad enough to see these negotiations come to their predictable, sorry outcome. It adds insult to injury to see some try to depict it as a win for long suffering, still abused homeowners.
Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement
by Eve Smith "Naked Capitalism"
1. We’ve now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. It’s $2000 per loan. This is a rounding error compared to the chain of title problem these systematic practices were designed to circumvent. The cost is also trivial in comparison to the average loan, which is roughly $180k, so the settlement represents about 1% of loan balances. It is less than the price of the title insurance that banks failed to get when they transferred the loans to the trust. It is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged. It’s a great deal for the banks because no one is at any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over 300 years of real estate law.
2. That $26 billion is actually $5 billion of bank money and the rest is your money. The mortgage principal writedowns are guaranteed to come almost entirely from securitized loans, which means from investors, which in turn means taxpayers via Fannie and Freddie, pension funds, insurers, and 401 (k)s. Refis of performing loans also reduce income to those very same investors.
3. That $5 billion divided among the big banks wouldn’t even represent a significant quarterly hit. Freddie and Fannie putbacks to the major banks have been running at that level each quarter.
4. That $20 billion actually makes bank second liens sounder, so this deal is a stealth bailout that strengthens bank balance sheets at the expense of the broader public.
5. The enforcement is a joke. The first layer of supervision is the banks reporting on themselves. The framework is similar to that of the OCC consent decrees implemented last year, which Adam Levitin and yours truly, among others, decried as regulatory theater.
6. The past history of servicer consent decrees shows the servicers all fail to comply. Why? Servicer records and systems are terrible in the best of times, and their systems and fee structures aren’t set up to handle much in the way of delinquencies. As Tom Adams has pointed out in earlier posts, servicer behavior is predictable when their portfolios are hit with a high level of delinquencies and defaults: they cheat in all sorts of ways to reduce their losses.
7. The cave-in Nevada and Arizona on the Countrywide settlement suit is a special gift for Bank of America, who is by far the worst offender in the chain of title disaster (since, according to sworn testimony of its own employee in Kemp v. Countrywide, Countrywide failed to comply with trust delivery requirements). This move proves that failing to comply with a consent degree has no consequences but will merely be rolled into a new consent degree which will also fail to be enforced. These cases also alleged HAMP violations as consumer fraud violations and could have gotten costly and emboldened other states to file similar suits not just against Countrywide but other servicers, so it was useful to the other banks as well.
8. If the new Federal task force were intended to be serious, this deal would have not have been settled. You never settle before investigating. It’s a bad idea to settle obvious, widespread wrongdoing on the cheap. You use the stuff that is easy to prove to gather information and secure cooperation on the stuff that is harder to prove. In Missouri and Nevada, the robosigning investigation led to criminal charges against agents of the servicers. But even though these companies were acting at the express direction and approval of the services, no individuals or entities higher up the food chain will face any sort of meaningful charges.
9. There is plenty of evidence of widespread abuses that appear not to be on the attorney generals’ or media’s radar, such as servicer driven foreclosures and looting of investors’ funds via impermissible and inflated charges. While no serious probe was undertaken, even the limited or peripheral investigations show massive failures (60% of documents had errors in AGs/Fed’s pathetically small sample). Similarly, the US Trustee’s office found widespread evidence of significant servicer errors in bankruptcy-related filings, such as inflated and bogus fees, and even substantial, completely made up charges. Yet the services and banks will suffer no real consequences for these abuses.
10. A deal on robo-siginging serves to cover up the much deeper chain of title problem. And don’t get too excited about the New York, Massachusetts, and Delaware MERS suits. They put pressure on banks to clean up this monstrous mess only if the AGs go through to trial and get tough penalties. The banks will want to settle their way out of that too. And even if these cases do go to trial and produce significant victories for the AGs, they still do not address the problem of failures to transfer notes correctly.
11. Don’t bet on a deus ex machina in terms of the new Federal Foreclosure Task Force to improve this picture much. If you think Schneiderman, as a co-chairman who already has a full time day job in New York, is going to outfox a bunch of DC insiders who are part of the problem, I have a bridge I’d like to sell to you.
