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In This
Message:
I. SAVE-The-DATE: 40
Hour Fast in Support of Hotel Workers to Commence at Kickoff
Event, Tuesday, March 4th @ 7 p.m. at Women's Community Building
in Ithaca
II. Five New Living
Wage Employers Certified by the Workers'
Center
III. First Baptist
Church of Ithaca Becomes 53rd Workers' Center Coalition
Partner
IV. Ithaca
Paraprofessional President, Debbie Minnick, Leaves Ithaca for
Job with National Union (National Education
Association)
I. SAVE-The-DATE: 40 Hour Fast in Support of Hotel
Workers to Commence at Kickoff Event, Tuesday, March 4th @ 7
p.m. at Women's Community Building in
Ithaca
On Tuesday, March 4th, @ 7:00 p.m. (light refreshments at
6:30) at the Woman's Community Building (corner of Seneca and
Cayuga St in Ithaca), the Religious Task Force for a Living
Wage invites you to help us kickoff the 13th Annual 40 Hour Fast
in support of the struggles of our over 600 hotel workers in
Tompkins
County.
The program will include reflections from
hotel workers, as well as religious, community, and political
leaders, on issues relating to our Justice for Hotel Workers
campaign, such as:
- poverty wages, and its affect on our families and
community
- disrespectful treatment from management
- lack of a reasonable 'right to organize' on behalf of
workers and the ability to take joint action to improve
workplace conditions
- lack of health insurance
- unreasonable physical workload and working with dangerous
chemicals
The Workers' Center is continuing to organize workers
in the Ithaca
hotel industry for better working conditions and wages.
Says Workers' Center hotel organizer, Neisha Butler, "paying
these workers $7.15 an hour, as these hotels do, and not
providing affordable health insurance, is disrespectful of the
important work these people do for the hotels, unfair to the
workers' families, and irresponsible in a community that values
all our citizens equally."
This event will also serve as the kick-off for local
participation in the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition's
13th Annual 40 Hour FAST (more information on the fast can be
found at http://www.labor-religion.org)
which lasts from March 4th, at 8 PM until March 6th, at
Noon.
Workers in Tompkins County are hungering for living wage
jobs. Going without food for one or more meals during the FAST
is an expression of solidarity with them and their cause. If you
are considering 'fasting' with us, please let us know by
contacting one of the contacts below, or by responding to this
email.
The Religious Task Force
for a Living Wage is a joint project of the Tompkins County
Workers' Center and Catholic Charities of Tompkins County. For more
information, please contact 607-269-0409 or 607-272-5062, ext.
12. Or email TCWRC@yahoo.com
II.
Five New Living Wage Employers Certified by the Workers'
Center
A strong holler out to the following five employers for
seeking and successfully attaining Living Wage Certification,
bringing our total now up to 52 Living
Wage Employers countywide! If you/your employer is
interested in going through the process, please see our criteria
and application at http://www.tcworkerscenter.org/employer/index.php
If you/your employer is interested in going through the
process, please see our criteria and application at http://www.tcworkerscenter.org/employer/index.php
III. First Baptist Church of Ithaca Becomes 53rd
Workers' Center Coalition Partner
The First Baptist Church of Ithaca becomes
our 53rd Coalition partner. Says Pastor Rich Rose, "First
Baptist became a Workers' Center Coalition Partner [and earlier
a Certified Living Wage Employer] because we value all people as
children of God. We therefore stand in solidarity with other
organizations and businesses in Tompkins County who see their
workers not as a means to an end, but as valuable members of the
community. By affording our workers a Living Wage we are
extending to them the dignity and respect they
deserve."
The involvement and active engagement of as many individuals
and organizations county-wide is what will make the goals of the
Workers' Center come to fruition:
The Mission of the
Tompkins County Workers' Center is to stand up with all people
treated unfairly at work or faced with critical poverty, racial,
housing, health care or other social and economic issues. We
will support, advocate for, and seek to empower each other to
create a more just community and
world.
If your organization would like to
consider affiliating, formally, with the Workers' Center, please
go to http://www.tclivingwage.org/about.php to find out more!
IV. Ithaca Paraprofessional President, Debbie
Minnick, Leaves Ithaca for Job with National Union
(National Education Association)
Debbie Minnick, longtime head of
the Ithaca Paraprofessional's Association (teachers aides,
assistants, bus aides, family liasons) has decided to move on
from her position with the union and go to work with the National
Education Association in Washington, DC to help
Paraprofessionals around the country achieve a Living
Wage!
The importance of Debbie and the Paraprofessionals
were able to achieve in 2001 and 2001 in achieving a Living Wage
for Ithaca City School District Para's is unparalled nationwide.
Wages, in one contract, went from $6.72 an hour to $10.05 an
hour as a result of the Para's joint campaign with the Tompkins
County Living Wage Coalition (the Living Wage Coalition changed
its name to Tompkins County Workers' Center in July
2006).
Debbie has always been an integral part of the
Living Wage Coalition/Workers' Center and will be greatly
missed! We're glad to have been a part of your tremendous
success, Debbie!!
The following story appeared in Monday's Ithaca
Journal and treats Debbie's legacy to Ithaca quite well
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080218/NEWS01/802180341/1002/NEWS17
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