Your Workers' Center stops wage theft by working with workers, not for them

Your partnership with workers seeking justice: an insider's peek into WIN's Workers' Center

Delmar Vasquez appreciated that through the Workers' Center, "I got to be part of solving my problem."

     As WIN's Workers' Center takes on wage theft cases, we have two equally important goals: recovering wages, and building workers' power.

     In 2008, Delmar Vasquez contacted WIN's Workers' Center after a cleaning company refused to pay him for a month's worth of work. He soon learned that the Workers' Center would use labor laws to support his wage theft case. However, he would be much more involved in resolving his case than he would have been if he'd just contacted a lawyer.

    That's because one of the ideas that guides your Workers' Center is this: we're here to partner with workers in resolving their cases, not to do things for them.

 

    This means that when public actions such as vigils or pickets are planned, workers like Vasquez are expected to participate in them. While this new experience can be intimidating at first, workers often leave with a greater sense of the power they have to challenge injustice.

    Vasquez took part in a delegation to one of the businesses that he had cleaned while working for the cleaning contractor that owed him money. He also talked about his case at public forums on the crisis of wage theft. Now, he's become a member of the Steering Committee for WIN's Workers' Center. He frequently talks with other workers who face the same injustices he did, and he encourages them to speak out.

    Vasquez recovered the full $1,437 he was owed for his work. One of the things he appreciates most about his involvement in the Workers' