Lazy Justice

Tonight is a Rally for Living Wages at Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem. I signed us up to go and here I am, home.... A went after a long day at work and now I am feeling pretty guilty for being the one to stay home in our cozy apartment to put IG to bed. This is an AMAZING cause that I 100% support but was too tired. Talk about social INjustice! So instead of blowing it off completely and watching TV or knitting, I thought I'd blog a little about it.

So what is this Living Wage? It is basically the idea that everyone working in NYC (and beyond) deserves to make enough money to live. That means getting 40 hours a week and benefits. There is a movement to pass living wage ordinances in cities throughout the world. Here in the US, this movement began in 1994 when a community-labor coalition mobilized a successful grassroots campaign to pass the nation's first ”living wage” law in Baltimore. Since then, more than 140 U.S. cities have followed suit, including Chicago, Pittsburgh, and San Diego, and there are movements growing in such areas as Rochester, NY and Sonoma County, CA.

The living wage movement's success has led to other local government tools to induce private companies to create middle-class jobs and upgrade low-wage work. A lot of public (tax payer) dollars support projects like the new shopping center in East Harlem or the South Bronx but then workers make minimum wage and are refused full-time work so they cannot get benefits. That means they often have to get a second job or go on public assistance, where tax payer money goes into double duty to support them. Meanwhile, the public money should've supported them from the beginning rather than make huge profits for the shopping center people. They can absolutely afford to pay workers more than $10/hr, but don't. The idea behind this movement is to get the city to back the idea that if big companies are going to come into the city, they have to pay the employees who live here. New York City passed a living wage law in 2002, but the law only covers a limited number of workers, and does not apply to employees who work in privately-owned, publicly-subsidized developments, such as the big developments coming in recently like stadiums, convention centers and shopping malls. Imagine if the Ikea in Brooklyn had to pay the employees enough to support their families and gave them benefits???

Sorry for the rant :) I just feel like this is such an obvious and just cause and want to share it with you since I'm not at the rally tonight. The rally is tonight because we're heading into Martin Luther King weekend. Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. died 43 years ago fighting for a living wage for Sanitation Workers in Memphis, TN? I honestly didn't. But it made me upset that this has been going on since 1968 and we're still having to fight for it.



To find out more, visit www.livingwagenyc.org

Thanks for listening!