Archive for the ‘employment abuses’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 18, 2012
Refugees who either have no credit history yet or whom resettlement agencies ruined their credit by reporting them to credit bureaus for unpaid travel loans can find it difficult to find jobs. That’s because employers practice credit history discrimination, and Chicago’s City Council is now taking a look at this practice. A lawyer with the Illinois attorney general’s office told the council’s Human Relations Committee that a troubled credit history has no relationship to poor job performance or theft on the job. Employers can also refuse to hire people for being unemployed – no questions asked. An article in the Chicago Tribune discusses a City Council proposal to prevent this sort of discrimination:
Rejecting Chicago job applicants because of credit history would be banned in most cases under a proposal a City Council committee endorsed Thursday…
…Under the city measure, applicants who believe they have been wronged can take the less costly and simpler route of filing a complaint with the city Human Relations Commission.
The proposal, put forward by freshman Ald. Ameya Pawar, 47th, also would ban employment ads that say the unemployed cannot apply.
“People have been discriminated against simply on the basis of credit history or for simply being unemployed, and as a result, qualified applicants are being denied jobs,” Pawar said. “Every job seeker, regardless of their credit history, deserves a fair shake.
“And this kind of discrimination has profound impacts on seniors, single-income households, immigrants, refugees and parents re-entering the workforce and finally veterans,” he said…
…A union representative, an employment coordinator for a human rights group and a lawyer with the Illinois attorney general’s office all told the council’s Human Relations Committee that a troubled credit history has no relationship to poor job performance or theft on the job.
The officials also cited studies that indicate about a third of credit reports contain errors… Read more here
***UPDATE*** – Feb. 24, 2012 – Shelly Banjo writing for the Wall Street Journal reports that more than a dozen states are considering making it illegal for companies to discriminate against the unemployed:
“More than a dozen states are considering legislation to make it illegal for companies to discriminate against the unemployed. State lawmakers say they see the bias turning up in a nation with an 8.3% unemployment rate: Companies that explicitly advertise that they won’t hire someone who isn’t currently employed. The proposals from Connecticut to California range in scope from banning advertisements that require current employment to allowing unsuccessful job candidates to sue businesses under the same discrimination laws that apply to bias on the basis of religion, race, gender or national origin…” Read more here
Posted in Chicago, economic self-sufficiency, employment abuses, employment/jobs for refugees, Travel Loan Program | Tagged: bad credit, Chicago, City Council, credit history, discrimination, economic self sufficiency, Human Relations Committee, refugees, resettlement, unemployment | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 15, 2012
Refugee workers at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport have worked in poor conditions while an airport contractor — GCA Services Group — allegedly used discrimination, threats and mistreatment to dissuade them in their efforts to join a union to bargain for basic benefits, such as health insurance and sick leave. Workers say that the City has ignored their poor work conditions. An article in The Arizona Republic has more:
Isabell Marquez said she tried for months to find another job after she was fired a year ago from her work as a janitor for a contractor at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport…
Marquez, in her 50s, was one of four workers who claimed the company, GCA Services Group, fired them when supervisors learned they were trying to unionize.
Now, Marquez and her co-workers are celebrating her reinstatement — and a check for $8,462 in back pay…
Several of the GCA’s 200 workers at the airport allege they have faced discrimination, threats and mistreatment for their efforts to join a union that would fight for a contract with basic benefits such as health insurance and sick leave. Their claims recently were backed by the National Labor Relations Board.
The board issued a consent order in December that required GCA to re-hire and pay a total of $24,040 in lost wages to Marquez and her co-workers, Hamid Amiri, Yadu Rijal and Geoffrey Kachiolwa.
In addition, the board required GCA to promote another worker, Narayan Timsina, to a job he was initially denied and to give him $1,861 in back pay.
The board outlined the steps GCA must take to calm hostile relations with its workers, which include an end to policies that deter workers from unionizing and an end to threats for workers involved with a union…
… So far, GCA has not recognized workers who carry union cards, said workers’ advocates at Central Arizona for a Sustainable Economy, or CASE…
…CASE staff said GCA has exploited a vulnerable group in society: refugees who have few job options when they arrive in Phoenix. Many of them hail from politically unstable countries such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia, CASE staff said.
CASE said many of Sky Harbor’s service contractors tend to pay refugee workers low wages with few or no benefits while the city seems to ignore their poor work conditions.
Last week, CASE staff and 18 GCA workers brought a scroll filled with complaints about their working conditions to the Phoenix Aviation Department.
