The Coalition for a Real Minimum Wage will join with hundreds of low-income workers on Wednesday March 19 at noon to protest the state’s low minimum wage and high rate of wage theft. The protest will take place in front of the Senate State office at 250 Broadway in Manhattan (across from the City hall). Key targets are Senate Co-President Jeff Klein, head of the IDC, and Governor Cuomo.
In addition to low-income workers, speakers at the rally will include Public Advocate LaTisha James; Pastor Heidi Neumark of Trinity Lutheran Church; Adolfo Lopez of the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops; Saran Ahn for the Coalition and Queens Worker Center; Maia Goodell of MFY Legal Services; and Noreen Connell of NOW NYS. Mark Dunlea of Hunger Action Network of NYS will emcee.
Senator Klein’s decision last year to broker a deal to “share” power with the Senate Republicans rather than the majority Democrats in the Senate resulted in a weak three year deal to raise the minimum wage to only $9 an hour, rather than lifting workers out of poverty. The deal to raise the minimum wage also excluded food tip workers. After protests over the exclusion, lawmakers directed the Governor to convene a minimum wage board to administratively raise the pay for food tip workers but a year later he has refused to do so.
The coalition has also called for the repeal of last year’s minimum wage teenage tax credit that subsidizes low-wage corporate employers, with the annual $40 million plus savings dedicated to increased wage enforcement. The Assembly did include the repeal in their recent budget resolution.
According to the coalition: Recent surveys indicate that low-income workers in NYC lose a billion dollars a year in wage theft. The state labor department has weakly enforced the wage prevention law under Cuomo, with a two year backlog of 15,000 cases. Neither the Governor or the recent budget resolutions included increased funding to hire more labor investigators to improve wage enforcement. The Coalition is also advocating for a SWEAT bill to strengthen wage enforcement.
The coalition is asking State Senator Klein and Governor Cuomo to:
– Repeal the corporate subsidy
– Increase the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour for all workers, including tipped employees
– Stop discriminating against women workers and older workers
– Enforce the labor law—take a stand against wage theft