Archive for Goverment and Politics
City gets a kick to do better with complaints systemPaul Moloney
Posted by: | CommentsAt the urging of its new ombudsman, the City of Toronto plans to do a better job of telling citizens how to complain about problems they encounter with the city’s 50,000-person-strong bureaucracy.
In one of her first moves, ombudsman Fiona Crean asked all civic departments to forward copies of their processes for handling complaints from the public.
That was last December. She’s still waiting.
“We received good procedures from some, mediocre from others and none from yet others,” Crean told reporters Thursday. “Less than half the areas submitted processes or posted them on their website. Openness and accessibility was a problem even for those who had good procedures.”
Citizens must first seek redress from the relevant civic department before approaching the ombudsman’s office, on Elizabeth St. near city hall, but people often say the municipal public service just isn’t responsive to them, she said.
“I can’t tell you how many people said, `I never heard back from the city.’”
“So we’ll take the steps that are necessary to make sure that people have a well-understood point of access to approach the city with concerns they might have about a service, or a time frame in which a service was delivered. It’s completely reasonable.”
In 2009, the office received 1,057 inquiries and complaints and processed and closed 958 of them, or just over 90 per cent, she said.
As it began operations, the ombudsman’s office first focused on individual complaints. In 2010, Crean wants to turn her attention to solving systemic problems.
The first order of business is ensuring the government develops procedures to handle complaints and publicizes them.
People have been able to pursue complaints by speaking to a supervisor or, if that doesn’t get results, speaking to the division’s general manager, he said.
“There always has been a way to make your concerns known. What we’re doing now is formalizing that, making sure it’s documented and available publicly on websites and that the city communicates it more clearly.
“The goal, of course, is to deal with concerns people have as quickly as possible without the need to make a formal complaint.”
Ideally, municipal services should be provided in a way that doesn’t attract complaints, he added.
More complaints about immigrants and laborers
Posted by: | CommentsFabian Gutierrez logged more than 60 hours a week slicing meat and stocking shelves with cheeses and milk at a neighborhood grocery for less than minimum wage and no overtime.
The 32-year-old Mexican immigrant said he put up with the situation for months because he was desperate to support his wife and young daughter. And like many co-workers, he was afraid to challenge his boss.
“All of us took abuse. We were disrespected,” said Gutierrez, who found help at a workers’ rights center, joined with other workers to sue the owner of La Fruteria and now works at another grocery store that he says treats him better.
Across the nation, the long-simmering problem of employers who don’t pay their workers appears to be getting worse, especially for immigrant laborers.
n the absence of aggressive federal action, some states and local governments have begun to tackle the issue on their own. They say employers who don’t pay overtime or minimum wage are unlikely to pay into state workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance funds — bilking taxpayers even as they’re cheating workers.
Workers rights centers say wage theft has become the No. 1 complaint they’ve heard in recent months.
In Chicago, Working Hands Legal Clinic, which is helping Gutierrez, received 161 complaints of wage theft from January through June 2008. That jumped by more than 60 percent to 252 complaints during the same period this year.
The Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network says at least 50 percent of day laborers — there are 120,000 on a given day in the U.S. — experience some form of wage theft.
About 68 percent of low-wage workers reported wage theft in 2008, regardless of citizenship status, according to a study released earlier this year that surveyed 4,400 low-wage workers in major U.S. cities, the first such extensive review in years.
“It’s not confined to the margins, or a few rogue employers. Employers realize that workers are desperate,” said Nik Theodore, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of the study conducted with the University of California, Los Angeles and the City University of New York. “It looks like standard business practice in many industries.”
Advocates say enforcing wage and hour laws even for laborers in the country illegally keeps wages for all workers from being driven down and ensures that employers who follow the rules can compete.
California has also required some businesses to pay a state registration fee, which pays workers if violations are later found and funds a collections department, making fines enforceable.
Some worker advocates say combining efforts for massive raids is good publicity but nets little for workers because the focus is on recovering unemployment or Social Security taxes for the state rather than overtime wages for the employee.
In response, New York Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith has worked with community-based groups and even unions, which are often the first to receive labor complaints, in a nationally recognized effort to identify employers violating labor laws.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has added about 250 wage and hour inspectors, and last week, the department signed an agreement with the New York labor department, Mexican Consulate and several other groups to create a call center that will provide Hispanic workers in the New York area information about their labor rights.
For now, Gutierrez and his former employer are trying to work things out in court, but he’s unsure if he’ll get all the back pay he says he’s owed.
Pensions complaints rise by 76%
Posted by: | CommentsThe number of complaints received by the Pensions Ombudsman has risen by 76 per cent this year, with a significant number of cases relating to the construction sector.
