Rhode Island Center for Justice

June 23, 2016June 24, 2016

Significant protections against wage theft passed

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After years of struggle the Rhode Island General Assembly under the leadership of Senator Donna Nesslebush, and Representative Joe Shekarchi have passed a bill that finally makes the scourge of wage theft a crime. Stealing workers’ wages has always been civil offense with serious hurdles from the bureaucracies that were supposed to help. With close consultation with the DLT and Director Scott Jensen and legislative stakeholder meetings, House Bill 7628 and Senate Bill 2475 passed in the small morning hours on Saturday June 18.

These bills will provide for serious penalties including fines and imprisonment for taking from working Rhode Islanders. Perhaps the most significant penalty is the loss of a business license, the bills also empower the director of the Department of Labor and Training to determine compliance. Encouraging responsible reporting and discouraging false claims, the process of private suit has meaningful safeguards in place.

“Too often we see workers awarded a judgment by DLT only to have the employer refuse to pay what is owed,” said Robert McCreanor executive director of the worker advocacy law firm The Rhode Island Center for Justice. With the power to revoke business licenses from offending employers who refuse to comply with its rulings, DLT will be able to compel prompt payment and get more money, more efficiently, into the hands of the worker who earned it. While more work needs to be done to address the growing problem of wage theft, this bill provides an important tool for Rhode Island workers.”

Said Lidia Jimenez a member of Fuerza Laboral, “As a worker that has had their wages stolen, I feel proud that my testimony and that of Flor Salazar helped elected officials understand the atrocities that are committed daily by bad employers who feel that justice will not reach them and take our daily bread. This will help put an end to some of the abuse.” It is estimated by Economic Progress Institute that over $50,000,000,000 per year are stolen from workers’ wages. The process of enforcement historically has been spotty and difficult to apply.

Jeremy Rix who is running for 2nd ward of the Warwick City Council said, “I’m thrilled that the wage theft reforms introduced by Rep. Shekarchi become law. This law will deter many unethical employers from stealing wages, and provide a meaningful path for vulnerable employees to recover their stolen earnings.”

The organizations that have participated in the effort to pass these two vital bills are: Rhode Island Jobs with Justice, The RIAFL-CIO, Fuerza Laboral, and the Rhode Island Center for Justice. Each of these organizations is committed to improving the conditions of Rhode Island’s working people.

June 21, 2016

GoLocal’s ‘Panhandler Plague’ piece sparks protest

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GoLocal, a local online news blog, “has a history of dehumanizing stories related to the poor and homeless” said protesters outside the news blog’s downtown offices on Tuesday. The news site’s latest headline, “Panhandling continues to plague Providence”, was too much. They organized a panhandling protest.

What the headline means, says Curtis Pouliot-Alvarez, staff attorney at Rhode Island Center for Justice, is that, “they don’t consider these people human. Instead they’re calling them an illness and a scourge on society.

“The real problem is poverty and the systems that create poverty” said Pouliot-Alvarez, and that’s what needs to be changed.”

Pouliot-Alvarez was joined by Shannah Kurland, a community lawyer at PrYSM and several others in congregating outside the GoLocal offices and asking passersby for money, “to buy GoLocal a heart.”

No one gave any money while I was there, and GoLocal never left their basement offices to talk to the protesters.

2016-06-21 GoLocal Panhandling 009 — Shannah Kurland

2016-06-21 GoLocal Panhandling 001 — Curtis Pouliot-Alvarez

April 22, 2016April 23, 2016

The health consequences of losing power

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The health consequences of losing your gas or electric power are actually pretty obvious and pretty logical once you think for a minute about the many things Rhode Islanders use their electric power and gas to do. Electricity runs our light after dark and, with gas powers our heat and heats our hot water, so if you lose power you lose light and heat and hot water. Electricity powers air conditioners and refrigerators, so if you lose power you lose cooling in the summer and the ability to keep anything that needs to cooled – milk and butter and meet and fresh vegetables, but also insulin and many liquid antibiotics. In most of rural RI, in Exeter and Green and Wakefield and Foster and Scituate and Gloucester and West Greenwich and lots of other places, electricity runs the pumps that drive all our water, so when you lose electricity you lose running water all together. And electricity drives many electric devices that help maintain the health and lives of the chronically ill – ventilators and oxygen concentrators, nebulizers, CPAP and BIPAP machines, home dialysis units and intravenous fluid pumps, hospital beds and all sorts of lights, meters and monitors.

