Citizens Action NY Justice Works Conference - June 4th and 5th

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On June 4th and 5th, hundreds of New Yorkers who fight for justice came together in Albany. Justice Works was a conference that brought together a cross section of progressive politics and activism in New York State. Bringing together people working on different issues, all going in different directions. But the fact is, we are all in this together, fighting for a society where we all do better, where government and the economy work for every person, not just the rich, and where justice is something shared by everyone, regardless of the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our religious beliefs, where we live or how much money we make. Because Justice Works, we work for it, every day.

The keynote speaker at the event was Melissa V. Harris-Perry professor of political science at Tulane University, where she is founding director of the project on gender, race, and politics in the South.She is a columnist for The Nation magazine. Harris-Perry is a contributor to MSNBC, appearing as a bi-weekly guest on the Thomas Roberts Show and a frequent guest on the Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word.

The other principal speaker was NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. As Attorney General, Schneiderman is the highest ranking law enforcement officer for the State, responsible for representing New York and its residents in legal matters. Schneiderman has worked to restore the public’s faith in its public and private sector institutions, by focusing on areas including public integrity, economic justice, social justice and environmental protection.

Among the other speakers were Bob Master. Bertha Lewis, Stephen Allringer, Richard Kirsch, Richard McNary, Ana-Maria Archila, Dan Cantor and many others. For bios, click here.

The event was sponsored by Salsa Labs, Solidago Foundation, Public Policy and Education Fund of New York and Citizens Action of New York.

Letter to the Editor: Queens Center Mall Should Pay Living Wage by David M. Quintana - Leader-Observer

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Dear Editor:

On Saturday May 21^st, I attended a Town Hall meeting at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Corona with hundreds of others to demand that the owner of the highly profitable Queens Center Mall, the Macerich Company, give back to the community by transforming the publicly subsidized mall from a poverty wage center into a responsible development for workers of Queens.

Among those participating in the event were elected officials: NY State Senator Jose Peralta, NY Assembly Member Francisco Moya, NY Assembly Member Jeffrion Aubrey, and New York City Council Members Julissa Ferreras and Daniel Dromm.

The meeting was hosted by Make the Road New York (MRNY), Queens Congregations United for Action (QCUA), the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and the Retail Action Project (RAP)

In exchange for the more than $100 million in tax breaks Macerich receives, a growing community, labor, clergy coalition is pushing to hold the Queens Center Mall owner accountable to the public by requiring retailers to pay a living wage with benefits, respect workers' rights to organize a union without threats or intimidation, and provide space for community services

The owners of the mall receive tens of millions of dollars in subsidies from our tax dollars and what does the community receive in return? Absolutely nothing.

Retail is one of the areas where the largest number of jobs are being created, and it is past time for retail workers to receive a living wage and be able to unionize without being threatened by their employers. It shouldn’t even be a question for the Queens Center Mall, one of the most profitable malls in the country (profits of $876 per sq foot) to become a living wage center and not a poverty wage one,

Many people who work at the mall barely make the minimum wage. As everyone knows, it’s not possible to live on such a low salary here in Queens, much less support a family.

I feel it's important that when we talk about economic development in our community, we should be talking about jobs that provide economic stability, jobs that can support a family and not part-time jobs with poverty wages and no benefits. Macerich should be made to require union neutrality from its retailers, so employees can decide whether or not to organize a union without fear of threats or retaliation.

A living wage bill is being debated in the NYC Council which would require businesses that receive tax breaks or City subsidies to pay their workers a living wage of $11.50 an hour without benefits or $10 an hour with benefits.

I would urge anyone reading this letter to contact their City Council member and tell them that they should vote to pass a living wage law in New York City. I believe it is a moral imperative that if someone works full-time they should be able to support their family and feed their children. Thank you.

Sincerely,

David M. Quintana

Ozone Park, NY

New Yorkers to Wall Street on May 12: Make Big Banks & Millionaires Pay

COALITION PLANS WEEK OF ACTION TO STOP BLOOMBERG’S BUDGET CUTS WITH TAXES ON MILLIONAIRES AND ENDING GIVEAWAYS TO BIG BANKS

National Movement Connects the Dots to NYC, Demands Reform and Fair Share in Taxes from Financial Sector
A growing coalition of community, labor, and progressive groups announced today plans for a week of events starting May 9^th, calling for Mayor Michael Bloomberg to end taxpayer-financed giveaways to Wall Street and ask for fair-share taxes from millionaires to mitigate his proposed budget cuts. The week of action will culminate in a major mobilization in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, May 12.

