News
Living Wage Community Celebration on 1/29!
The Tompkins County Workers’ Center (TCWC) announces that it will hold a Community Celebration on Wednesday, January 29th, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Workers’ Center (115 The Commons/E. Martin Luther King Jr. Street in Ithaca) where free pizza, beer, and wine will be served. The purpose of the celebration is to honor two recent and significant victories in the TCWC’s Living Wage work:
-The successful Living Wage Employer Certification of the City of Ithaca in early December 2013 (the TCWC’s 93rd Living Wage Employer);
-The decision of the Tompkins County Legislature to set up a $100,000 Living Wage Contingency Fund as part of its 2014 Budget in order to begin helping those employers that contract with the County, who couldn’t otherwise afford it, to pay their workers a Living Wage. The County itself is a long-standing Certified Living Wage Employer;
-To honor all of our other 91 Certified Living Wage Employers.
The City of Ithaca employs approximately 515 workers, with about 50 of them being brought up to a Living Wage as a result of the City’s decision to become a Certified Living Wage Employer. This now brings the total of workers employed by a Living Wage Employer to up over 3,020 people.
Tompkins County, this past year, went through a rigorous study of its Living Wage policy as a result of the work of ReCommunity Recycling workers (Solid Waste Division) and the TCWC bringing the issue of too many contracted workers making poverty wages on the County’s dime. The first stage of the process will be for the County to conduct a thorough survey of its contractors to see how many workers doing County ‘work’ are not making a Living Wage. The $100,000 is to assist those employers to pay a Living Wage that may be able to claim reasonable hardship as employers.
The Workers’ Center initiated the Living Wage Employer Certification Program in 2006 to publicly recognize and reward those employers who pay a living wage. Any employer in the private, public, and non-profit sectors is eligible to apply. With your help, we can provide incentives for other employers in our community! Please go to http://www.tcworkerscenter.org/community/certified-employers/ to find out which employers are Living Wage-Certified, as well as to download criteria and an application form. Also, you can invite your friends to our Community Celebration via Facebook by going to https://www.facebook.com/events/493288660782404/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar&source=1
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Posted on January 24, 2014 to Uncategorized
IMPORTANT VICTORY: Dairy Farmworkers Advocate For and Win Special OSHA Program to Enforce Health and Safety on NYS Dairy Farms
[Editor's Note: This special news is a result of a growing Alliance of Upstate New York Workers' Centers. Rebecca Fuentes works with the Central New York Workers' Center based in Syracuse, and Carly Fox works with the Workers Justice Center of NY. The Tompkins County Workers' Center is proud to be a part of this growing collaboration of Workers' Centers based in Upstate New York!]
By Carly Fox & Rebecca Fuentes
“We are all human beings. We all live under the same sky. The only thing that is different about us is a piece of paper. The owners of the dairy farms aren’t the ones milking the cows. We are milking the cows. We are working overnight shifts, milking hundreds of thousands of cows every day. And we know that the dairy industry in New York State is thriving because of our hard work. All we are asking for is respect.” Augusto, dairy farmworker
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Posted on January 8, 2014 to Uncategorized
Gotta Watch This Video! One Minute for Workers’ Rights
Our Vision at the Tompkins County Workers’ Center is our driving force. Check this video out to feel it for yourself:
Whether are able to donate your time; your money; or your creative energies, please consider giving to the Tompkins County Workers’ Center, by clicking here. We are 87% of the way towards our 2013 Fundraising Goal: please help by supporting us with a $13, $130, $260, $390, $520, $650, $780, $910, $1,040, $1,170, or $1,300 donation! It will make all the difference in the world as we go forward into 2014! ($13 is pennies above our present Living Wage in Tompkins County)
This year alone, we have been able to:
**certify the City of Ithaca as being our 93rd Certified Living Wage Employer, along with nine other employers;
**worked with the national organization, Interfaith Worker Justice, to begin taking our Living Wage Employer Program to a national level;
**worked to get an opening salvo of $100,000 commitment from Tompkins County for a Living Wage Contingency Fund for County-contracted workers;
**through our Worker’s Rights Hotline, which is handling contacts with close to 400 people a year, were able to set the table for successful union organizing drives, at Tompkins Community Action and New Roots Charter School;
**trained over 120 local immigrant and vulnerable workers in their Occupational Health and Safety rights;
**began to work on pressuring local governments require economic development incentives require: 1) a Living Wage be paid to workers; 2) have a diversity hiring plan in place; 3) hire local labor in the construction process.
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Posted on December 17, 2013 to Uncategorized
Tompkins County Workers’ Center Is Pleased to Welcome City of Ithaca Aboard as a Certified Living Wage Employer
The Tompkins County Workers’ Center (TCWC) is very pleased to welcome the City of Ithaca aboard as our 93rd Certified Living Wage Employer! With over 515 workers, the City is now the TCWC’s second largest Living Wage Employer (second only to Tompkins County). The City is also now the third governmental Living Wage Employer; following Tompkins County and the Town of Ithaca, which have both been long-time Living Wage Employers.
Having first met with Mayor Svante Myrick on this important issue of Living Wage Certification close to two years ago, and having lobbied City Council to approve the money needed in its budget last year, the TCWC very much applauds Myrick and the Council’s commitment to take care of business in what they can most directly be responsible for as an Employer. We also applaud the City’s Human Resources Director, Schelley Michell-Nunn, for being tireless in her efforts to smooth the way to this Certification.
