March 04, 2021

LAWT News Service 

Congressional Black Caucus today expressed its wholehearted support for Shalanda Young as Director of the Office of Management and Budget.  If confirmed, Young would be the first African-American woman to lead the OMB, one of the most important federal government agencies.

“The Congressional Black Caucus takes tremendous pride in recommending Shalanda Young as Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” said CBC Chair Joyce Beatty. 

“Having worked closely with her over a number of years, the CBC has come to rely on her keen intellect, profound knowledge of the federal budget process, appropriations, and legislative processes.

Shalanda knows that our budget reflects our values as a nation.  If chosen, her legislative savvy, intellectual stamina, and broad knowledge of federal agencies will prove to be a tremendous asset to the Biden-Harris Administration. 

Her leadership of the OMB would be historic and would send a strong message that this Administration is ready and willing to work with Congress to craft budgets that meet the critical challenges which face our nation, and can secure broad, bipartisan support.”

Shalanda Young has been thoroughly vetted for the position of Deputy Director and has received excellent reviews from both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate.

March 04, 2021

By City News Service

  The Los Angeles City Council today finalized an emergency ordinance to require large grocery and pharmacy retailers to offer employees an additional $5 per hour in hazard pay amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Council members last week approved the ordinance on a 14-1 vote – but a unanimous vote was needed for passage on first reading. During the second reading, a dozen yes votes were required for approval and the measure was again approved 14-1, with Councilman John Lee reaffirming his dissent.

The $5 hazard pay will be required for all non-managerial employees at grocery or drug retail stores with more than 300 employees nationwide, or more than 10 employees on-site, as well as retail stores, such as Walmart and Target, that dedicate 10% of their sales floor to groceries or drug retail.

The hazard pay will be given in addition to employees' base wages for the next 120 days. According to a report by Los Angeles' chief legislative analyst, which cited ZipRecruiter, the average grocery store worker in Los Angeles earns $17.51 an hour.

“Fair compensation is the very least that our grocery store workers deserve after all they have done for us,'' Council President Nury Martinez, who introduced the original motion with Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, said during the council's discussion of the ordinance last week.

“Cashiers, stockers, baggers and so many more have risked their lives every day since March making minimum wage to make sure we have everything we need to stay safely at home to get through this crisis,'' she said. ``While these companies have seen massive profits, it has not trickled down to their employees. These companies can afford to pay the hazard pay, they just don't want to.''

During Mayor Eric Garcetti's COVID-19 briefing last week, he affirmed his support for the ordinance.

“I absolutely 100% support the hero pay for our grocery workers, and with any good conscience, it shouldn't raise food prices because grocery stores are one area that have record profits, more money than they've had before,'' Garcetti said. “I hope they will see this and maybe be inspired by it instead of being threatened by it.''

The Board of Supervisors on Feb. 23 adopted an urgency ordinance to require $5 additional pay for national grocery and drug retail employers in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.

Long Beach also enacted a $4 hazard pay ordinance, which was challenged in court. Kroger announced last month that it would close two of its Long Beach stores -- a Ralphs location and a Food4Less store -- in response to the ordinance.

The California Grocers Association filed federal lawsuits against Long Beach, West Hollywood and Montebello, seeking to declare hazard pay mandated by those cities as invalid and unconstitutional, contending that grocers will not be able to absorb the additional pay without raising prices, closing stores, reducing hours or laying off employees. A federal judge denied the association's bid to temporarily overturn the Long Beach ordinance.

Los Angeles' chief legislative analyst determined that potential economic impacts of the ordinance include temporary increases of labor costs as a percentage of the company's sales, potential higher prices for consumers, potentially delayed store openings, renovations and wage increases or promotions for employees, potential pressure on struggling stores that could lead to stores closing and reduced hours for some employees.

However, the chief legislative analyst also determined that the ­higher wages could also benefit other city businesses, as more people would have extra money to buy additional goods. It could also help people pay down their debts and increase their savings.

“As the CLA (chief legislative analyst) report makes clear, this ordinance comes with trade-offs for both retailers and employees, pros and cons with anything we do, but it should be appreciated that this effort is a temporary measure that increases wages of our grocery and retail workers,'' Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said before the measure's first reading. ``I want to underscore that it is a matter of justice.''

O'Farrell agreed, saying, “Grocery store workers continue to show up every day, serving customers and providing the essentials that residents across the city need to stay safer at home. Their greater risk of exposure to COVID-19 is by definition hazardous work, and the money they earn should be commensurate with those risks associated on the job.''