Department officials sidestepped the complaints… Read more here
Posted in employment abuses, employment/jobs for refugees, Phoenix | Tagged: GCA Services Group, health insurance, Phoenix, Poor Work Conditions, refugees, resettlement, sick leave, Sky Harbor International Airport, union | Leave a Comment »
Posted by nancylee1 on October 8, 2011
Whether coming from extreme poverty or a professional career that allowed them to live comfortably, most refugees here find themselves with a menial job that pays next to nothing. Just as airport travelers have little choice other than to pay the expensive concession stand prices throughout O’Hare and Midway airports – operated by retailers with lucrative city contracts – so do refugees have little choice but to accept the low paying airport jobs. As someone who worked for an airline for 16 years I can also attest to the fact that working in an airport is stressful no matter what job you do. Chicago is not cheap, and refugees working the airport jobs also have long, expensive commutes, while struggling to pay high rents.
Although Chicago city contractors have long had to pay living wages, a legal loophole allowed airport concessionaires to avoid the requirement. The retailers, however, may finally have to pay their employees a “living wage” of $11.18-an-hour if Chicago aldermen pass a new ordinance, according to article at Progress Illinois:
As the City of Chicago prepares to let out a wave of contracts for food and retail shops at O’Hare and Midway airports, new legislation seeks to ensure that concession workers at both facilities — the folks who pour the coffee, ring up book sales, fry hamburgers, and the like — are not unceremoniously dumped as the process moves forward.
The “Stable Jobs Stable Airports Ordinance” (PDF), in fact, would remake labor relations for concession employees should it it make it through the council thicket and find the signature of the current or next mayor of Chicago. It also stands out as one of the most significant expansions of the Chicago’s living wage rules since those stipulations were added to city code in the late 1990s…
…O’Hare and Midway concessions are lucrative, as anyone who has purchased a meal or a magazine while waiting for a flight out of Chicago knows well. In a request-for-proposals (PDF) for 22 specialty retail and services concessions at O’Hare, for example, the Department of Aviation reports that total sales for the 63 food, specialty concessions, news and gift stores, and duty free shops in the airport’s terminal one totaled $82.8 million in 2009. O’Hare has three terminals, of course, with 160 outlets in all, this RFP says. A “concession open house” for food and beverage slots at O’Hare and Midway, scheduled for tomorrow, will kick off a different bidding process.
Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward), one of the chief sponsors of the new ordinance, pointed out this morning that the concessions operators have a “captive audience” as fliers wait to board and often get multi-year contracts to run their outlets. Such business conditions mean concessionaires should be able to pay its employees a living wage, even if that means a price increase for some items… Read more here
Let’s hope that the ordinance passes so these workers and their children are not victims of a society that cares little for the 99%, while enriching the 1% who control most of the money.
Posted in Uncategorized, Illinois, Refugees in US, Chicago, employment/jobs for refugees, economic self-sufficiency, employment abuses | Tagged: minimum wage, low wages, refugee labor, living wage, aiport jobs, Chicago city contractors | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 11, 2011
Iowa has become a secondary migration site for about 1000 refugees from Burma, according to John Wilken, who heads the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, in a quote to the WCF Courier in Waterloo, Iowa. Secondary migrants are arriving largely in Waterloo, Columbus Junction and Storm Lake, and some may also be coming to Marshalltown and Perry. For the most part they are migrating to Iowa for meatpacking jobs.
…Since the 1990s, thousands of ethnic minorities and political dissidents have fled Myanmar, as Burma is called by its ruling military government.
[There are] about 150 Burmese refugees employed at the Waterloo Tyson plant. The first 40 Burmese employees arrived from…Rockford, Ill., in May last year. Tyson officials said another 100 likely will be hired by the end of the year.
“We knew the refugees were there and needed jobs, and we had these jobs to fill,” said Teri Wray, community liaison for the Tyson’s Waterloo plant.
The plant had added jobs faster than the local pool of applicants was providing candidates, said Worth Sparkman, public relations manager of Tyson Foods.
“More than anything, it seemed to be a good fit,” Sparkman said.
Tyson has worked with the U.S. State Department to bring refugees to Waterloo from…Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Texas. Their resettlement here is called secondary migration.
“Based on the anecdotal information I’ve heard, I’d say there are 1,000 secondary migrants” from Burma in Iowa, said John Wilken, who heads the Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services. Along with Waterloo, secondary migrants are arriving largely in Columbus Junction and Storm Lake. He said some may also be coming to Marshalltown and Perry. Generally, they are being drawn to Iowa by jobs at meat packing plants.