The coalition, uniting under the banner “Make Big Banks and Millionaires Pay” will contrast the corporate welfare, property tax giveaways, and seemingly endless local and national tax cuts enjoyed by the financial sector with Bloomberg’s proposed cuts to childcare, classrooms, public safety, and dozens of other services working New Yorkers rely on.

“The big banks wrecked our economy and are back to making billions in profits and lavish bonuses, while the rest of us are still cleaning up the mess they created,” said Mary Brosnahan, the Executive Director of the Coalition for the Homeless. “Now Bloomberg has a choice: ask Wall Street bankers to contribute their fair share to fixing New York City, rather than enacting devastating cuts to working families.”

The organizers promise more than a typical “rally” on May 12^th, with a day of diverse, creative actions across the downtown financial district. Michael Mulgrew, President of the United Federation of Teachers, said: “On May 12, tens of thousands of New Yorkers will descend on Wall Street, creating a giant school without walls throughout the financial district. Together, we will educate our city and expose the people and institutions that are destroying our jobs and our economy, and the politicians who are letting them get away with it.”

The week of actions coincides with a growing national movement by communities increasingly questioning the practices of the financial industry and fighting back against attacks on working people. “We are connecting the dots from the big banks that crashed our economy, destroyed millions of jobs and foreclosed on millions of family homes to the human impact here in the financial capital of our country, ” said Michael Kink, Executive Director of Strong Economy for All Coalition.

As the week of action approaches, organizers plan to release new data detailing the tax breaks and giveaways New York City doles out to the banking industry, as well as the effect of Wall Street-caused foreclosures on New York’s communities and tax revenue. “When New Yorkers see the skewed choices this city has made, it is no longer an abstraction,” added Kink. “Homeless shelters are bursting at the seams, and child care and senior centers are closing down -- not because we have gone broke, but because Bloomberg has chosen to spend hundreds of millions in subsidies for the people who need it least.”

The following community groups and unions have joined the May 12 coalition (list in formation):

Center for Children Initiatives
Center for Working Families
Citizen Action of New York
Coalition for the Homeless
Community Voices Heard
Housing Works
Make the Road New York
New York Communities for Change
New Deal for New York Campaign
Organization for a Free Society
Picture the Homeless
United Students Against Sweatshops
Urban Youth Collaborative
VOCAL-NY
1199 SEIU
SEIU 32BJ
CWA 1104
CWA 1180
CWA District 1
Professional Staff Congress – CUNY
United Federation of Teachers

Learn more at www.Onmay12.org
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/OnMay12
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/onmay12

Anti-Walmart Flash Mob Strikes Again - Walmart Free NYC & Jobs for Justice

A Few Weeks After Focusing on Related Co., the Flash Mob Disrupts Wal-mart CEO Mike Duke Appearance in Bryant Prk

Activists Promise to Continue Disrupting Wal-mart and It's Partners

On April 27, Walmart CEO Mike Duke visited New York City to have breakfast with the Wall Street Journal and a roomful of corporate elites. Everyday New Yorkers weren't invited. But we have a lot of strong opinions about his plans to take over our city and flood it with poverty wage jobs. So we decided to throw him a little surprise party, brass band in tow!

A hundred singing and dancing activists converged on Bryant Park on Wednesday to protest Walmart for its record of mistreating women, African Americans and Latinos and the LGBT community, and to confront Walmart CEO Mike Duke in person.


New York Jobs with Justice and members of the Walmart-Free NYC Coalition, including RWDSU, the Retail Action Project, New York Communities for Change, and Make the Road NY, held up yellow frowny-face masks and surrounded the windows of the Bryant Park Grill, chanting “Walmart cheats, Walmart hates, Walmart discriminates!” for nearly an hour as Mike Duke spoke inside.



Amid the chanting, a brass band loudly performed a dance number in front of the windows called "Mr. Walmart," modeled on Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff,” with a drag-clad Lady Liberty telling a performer dressed as Mr. Walmart on stilts, "Who do you think you are?/ Mr. Walmart/ You’re never gonna get my love."



“Walmart can spend as much money as it wants to buy its way into New York,” said Javier Valdes, Deputy Director of Make the Road NY, one of New York City’s largest community organizations. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Walmart doesn’t share New York’s values. They have settled a lawsuit for discriminating against black truck drivers, fired Latino workers who complained about being called racial slurs, and is facing the largest sex discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history.”



Walmart is reportedly looking to open many stores throughout the five boroughs. One possible location is the Gateway II development in East New York, Brooklyn, which is being developed by the Related Companies, who was the focus of the first Anti-Walmart flash mob. The site was subject to a lengthy community planning process, and Related’s recently reported move to introduce a Walmart into those plans without community consent have raised a flurry of opposition from concerned residents, community organizations and local elected officials.



At a recent Housing Preservation and Development hearing, concerns were raised that the City-sponsored appraisal of the land was incomplete.



According to event organizer Austin Guest of NY Jobs with Justice, “If Walmart opens stores in our city, there is no indication that they will stop their track record of killing local jobs, treating workers poorly, and eliminating competition from responsible employers. We will keep following Walmart and its allies to make sure that New Yorkers know what Walmart will bring with them into New York.”



For more information, visit www.walmartfreenyc.com

Senate Democrats, NYC Elected Officials, and Housing Advocates Call For Renewal and Strengthening of Rent Regulations to be Included in SFY 2011-12 Budget

Sen. Espaillat, Senate Dems, NYC Elected Officials, & Housing Advocates Call For Renewal and Strengthening of Rent Regulations to be Included in SFY 2011-12 Budget

With rent regulation laws that protect over 1 million units of affordable housing in New York City dangerously close to expiring, Senator Adriano Espaillat was joined by his Senate colleagues, City elected officials, and over 150 advocates to call for the immediate extension and expansion of tenant protections.

To prevent the expiration of rent regulations and the most significant “tenant tax” in the history of New York, which could force over a million New Yorkers from their homes, Senate Democrats are calling for Sen. Espaillat’s omnibus tenant protection bill (S.2783-A) to be included in the SFY 2011-12 budget. The laws governing rent regulation are set to expire on June 15, 2011. Between 1994 and 2010, it is estimated that over 300,000 units of affordable housing were removed from rent regulation.

“Raising rents on middle-class and poor families that are already struggling in this tough economy is tantamount to a crushing tax that will drive New Yorkers from their homes,” said Senator Adriano Espaillat, Ranking Democrat on the Senate Housing Committee That’s why I have introduced legislation strengthening rent control and other crucial regulations that protect tenants and stabilize communities across New York. As elected officials, leaders, and grassroots activists, we stand united in fighting to preserve the millions of homes that might be lost if rent regulations are allowed to expire on June 15th.”

Mary Tek, spokesperson for the Real Rent Reform campaign, said, “We thank Senator Espaillat for recognizing that our current, weakened rent laws have resulted in the loss of over 300,000 affordable homes for New York’s families. We need real rent reform that not only renews rent protections, but also strengthens them by repealing vacancy destabilization. Without these steps, over 1 million families face unsustainable rent hikes leading to increased homelessness, destabilized communities, and the further erosion of New York’s economy.”

Senate Democratic Conference Leader John L. Sampson said, “To maintain our communities, grow our businesses, and keep middle-class families in their homes, we must extend and expand tenant protections. If rent regulations expire over a million New Yorkers could be driven from their homes by a devastating tenant tax. Including tenant protections in the budget process will safeguard tenants and stop an affordable housing crisis from crippling New York.

New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said, “These laws are the only thing standing between our city and the largest affordable housing crisis in this country’s history. If we don’t act here and now, hundreds of thousands of working and middle class families could lose their homes. We must live up to our historic responsibility to keep the more than million apartments under threat affordable.”

Key Components of S. 2783- A/ Espaillat:

• Repeals vacancy destabilization and re-regulates most of the apartments that have been lost through this loophole in the last two decades.
• Allows New York City and suburban municipalities to bring former Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 buildings under rent stabilization.
• Reduces the statutory vacancy bonus from 20% to 10%.
• Reforms preferential rent loophole that enables landlords to increase stabilized rents by hundreds of dollars when tenants renew their leases.
• Reforms the provision that allows landlords to empty entire buildings by claiming they need more than one unit for themselves or their family members.
• Reforms the Major Capital Improvement (MCI) program by making rent surcharges temporary and which end when the landlord has recovered the cost of the improvement.
• Reforms the Individual Apartment Improvement (IAI) program by reducing the monthly rent increase from 1/40th to 1/60th of the cost of the improvement.
• Adjusts high-income deregulation thresholds to more accurately represent inflation.
• Repeals the Urstadt Law which would restore home rule powers over rent and eviction legislation to the City of New York.