Launching the ombudsman’s 2008 annual report today, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin refused to rule out the possibility that a single tax relief rate of 33 per cent on pension contributions may be introduced in next week’s Budget.
Ms Hanafin said this measure, which was proposed in the revised programme for government, should be viewed as part of the National Pensions Framework, which has yet to be published and is unlikely to be implemented before 2014.
However she added that tax reliefs can be changed by the Minister for Finance in any budget. “The Minister could do it next week,” she said.
Pensions ombudsman Paul Kenny said about 15 per cent of the complaints received by his office now relate to the construction sector. In some these cases, employers deducted pension contributions from their employee’s wages but did not remit them to the pension schemes.
The flow of complaints from the construction industry has been particularly heavy this year as people have been losing their jobs in the sector, he noted. While in employment, many workers were afraid “to put their heads above the parapet”, while others, particularly foreign nationals, didn’t understand their pension rights.
During 2008, the ombudsman received 758 new complaints, a 47 per cent jump
from the previous year. Mr Kenny said that 40 per cent of complaints came
from the public sector, with the remainder coming from the private sector.
Five-day event to help struggling homeowners
Posted by: | CommentsA nonprofit group is bringing a mortgage-modification marathon to Charlotte this week that aims to provide speedy help for struggling homeowners.
In the 12th stop on its “Save the Dream” tour, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America said it expects to draw 50,000 people over five days to a program that brings together borrowers, counselors and lenders. Some loans will be modified on the same day, the group said.
NACA is based in Boston but has been expanding a Charlotte office that helps coordinate the nationwide tour.
The borrowers that come to NACA usually have tried to work with their lender without success, said founder Bruce Marks, who was in Charlotte Tuesday to promote the event to be held at The Park, formerly the Charlotte Merchandise Mart. The group acts as a middleman on behalf of borrowers. “You have to push pretty aggressively,” Marks said.
NACA is known for protesting predatory lending practices and making its own affordable home loans to low-income borrowers. But increasingly it has focused on helping borrowers threatened by the nation’s foreclosure crisis.
The group this year began hiring in its Charlotte office as part of an expansion of its “Home Save” services. N.C. and local officials have promised NACA $3.5 million in incentives in return for hiring about 1,000 employees over five years. The group now has about 700 people in Charlotte and Marks has said the group plans to hire a total of 2,000 by the end of next year.
NACA works to find a quick, permanent solution for borrowers, while the government program starts with a trial-modification period, he noted. In a statement Monday, Charlotte-based Bank of America highlighted another challenge with the government program: getting borrowers to supply the necessary paperwork.
At the news conference, Marks acknowledged his approach is controversial. He has cultivated a reputation as a “bank terrorist” who holds protests at the homes of CEOs whose banks NACA deems to be engaged in predatory lending. This pressure has helped persuade lenders to sign loan-modification agreements with the group.
During the five-day event, Marks said monthly payments can be reduced by $500 or more and interest rates can be dropped to as low as 2 percent. The service is free. Borrowers are encouraged to pre-register at naca.com or by calling 888-499-6222, but walk-ins are welcome. The event runs 9 a.m.-8 p.m. each day, although counselors will stay later working with people who arrived during those hours.
At the news conference, NACA touted some of the homeowners the group has helped. Eddie Cuffie, a Charlotte retiree, said he didn’t have good credit when he took out a Countrywide Financial loan with a monthly payment of $975 and a 9.75 percent interest rate. With NACA’s help, he now has a Bank of America loan with a $683 monthly payment and a 5 percent interest rate.
Strict visa rulings called unfair
Posted by: | CommentsAre visitors from developing countries being denied entry into Canada due to old rules?
Guillermo Duarte had a lot to prove just to take a two-week vacation to visit his brother in Canada.
The engineer, 36, had to convince Canadian visa officers that he, his engineer wife, Luz, and their younger children Fernando, 10, and Faviola, 8, had strong enough ties to Guatemala to ensure they would leave Canada after a visit to his brother, Mauricio, in Toronto.
But after paying a non-refundable fee of $300, they were denied visitor’s visas. (Even leaving two teens at home didn’t convince the officer they wouldn’t stay in Canada.)
While the denial cost the Duartes a ruined vacation, for other prospective visitors it might mean not being able to bid farewell to a dying relative, attend a loved one’s wedding, or see a newborn grandchild
“It’s a very big problem for our community,” says Gurmeet Singh of Brampton’s Nanaksar Satsang Sabha Sikh temple. “And it’s going to get worse … if our visa officials don’t change their attitude and show some compassion.”
Visas are imposed to help “facilitate the entry of bonafide visitors to Canada for such purposes as trade, commerce, tourism, international understanding, and cultural, educational and scientific activities, while also protecting the health, safety and security of Canadian society,” says Citizenship and Immigration spokesperson Karen Shadd-Evelyn.
New Democrat MP Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) says her office has 65 outstanding complaints from constituents involving relatives’ failed visa applications.
“Visa officers have the discretionary power to decide who to let in. There’s no humanitarian and compassionate consideration. Their decisions are completely arbitrary and don’t get reviewed,” Chow says. “The onus should’ve been on the Canadian officials to show that these people would not leave CanadaDuarte walked into the Canadian embassy in Guatemala City last month, hands full of documents: pay stubs, an employer letter, bank statements, the deeds on his three properties and a passport to show his lengthy travel history.
When his first try failed, his brother in Canada wrote an official invitation and asked his local councillor, MP and even a senator to intervene. The visa office later called Duarte in to apply for a minister’s special permit for an extra $185. But by then, the date was too close to the family’s booked vacation time and the airfare too expensive. “We are all disappointed,” says Mauricio Duarte, who immigrated 17 years ago. “Whenever we go back home, we stay with our families and relatives. We would like to play hosts to someone when they come here.”
Lawyer Avvy Go, director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, points out there’s no guarantee that visitors from visa-exempt countries would leave Canada either.
after their visits.”
Immigration reacts slowly to the global economic and political changes. Countries like China and India are becoming bigger economic powers,” says Mamann, an ex-immigration officer. “My concern is our visa officers are still using outdated standards to judge these applications, (believing) these people will come and stay in Canada.”
If nothing changes, he adds, Canada stands to lose the substantial economic benefits from delegates attending conferences, buyers going to trade shows and tourists all in a world that’s become closer and more intimate than ever before.
California Could Boost Regulation of Disability Insurers, Experts Say
Posted by: | CommentsCalifornia could do more to investigate complaints against disability insurance providers, according to several legal experts, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reports.
Last month, a Daily Journal investigation found that disability insurers frequently deny or terminate benefits to people who have limited recourse to appeal the insurers’ decisions.
The investigation also found that the California Department of Insurance does little to regulate the practices of disability insurers.
The state Department of Insurance says it does not always have the power to intervene in claims denial cases because the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act governs employer-sponsored worker benefits.
Assembly Health Committee Chair Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) said the Department of Insurance could wield more power to investigate claims denials and protect disabled consumers. Jones is running to replace current Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (R) next year.
Poizner is seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
In related news, some advocacy groups plan to pressure lawmakers to change ERISA regulations if national health care reform legislation requires all residents to have insurance coverage.
ERISA currently prohibits individuals covered under group policies from appealing a claims rejection in state courts or from seeking punitive damages.
Feds find association between drywall, corrosion
Posted by: | CommentsThe federal government said Monday that it has found a “strong association” between problematic imported Chinese drywall and corrosion of pipes and wires, a conclusion that supports complaints by thousands of homeowners over the last year.
In its second report on the potentially defective building materials, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said its investigation also has found a “possible” link between health problems reported by homeowners and higher-than-normal levels of hydrogen sulfide gas emitted from the wallboard coupled with formaldehyde, which is commonly found in new houses.
The commission, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continues to study the potential health effects, and the long-term implications of the corrosion.
“We can say that we believe that there’s a number of different chemicals that when brought together can be related to some of these irritant health effects that we’ve been getting reports of,” said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. “But we’re still working toward that exact nexus.”
The commission said it can now move forward with additional studies to identify effective remediation of the problem and potential assistance from the federal government. However, Warren Friedman of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said it’s too soon to discuss specifics of any financial assistance homeowners could get.
During the height of the U.S. housing boom, with building materials in short supply, American construction companies imported millions of pounds of Chinese-made drywall because it was abundant and cheap. An Associated Press analysis of shipping records found that more than 500 million pounds of Chinese gypsum board was imported between 2004 and 2008 — enough to have built tens of thousands of homes.
They are heavily concentrated in the Southeast, especially Florida and areas of Louisiana and Mississippi hit hard by Hurricane Katrina.
The suspect building materials have previously been found by state and federal agencies to emit “volatile sulfur compounds” and produce a rotten-egg odor. Homeowners complain the fumes are corroding copper pipes, destroying TVs and air conditioners, blackening jewelry and silverware, and making them sick.
The federal government says China is assisting with the investigation.