Burmese refugees have been directly resettled into the Des Moines metro area since 2007, with 128 refugees arriving the first year.
“In that year, there were a total of 435 refugees that were settled into Iowa,” Wilken said.
“They were the largest single group coming into Iowa.”
Since then, “they have been the largest planned resettlement coming into Iowa.” A total of 825 Burmese refugees have been resettled in the state, although some have since moved. The numbers are down recently because in January 2010, Lutheran Services of Iowa stopped resettling refugees, Wilken said.
In the Des Moines area, Catholic Charities plans to resettle 120 Burmese per year, with a focus on relatives of those already here. The U.S. Committee on Immigrants and Refugees is targeting 350 Burmese resettlements in the Des Moines area next year. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque’s Cedar Rapids office plans to resettle a small number of Burmese next year.
Wilken’s agency resettled refugees until a year ago, but the State Department determined the bureau did not meet the criteria of a national office, so it had to stop. The bureau now focuses on job placement for the refugees, mostly in the Des Moines area.
“Right now, there’s no agency that has stated they’re going to open up a resettlement office in Waterloo,” Wilken noted.
Since there is no resettlement agency in Waterloo, many of the Burmese Tyson workers here are still waiting for green cards and for their families to join them… Read more here
Now I know that new Americans desperately need jobs, but I still councel them to stay away from meatpacking due to the deplorable safety record in the industry. There is chronic underreporting of injuries, according to an article in The Nation. An article in Mother Jones also reported that Bureau of Labor Statistics show that meatpacking is the nation’s most dangerous occupation.
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Catholic Charities Diocese of Des Moines, Columbus Junction, Des Moines USCRI (field office), employment abuses, health, Iowa, meatpacking industry, secondary migration, refugee, Storm Lake, USCRI, Waterloo | Tagged: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Burma, Burma/Myanmar, Columbus Junction, Des Moines, human rights, Iowa Bureau of Refugee Services, John Wilken, meat packing, meatpacking, Myanmar, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, Secondary migrantion, secondary migrants, State Department, Storm Lake, Tyson, U.S. Committee on Immigrants and Refugees, USCRI, Waterloo | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 15, 2011
A mysterious bill called “The Domestic Refugee Reform and Modernization Act of 2011″ is being introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Gary C. Peters (D-Mich). Church World Service just sent out the following news release, although Congressman Peters’ website doesn’t yet have any information.
Washington — March 15, 2011 – Global humanitarian organization Church World Service applauds Congressman Gary C. Peters (D-Mich.) for introducing the Domestic Refugee Reform and Modernization Act…
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…The Domestic Refugee Reform and Modernization Act of 2011 would elevate the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services, thereby giving the office broader authority to make structural changes and to direct resources more effectively, while increasing transparency and inter-agency communication.
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The bill also would improve the process by which refugee resettlement funds are allocated to states by including in the formula a projection of refugee arrivals during the coming fiscal year in addition to figures for the past three years of arrivals. It also calls for increased data collection on secondary migration, health and mental health issues, housing needs, and long-term employment outcomes, as well as
a Government Accountability Office report on the resettlement program overall… Read more here
We’ll have to wait and see if this legislation would do anything to actually help refugees. No doubt it will definitely include perks for the refugee resettlement agencies and their friends in government. I’d like to see how the bill would “increase transparency” in light of the current situation in which we have to wait months or years for FOIA’s to go through, basic information cannot be found anywhere on the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) website about things such as how much private funding resettlement agencies actually bring to the refugee program, how often the ORR actually inspects the resettlement agencies that receive ORR funds, and why privatization (the Wilson-Fish Program) of state resettlement programs — away from public oversight – continues to accelerate.
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The part about “increased data collection” also raises my curiousity, although the ORR seems to already collect an awfully large amount of data yet problems remain in effect for years if not decades. For example, refugees are still not learning English for years since few instructors who speak their languages teach the ESL classes. Then there is the ongoing problem of refugee Medcaid-funded medical services that are done without interpreters. Also, years after refugees arrive they continue to lack basic information such as knowing about their Constitutional rights, about personal finances, etc.