Ana Maria Archila, Executive Director, Make the Road Action Fund, said, “Immigrant renters in New York City confront serious challenges finding safe, decent, and affordable housing. The deregulation of thousands of rent regulated housing units has been disastrous for immigrants, drastically cutting the supply of affordable housing in our communities. We cannot wait any longer. We must repeal vacancy decontrol this year."

NYC Community Organizations Blast Wal-mart for Partnering with Predatory Lender Jackson Hewitt

Citing History of Targeting Low-Income Families, City’s Biggest Community Organizations Join Coalition to Keep Wal-mart Out of City

On the last day for employers to send out 2010 W-2 notices, a group of New York City’s most powerful community-based organizations blasted Wal-mart for its recently announced partnership with Jackson-Hewitt, a tax preparation firm that specializes in controversial Refund Anticipation Loans.

According to Jon Kest, Executive Director of New York Communities for Change, “By partnering with one of the nation’s most notorious predatory lenders, Wal-mart has once again shown its true colors. While the company may claim to care about low income families, deals like this show their real goal is to make as much money off the backs of poor people as possible.”

Refund Anticipation Loans charge interest rates as high as 24% APR in exchange for giving taxpayers an advance on their expected tax refunds. The loans frequently target low-income families, and the IRS has long sought to ban them. Jackson Hewitt is poised to become the largest provider of such loans in the nation.

With Jackson Hewitt announcing this January that it would open service stations in over 2,000 Wal-marts around the country, leaders of many organizations representing low income New Yorkers worry that Wal-mart’s plans to open up stores in New York City could leave their members subject to exploitation.

Several community-based organizations will soon vote on endorsing the Wal-mart Free NYC Coalition, a growing alliance of workers, residents, small business owners, community leaders, clergy, and elected officials committed to keeping Wal-mart out of New York City.

Today, New York Communities for Change, Make the Road New York, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), and Picture the Homeless all announced their official endorsements of the Wal-mart Free NYC coalition.

One Make the Road New York member who runs a small business providing tax assistance to low income families across the city said he supports his organization opposing Wal-mart because the company would prevent small business owners like him from helping the community.

“As someone who works preparing people’s taxes, I know that Jackson Hewitt’s practices are predatory, and I think the fact that Wal-mart and Jackson Hewitt are working together is a sham. It just shows how much Wal-mart cares about the neighborhoods where it opens its stores. Jackson Hewitt’s practices don’t treat people right, and neither do Wal-mart’s. Instead of focusing on these big companies, we should be focusing on how businesses like mine and others like it can flourish, and how New York City can strengthen its small business motor.” said Carlos Bustamante, President of EZ Tax New York and member of Make the Road New York’s Small Business United project.

Editorial Notebook - The Cheap Cost of Cheating the Lowest Paid by Francis X. Clines- NYTimes.com

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Her baby will soon be due, so Modesta Toribio has to grudgingly admit she may not soon make her current career goal — New York’s supposedly mandatory $7.25 minimum wage — that she has been routinely denied for the past five years. She inched her salary up to $6.60 an hour from the starting $5 at a cut-rate Brooklyn clothing store mainly by pestering her bosses. Ms. Toribio has a brassy knack for that, but she has learned it takes a lot to best scheming employers.

Academic studies estimate that unscrupulous employers in New York City keep an extra billion dollars a year by defying New York State’s weak labor law and cheating timorous and ill-informed immigrant workers.

Ms. Toribio was both when she arrived from the Dominican Republic 10 years ago. But she evolved into a word-of-mouth investigator and organizer for the Make the Road New York community group. The organization has successfully worked with committed state inspectors to wring wage-theft judgments against scores of employers — $28,000 for a gouged fruit-stand peddler, $70,000 for 99-cent store workers, $400,000 from moguls squeezing the payroll at a sneaker chain.

New York needs a strong labor law like Arizona’s. Arizona is rightly notorious for its abusive anti-immigrant law. But its labor law seriously penalizes employers who retaliate against outspoken workers, and it provides confidentiality for whistle-blowers and faster, bigger damages for employers who ignore wage-theft judgments. A bill to toughen New York’s law awaits action by the Legislature, which is in its closing days, when the good and the ugly elbow for attention.

“Albany could stop an awful lot of injustice,” Ms. Toribio says prayerfully. Her voice had a steely lilt on Friday when she talked other wage-cheated workers into going with her to Manhattan to picket a grocery store. She knows a “scared guy” there, a Mexican immigrant who earns $5 an hour with no vacation or overtime allowed in his 70-hour week. “The boss,” she says, “has to understand a worker is not alone.”