The gap between rich and poor is at an all-time high in New York City. In
2005, low-wage workers made only two cents for every dollar earned by those
at the top of the economic ladder. In these disconcerting times, in which low-paying
service jobs have largely replaced union manufacturing jobs, Make the Road
New York works on many levels to improve job opportunities for low-income New
Yorkers throughout New York City:
Forging an Innovative Partnership with the Retail Workers Union:
¡Despierta Bushwick!
In 2005, Make the Road New York developed our latest and most ambitious workplace
justice project, the ¡Despierta Bushwick! ("Wake Up Bushwick")
campaign to stop the rampant exploitation of retail workers in our community.
Thriving retailers are paying workers as little as $2.00 per hour, and almost
no area employers provide paid sick days, holidays, vacation, or health benefits.
Employees attending to sick children are regularly fired for unavoidable absences,
and women who become pregnant are dismissed.
¡Despierta Bushwick! is a collaborative effort of Make the Road New York’s
workers’ committee, Workers in Action, and the Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union (RWDSU) to confront these conditions. The campaign targets abusive
employers on Knickerbocker Avenue, a thriving retail strip near our offices
in the heart of Bushwick.
The goal: establish enforceable employment standards — including higher
wages, paid sick days and vacation, and job protections for workers. Those
workplaces where workers want to organize a union will be organized into a
new, democratic, Bushwick-based local union. Those who choose not to unionize
will benefit from targeted enforcement of their rights by Make the Road New
York and the New York State Attorney General’s office.
In the process, we hope to develop a model strategy that can be replicated
in other places where community-based organizations have built a geographically-centralized,
politically active membership.
A Major Victory for Employees at a New York Retail Chain
After years of paying workers a fraction of the minimum wage, the owners of
a ten-store chain of sneaker and sportswear shops agreed to almost double
their employees’ wages and to provide health insurance and other important
benefits to workers.
Responding to pressure from the Workers in Action project of Make the Road
New York, the owner signed a Good Business Community Agreement pledging
to allow the workers in all their stores to decide free of coercion if they
want to join a union, and, further, to negotiate a contract in good faith with
the workers and their union.
The workers chose a union, and on December 1st the owner signed a contract
covering over one hundred workers. This contract will eventually raise wages
to $8.15/hour, provide time-and-a-half overtime pay, health insurance, time-off
benefits including vacation and sick days, protection from unjust firings,
and a voice at work. This marked a major victory for workers.
Legal Advocacy: Innovative Legal Services Protect Workers’ Rights
Make the Road New York is constantly innovating to improve our leverage and
reach so that we can assist greater numbers of low-wage workers in New York
City. We utilize a combination of federal court litigation, training workers
about using small claims court and government agency complaint processes, and
informal legal advocacy on behalf of workers who have been denied wages or
been exploited on the job. Our Legal Department’s unique status as an
integrated part of Make the Road New York’s whole enables us to coordinate
these legal strategies with workers’ collective action, consumer boycotts,
media attention and other methods of pressuring unscrupulous employers. During
2005, we collected over $600,000 in unpaid wages and overtime, in cases like
that of "Luis M."
Luis worked as a non-union laborer doing heavy digging and cement work for
a major utility company’s subcontractor. He had to report at 6am every
morning to load the crew’s truck; but his first hour of work each day
was unpaid. Luis also worked at least 60 hours a week but never received time-and-a-half
overtime pay as required by law. Make the Road New York filed a lawsuit on
Luis’s behalf in federal court. After several months’ litigation,
Luis received $35,000 and reinstatement with the company, but this time with
union protection and union pay — a raise of more than $7 per hour, to
$24 an hour.
Expanding Civil Rights | Promoting Health | Improving Housing | Winning Workplace Justice | Improving Public Education
