Lost documents. Incomplete and confusing information. Mysterious fees. Payments received but not applied. Homeowners waiting for a loan modification and suddenly placed in foreclosure. A nightmare of uncertainty, frustration and fear.
These incidents, described to me by numerous homeowners, mortgage counselors and defense lawyers, were supposed to be a thing of the past in California. After revelations of fraud and abuse throughout the mortgage business, including tens of billions of dollars in corporate penalties, state Attorney General Kamala Harris pushed through the 2012 California Homeowner Bill of Rights (HBOR), designed to standardize conduct by mortgage servicers – those companies that manage day-to-day operations on mortgages by collecting monthly payments and making decisions when homeowners go into default and seek help.
Yet one company allegedly committed all these HBOR violations: Ocwen, the nation’s fourth-largest mortgage servicer. According to the complaints, Ocwen (“New Co.” spelled backwards) either skirts around the edges of California law or simply ignores it,
» Read more about: Default Mode: How Ocwen Skirts California’s Mortgage Laws »
Large corporate lobbies have, in recent years, accelerated their push to expand private charter schools. America spends nearly three quarters of a trillion dollars on public education annually and companies such as “cyber-charter” giant, K12 Inc., Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify and Rocketship, a darling of the venture capital industry, see a pot of gold.
A new report by In the Public Interest Scholar Network member Gordon Lafer, for the Economic Policy Institute, examines recent proposals by Wisconsin state legislators to privatize schools, particularly in Milwaukee, and finds that the proposals won’t help poor kids.
How? The proposals call for public schools in the largest and poorest school district to be replaced with private charter schools that substitute online apps for teachers for a significant part of the day. This “blended learning” model primarily focuses on math, literacy and test preparation, while paying minimal attention to other subjects. Also, money earmarked for Milwaukee students is diverted to fund the company’s ambitious growth plans in other cities.
» Read more about: Privatized Education’s Smoke and Mirrors »
Cinco de Mayo is a day to lift up the Mexican culture and clink some margarita glasses in celebration. See our recipe below for that delicious cold cocktail as well as a union-made enchilada that no one will be able to refuse. Viva la fiesta!
For one margarita:
1-1/2 oz. Herradura tequila
1-1/2 oz. Montezuma triple sec
1 to 1-1/4 oz. of lime juice
Salt (Morton or Diamond Crystal) for the rim of the glass
Shake all the ingredients with cracked ice in a cocktail shaker until the exterior frosts. Strain into a glass over rocks, or “up” into a cocktail glass.
Union Enchiladas
(Makes 6 servings)
1 cup Manischewitz chicken stock, or water
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (Foster Farms, Tyson), cut into strips
1 jar (12 oz.) Pace salsa
1 cup shredded cheddar (Horizon or Alta Dena)
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack (Horizon or Alta Dena)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 can (16 oz.) Old El Paso red enchilada sauce
1 can (16 oz.) Old El Paso green enchilada sauce
Durkee cayenne pepper (optional)
12 Mission soft corn tortillas (six inches across)
Heat oven to 425 degrees.
It’s 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning and it’s been a long night for Dennis Martinez and his fellow port truck drivers.
Martinez is nearing the end of a 48-hour strike against Total Transportation Services, Inc. (TTSI), the logistics company for which he has worked for two and a half years. The drivers are about to go through the toughest part of the two-day action – asking the company they have been striking against if they can return to work.
The fatigue shows on Martinez’s face. He hasn’t gotten much sleep but he expected that. He knew taking on a wealthy company wasn’t going to be easy.
A slender man dressed in a gray Aero sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes, Martinez is 29 but can pass for a teenager. He keeps headphones in his right ear just in case he needs a pick-me-up from Daddy Yankee and Pit Bull, two of reggaeton’s biggest artists.
» Read more about: Daring to Dream: Portrait of a Port Driver »
We’re excited to announce the creation of In The Public Interest’s ITPI Scholars Network as the next step in our growth and expanding influence on the issues of privatization and outsourcing of public services and assets across the country.
The ITPI Scholars Network brings together academics who are experts in diverse fields that relate to government privatization and outsourcing as well as responsible contracting.