There are over 10,000 Rhode Islanders enrolled in the Rhode Island Special Needs Registry and they are all at risk from losing power. If you lose your power and you are on a ventilator, you’ll die in minutes or hours. If you lose your power and use an Oxygen concentrator or CPAP or BIPAP, you’ll get sicker and could die or may need hospitalization in days or weeks. If you lose your power and you have asthma, you won’t be able to use your nebulizer and you could die or need hospitalization. If you lose your light you lose the ability to see and follow directions so you can’t take prescribed medicine after dark, and if you lose your power and you are depressed or have a thought disorder, the darkness can become threatening and worsen the trouble you have with thinking and anxiety. If you are elderly and are unstable on your feet, losing your light means you can’t even walk in your house at night. If you have or are prone to any kind of infection, losing hot water means you can’t bath regularly and are at increased risk from skin, urinary and other sorts of infections, which can be life threatening in people with diabetes or with any disease that lowers your resistance to infection. If you live in a rural area and depend on well water, an electric cut-off means you can’t flush your toilet or wash your hands. Try staying free from infection, or controlling any chronic disease under those conditions.

There is very strong medical evidence that many elderly and infirm will die in heat waves, so that lack of air conditioning in the summer is toxic to people who are elderly or who have serious lung or heart problems, and the lack of electricity puts people on a ventilator at immediate jeopardy and the lack of electricity puts those using oxygen and those Rhode Islanders using CPAP and BIPAP at significant risk.

Interestingly, we don’t know as much about health risks of extended exposures to cold temperatures, expect to know that the elderly and infirm are at significant additional risk from extremes of temperature. I thought about that for a long time, because it doesn’t make intuitive sense – we all know that being out in the cold lowers your resistance and you can get a cold and then catch your death of pneumonia, right? And we know the one year mortality for the street sleeping homeless is about 30 percent, higher than end stage heart failure and many types of aggressive cancer – that about a third of people who sleep on the street die every year, and the street sleeping homeless experience cold temperatures though they are beset by many other kinds of health risks as well. So what gives about the lack of medical evidence and public health data about cold? Then I realized that no civilized country lets people sit in cold houses any more. So when there isn’t widespread cold exposure, we can’t study it. Maybe there is no evidence about cold because when people are cold they can put on lots of layers of clothing and that protects them. Or maybe, just maybe, the number of people exposed is small enough, thank god, that we haven’t been able to study the problem with scientific precision.

And that also means that the moratorium on utility cutoffs in the winter – that the law says people’s utilities can’t be cut off from November 15 to April 15 if they have a doctor’s letter, actually makes no sense. Elderly Rhode Islanders and Rhode Islanders with medical problems are at increased risk in the summer. So to me that means we need a moratorium on all utility cutoffs for people who are elderly or have medical problems, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

One more thing. Every time someone with a medical problem gets their power turned off, they are way more likely to end up in the hospital. The hospitalization is going to cost 10 to 50 thousand dollars or more. You know who pays for that hospitalization? Most of those folks have Medicare or Medicaid. So National Grid doesn’t pay for that hospitalization. You and I pay for it. It comes out of tax dollars. National Grid, a regulated monopoly in Rhode Island protects their bottom line, but you and I pay. And the money we spend? That’s money that we could and should be spending on education, safe and healthy housing, the environment and recreational opportunities for kids and young adults in our communities . So who really wins and who really loses, when National Grid cuts people off and the State of Rhode Island’s Division of Public Utilities lets them do that?

