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Over 100 People Brave Cold on Black Friday in Ithaca to Demand Wal-Mart Take Lead in $15/Hour and Full Time Work

(Ithaca) Over 100 people gathered for two hours in sub-freezing conditions this past Friday on Black Friday in Ithaca, outside of the Ithaca Wal-Mart, to call Wal-Mart to task over it’s low wages and lack of full time work for those workers who want to work full time. Recognizing that Wal-Mart is not the only big-box store to engage in egregious labor practices, the organizers of the rally which included the Tompkins County Workers’ Center, the Central New York Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO;  the Labor-Religion Coalition of the Finger Lakes; and the Midstate Central Labor Council, focus on Wal-Mart because of its leadership our nation’s retail industries.

Citizens concerned with the downward spiral taken by global corporations to dismantle our economy stand in front of the Ithaca Wal-Mart on Black Friday to bring attention to Wal-Mart’s egregious actions. (Photo: Paul Gottleib)

At the end of the two hour protest, one of over 2200 such protests nationally, fifteen or so of the protestors (including two elected officials, Cynthia Brock, 1st Ward Councilperson for the City of Ithaca and Town of Caroline Board Member, John Fraccia) delivered a letter on behalf of all those outside, and in the community, stating our demands. The text of the letter can be found below.

Talking briefly with Wal-Mart Store Manager, Floyd Bump, about the letter delivered on behalf of a community that wants economic justice for all its citizens. (Photo: Paul Gottleib)

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Overtime Pay May Be Required for Salaried Employees Considered Exempt

The recent labor law violations uncovered at Ithaca Trader K’s (http://ithacavoice.com/2014/11/trader-ks-found-violate-nys-wage-law/) highlight the importance of understanding the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees with respect to overtime payments. Many people classified as managers or administrators, and paid on a salaried basis, are not exempt from the requirement to also receive overtime pay (for working over 40 hours in a week).

The Tompkins County Workers’ Center has a factsheet from the NYS Department of Labor that we would be happy to send anyone (contact us at tcwrh@tcworkerscenter.org or 269-0409) but the key point is that an employee covered by NYS labor law must meet certain criteria to qualify for the administrative/managerial employee exemption. Perhaps the most important of these criteria is that the employee must be paid not less than $600/week ($31,200/year). If paid less than $600/week ($656.25 as of January 1, 2015) such an employee would be entitled to overtime (time and a half) for all hours worked over 40.

The other main criterion is that you must actually be performing the duties of an exempt employee. If your duties are not those of a bona fide exempt employee your employer cannot evade the overtime requirement by paying you a salary (and not paying overtime) regardless of how much your salary is. Those duties are also described in the factsheet referenced above and available upon request.

Trader K’s Clothing Store in Ithaca Found to Violate NYS Wage Law

(Ithaca) A New York State Department of Labor (DOL) investigation of employee complaints of wage underpayment between 2011 and 2013 at Trader K’s in Ithaca has concluded that the business is guilty.

ACTION ALERT: Adjunct Professors @ TC3 Need Your Help ASAP!!

There is a sprouting and thriving movement by Adjunct Professors at colleges and universities around the country to call attention to their plight (see our recent cover story article in our most recent newsletter). In Tompkins and Cortland counties, we have no shortage of Adjunct Professors who are beginning to organize to improve their contingent working conditions.

We are coming to you now in hopes that you can take an action (by clicking on this link) by Wednesday, November 5th, on behalf of the Adjunct Professors union, known as the TC3 Adjunct Association, that has taken root at Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3) in Dryden, NY. (We say the 5th of November because the 6th is when the TC3 Board meets for its Annual Retreat.) A strong majority of Adjuncts at TC3 have already signed authorization cards indicating their desire for unionization. (The TC3 Adjunct Association is affiliated with NYSUT, NEA, AFT, AFL-CIO as the exclusive bargaining agent for TC3’s 200+ adjuncts.)

On October 22, 2014, the union filed these authorization forms with the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB). The TC3 Administration and Board has one month to respond and indicate it’s willingness to ‘voluntarily recognize’ the TC3 union, or else drag the already-strong majority will of the Adjuncts to be organized into a union into a legal battle that will cost taxpayers more money!

We are asking that if you live in Cortland or Tompkins County and you agree that workers should have the right to join together in representing their own interests in the form of a union, that you click here to send an email message to the TC3 Board as well as the TC3 President, Carl Haynes, indicating that you don’t want taxpayer dollars–your taxpayer dollars!–wasted on a legal battle by the College to fight the union efforts by the Adjuncts! The TC3 Board needs to know that the Tompkins and Cortland communities are supportive of the TC3 Adjunct Association’s efforts!

Additionally, we plan to show up, en masse, to the TC3 next scheduled Board Meeting on Thursday, November 20th, at 5:30 p.m., along with some members of the Adjuncts Organizing Committee to show our support for their unionizing efforts. If you think you can make this, please email TCWRH@tcworkerscenter.org or call 607-269-0409.

Amazing Story from How a Union (UAW Local 2300) Started at Cornell University

Editor’s Note: The following interview of Sue Heisey Compton, a founder back in the early 1980s of a union at Cornell University that represents over 1,100 building maintenance and service workers. The interview was conducted by Joan Lockwood, staff person with Local 2300, several months ago. Compton unfortunately passed away this past October 17th, 2014. However, we are incredibly blessed with this glimpse, from Sue’s perspective, into the inspirational history of why a union made so much sense to this union sister!

Did you know, for instance, that now no one working at Cornell and represented by the UAW makes less than $14.51/hour? Be it food service, the Statler, or grounds crews: what people might expect to make in the larger community of not much more than a minimum wage, at Cornell because of the union, is dramatically more!

Meet a Member: Sue Heisey Compton

Sue holds the honor of being the first woman from Grounds to step up and support the effort to bring a union to Cornell in the early 1980s. Her name is listed on the Charter of UAW Local 2300.

What was the moment when you knew you had to get involved? What convinced you, personally and professionally? What did you do?

I was not at Cornell for very long when I heard the grounds workers talking about getting a union to represent them mostly for reasons of retirement, sick leave policies and respect than anything else. I was so new and as the first ever female Groundsman I was trying to get the men to trust that I could and would do the same jobs that they were asked to do. I didn’t want to be treated like anything other than a fellow worker. I knew that I could do any of the work that the smaller men could do.

They had contacted the Meat Cutters Union and had a hearing already scheduled at the NLRB. I signed the card and actually testified at the hearing while I was still a probationary employee. They asked me on the stand if I was a permanent employee and I said I hadn’t been told yet either way. My boss at that time, Ed Kabelac, the Superintendent of Grounds, was asked and he said that yes, Sue Heisey, was now a permanent employee.

I had tried to get work for the 3 years previous and all I wanted was to have a chance to prove I could do the work. I had worked on a farm; I bought and sold produce; I mowed lawns; I cut, split and delivered firewood and I tended bar at Tweitmann’s Halfway House. And I applied for so many other jobs.
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Need Restaurant Workers to Help End Sub-Minimum Wages

Contingent Labor: Focus on Higher Education and Adjunct Professors

By Rebecca F. Plante

On one hand, I like my job, which I take pride in doing well, and I look forward to every class. 

On the other hand, it is dead end job (only every semester), with stagnant pay, and no pathway to predictable employment. The merits of my work are known only to my students, as no one evaluates my teaching.

I could quit – It’s just a part time gig. This would be an easy decision if I didn’t love my actual job, didn’t work well with my colleagues or didn’t care for my students, but none of those things are true. I’m a good teacher – my students learn and I make them work hard. I have a good thing going and my department appreciates my work. 

If I quit, those things are lost, but the college gets just what it wanted: 9 years of my best efforts (the equivalent of 6 years of full time employment – compensated at a fraction of the salary and no benefits) and then me giving up and going away quietly when I feel used up. I don’t know what to do, and I’m tired of giving my tenure-track colleagues teaching advice. –Ithaca College Adjunct Professor

First, the good news. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) just introduced legislation intended to extend the benefits of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to adjunct professors. This would enable adjuncts with the student loan debt often associated with earning one, two, or more degrees to eventually have their government-backed loans forgiven.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), with two million members across the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, has created Adjunct Action, an effort to unionize contingent professors. Over 21,000 adjuncts have voted to unionize on their campuses, gaining the power of union bargaining, collective action, and access to benefits.

The New Faculty Majority, founded in 2009, has begun to raise awareness about all levels of contingent faculty. And adjuncts across the United States have used the Internet to publish accounts of their working conditions, their decisions to remain in or leave academia, and to connect.

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Become a Monthly Sustainer of the Tompkins County Workers’ Center!