Three members of the ITPI Scholars Network have recently released or are close to releasing studies that have found that careless outsourcing can harm communities, taxpayers and vulnerable residents:
• Dr. Daphne Greenwood of the University of Colorado released her new study The Decision to Contract Out: Understanding the Full Economic and Social Impacts. She found that reductions in contracted wages and benefits leads to a host of negative effects for the community at large;
» Read more about: Scholars Network to Analyze Outsourcing and Privatization »
The virtual disappearance of work stoppages in America is hardly a sign of labor contentment but a reminder of how, in today’s hyper-stressed workplace, workers are afraid to protest when they believe their jobs hang in the balance. When a wildcat strike takes place, then, it’s safe to assume there must be powerful motivations behind it.
Baggage handlers working for Menzies Aviation at Los Angeles International Airport saw their 2012 walkout as a matter of life and death. At the time of their strike, three Menzies employees had been killed in California tarmac accidents, prompting workers to file complaints with Cal/OSHA about the workers’ lack of safety training and the company’s cavalier attitude towards faulty electrical equipment and the storage of fuel cylinders. The company took the bad PR and occasional fines in stride, however, and continued to conduct business as usual.
Then, this past February, a worker named Cesar Valenzuela was thrown from the luggage tug he had been driving and run over by the vehicle,
» Read more about: Mourning for the Dead, Fighting for the Living »
My mother went to high school in the early 1950s with Donald Sterling — known in those days by his given name, Donald Tokowitz — but doesn’t remember a thing about him. This could be because Tokowitz was one among hundreds of students at Roosevelt High, but perhaps it was an early metaphor for the future real estate tycoon being a generational anomaly.
By the time she got to Roosevelt, my mom — like Sterling, a child of Jewish immigrants — was steeped in the leftist politics of L.A.’s legendary Eastside neighborhood, Boyle Heights. With sizable numbers of Jews, Latinos, African Americans and Japanese, Boyle Heights was a working class ethnic melting pot in an era when all minorities were subject to varying degrees of the prevailing discrimination targeting anyone who wasn’t white and Christian.
It was also a hotbed of liberal and radical social movements, and the staging ground for some of L.A.’s most effective progressive organizing.
If you’ve had a hankering to visit downtown L.A. to sample artisanal sushi or to nail down a sale on that special luxury loft, Thursday, May 1, might not be the best day. If, however, you’re in the mood to demand that Congress pass immigration reform, or to call for the raising of the minimum wage or to honor the 5,000 American workers who died on the job last year, definitely drop by. The action begins 10 a.m. at Chinatown’s Dragon Gateway (Cesar Chavez Ave. and Broadway) and will move to the Federal Detention Center at 535 N. Alameda St., where marchers will demand the release of undocumented Americans.
Bring plenty of water, a hat or parasol, and any chant that begins, “Two, four, six, eight –” Brought to you by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
As a college sophomore in the late ’80s, I didn’t have the benefit of Wikipedia or the Google. Instead, the holy grail of research was a black and yellow study guide called CliffsNotes. These heaven-sent summaries of major literary works were a lot easier to read than the originals.
During one quarter, I took a philosophy class where I was assigned to write an essay on Plato’s The Republic. It was springtime in the Bay Area, so the last thing I wanted to do was write the essay. After a visit to the campus bookstore, I devised a strategy to quickly complete my assignment: Summarize the CliffsNotes, and then tack on some class lecture notes. I thought my plan was foolproof — until the professor returned my essay a couple of weeks later. In bright red, he marked comments up and down the margins and in between paragraphs,
» Read more about: Railcar Investment & Jobs: A Teachable Moment »
The 48-hour strike by harbor truck drivers ended at dawn today. The haulers have returned to work after drawing an unprecedented amount of public attention to their cause – and without facing dismissals or other forms of retaliation from the three companies they targeted. Those firms — Pacific 9 Transportation, Total Transportation Services, Inc. and Green Fleet Systems – stood accused by the drivers of misclassifying them as “independent contractors,” even as a growing body of labor court rulings shows that the truckers are company employees. As such, they should be entitled to overtime wages, workers compensation, disability and an array of other benefits.
By being placed in the limbo of contractor status, however, the drivers are responsible for all their trucks’ upkeep, fuel and insurance. As a result, like the vast majority of American truckers, port drivers in Los Angeles and Long Beach must subsist on poverty wages.
Some of the drivers joined the work stoppage,
» Read more about: Port Truckers End Strike, Return to Work Without Retaliation »