Attorney General’s $1.75 Million Grant Through National Mortgage Settlement Will Help Keep Homes and Neighborhoods Intact
Five Legal Services and Housing Counseling Organizations Come Together to Fight for Rights of Southern California Homeowners Facing Foreclosures

The following statement is from the executive leadership of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Legal Aid Society of Orange County/ Community Legal Services and Public Counsel. The five organizations comprise the newly formed “Southern California Consumer Justice Coalition,” a collaborative partnership that will be launched with a $1.75 million grant from the California Attorney General’s Office through the $18 billion National Mortgage Settlement negotiated by Attorney General Kamala Harris and 48 other state attorneys general:

The Coalition will create a one-stop model to make access to legal services and education far easier for individuals and families impacted by the foreclosure crisis. The grant will allow the Coalition to expand the scale and nature of legal services provided currently to low income individuals and families, the elderly, and minority and other vulnerable communities. To accomplish this, the Coalition will develop an innovative, online portal for consumers that incorporates an interactive “Housing Plus Legal Risk Assessment,” provides self-help content and targeted referrals to legal and housing counseling organizations, and will be supported by Spanish and other language hotlines.

“Foreclosures helped wreck California communities and drag our economy into recession. But California now has seized the opportunity under the National Mortgage Settlement to combat foreclosure and the resulting effects of the crisis, and put homeowners and hard-working Californians on the road to recovery,” stated Bet Tzedek Vice President and General Counsel, Elissa Barrett, who is also serving as the Coalition’s Project Director.

The $1.75 million grant represents the largest award statewide by the Attorney General’s Office, and it will lead to the launch of the Southern California Consumer Justice Coalition, a partnership of five organizations with decades of experience in combating foreclosure rescue scams, deceptive sales and lending practices and other conduct that affects the housing stability and financial security of our communities.

Additionally, the Coalition will conduct outreach and trainings for housing counselors, community organizers, faith-based organizations, public librarians and others who serve as first points of contacts for homeowners and tenants in distress, with an emphasis on expanding service to communities with access barriers, such as language, geography, disability and age.

“The services that will be provided by the Coalition will greatly benefit Asian American homeowners, who were largely impacted by the foreclosure crisis, especially those homeowners with limited English proficiency,” remarked Stewart Kwoh, President and Executive Director of Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

“This new model for legal and housing counseling services will aid Southern Californians who have the ability to stay in their homes, but need help navigating the loan modification maze or need legal representation to fight deceptive practices,” according to Bob Cohen, Executive Director of Legal Aid Society of Orange County/ Community Legal Services.

“The work the Coalition will do is vitally important because California’s economy is still fragile, and many homeowners are still treading water and trying to stay afloat,” commented Hernan Vera, President and CEO of Public Counsel.

“We are proud to join with California’s Attorney General and support Southern Californians who are working hard to keep their homes and neighborhoods intact,” stated Silvia Argueta, Executive Director of Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

In the immediate future, as the project is funded and brought to scale, the public is asked to contact the Coalition partners directly for assistance. Eventually, there will be a centralized web address for clients to access. The websites of the Coalition Partners are:

Bet Tzedek – www.bettzedek.org
Asian Pacific American Legal Center – www.apalc.org
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles – www.lafla.org
Legal Aid Society of Orange County/ Community Legal Services – www.legal-aid.com
Public Counsel – www.publiccounsel.org

You can read more about the awards and other programs that were funded by visiting http://tinyurl.com/btrgl8v

On November 24, 2012, 112 workers died in a horrific fire at Tazreen Fashions,
a garment factory in Bangladesh.

Join us for lunch and a discussion about what happened and what can be done.

Presentations from Kalpona Akter, director of  the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity; a Bangladeshi factory worker; and Jan Van Tol, national organizer with United Students Against Sweatshops.