Like I said, the medical and health consequences of utility cut-offs are pretty obvious. If people who are ill don’t have electric power, hot water, light, heat and air-conditioning, they are going to get sicker. Some may die. And cutting off utilities to people who are ill is illegal in Rhode Island. But National Grid does that anyway, and the Division of Public Utilities lets them. Outraged, like I am? Then do one or more of these 5 things:

If you are interested in getting involved –come to the monthly LIFELINE PROJECT meetings– the FIRST Wednesday of every month at 6 pm at the George Wiley Center (32 East Ave) in Pawtucket. Next meeting is MAY 4th at 6 pm.
If you work at an agency that assist consumers – contact us so that we can set up a training for your staffabout the protections available under the law for medically vulnerable consumers. Contact Keally Cieslik or Camilo Viveiros
If you are angry and outraged -write to the Division of Public Utilities and tell them so! You can also write to the AG’s office in the State and/or your elected officials. Addresses are available here today on our fliers! (fliers available in the lobby). Call the Governor’s office and the Speaker’s office and the Senate President’s Office. When the CEO of National Grid calls the Governor or Speaker or Senate President, they take his call. Don’t you think they should take your call as well? You vote. National Grid has to buy their influence.
DONATE –the George Wiley Center and the Center for Justice need resources to continue doing this work. You can make a donation today by cash or check.

This is still a democracy. Let’s all speak up together and make National Grid respect the law.

November 25, 2015November 26, 2015

National Grid restores power to two dozen homes

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National Grid agreed to restore power to about two dozen homes this afternoon pending the resolution of a lawsuit.

The Rhode Island Center for Justice filed a class action lawsuit against National Grid and the RI Division of Public Utilities and Carriers on behalf of families that had their utilities terminated even though a member of the household suffered from severe or chronic medical conditions. Under state law these families should have been protected from shut-offs pending regulatory review by the RI Public Utilities Commission.

Though the case is not yet over, this move does offer preliminary relief to all families whose circumstances would be covered under the present lawsuit, which the Center for Justice estimates may be as many as 80 homes.

2015-11-25 Center for Justice — After the decision

Camilo Viveiros, Executive Director of the George Wiley Center, which collaborated with the Center for Justice on the Lifeline Project, issued the following statement:

Today’s action is important for the families who will have their utilities restored before the holidays and the judgment is a crucial step toward assuring that Rhode Islander’s utility rights and protections are recognized and respected.

‘Most Rhode Islanders would be shocked to find that people with serious medical conditions are routinely denied their medical protections stated in the Termination Rules when our taxpayer funded Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities grants National Grid permission to terminate thousands of households with seriously ill people, despite doctors’ documentation of life-threatening medical conditions.

‘The George Wiley Center is glad that it is increasingly coming to light the ways that the rights of utility consumers with medical conditions have been disregarded and disrespected.

‘Today’s action was an important step in recognizing how the RI Division of Public Utilities should be working to utilize the protections for vulnerable families rather than undermining protections in favor of the financial interests of the utility company.

‘The George Wiley Center will continue our efforts with the Rhode Island Center for Justice to expose the continued and larger patterns of utility injustice, as we organize to establish affordable utilities that would allow for access to important and essential utility services.”

[Note: The story originally said that a judge had ordered the restoration of power. In fact, National Grid agreed to restore power without a judge compelling the action]

October 21, 2015

PUC protesters repelled by bureaucratic disinterest

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More than 30 people entered the RI Public Utilities Commission (PUC) yesterday to demand an end to the epidemic of unfair utility shut-offs. Many in attendance have been victims of these shut-offs, even though they complied with the law and produced letters from their doctors indicating that their health would be seriously compromised by shut-offs. The protest was lead by the George Wiley Center and culminated in an action where dozens of protesters entered PUC offices to deliver a letter to the PUC board.