12. We’ll now have to listen to banks and their sycophant defenders declaring victory despite being wrong on the law and the facts. They will proceed to marginalize and write off criticisms of the servicing practices that hurt homeowners and investors and are devastating communities. But the problems will fester and the housing market will continue to suffer. Investors in mortgage-backed securities, who know that services have been screwing them for years, will be hung out to dry and will likely never return to a private MBS market, since the problems won’t ever be fixed. This settlement has not only revealed the residential mortgage market to be too big to fail, but puts it on long term, perhaps permanent, government life support.
As we’ve said before, this settlement is yet another raw demonstration of who wields power in America, and it isn’t you and me. It’s bad enough to see these negotiations come to their predictable, sorry outcome. It adds insult to injury to see some try to depict it as a win for long suffering, still abused homeowners.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Millionaires Tax in CA
AFSCME
Others Endorse Millionaire's Tax http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9856#more
SACRAMENTO, CA – Restoring California, the coalition of educators and community leaders sponsoring the Millionaires Tax initiative for the November ballot, announced it has attracted new support from organizations representing clergy and laity, 10,000 community college faculty and 25,000 public workers.
The campaign also announced that the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) has contributed $500,000 towards the signature-gathering campaign. The veteran firm of Masterton & Wright has been hired to manage the signature-gathering effort.
“We are excited that our initiative to provide permanent funding for public education and vital services has won the support of AFSCME District Council 57, the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC), and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE),” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and a spokesperson for the coalition.
Rev. Dr. Art Cribbs, executive director of CLUE California, said his organization endorsed the Millionaires Tax because, “We are seeking a more equitable means to raise revenue in California to meet the needs of our children in public schools, elders on fixed incomes, and disabled residents who require vital services.
The Millionaires Tax offers the brightest prospect of getting voters' approval and making our state's economy more stable. It is not too much to ask the most prosperous citizens in California to pay a few pennies on each dollar over $1 million earnings. It is fair and long over due.”
“California schools need new revenue and the Millionaires Tax is the initiative that would provide permanent revenue without parents and students digging deeper into their pockets,” said FACCC Vice President Dean Murakami, a Sacramento-area community college professor.
AFSCME District Council 57 represents workers in schools and community colleges, transit agencies, public works and services, clinics and hospitals, and water and wastewater facilities throughout Northern California and the Central Valley. The Council also represents the health and social service professionals in corrections facilities across California.
Restoring California is a broad coalition of educators, unions and community groups looking to restore critical funding to schools and universities, essential services for children, seniors, and public safety, as well as start rebuilding the state’s crumbling roads and bridges. It asks the wealthiest Californians — people who earn over a million dollars per year — to pay their fair share to help rebuild the state. For more info, www.millionairestaxca.com.
Others Endorse Millionaire's Tax http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9856#more
SACRAMENTO, CA – Restoring California, the coalition of educators and community leaders sponsoring the Millionaires Tax initiative for the November ballot, announced it has attracted new support from organizations representing clergy and laity, 10,000 community college faculty and 25,000 public workers.
The campaign also announced that the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) has contributed $500,000 towards the signature-gathering campaign. The veteran firm of Masterton & Wright has been hired to manage the signature-gathering effort.
“We are excited that our initiative to provide permanent funding for public education and vital services has won the support of AFSCME District Council 57, the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges (FACCC), and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE),” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and a spokesperson for the coalition.
Rev. Dr. Art Cribbs, executive director of CLUE California, said his organization endorsed the Millionaires Tax because, “We are seeking a more equitable means to raise revenue in California to meet the needs of our children in public schools, elders on fixed incomes, and disabled residents who require vital services.
The Millionaires Tax offers the brightest prospect of getting voters' approval and making our state's economy more stable. It is not too much to ask the most prosperous citizens in California to pay a few pennies on each dollar over $1 million earnings. It is fair and long over due.”
“California schools need new revenue and the Millionaires Tax is the initiative that would provide permanent revenue without parents and students digging deeper into their pockets,” said FACCC Vice President Dean Murakami, a Sacramento-area community college professor.
AFSCME District Council 57 represents workers in schools and community colleges, transit agencies, public works and services, clinics and hospitals, and water and wastewater facilities throughout Northern California and the Central Valley. The Council also represents the health and social service professionals in corrections facilities across California.
Restoring California is a broad coalition of educators, unions and community groups looking to restore critical funding to schools and universities, essential services for children, seniors, and public safety, as well as start rebuilding the state’s crumbling roads and bridges. It asks the wealthiest Californians — people who earn over a million dollars per year — to pay their fair share to help rebuild the state. For more info, www.millionairestaxca.com.
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