Monday, April 8, 2013      Bet Tzedek, 3250 Wilshire Blvd, 14th Floor,
12:00-1:30pm                   Los Angeles, CA 90010
Lunch provide                    Metered parking available on street.
                                            Lot parking available on S. New Hampshire Ave.
                                            between Wilshire Blvd & W. 7th St ($5 max with stamp)

Sponsored by
Bet Tzedek Legal Services, Garment Worker Center,  International Labor Rights Forum,
SweatFree Communities, UCLA Downtown Labor Center, and United Students Against Sweatshops.

Heriberto Zamora worked at Urasawa for seven years. He frequently worked shifts of 11-13 hours, but was never paid any overtime wages and was never permitted to take meal and rest breaks as required by law.  One day last spring, some 9 hours into his long work shift, he asked to go home “early” because he was suffering from the flu and had been running a high fever for four straight days. The owner fired him on the spot for asking to go home.

On Wednesday, March 13, 2013, the California Labor Commissioner announced that an investigation of the restaurant resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in fines for labor violations.  Heriberto’s case for his unpaid wages is still pending.

Today, Heriberto and Bet Tzedek’s Employment Rights Director, attorney Kevin Kish, spoke at a press conference and rally in front of the restaurant.  They were joined by many allies from KIWA, APALC, CHIRLA, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign, the Bus Riders Union, Thai Community Development Center, and the UCLA Labor Center.

Read more on this story at http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-urasawa-labor-violations-20130314,0,6329451.story

Press conference held in front of Urasawa restaurant

At the time many people were preparing to enjoy the holidays, the magnificently talented performers of Cirque du Soleil’s show “Iris” were unfortunately facing the loss of their jobs. It was recently and unexpectedly announced that the show would be closing on January 19, 2013.

In addition to losing their jobs, a number of Cirque performers were also facing some real- life Grinches this Christmas.

Show props & costumes backstage

The performers believing, as most expected, that “Iris” would be running indefinitely, signed long-term rental leases with landlords. Faced with having to relocate as a result of the show’s closing they are now dealing with landlords who will not let them out of their leases and are demanding thousands of dollars from the artists.

A Cirque du Soleil management official contacted the Coalition for Economic Survival (CES) seeking assistance for the soon to be jobless and displaced employees.

CES was prepared to offer help and reached out to Bet Tzedek Legal Services who was more than happy to help the artists learn more about their rights as tenants.

On December 18, CES Executive Director Larry Gross and Bet Tzedek Legal Services Attorney Patricia Van Dyke conducted a Tenants’ Rights Clinic at Hollywood’s Dolby (formerly Kodak) Theater for about 20 acrobats, dancers, contortionists and technical stage workers of Cirque du Soleil. The performers were from Russia, Slovakia, Canada, Sweden and other states in the U.S.

Bet Tzedek shared with the artists that, while a landlord has the legal right to hold a tenant responsible for the remaining months of rent, the law only allows the landlord to exercise this right within reason.  Therefore, it is always best to try to work it out with the landlord. Tenants in this situation should attempt to provide their landlord with a written notice of their intent to leave as soon as possible.

The California Civil Code requires landlords to mitigate their damages if a tenant attempts to break a lease early. The landlord must “reasonably” avoid damages. Therefore, if they could find a tenant who meets the landlord’s screening criteria, the landlord is effectively obligated to approve the new tenant, thus removing the obligation of the moving tenant to pay the remaining rent on the lease.

CES and Bet Tzedek told the Cirque artists that they would continue to assist them in efforts to secure a remedy.

LOS ANGELES – Attorneys representing as many as 1,800 warehouse workers who move goods for Walmart in Southern California’s Inland Empire, on Friday took steps to add Walmart as a defendant in the federal class action known as Carrillo v. Schneider Logistics, Inc.

Plaintiff warehouse workers seek millions of dollars in reimbursement and penalties from Walmart and the contractors it hired to operate Walmart’s warehouse facilities in Riverside County, California.

“Walmart employs a network of contractors and subcontractors who have habitually broken the law to keep their labor costs low and Walmart’s profit margins high,” said Michael Rubin, attorney for the plaintiffs. “We believe Walmart knows exactly what is happening and is ultimately responsible for stealing millions of dollars from the low-wage warehouse workers who move Walmart merchandise.”