Britain’s Got Talent cleared over issues of child welfare concerns
Posted by: | CommentsBritain’s Got Talent has been cleared of breaching the broadcasting code following complaints about the well-being of young contestants, including ten-year-old Hollie Steele who was reduced to tears during the live semi-final
Ofcom, the media regulator, received 409 complaints over incidents on the ITV entertainment series screened in May.
Viewers had been concerned about the welfare of Hollie Steele and Natalie Okri, who was also 10, and 12-year-old Aidan Davis, who had appeared to viewers as being “visibly upset”.
Those in charge of compliance for the ITV1 show said Britain’s Got Talent producers received 50,000 applications from children – over 75 per cent of the total applications made to appear on the 2009 programme.
Ofcom said Channel TV, who responded to the complaints on behalf of ITV, had to make sure the programme did not breach the broadcasting rule that “due care must be taken over the physical and emotional welfare” of people under 18.
The television company said that Hollie had been provided with an offstage chaperone to reassure her.
Brent Education Authority officials had visited Hollie the day before and had confirmed it was happy with child welfare arrangements.
Ofcom said it was satisfied that “due care was taken” with the children, but warned broadcasters to take “appropriate care” when children took part in competitive programmes.
The media regulator also received 53 complaints about the “alleged exploitation” of the Scottish singer Susan Boyle on the show.
Ofcom dismissed the complaints relating to Boyle because its remit does not cover the protection of the “welfare and dignity” of those over 18 unless a formal complaint is made by the individual concerned or someone acting directly on their behalf.
The regulator also looked at whether Boyle’s treatment may have caused offence to the audience on the grounds that she was humiliated or distressed.
The regulator said: “Susan Boyle did not appear humiliated or particularly distressed and when her esrult was announced on air at the end of the final she swiftly congratulated Diversity for their win.”
Boyle, who performed on X Factor this weekend, was admitted to the Priory clinic with exhaustion, following her defeat in June.
Government ministers at the time said that broadcasters must do more to protect vulnerable reality television contestants.
Fort Hood Crisis: mental health and how to help
Posted by: | CommentsThe Fort Hood shooting is one of the largest shooting incidents to take place on a U.S. military installation. As of press time, 13 are dead and dozens are wounded after an Army psychiatrist opened fire on fellow soldiers.
When tragedies like this happen, the mental state of those involved is always of concern. Mental problems can occur for days, months or even years after such an event. Here are some key points to consider if you were or know someone related to the Fort Hood tragedy
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. PTSD can happen if you are in a dire situation of helplessness or inability to help where severe trauma or imminent death can take place. This shooting took place in a processing center where soldiers prepare for deployment. A vast majority was not armed, and many had probably been on combat tours before. To witness a massacre at home and feel helpless despite all the training and combat experience can be traumatic. Many who died were also fellow soldiers and comrades of the witnesses. These experiences and feelings can lead to PTSD symptoms such as restlessness, recurring nightmares, hypervigilance and even substance abuse as a form of self-medication.
Anxiety. The surrounding community members to include military family and civilians working on base might feel a smaller sense of security on base. The reality is that this attack was a very isolated incident and that military installations are generally safe and secure. However, the Fort Hood community could still experience anxiety and fear. This leads to hyper-vigilance and anxiety over anticipating the next attack. These feelings are normal after a tragedy and are warranted. If anxiety symptoms such as extreme worry or panic attacks persist for several weeks after, counseling may be needed to help alleviate symptoms.
How To Help. If you know someone who was related to the Fort Hood tragedy, offer support where possible to help restore a sense of normalcy. However, do not try to force them to talk about what happened; if they are suffering from PTSD, recalling the moment could seem very real in their minds. Encourage them to seek counseling and offer to be an ear for them to express their feelings. Sometimes listening is the best support you can give. If they had children, offer child care to help them get some time alone and away from “crisis mode”. Prepare dinner meals to give them more time to reconnect with their remaining family members. You may noThe new survey on Afghanistan found instances of depression, anxiety and other psychological problems are about the same as they were in 2007. But it also said there is a shortage of mental health workers to help soldiers who need it, partly because of the buildup Obama already started this year with the dispatch of more than 20,000 extra troops.
Efforts already under way to get more health workers to the Afghan war could be hampered somewhat by last week’s shooting. The psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder was slated to go to Afghanistan. Some of the dead and wounded also were to deploy there to bolster psychological services for soldiers.
The new Afghanistan survey found that individual soldier morale was about the same as previous studies, but that “unit morale rates … were significantly lower than in 2005 or 2007,” said an executive summary of the report that was to be explained in a news conference Friday. The units referred to were mostly platoons of roughly a couple dozen people each.
t have been part of the tragedy, but you can help those who were recover from it.