NELP & Unemployed Insurance Reform; A Role-playing Game about Economic Justice

The Workers’ Center has signed  a letter calling on Governor Cuomo to prioritize New York State Unemployment Insurance reform. A broad coalition of  groups in New York led by the National Employment Law Project are asking for :

• stabilization of the Unemployment trust fund [NY is currently borrowing money from the Feds, accruing high interest payments];
• raising and indexing maximum UI payments. Right now, the NY maximum is $405 a week, while in NJ, it is $600 weekly. The NYS amount has not increased since 2000. The coalition is also proposing that the UI payments for low wage earners, those who earn less than $15.50 an hour, be increased.
• Modify the rules for extended benefits so that more New Yorkers can qualify for the federal program.
• Amend benefit rules for partially-unemployed people. For instance, in NY a person will lose their unemployment if they take a 30 minute a day job passing out newspapers. Let’s allow, like other states, UI based on weekly earnings. This will help the many NYS workers who are finding only part-time work.
• Amend the restrictions on seasonal academic and agricultural workers. In the past, those who worked during the academic year, like adjunct professors and college food service workers, could have a ‘reasonable expectation’ of returning to work after breaks. This is no longer true. Let’s change those outdated rules.

For more information on NELP and its proposed Unemployment reform campaign, visit their website. 

Urban Ministries of Durham [North Carolina] has developed an online game to show the difficulties people experience when they are unemployed. Try playing a quick game of Spent: make it through the month, unemployed and down to your last $1000. This is a graphic depiction of the choices people have to make when they are un- and underemployed.

Visitors to Ithaca

Health Care Is A Human Right: Visit to Tompkins County from the Vermont Workers’ Center: Wednesday, February 23rd @ 7 p.m.

Our sister workers’ center, The Vermont Workers’ Center, has inspired us in many ways. Now, they are involved in a pitched battle: Health Care is a Human Right, the fight for a single payer system in their state.  On Wednesday, February 23rd, at 7 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church Annex in downtown Ithaca (close to the corner of Buffalo and Aurora Sts), two of the lead organizers for the Vermont Workers’ Center single-payer health care campaign, will be speaking about the importance of their campaign, and what we can do to support it. 

Vermont is on the cusp of winning universal healthcare. They need our help to overcome an onslaught of industry money. They have entered the final stage in their fight to make the human right to health care a reality in Vermont. Everything is in place for a progressive policy victory that will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Vermonters, and kick off a nationwide shift towards a single-payer healthcare system, spreading to other states, and eventually the country as a whole.

And on March 16,  at 4:30pm, the Cornell Law School’s National Lawyers Guild Student Chapter presents Bill Quigley, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Director of the Law Clinic at Loyola Law School in New Orleans. Bill will be speaking about Social Justice Lawyering: Lessons in Working for Change. The author of Ending Poverty As We Know It: Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage and Storms Still Raging: Katrina, New Orleans and Social Justice, Bill has devoted his life to social justice issues including voting rights, death penalty, economic rights, civil liberties, constitutional rights, civil disobedience, post-Katrina legal advocacy and pro bono work with the NAACP and ACLU.

And he’s a fun guy, too. Check out his presentation. Bill is a great speaker with contagious ideas and experiences.

Centennial of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

You may have already seen references to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Centennial Commemoration. It was one hundred tears ago, March 25, 1911, that 146 garment workers died in a New York City sweatshop fire. Fire doors were bolted shut; the inadequate fire escape buckled and twisted when some workers tried to flee the building that way. The building was ten stories tall; the fire broke out on the top floors. The fire ladders reached only six floors. Many workers died as they leapt to their death to escape the heat and flames. The dead were mostly women, mostly immigrants and outrage was intense throughout the country.

From this tragedy was born the modern movement for safety regulations. The fire will be a year-long theme for many workers advocacy groups.

Here in Ithaca there will be several opportunities to mourn and then to join in the struggle for safety and health advances for workers today.

On Wednesday March 23 at 7pm, the Tompkins County Workers’ Center, the Labor Religion Coalition of the Finger Lakes (the recently renamed Religious Task Force), and the Kheel Center of the ILR School at Cornell University are cosponsoring a film and discussion on the Triangle fire and workers’ issues today. This event will take place at the Unitarian Church, 306 N. Aurora Street in Ithaca.

On Friday March 25, 4pm, an interfaith vigil to remember the victims of workers’ abuses everywhere will be held at the Bernie Milton Pavillion on the Commons.

Also, The Kheel Center has an excellent website dedicated to the fire, its survivors, the funeral and everything related to the tragedy which killed 146 people within 18 minutes.