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Posted on December 16, 2013 to Uncategorized
Short Video of Flash Mob Action (12/5/13) at McDonald’s in Ithaca, NY #FastFoodStrike
Why should you stand with fast food workers? Because fast food’s low wages are a cost to all of us! Check out our Tompkins County Workers’ Center ‘action’ in collaboration with the incredible Cornell Organization for Labor Action, at McDonald’s on Triphammer Road last night in Ithaca! We’re demanding a Living Wage for all fast food workers, as well as for *all* workers!
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Posted on December 5, 2013 to Uncategorized
Tompkins County Workers’ Center Certifies Nine (9) New Employers as Living Wage-Certified
(Ithaca) The Tompkins County Workers’ Center is pleased to announce that we now have certified 92 employers as being Living Wage Employers, having just added the following:
· Crown Construction, Inc., 176 Cortland Road, Dryden
· Finger Lakes Naturals, 67 Hornbrook Road, Ithaca
· Friendship Donations Network, P.O. Box 4854, Ithaca
· Ithaca Cayuga Optical Services, 134 The Commons, Ithaca
· Ithaca Teachers Association, 1375 N. Cayuga Street, Ithaca
· Julia E. Dean Pottery, 508 S. Albany Street, Ithaca
· Nutritional Wellness Center, 520 W. Green Street, Ithaca
· Segal and Sorenson Builders, 218 Hudson Street, Ithaca
· Silk Oak/Ithacamade, 425 N. Aurora Street, Ithaca
The nine new Living Wage-Certified Employers employ a total of 44 workers; this brings the total of workers, countywide and regionally, who are working for Living Wage Employers up to over 2,504 people.
The Workers’ Center initiated the Living Wage Employer Certification Program in 2006 to publicly recognize and reward those employers who pay a living wage. Any employer in the private, public, and non-profit sectors is eligible to apply. With your help, we can provide incentives for other employers in our community! Please go to http://www.tcworkerscenter.org/community/certified-employers/ to find out which employers are Living Wage-Certified, as well as to download criteria and an application form.
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Posted on December 2, 2013 to Uncategorized
Ithaca Wal-Mart Black Friday Action!
The Tompkins County Workers’ Center is gathering folks to rally outside of Wal-Mart on Black Friday, which falls on November 29th. We will be meeting on the sidewalk on Route 13 (in front of Pier One), entrance into one of the Wal-Mart entry points) in Ithaca, from 9 to 11 a.m. that morning, to show our support for the employees of Wal-Mart and against corporate greed.
Recently the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that Wal-Mart has violated labor law, due to their retaliatory actions against staff who have organized to improve their workplace. There has been a growing movement of low wage workers, not only from Wal-Mart but also many fast food chains, for improved conditions at work and a Living Wage. We want to make sure that we show our support by gathering on the busiest shopping day of the year in an effort to bring public attention to these workers plight.
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Posted on November 20, 2013 to Uncategorized
How Can Worker Centers Work with Traditional Unions? AFL-CIO Blogpost on Tompkins County Workers’ Center
How can worker centers work effectively alongside organized labor? This is a question that the Tompkins County Workers’ Center (TCWC), based in Ithaca, N.Y., has been answering in practice for more than 10 years.
Established in 2003, TCWC expanded on its pre-existing living wage advocacy and organizing by adding a workers’ rights component to its work. This program was very much modeled on the Cortland County (N.Y.) Workers’ Rights Board that local unions had established in a nearby community in 1997. Since then, TCWC has worked closely with labor.
Organizing
In the past few years, TCWC has been critical in two successful union organizing drives. Both drives started after workers came to TCWC with workplace grievances and we connected them with organized labor. In one case, TCWC connected 35 charter school teachers and other employees with New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), an affiliate of AFT, and with NYSUT’s help achieved voluntary recognition from management. In the other case, workers for a local nonprofit, Tompkins Community Action, had repeatedly over a few years contacted the Workers’ Center with a range of grievances. Finally, TCWC developed, over several months, a strong core of workers interested in unionization and then worked with Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 4 to build and eventually win an organizing campaign and then help the 75 workers win their first contract.
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Posted on November 18, 2013 to Uncategorized
1,157 Signatures Presented to Tompkins County Legislature: A Living Wage for All County-Contracted Workers!
Over 25 people showed up at the Tompkins County Workers’ Center presentation of 1,157 signatures upon a petition that says that there should be A Living Wage for All Tompkins County-Contracted Workers this past Tuesday, 10/15 at County Legislature.
The petition is ongoing: if you haven’t signed yet and live in Tompkins County, please click here!
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Posted on October 16, 2013 to Uncategorized
Over 175 People Rally at ReCommunity Recycling and Tompkins County Legislature
On September 17th, at the Tompkins County Legislature, and September 27th, at ReCommunity Recycling, over 175 people rallied to show support for our campaign to ensure that all Tompkins County-contracted workers are paid a Living Wage.
ReCommunity Recycling Workers, Milton Webb and Stanley McPherson, join with over 85 others at a Rally in front of ReCommunity on Friday, September 27th.
County Legislator, Kathy Luz Herrera, speaking at Rally in front of County Legislator on a need for a Living Wage for all County-contracted workers.
At the September 17th rally, County Legislator, Kathy Luz Herrera had the following to say: “This is an investment in community. Paying contractors a living wage is something we should do as a matter of course. That we have to fight for it shows how broken our system is. I think the legislature is going to come through and understand that to build community here, to build the economy here, for people, not for corporations, we need to pay a living wage.”
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Posted on October 3, 2013 to Uncategorized
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