living wage

The Tompkins County Workers’ Center/Jobs with Justice is very pleased  to report the success of the student-community campaign to win a living wage for over 100 food service workers at Ithaca College. Beginning in September, according to an announcement by Ithaca College and the Sodexo Corporation, these workers will be paid at least the Tompkins County Living Wage, currently $11.11/hour. Those IC dining workers paid presently above the Living Wage, will see a commensurate increase as well.

Workers currently are paid as little as $8.19/hour, so the increase will total over 35 percent!

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. He was in Memphis to support sanitation workers, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment on the job. He famously said, “It is a crime to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.”

Dr. King’s legacy teaches us that workers’ rights, civil rights and human rights are inexorably linked. On the anniversary of his death over thirty years ago, we are also reminded just how far we are in fulfilling his dream of equality and dignity for all people.

Students at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL held an all day rally on campus fighting for workers rights and student representation. They started at 8:00 AM and did not finish with everything until Midnight. The goal of the event was to raise student awareness about their own power and raise the awareness about low-wage workers on Eckerd’s campus (housekeeping, groundswork, maintenance, etc.). Throughout the day, students made signs, spoke with workers, other students, and the administration about their call for a living wage. Collaboration between other clubs provided creative and interesting ways for students to actively participate in the struggle for a living wage. Everything from planting seeds with the student run community garden to making and bagging sandwiches for the homeless of St. Petersburg happened throughout the day. The day ended with a vigil for women’s rights around the world and in the Eckerd Community, as most low-wage workers at Eckerd College are women.

City seasonal workers launched a class-action lawsuit against the City of Buffalo in early 2008 as part of their campaign to secure back wages owed to them under the City of Buffalo's Living Wage Ordinance.  Their lawsuit inched closer to victory last week when NYS Supreme Court Judge Timothy Drury issued a decision that strongly supports the workers' claims.  Judge Drury ruled that the wage freeze imposed by the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority that was lifted in July of 2007 should never have been applied to the seasonal workers, stating clearly that the local Living Wage Ordinance is not pre-empted by the Fiscal Stability Act.

Abraham McKinney, one of the plaintiffs in the case said:

I feel good about Judge Drury's decision. I've worked as a seasonal for over eight years. Funny thing is that there isn't anything 'seasonal' about my work. I get laid off every six months for five work days. I applied for a seasonal laborer position thinking it would be a stepping stone to a decent city job but I've never been offered a permanent position and until recently our wages were impossible to live on. No one who is earning poverty level wages should have their pay frozen. The city has been saving money off of our backs forever, and now it is time for them to do right by us.