Councilman Curren Price said the CLA report “found that the mortality rate for Latino workers in food and agriculture has gone up by 59% because of this pandemic and for Black workers in retail at 36%. Those are not small numbers. Providing these workers with $5 hazard pay for the next 120 days is the least we can do.''

Kathy Finn, secretary-treasurer for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represents 25,000 grocery and drug retail workers in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, said in a statement after last week's vote that daily conditions have drastically changed for the industry's employees.

“The reality of being a grocery or drug store worker in 2020 and still in 2021 is that your job has fundamentally changed, the risk has increased exponentially, but the pay has stayed the same,'' she said.

   Lee, the lone dissenter, said he hoped the council could come up with a different solution than what he called “a gross overreach of government into business and what they should be paying their employees.''

“At the end, I don't want to affect the people who are going to be hurt the most by this, and that is the people who live in the poorest communities of the city of Los Angeles, the people who live in my district, my biggest fear is for the hard-working families in those areas,'' Lee said.

February 25, 2021

By Troy Schulz

Zenger News

As Hyundai North America’s first Black Chief Communications Officer, Dana W. White knows what it is like to have two feet in two worlds.

“Growing up, I always knew about the power of communication, the power of words,” she said, talking about her childhood in Charlottesville, Virginia. “My grandfather, who was born in 1896, founded the oldest Black newspaper in the state. I used to cut ad sheets every month and write copy and process black-and-white photos [at the paper]. The entrepreneurial spirit runs deep in me and my family.”

While the weekly Black newspaper, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune, is gone, the family’s entrepreneurial spirit lives on.

“The environment I grew up in, my family, was that there was never just a pot of gold waiting for me at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “It’s in my DNA – to make it happen for yourself.”

Dr. Ben Chavis runs the trade group for African American newspaper publishers. “The National Newspapers Publishers Association salutes Hyundai for its decision to elevate an African American woman leader to the position of chief communications officer. In this year, where the focus is on the empowerment of all women, Dana White represents and embodies the best of Black America,” he told Zenger News of White.

She studied hard in college, taking the toughest courses on purpose even if they were scheduled early in the morning and required long walks across Chicago wind-chilled campus. Those courses included learning to read, write and speak Mandarin, the mostly widely used of the Chinese-language dialects. She majored in Chinese history at the University of Chicago.

After college, she moved to Washington, DC without a job and worked as an intern and a temp to pay the bills while she applied for jobs on Capitol Hill.

Now, Dana White runs North American communications for Hyundai Motor Company, a South Korean car maker that builds more than half of its vehicles at its plant in Alabama and employs some 25,000 people in the United States. She joined the Zenger News advisory board in 2019.

White sees herself as a cross-cultural bridge.  At Hyundai Motor North America, she is the chief communications officer—a first for Korean automaker in the U.S. She oversees communications for Hyundai Motor North America headquarters and all of Hyundai’s North America Affiliates including Canada and Mexico, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Glovis (Hyundai’s Logistics Operations), Mobis (Hyundai Parts Operations), Hyundai Capital and the Washington, DC Office. White also has strategic oversight of Hyundai’s luxury automotive brand Genesis, the first SUV for the industry’s newest luxury brand.

“When I joined Hyundai a year ago, I knew I needed someone who understood decision making at the highest levels, storytelling and how to work across cultures seamlessly to deliver results. So, I called Dana,” said Jose Munoz, Global COO of Hyundai Motor Company and Pres. & CEO of Hyundai Motor North America. “It’s rare to find one person with all the skills, talents and experiences that she has. And she has proven track record of success. In a few short months, Dana has already made a big difference in how we operate, communicate and tell the Hyundai story.”

Ultimately for White, she said her passions are education, excellence and empowerment. “I can still hear my grandfather’s gruff voice saying, ‘Mouse, I want you to be a smart little girl. Learn everything you can.’ I think about everything he survived, all the limits placed on his life and how if he could see me now—a man who was proud to put pictures of my nursery school graduation in the paper—I know he’d say…’So, Mouse…what’s next?’”

“The thing about me is that I’m propelled by history and obsessed with the future. I’m passionate about ideas and a mission. I want to see people move forward—know their past and explore their future,” she said. “It’s in my family—this spirit of perseverance. I feel like they handed me a baton. They ran hard and ran fast. They carried the baton as far as they could go. Now, it’s my turn to run faster and farther and pass the baton to the next generation. I say, ‘When you stand on the shoulders of slaves, there’s no slouching.’”