Prisons in the United States

1 0 ' January 10, 2019 - January 18, 2019 THE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS

A first step for criminal justice reform __

Late last m onth, Congress passed and the president signed the m ost far-reach­ ing crim inal justice reform in a genera­ tion. Advocates envision the First Step Act as just that, a first step toward reduc­ ing mass incarceration and repairing our dam aged democracy.

Specifically, the Act will shorten some disproportionately long federal prison sentences, ease m andatory m inim um sentences and the “three-strikes” rule, in ­ crease good and earned tim e credits, re­ quire inm ates to be housed within 500 miles of their families w hen possible and end the shackling of inm ates while preg­ nant, giving birth and in postpartum recovery. Especially relevant to com m uni­ ties of color, the Act retroactively reduces the disparity betw een sentences for crack and powder cocaine.

The Act is long overdue. Mass incarcera­ tion, which author Michelle Alexander has called “The New Jim Crow,” is one of the defining civil rights issues in the United States today. Our n ation represents less than 5 percent of the w orld’s population but has alm ost 25 percent of its prisoners. Worse, more than 30 percent of the world’s incarcerated w om en are in U.S. prisons.

The Act does n o t go as far as the bill th a t was p revented from com ing to a vote by Sen. M itch M cConnell (R-Ky.) and the R epublican m ajority d u rin g th e O bam a a d m in istra tio n . H istory will m easu re it by o u r ability to build on it. “It is a co m ­ p rom ise of a com prom ise, an d we u lti­ m ately n ee d to m ake far g reater reform s if we are to right th e w rongs th a t exist in our crim inal justice system ,” said Sen. Kanrala H arris (D-Calif.), m em b er of the S enate Judiciary C om m ittee an d form er C alifornia a tto rn e y general.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), an o th er Judi­ ciary Com m ittee member, and who sh ep ­ herded tire legislation, said, "We continue to work for elim ination of cash bail for non-violent crimes, and m ore sup p o rt for re-entry program s...A nd m uch work re ­ m ains to be done at the state level, where the vast m ajority of sentencing and in car­ ceration takes place.”

The federal prison system houses a p ­ proximately 12 percent of the nation’s pris­ oners. Second and third steps m ust address the 88 percent in state and local penal in­ stitutions. Doing so will require criminal reform advocates to hold together the rare bipartisan coalition of progressives and conservatives that supported the bill.

This bro ad coalition was able to defeat th e w orst GOP po iso n -p ill a m en d m e n ts and convince a law -an d -o rd e r p re sid e n t to sign th e m easure. The staggering cost of incarceratio n has caused states to take a second look at sen ten c in g p ra c ­ tices. For th e past d ecad e or so C hris­ tian conservatives have jo in ed the effort for p riso n reform . The opioid crisis has also aw akened m any to o u r overly p u n i­ tive system . According to a 2017 survey, som e 71 p ercen t of A m ericans believe th a t reducing the c o u n try ’s prison p o p ­ u latio n should be a priority.

Victory would not have been possible w ithout the work of advocates such as Van Jones and Jessica Jackson Sloan, leaders of #cut50, a broad national bipartisan initia­ tive to reduce the prison population while making our com m unities safer. Building on the work begun during the Obama a d ­ m inistration, the formerly incarcerated and their family m em bers from a host of groups, am ong them #cut50, Prison Fel­ lowship, the National Council for Incarcer­ ated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, lobbied Congress and beat the bushes for support.

The Brennan Center for Justice, the New York City progressive non-partisan public policy and law institute, has developed guidelines on how best to build on the Act. A central ten et is the use of federal dol­ lars and other incentives to reduce states’ prison populations.

B rennan’s Priya Raghavan has authored “An Election Agenda for Candidates, Ac­ tivists and Legislators,” which provides a blueprint to win achievable reforms. She notes th at if every state passed two of the proposals—the Alternative to Prison Act and the Proportional Sentencing Act—the n ation’s prison population could safely be reduced by 40 percent.

The proposals include elim inating im ­ p risonm ent for lower-level crimes, abol­ ishing cash bail, reforming m arijuana laws, making sentences proportional to crime, reform ing prosecutor incentives and curbing the n um ber of wom en e n te r­ ing state prisons.

As b ro th e r D errick Johnson, p re sid e n t an d CEO of th e NAACP, rem inds us, “The Act sh o u ld be seen as th e first step in the jo u rn ey for equality an d fairness in our crim inal ju stic e system .” T hat jo u rn ey requires ste p p e d up political involve­ m ent. And at th e c e n te r of o u r p o liti­ cal an d legislative efforts should be the d em a n d th a t all ca n d id a tes build on th e Act by su p p o rtin g bold progressive seco n d an d third steps.

George Gresham is president o fl 199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the larg­ est union in New York and the largest healthcare union in the nation.

UAW hies lawsuit against General Motors for breach of contract

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By STEPHON JOHNSON Amsterdam News Staff

The union representing au ­ toworkers wants to take Gen­ eral Motors to task.

Last week, United Auto Workers filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the auto giant, accusing the com ­ pany of breach of labor con­ tract. According to details in the suit, UAW requests that the court order GM to transfer seniority union members to the Fort Wayne, Ind., assem­ bly plant to maintain its con­ tractual agreement with them.

UAW accused GM of cir­ cumventing the agreement by using temporary employ­ ees. “UAW members negoti­ ated a binding agreement and we expect General Motors to follow the contract they agreed to and GM members ratified,” said Terry Dittes, UAW vice president and di­ rector, GM Department.

There are approximately 1,000 seniority employees on layoff nationwide, including 690 employees laid off at the Lordstown, Ohio assembly plant, many of whom have a p ­ plied to transfer to openings at the Fort Wayne plant.

According to the suit, the agreement between UAW and GM states that the hiring of new employees in one loca­ tion while there is a surplus of senior employees in other locations is not in either par­ ty’s best interest. “Therefore, the parties will provide eli­ gible seniority laid-off and active seniority employees an opportunity to relocated to UAW-GM facilities outside of

their area, with particular em ­ phasis on placing employees from closed or idled facilities," read the agreement.

In November, m onths after President Donald Trump said the jobs were coming back, GM announced plans to lay off 15 percent of its salaried work­ force (up to 14,000 employees) and close five plants in the United States and Canada. GM also announced that it would stop production at their Lord­ stown, and Hamtramck, Midi, assembly plants. The deci­ sion also affects employment at GM locations in Baltimore, Md., Brownstown, Mich, and Warren, Mich.

GM’s stock increased after the announcem ent of layoffs and factory closings.

According to GM officials, their decisions stem from the decrease in popularity of the sedan in favor of SUVs. Offi­ cials also said that GM lost $1 billion because ofTrump’s tar­ iffs on foreign goods.

“Late last year, GM start­ ed the process to bring about 50 Lordstown employees to Ft. Wayne to fill some of the positions that had been cov­ ered by temporary employ­ ees,” said a GM representative to the AmNews. “In fact, about 35 Lordstown UAW members will be in place by the end of January. We have ongoing dis­ cussions with the UAW re­ garding our staffing needs in Ft. Wayne, but have no further comments on the lawsuit.”

GM’s actions would be the largest restructuring for the automaker since its bankrupt­ cy in 2008, when the govern­ ment bailed the company out.

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