Who is looking out for the local worker? The Tompkins County Workers’ Center [TCWC] is, and we can only do it with your help! We are asking for your support right now to strengthen our work in our community and with local workers. Consider becoming a Monthly Sustainer of our work and/or a one-time donor!! Click on this link to find out how to Donate! https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4023/c/200/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=26

• Whether it is the caller to our Workers’ Rights Hotline who feels bullied at work by being constantly ‘put down’ by a supervisor, or unfairly terminated in the workplace;

• Whether it is supporting Milton Webb and Stanley McPherson doing the hard work that most of us would not want to do at the County’s Recycling Facility for less than a living wage, and then supporting the awesome leadership role they took with us in alerting the County that there are many workers doing County business who are making poverty wages;

• Whether it is Hotel Ithaca (formerly Holiday Inn) bringing 13 J-I Visa student workers from abroad to work as housekeepers, in what is billed as a cultural exchange program for the students. This lowers the floor on wages locally and also means these jobs won’t become permanent jobs for Tompkins County residents. (Hotel Ithaca, incidentally, receives public economic development assistance);

• Whether it is the Ithaca, Lansing, or Dryden restaurant workers having their tips stolen by the owners and managers of their restaurant.

• Whether working at McDonalds; Wal-Mart; Hotel Ithaca; the School District; the County’s Solid Waste Recycling Facility; or Cornell, we all need to be paid a Living Wage and be treated with dignity in our workplaces.

Youth Training: Health and Safety in the Workplace

We will train fellow teenagers and youth in these areas:

• Introduction to OSHA Rights
• Sexual Harassment
• Workplace Violence
• Health & Safety Hazard
• Solutions at Work

Potential peer trainers will receive a stipend to attend. Job opportunities are available with the Midstate Council for Occupational Safety and Health after training.

This 7-hour training will be held in Ithaca this Fall. The exact date and time(s) will be determined for the convenience of the facilitators and those attending.

Pre-registration required. To register and for more information contact: Tom Joyce, Midstate COSH 275-9560, midstatecosh@gmail.com

Over 300 People Attend 31st Annual Labor Day Picnic in Ithaca: List of Awards

Over 300 people attended the Tompkins County Workers’ Center and Midstate Central Labor Council’s 31st Annual Labor Day Picnic on Monday, September 1st. The Picnic organizers focused on the theme: Building a Strong Local Economy for Workers, Awards were handed out to the following deserving recipients:

**Mother Jones Award went to: Christine Johnson, a longtime Housekeeper at the Statler Hotel @ Cornell University, as well as a Steward with the United Auto Workers Local 2300 that represents most service workers at Cornell. Johnson was recognized for her superb representation of workers at the Statler, as well as the union in general.

Christine Johnson receiving the Mother Jones Award as presented by UAW Local President, Terry Sharpe.

**Joe Hill Award went to: Dave Richardson, a retired union electrician at Cornell University who continues to be active in labor issues. He was a founding member of the Skilled Trades Diversity Council to promote diversity in the trades. The council is a partnership between Cornell and the Tompkins-Cortland Building Trades Council.

Dave Richardson receiving the Joe Hill Award as presented by Dave Marsh of the Tompkins-Cortland Building Trades Council.

Jim McCauley, a local labor law attorney in Ithaca, received the Friend of Labor Award for his superb representation of working people, both organized and unorganized, in labor disputes.

The Goat of Labor was presented to two different business endeavors. The first was to Suit-Kote, a paving company in Cortlandville, NY, that was found guilty by the New York State Department of Labor for $4.3 million in Wage Theft (as related to Suit-Kote’s not paying prevailing wages to their workers working on government contracts; not always paying overtime; and not adequately paying benefits as promised.

The second Goat of Labor Award was presented to the McDonald’s Corporation for their egregious payment of low wages to workers across the world, as well as incidents of Wage Theft in various parts of the United States.

In late July, 2014, the McDonald’s Corporation was considered by the National Labor Relations Board as a Joint Employer with local McDonald’s franchisees. The general counsel of the NLRB ruled on Tuesday that McDonald’s could be held jointly liable for labor and wage violations by its franchise operators — a decision that, if upheld, would disrupt longtime practices in the fast-food industry and ease the way for unionizing nationwide.

Tompkins County Organizers Rally Outside Ithaca McDonald’s on National Day of Action Targeting Fast Food Restaurants in May 2014

The fast-food workers who filed cases asserted that McDonald’s was a joint employer on the grounds that it orders its franchise owners to strictly follow its rules on food, cleanliness and employment practices and that McDonald’s often owns the restaurants that franchisees use.

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