After months of discovery, including key depositions of Walmart managers with detailed knowledge of the warehouse operations, attorneys made the decision to add Walmart as a defendant.

“These egregious violations of fundamental workplace rights are ultimately Walmart’s responsibility,” said plaintiffs’ co-counsel Theresa Traber. “Walmart controls the operation of these warehouses from top to bottom, and keeps a watchful eye on everything that happens there, yet fails to show the workers the respect and dignity they deserve.”

“The entire time I have been working there, we have known that we are really working for Walmart,” said one worker. “The trucks that come in and out and the boxes we load and unload say Walmart, but until now the company has pretended it has nothing to do with what happened to us.”

The news comes as more details come to light about the horrific fire that swept through a Bangladesh clothing factory, killing more than 100 workers.  Workers at the factory produced clothes for Walmart and other major retailers.  Earlier in the year, workers at Walmart supplier C.J.’s Seafood revealed that they had been forced to work up to 24-hour shifts with no overtime pay and were sometimes locked into the plant to prevent them from taking breaks.

“Walmart has a major problem in its supply chain,” said University of Southern California Professor Juan de Lara, an expert on supply chain logistics. “Walmart’s relentless focus on producing goods at the lowest possible cost has left workers throughout its supply chain extremely vulnerable.  In Bangladesh, workers died because they had no fire exits.  In Louisiana, guest workers were threatened with violence against themselves and their families.  And now, these warehouse workers in Southern California have shown that despite having to work long, hard hours under perilous conditions, they were often not even paid the legal minimum wage.”

In October 2011, workers who were jointly employed at the Walmart warehouses by Schneider Logistics, Inc. and two temporary staffing agencies, Premier Warehousing Ventures and Impact Logistics, filed the Carrillo class action to recover back pay, penalties, and damages.  Their lawsuit alleges that the workers who load and unload Walmart’s truck containers, many of whom have worked at these warehouses for years, were routinely forced to work off the clock, denied legally required overtime pay, and retaliated against when they tried to assert their legal rights, or even asked how their paychecks had been calculated.  “As a matter of economic reality, Walmart controls these workers’ employment.  The more facts we learned and documents we reviewed, the clearer it became that Walmart is responsible for the conditions in which they work,” said Kevin Kish of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, plaintiffs’ co-counsel.

The California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement raided the Walmart-contracted warehouses in October 2011 and issued citations for civil fines totaling more than $1 million for inadequate recordkeeping alone.

About 85,000 workers labor in warehouses in the Inland Empire, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, loading and unloading goods that enter through our nation’s busiest ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles en route to major retailers like Walmart. The majority of workers are hired through temp agencies, paid low wages, receive no benefits, and have no job security.

The changes will be dramatic.  The potential benefits are substantial, but so are the potential risks for consumers.  At the state and federal levels, consumer advocacy will be vital in assuring that the new systems fulfill their potential and properly protect consumers’ rights to quality health care.

Get the details.
Join the ASSISTED LIVING CONSUMER ALLIANCE for a free webinar on October 30.

Visit https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/826512591 to reserve your “seat” .

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All of our regular telephone numbers will remain the same.
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Please note our new main fax number: (213) 471-4568

We will continue to provide free legal services throughout Los Angeles County, just as we have in the past.

For a convenient fact sheet and more information about our new location, please click here.

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You can follow the trip and its findings in a blog (www.JewishJournal.com/jews_and_special_needs) by one of the trip’s leaders, Michelle Wolf, who is also working in Bet Tzedek’s “Transitions” program.  This program is designed to assist aging developmentally disabled individuals and their aging, caregiver, parents.

Click here to learn more about the “Transitions” program.

Upon receiving this much deserved recognition, Kish commented, “I work as part of a fantastic team.  This is a recognition not only of our incredible ERP team, but of everyone at B T. . . we are the only legal aid organization to make this list.  That’s a testament to our ability to make a difference in the world without vast resources.”

(Click on the article below for an enlarged image)