All photos on this page are from the Kheel Center’s Triangle Shirtwaist Fire archives.

New Assembly Labor Chair Named

Keith Wright, Assemblyperson for District 70 (Harlem) in New York City, has been named by Sheldon Silver to chair the Labor Committee. Mr. Wright has been a true friend to low wage workers, fighting for the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights and opposing the death penalty and the Rockefeller Drug Laws. I hope that his commitment to civil rights extends to the targets of workplace bullying! Photo from Mr. Wright’s website.

 

 

Save the Date

Save Wednesday February 16th from 7 until 8:30 for the first installment of our Challenging Workplace Bullying series. Local therapist Diane Jerdan will speak about dealing with depression when you have been the target of workplace bullying. Dara Silverman will lead us in some meditation and yoga practice to help us deal with stress. The session will take place in the Workers’ Center at 115 The Commons/Martin Luther King Street, 2nd floor above Autumn Leaves Used Books.

Future speakers/workshop leaders in the series will include Myra Sabir who will speak about the Life Writing Project. By writing our lives, we can gain clarity about our experiences and realize the way forward. Myra’s workshop will be in March.

Richard Gallagher, local author of What to Say to a Porcupine, How to Tell Anyone Anything and other best-selling and witty works, is an expert on communication. He will talk about communication in difficult situations.

In May, we will focus on the Healthy Workplace Bill and plan for legislative action to pass this bill. Our June workshop will be a training in the use of Public Narrative as developed by community organizer Marshall Ganz. Learn to tell your own two minute ‘story of self’; share with our participants and then develop a ‘story of us’; frame the story of workplace bullying into a ‘story of now’; put them all together into a three minute public narrative which can persuade your listeners that they must fight for the legislation that will allow targets of workplace bullying to sue the bully in civil court.

We hope that this series will help empower targets of workplace bullying to stand up together.

Unemployment: in the Nation and here

I thought you’d appreciate this stunning visual representation of the loss of jobs across the country in the last few years. Latoya Egwuekwe, a Washington DC-based journalist, put this little video together. You can read her other economy-related work at her blog, http://latoyaegwuekwe.wordpress.com/.

A collaboration between probono.net and National Employment Law Project, as well as several other advocacy groups, has launched a NY-specific website to help workers navigate the Unemployment system in NY. This is has been years in the making. Although intended for lawyers, social workers and others helping the unemployed, the site is user-friendly enough for all of us to consult. Note that some areas of the site are password protected, mostly those dealing with case work. However, there’s lots of great information on filing, ascertaining your benefits, your rights, legislation campaigns and immigrant and non-standard workers.

Another good tool in our toolbelt.

2011: Events to Come

Save the Date: Thursday January 27, 2011  6:00 — 7:30

Come to the Workers’ Center to help us celebrate our new Vision Statement. During the last couple years, our Leadership Team has worked very hard to adopt a vision statement. Everyone has heard of a mission statement: it is our commitment to the work that we do. But a vision statement tells everyone WHY we do the work we do; it’s our vision of the world in which we want to live. By drafting and adopting a vision statement, we needed to work even harder on our strategic plan for the next ten years. This plan is our road map to achieve that world of justice we’re working for — and we want to celebrate the work we did to start drawing this map!

So join us for a celebratory Wine and Cheese, Pretzels and Beer Party at 115 The Commons/Martin Luther King, Jr. Street, second floor above Autumn Leaves Used Books.

Of course, there will be nonalcoholic drinks for everyone as well.

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Other news:

• A new book has been announced by the Workplace Bullying Institute, The Bully Free Workplace: Stop the Jerks, Weasels & Snakes from killing your organization.  This book is ground-breaking because it is aimed at business owners, managers and human resource departments.   Publication date is May 23, 2011 but can be pre-ordered.
• Here’s an article by James Haslam of the Vermont Workers’ Center, It’s Time for a People’s Movement. The Vt. Workers’ Center coordinates the ‘Health Care is a Human Right’ campaign.
• And one last article (before my vacation, starting tomorrow!) is Will the New Assault on Public Employees’ Unions Undermine all Workers? Watch out for Mr. Cuomo, New Yorkers!

 

Hospitality Wage Order Increases Minimum Wage

Big news for food service workers in New York: the tipped minimum wage has now been increased to $5.00 per hour. This decreases the tip credit to $2.25 an hour.  As always, most workers in New York should be receiving at least $7.25 per hour, the Federally-mandated minimum wage.