Posted in HHS, ORR, CWS, health, mental health, reform, funding, SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) immigrants, community/cultural orientation, Michigan, employment/jobs for refugees, openess and transparency in government, secondary migration, refugee, language interpretation/translation, lack of, Detroit area, housing, employment abuses, Wilson-Fish Program, legislation | Tagged: ORR, refugees, resettlement, HHS, Office of Refugee Resettlement, refugee resettlement program, refugee resettlement, ESL, refugee resettlement agencies, gao, Department of Health and Human Services, transparency, CWS, Church World Service, FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, secondary migration, Domestic Refugee Reform and Modernization Act of 2011, Domestic Refugee Reform & Modernization Act of 2011, Congressman Gary Peters, Gary Peters, data collection, Government Accountability Office, Wilson-Fish | 4 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 10, 2011
Greg Wangerin, Executive Director of RefugeeONE (fka IRIM)
The Gapers Block -- a Chicago-centric web publication – has an article reporting about refugee clients of the refugee resettlement agency RefugeeONE (formerly known as Interfaith Refugee and
Immigration Ministries, and InterChurch Refugee and Immigration Ministries), an affiliate of CWS, EMM and LIRS. An audio interview details the abuses the couple suffered in Sierra Leone. When the US government resettled them to Chicago the woman shoveled snow into garbage bags and put them into the dumpster because she didn’t know what else to do with it. An elderly Somali man arrived and told her, “just push it to the side.”
But what about this resettlement agency? It turns out that they recently rebranded themselves as RefugeeONE, after long being known as Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries (IRIM). Why the name change? Sometimes I worry that these agencies think they can rid themselves of past errors and weaknesses (wrongdoings?) by essentially becoming a completely different agency, in the public’s mind at least, via a name change.
So what is in the agency’s past? It turns out we have an old State Department monitoring report of IRIM, when the agency was under the directorship of someone named May Campbell. This is the most recent available inspection report (which tells me that they are just about ready for another once-in-ten-years inspection, or the Admissions Office has been illegally holding back reports from our FOIA’s. It’s either one or the other.)
Let’s see — 1) Placed a refugee in an apartment with a leaking bathroom ceiling and a broken door lock, and another in an apartment with a “water problem” (normal for Chicago low-income apartments after all), 2) left a refugee family, including an elderly woman, to sleep on the floor of their apartment for almost five months (until the day before the pre-announced monitoring visit – funny how that works). It turned out that the eleventh-hour delivery of beds (two single beds for four people) was the only home visit the case worker did (supposed to be done within 30 days, not at 4.5 months), 3) apparently didn’t bother to give another refugee family any chairs or couch, lamp, or a bed for their one-year-old child — just a dresser, three tables, and a double-bed (???), 4) no table or lamp for another family. [Check out so-called "minimum-requirements" in Operational Guidance to see why this is cheating the refugees and the taxpayers], 5) staff were not meeting with refugee families to make sure that they were giving them basic services and meeting their essential needs.
The refugee family that was sleeping on the floor of their apartment also reported that their employer was taking advantage of them by requiring them to make up bathroom break times at the end of the day. Apparently IRIM (now RefugeeONE) did nothing to help these refugees with this blatantly unfair treatment. No doubt the excuse would be that the agency ”didn’t know about it” (yet aren’t these contractors paid to know what’s happening to their refugee clients? If the only people watching over these refugees in their first several months don’t know what’s going on then who would? No one.) Apparently the refugee clients also reported that the agency had not told them what to do — via required community/cultural orientation – in the event that they experienced unfair, exploitive or illegal labor practices. By the way when I made a trip back to Chicago in 2001 some Lost Boys of Sudan” refugee clients of the Heartland Alliance agency told me that coworkers at an O’hare airport baggage handling company where they worked where screaming at them and physically threatening them. They said they told their Heartland Alliance case workers but nothing happened. Things just seem to keep happening when government monitors are away — for 10 years at a time.
On a last note, in 2009 journalists at the Chicago Tribune quote RefugeeONE’s current director, Greg Wangerin, saying,”I’m ashamed. I feel like I’m selling a lie”, in reference to all the problems in refugee resettlement during the recession. Here’s my question: Do these private refugee resettlement agencies ever look to themselves when pointing the finger of responsibility?
Posted in State Department, CWS, Operational Guidance, Sierra Leonean, faith-based, Christian, beds, community/cultural orientation, Chicago, housing, substandard, furnishings, lack of, housing, Episcopal, Lutheran, Baptist, home visits, employment abuses, RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries), RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries), RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries) | Tagged: Chicago, Church World Service, Church World Services, CWS, EMM, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Greg Wangerin, heartland alliance, human rights, Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, IRSA, LIRS, Lutheran immigration and refugee services, Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Service, May Campbell, refugee neglect, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, RefugeeOne, refugees, resettlement, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
