RWDSU
“New York, with the highest levels of income disparity of any state in the country, should do what’s right, and what’s best, for its working poor.”
—“Paying the help, at a minimum,” by the Times Union
January 2012
27 posts
Albany should raise the state’s outdated minimum wage as soon as possible →
nydailynews.com
“The Legislature and governor should pass and sign an increase without delay…A state that values work over dependency needs to act like it. Raise the minimum wage,” writes the New York Daily News in this powerful editorial today. Read more.
Why a Higher Minimum Wage is Needed in New York
Today the Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver introduced a bill to raise the New York State minimum wage to $8.50 an hour, a 17 percent increase. The bill also calls for the minimum wage to be adjusted each year for inflation. The RWDSU is an active part of a coalition to raise the minimum wage. Read more about why this legislation needs to be passed in the New York Times and the New York Daily News, read how it would improve the standards in the retail industry in Crain’s, and check out video from the press conference here and here, and read more from WBNG 12 Action News, WKBW Eyewitness News, WNYC’s “The Empire”, and a report in Capitol Confidential.
“It’s time to transform economic vulnerability into economic security. This legislation tells low-wage New Yorkers they are not invisible or forgotten, and that government can improve their lives.”
—from RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum’s statement on “Why a Higher Minimum Wage is Needed in New York,” delivered at a press conference in Albany today.
A Higher Minimum Wage in New York
“Raising the minimum wage is morally right and economically smart. When workers earn more, they spend more, generating demand for new goods and services that help create more jobs. When workers are stronger, so are businesses and so are the communities in which we all live and work. If the recent living wage victory in New York City is any indication, this is another campaign that will succeed,” writes RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum on raising the minimum wage in New York. Read the full column in the New York Amsterdam News. Find out what New Yorkers have to say from NY1’s The Call.
Wage Slaves: How Americans are Paid Less than Ever
There is a hidden cost to the everyday goods Americans purchase and consume. That hidden cost is paid in taxes that fund anti-poverty programs such as Welfare and Medicaid which are used by companies to subsidize their payrolls.
It’s no wonder today’s generation is having such a difficult time affording basic necessities such as housing and food when wages are almost a third less than a generation ago. Click here to read more.
Big Wage Increases at Del Monte
RWDSU Local 17 members at Del Monte Foods in Mendota, Illinois, will see wages increase almost 15 percent over the life of their new five-year contract. The contract for over 100 members also freezes health insurance premiums for the first three years, and dental insurance for entire length of the pact.
The members work at a distribution and labeling center for Del Monte food products.
Trumka: Obama Showed He Hears People Not Heard by 1% →
blog.aflcio.org
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address tonight made clear that he hears the people who aren’t being heard by the 1 percent, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Obama’s speech showed he “listened to the single mom working two jobs to get by, to the out-of-work construction worker, to the retired factory worker, to the student serving coffee to help pay for college.”
By laying out a vision of an America that can create jobs and prosperity for all instead of wealth for the few, Trumka said the president “voiced the aspirations and concerns of those who are too often ignored.” Click here to read more from the AFL-CIO blog.
Reuters: The retail price of America’s income inequality
Retail is considered one of the bright spots in the American economy, one of only six job categories projected to grow nationally through 2018. But a survey released this week makes clear that many of these are jobs in name only, offering poverty-level wages, highly restricted access to benefits, part-time work when full-time is desired, and a workforce so cowed that it routinely accepts working conditions that make work-life balance, or the chance to upgrade skills and move into better-paid work elsewhere, all but impossible. Read more from Caitlin Kelly in Friday’s Reuters blog.
Living Wage Is a Step in the Right Direction
“Growing support for measures like these and real living wages have laid important groundwork for a more comprehensive living wage policy in the coming years, and I hope will serve as an example to cities throughout the U.S. that profitability and fair pay are not mutually exclusive.” Click here to read the full piece.
“I fully support President Obama’s decision on the Keystone Pipeline. He was right to point out that Republicans tried to rush a decision that would prevent a thorough review of the risks involved in the Keystone Pipeline. I applaud President Obama for standing up to Republicans who are more focused on securing campaign contributions from oil industry lobbyists than doing what is right for Americans.”
—RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum has issued this statement supporting President Obama’s decision to reject the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Village Voice: Q&A w/ Stuart Appelbaum On the Living Wage Bill →
blogs.villagevoice.com
When Speaker Christine Quinn presented her compromised version of the Living Wage Bill last week, we immediately wondered how it would affect retail-clothing workers, #47 on the Voice’s list of the 100 Most Powerless New Yorkers.
We got in touch with Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Via an email Q&A, we asked Appelbaum all of the questions we had about the proposed bill, from how many people it would affect, to if (after Quinn’s compromise) it would actually help employees of tenants of city subsidized projects.
Click here to read the full story by Steven Thrasher .
NY1 Online: Union Leader Defends New Living Wage Bill
NY1 VIDEO: Inside City Hall’s Errol Louis asked Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union about the new living wage bill compromise.
NY Times: Study of Retail Workers Finds $9.50 Median Pay →
nytimes.com
Retail workers in New York City earn a median of $9.50 an hour, most are part-time or temporary, and just 3 in 10 receive health insurance through their jobs, according to a new study of the city’s larger retailers.
The study, based on interviews with nonunion workers and released on Monday, largely found poverty wages and highly unstable schedules for the city’s retail employees, with less than a fifth having a set schedule each work week. The study said many workers had a hard time planning for, say, child care or classes because more than half learned their schedules a week or less before a work week would begin.
Read the full piece in Sunday’s New York Times, read more about the study from the front page of today’s Metro New York, in Crain’s New York, and in the New York Daily News. Heard enough? Then click here to take action!
Statement on Living Wage Agreement
“The RWDSU and all of our partners have been proud to be part of a diverse coalition fighting for living wages. And today I am so very proud to say that we have taken an important step in that fight. Together with the faith community, unions, immigrants’ rights organizations, LGBTQ groups, women’s groups, anti-hunger groups, civil rights leaders, and many others we built a strong movement for economic justice – a movement that today can celebrate a real victory for working people in this city.”
RWDSU Honors the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On January 16, Americans everywhere salute the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For RWDSU members Dr. King’s legacy has special meaning. We take special pride that, in 1968, the RWDSU was the first union anywhere to negotiate a contract guaranteeing Dr. King’s birthday as a paid holiday.
Our union was among the earliest supporters of Dr. King’s grassroots drive to challenge racial injustice in the South. In Chicago, we provided an important forum for Dr. King to speak out against poverty in America’s cities. Later, thousands of RWDSU members stood shoulder to shoulder with other civil rights activists during the historic 1963 March on Washington. Read more.
2012 Alvin E. Heaps Memorial Scholarship
Apply for the 2012 Alvin E. Heaps Memorial Scholarship. RWDSU members & their children are eligible! Read more and download the application!