The Wage Order is long anticipated and covers things other than hourly wages. Here are some of the highlights:

• hourly rates of pay are required for all non-exempt employees (except commissioned salespeople). No longer are salaries, weekly or daily rates or piece rates allowed. This is to deter excessively long hours and to encourage compliance with overtime pay requirements of NYS law.
• Overtime pay is due after 40 hours. Previously, residential employees received overtime after 44 hours.
• Spread of hours, call in and uniform maintenance pay is due to all non-exempt employees at any pay rate, not just those paid at or near minimum wage. (Spread of hours refers to pay that is given food service employees who work in the morning or afternoon and leave for a few hours before returning for the evening shift. Call in refers to pay to people who are scheduled for a shift but are sent home before the end of their scheduled shift. Uniform maintenance pay covers cleaning of uniforms.)
• Wash-and-wear Uniforms are exempt from the requirement to pay uniform maintenance to the worker. To qualify, the employee must be provided with the number of uniforms consistent with the average number of days per week worked and the uniform must be able to be laundered with the employee’s personal clothing.
• Gratuities are subject to regulations for the first time in New York. For instance, the Wage Order spells out regulations forbidding tip appropriation by the employer or their agent. Tip sharing, voluntary or employer-mandated, is legal. Employers must give written notice to employees of the tip policy of the establishment.  If the employer mandates tip sharing or pooling or adds charges to the bill for tips, records must be kept of the tips received and distributed. Employees must be allowed to view the records. If a gratuity is added to a credit card, employers are allowed to charge the employee the same percentage that the credit card company charges to process the charge.
• Any charges for administration of a banquet, special function or package deal must be clearly identified and the customer must be notified that the charge is not a gratuity. This notice must be in ordinary, understandable language and in a font not less than 12 points.
• Employee meals. When a shift is long enough to invoke the meal period law (a shift over six hours), employers must either allow employees to bring their own food or give them a meal at no more than the meal credit amount, $2.50 per meal.

This wage order also now combines the restaurant and hotel industries into one class, the Hospitality Industry. New minimum wages are also mandated for tipped employees other than food service workers:

Service Employees now must receive $5.65 per hour, $1.60 maximum tip credit.

Service Employees in resort hotels: $4.90 per hour, $2.35 tip credit if the tips are at least $4.10 per hour.

Chambermaids in resort hotels: merged into service employees in resort hotels. This alters the hourly pay of chambermaids who previously received a minimum wage of $6.15.

Employers have until February 28th in which to make necessary changes to payroll systems and bookkeeping operations but must pay their employees retroactively to January 1, 2011 on the next regularly scheduled payday.

Congratulations, Wait Staff!

2010 in review

Blushingly, we reveal our WordPress blog assessment. Happy New Year, 2011.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,500 times in 2010. That’s about 11 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 92 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 113 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 16mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was June 19th with 79 views. The most popular post that day was Welfare ‘Reform’.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were digg.com, tclivingwage.org, healthfitnesstherapy.com, tcworkerscenter.org, and legal5ounds.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for marietta corporation chicago, lois gibbs, telephone # sheldon silvers office, “joe the volunteer”, and ligia guallpa.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Welfare ‘Reform’ February 2010

2

Tell Marietta to STOP Worker Exploitation June 2010

3

About February 2010
1 comment

4

More Movies March 2010

5

We know what ‘all work and no play’ makes us… February 2010
2 comments

Say Something, Please

Last week’s Unemployed & Underemployed Support Group welcomed a guest facilitator, Dr. Tom Hodgson, whose topic was depression during the holidays due to difficult circumstances in your life. We had a great conversation, with our caring members offering each other advice and consolation. One thing came up that many people can understand: why do friends or family ignore our most difficult situations? Why do so few people acknowledge our long term unemployment, for instance?

The message from people who are hurting emotionally, no matter what the source, is that saying something is better than ignoring our obviously tender positions. Here’s an article that you might like to pass along that offers some guidelines to people When you don’t know what to say.

And a long overdue congratulations to our Occupational Health Clinical Center colleague Wally Reardon. Wally, a former tower climber himself, has been advocating for and with tower climbers for safety regulations in this largely un-regulated industry. The 2010 Tony Mazzocchi Award for grassroots health and safety activism was presented to Wally in November for his project.

Wally is now seen as one of the foremost experts in tower climbing safety and has presented his program to OSHA as well as the US Workplace Fatalities advocacy group.

In the photo above, Wally Reardon nears the top of a 1,100-foot television tower in the late 1990s on Grand Island. He has since retired from climbing after witnessing a colleague’s catastrophic injury. He graduated from SUNY Oswego in May and now received a national award for a tower climbers safety program he began in college. (Photo Courtesy of Wallace Reardon, description from SUNY Oswego)

Thanks for your groundbreaking work, Wally.