May Day is a day to confront widespread racial discrimination, declining wages and insecure contracts for workers, the exploitation of undocumented people, rising debt for students, ever mounting stresses for parents and crippling wealth and income inequality. May Day is a day to organize and educate around justice. Justice for all.

If you’d like more, there will be an Occupy General Assembly at 6:30pm at the Bernie Milton Pavilion, The Commons.

Contact the Workers’ Center for more information on May Day events and our rally.

Click here for more information on Open Space organizing.

Tuesday April 17th @ 4pm
Tioga Street side of the Ithaca Commons

A protest to demand that billionaires and corporations pay their fair share. Taxing the 1% is the quickest way to rebuild the economy so it works for us all.

If we tax millionaires and corporations, the 1%, their fair share, our communities can invest in our schools and job training programs instead of deciding which teachers to lay off and what to cut next.

Get Up! Stand Up! Stand Up for Your Rights!

sponsors: Tompkins County Workers’ Center and Finger Lakes MoveOn

Film and discussion on the Bread and Roses strike that took place in Lawrence, MA 100 years ago as well as ramping up towards a NYS minimum wage campaign that advocates for a new minimum wage that is a Living Wage!

· Mama Goose and Mimi’s Attic both located at 430 W. State/MLK Street, Ithaca;
· Aigen Financial Group, LLC, 202 E. State/MLK Street, Ithaca;
· Red Feet Wine Market and Spirit Provisions, 435 Franklin Street, Ithaca.

The three new Living Wage-Certified Employers employ a total of approximately 30 workers; this brings the total of workers, countywide, who are working for Living Wage Employers up to approximately 1,650.

The Workers’ Center initiated the Living Wage Employer Certification Program in 2006 to publicly recognize and reward those employers who pay a Living Wage, as defined by Alternatives Federal Credit Union. 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.

The TCWC, originally called the Living Wage Coalition, proposes that the Minimum Wage be raised to $12.78/hour. $12.78 an hour is the Living Wage that is calculated biannually by Alternatives Federal Credit Union in Ithaca as the amount that a single person working 40 hours per week, without health insurance, needs to make in order to provide their basic human needs without accessing governmental services.

Raising the minimum wage to a Living Wage would meaningfully stimulate the economy; lower-earning workers spend their increased wages on necessary goods and services, thereby creating more jobs. Such workers would pay down their debts more successfully and pay increased taxes benefitting state and local government.

Says TCWC Community Organizer, Linda Holzbaur: “I ask you to really put yourself in the shoes of the full time worker with a family to support, living on $8.50 an hour. How could you possibly make ends meet? Anything less than a Living Wage in a wealthy society such as ours is simply unconscionable.”

Raise N.Y.’s minimum wage
By Dan Cantor AND Camille Rivera, Commentary

Imagine what it would be like to live on $300 per week.
That’s just about what nearly 700,000 New York state workers earn, according to the federal Census Bureau. That’s 8 percent of the statewide workforce.

More than a million minimum wage and near-minimum wage workers got raises on Jan. 1 that will help struggling families put food on the table, keep the heat on through the winter, and make ends meet.
None of those families live in New York, however.

The workers who will benefit from a little extra money in their pockets live in the eight states that have chosen to adjust their minimum wage rate annually to meet the rising cost of living. In states as disparate as Florida and Montana, Arizona and Vermont, minimum wage workers will get raises of up to 37 cents an hour, or $770 a year for full-time work. It doesn’t sound like much, but for a family relying on low-wage jobs, it could be a month’s rent.

New Yorkers deserve no less. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver deserves tremendous credit for announcing his support for raising the minimum wage at Wednesday’s State of the State speech. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the rest of the Legislature should act quickly to raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation to jump-start the Main Street economy.

These modest pay increases for low-wage workers have the potential to boost the local economies where the workers live. When low-wage workers have a little money in their pockets, they spend it on necessities — from winter clothes to school supplies to car repairs.
Boosting spending is precisely what we need to help get our economy moving. According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the increased spending resulting from the minimum-wage bumps in those eight states alone will lead to an additional $366 million in economic output and create 3,000 jobs.

Not here. More than 1.6 million New York workers — 18 percent of the workforce — earn less than $10 an hour, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. These New Yorkers are falling further behind, as the minimum wage is eroded every year by the rising cost of food, gas, rent and, it seems, everything else.

It makes life a little tougher for our state’s lowest earners and drags consumer spending down with it. During the past 40 years, the minimum wage has eroded considerably. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since the 1960s, it would be more than $10 an hour today.

Our state Legislature hasn’t voted to raise the minimum wage since 2004. As a result, New York’s minimum wage is stuck at the federal minimum wage of just $7.25 an hour — around $15,000 a year for full-time work. It’s tough enough to make ends meet on $15,000 a year in Oklahoma or West Virginia, never mind in Albany or Brooklyn. That’s well below the poverty line for a family of three.
Imagine trying to support a family on that, especially in a high-cost state like ours. Eighteen states have a higher minimum wage.

Declining wages still mean bigger profits for mega-corporations. The largest employers of low-wage workers in America (including Wal-Mart and McDonald’s) are all reporting larger profits, dividends and cash stockpiles than before the recession.

Corporate lobbyists, especially those representing fast food and retail companies, will ruthlessly oppose any increase in the minimum wage. They always do.

Let’s get the facts straight: As a share of GDP, wages and salaries are the lowest they’ve been since the 1950s, and corporate profits are at their highest.

It’s time to rebalance the scales. It’s time for New York to raise and index the minimum wage.

Dan Cantor is the executive director of the Working Families Party. Camille Rivera is the executive director of United NY.

How does our National Wage Theft Days of Action campaign work? The idea is for you to connect with workers in establishments where you shop, where you eat, where you buy anything, where you visit loved ones. We have a simple brochure for you to give out: The 8 1/2 by 11 sheet, folded in four ways, educates workers in the following areas:

–what the laws are regarding wages for all workers, including restaurant workers;
–lets workers know who to contact to get support, referrals, assistance, and organizing possibilities either at the Tompkins County Workers’ Center or other agencies;
–detailed information about the Wage Theft Prevention Act, the nation’s strongest Wage Theft law, in effect in NY as of 4/11;
–a sample time sheet to encourage workers to keep track of their hours and pay information rather than relying solely on their employer to do so.

The National Wage Theft Days of Action augments our ongoing work with the Workers’ Rights Hotline, which helps workers with every and any issue of contention in the workplace. We connect with close to 300 people a year, and have won judgments in favor of workers for approximately $1.125 million. We believe that handing out a Workers’ Rights brochure to service and retail workers where we go, wherever we shop, is a great way to inform workers of their rights and to encourage them to do something about it. Get Up, Stand Up!

We encourage you to consider being a part of this ongoing campaign by clicking on the following link, making copies, and taking them with you wherever you get service and/or purchase anything. If you would like, the Tompkins County Workers’ Center will send you as many copies of the brochure as you thnk you need.

https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4023/c/200/images/Wage Theft.Workers Rights Flyer.pdf

If you are willing to be a part of this campaign, please contact us either by responding to this email or by calling our office at 607-269-0409. If you live in another part of the state, please feel free to transpose your own information into the flyer, or go ahead and use ours.

by Gina Lord Shattuck and Pete Meyers

Gina Lord Shattuck is a member of the Tompkins County Workers’ Center, as well as member of the Board of Directors of the Advocacy Center in Ithaca. Pete Meyers is the Coordinator of the Tompkins County Workers’ Center.