No one from the board would consent to meet with the protesters. Instead, Kevin Lynch, who works for the PUC, fed the crowd bureaucratic folderol for 30 minutes. (Readers with a peculiar masochistic streak can watch the entirety of that interaction in the last video below.) Mind you, this was after making the protesters wait in the tiny receiving room/staircase for nearly ten minutes. Ultimately, the letter was time stamped by a clerk before being filed away unread by board members.

Those among the protesters with specific issues left with those issues unresolved.

Though Lynch was professional and polite, he did nothing to resolve any issues that anyone in the crowd brought up. At first Lynch tried to dismiss the protesters by saying that since the George Wiley Center and the Rhode Island Center for Justice was suing over the issue, he would not be able comment, but Camilo Viveiros, lead organizer of the George Wiley Center, countered that the George Wiley center was not a plaintiff in the suit.

According to a George Wiley Center press release, “Every year tens of thousands of households in Rhode Island experience the stress of utility service termination due to unaffordable bills. It is shocking that in many of these homes live people struggling with medical conditions. This injustice is due to a loophole that allows the state’s Division of Public Utilities to grant National Grid permission to shut off households, even when their medical status is on file.”

The Wiley Center says such shut-off are, “inhumane and a threat to public health and safety.”

“Stopping utility shut-offs on people with medical conditions has been recommended by medical professionals who seek to protect and improve health,” says the George Wiley Center, “With access to utility service patients can be warm or cool as needed, see and not stumble in the dark, refrigerate medications, use nebulizers and oxygen tanks, take a warm bath. When service is shut off, basic needs are not met and medical conditions will likely worsen, sometimes leading to hospitalization and other serious consequences.”

Alan Costa has a medical condition that literally stops his heart a hundred times a minute. Without electricity, he dies. He fell behind on his electrical bills while undergoing two complex medical procedures in a very short period of time. He wonders why Governor Gina Raimondo doesn’t use her executive power, as the person who nominates people to the PUC board, to push for enforcement of laws that protect the health and well being of Rhode Island citizens instead on the profits of National Grid.

Annabel Alexander is 77 years old and suffers from a long list of ailments. (She showed me the list!) She has had her heat and her electricity turned off, and sleeps in her overcoat in her bed at night. National Grid will not make a deal with her to catch up on her bills for less than 50 percent of her income. “It’s a damn shame,” she says, “that we have to suffer while they are up there getting paychecks and living in mansions!”

In the next two videos we meet Kevin, who survived the Station Night Club fire. He pulled people out of that building that night, but today suffers from post traumatic stress and other ailments. On Saturday night he ran out of oil. On Monday morning his electricity was turned off. He needs to keep his medication chilled. He was promised that his condition would prevent a shut-off.

“I feel I’m being punished now, for things that people called me a hero for.”

Kevin was invited into the offices to see if there was a possibility of resolving his issue. He left disappointed, his case still pending.

Diane has asked her daughter for help with her bills. National Grid wants to take more than half her paycheck to turn her power back on. She has a host of ailments, and told the crowd that people with arthritis need a hot shower, as opposed to washing yourself of in water you’ve heated up in your microwave…

Camilo Viveiros, lead organizer of the George Wiley Center, rallied the crowd and explained the costs of these utility shut-offs in terms of human misery, but also in terms of dollars wasted.

Here is the full letter the protesters attempted to deliver to the PUC board, and it was signed by a long list of health care professionals, including Dr. Michael Fine, MD, former RI State Director of Health.

I’m writing to express my support for the Lifeline Project’s work to improve protection from utility termination for medically vulnerable households in our State. Unaffordable utility bills are especially prevalent among low-income medically vulnerable households because these households lack the financial resources to make ends meet and often require utility service for ongoing treatment of chronic illness. As a medical professional, I see first-hand the way that termination of utility service can lead to disastrous consequences for families such as an unexpected trip to the emergency room, the loss of a housing voucher, or eviction. Households with a permanently disabled individual, or a person with a pre-existing, serious medical condition such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, or diabetes, are among the most at risk because these conditions require electric medical devices or refrigerated medication.

The Lifeline Project is a collaboration between the Rhode Island Center for Justice and the George Wiley Center, which aims to protect and expand the rights of medically vulnerable households facing gas and electric utility shut off through the provision of legal assistance and community organizing. The Lifeline Project has identified a host of routinized, unfair and illegal practices and procedures on the part of the public utility company, National Grid, and the state regulatory agencies, the Division of Public Utilities and the Public Utilities Commission with respect to residential utility termination. These practices need to be fixed and in the meantime, medically vulnerable households need protection from shut-off.

I am specifically writing to support the Lifeline Project’s current campaign to challenge these illegal practices and urge National Grid and the state regulatory agencies to meet the following demands:

1. A one-year moratorium on termination for all accounts that are coded as ‘medical’.

2. The engagement of an independent third party monitor to review the Division of Public Utility’s approval of petitions for permission to terminate for all accounts coded as medical. The monitor will be selected by a joint committee composed of members of the George Wiley Center, the medical community, the Department of Health and the Public Utilities Commission.

3. The Public Utilities Commission immediately begin requiring data submissions from National Grid that are consistent with those requirements placed on the company in Massachusetts, as per the George Wiley Center’s formal request from March of 2015.

4. The Public Utilities Commission immediately begin accepting and thoroughly reviewing petitions for emergency restoration and providing timely responses to each request.

As a medical professional in this state, I understand the dire need to protect these consumers from the dangerous impacts of utility shutoff.

September 30, 2015September 30, 2015

National Grid sued to stop illegal utility shutoffs

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National Grid and the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers are being sued for turning off the electricity of seriously ill and disabled consumers, putting profits before people’s lives and in violation of Rhode Island state law.

The George Wiley Center and the RI Center for Justice have been working together since May to provide free legal assistance to “hundreds of low-income, medically vulnerable utility consumers.” Their collaboration, said Robert McCreanor, RI Center for Justice executive director, lead to the realization that existing state laws were not being enforced. Since National Grid refuses to negotiate in good faith or follow the law, a class action lawsuit was filed Tuesday morning.

The plaintiffs named in the suit, “suffer from severe medical conditions including chronic respiratory failure, which requires electric powered oxygen machines. They asked National Grid to take their medical conditions into consideration when setting up a payment plan for their back bills, as required by law. When National Grid sent shut-off notices without making the required legal determination, these consumers looked to the state regulator of public utilities for protection but were repeatedly denied. Some plaintiffs required emergency medical treatment and hospitalization after their electric and gas services were shut off.”

Shane Ward, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, told the crowd gathered at the press conference about his experience having the electricity turned off at his home, where his 74 year old mother has Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. She requires the use of a respirator. After being told he was in arrears with his bill and given a shut off date, National Grid arrived a week early. When Ward asked for a few minutes to switch his mother to a different respiratory system, he was denied, and the electricity was turned off, sending his mother into an epileptic fit.

Attorneys are requesting immediate relief through a temporary restraining order. Robert McCreanor estimates at least 3,000 Rhode Islanders may be affected by this class action suit. A restraining order would prohibit termination of service to the proposed class and restoration of service for those now shut off.

“The system is broken,” said McCreanor, “National Grid routinely violates the law and the Division of Public Utilities automatically grants the shut offs National Grid requests. The consequences for seriously ill and disabled consumers are costly for our communities.”

Camilo Viveiros, lead organizer of the George Wiley Center, has battled for years on behalf of utility consumers. Many of the laws National Grid seems content to ignore were passed in the RI General Assembly only through the extraordinary lobbying and organizing work of the Wiley Center under the leadership of poverty advocate Henry Shelton.

“We’re simply asking for the rules that are on the books to be practiced, they’re there to protect people. We’re asking the Division of Public Utilities to follow the law…”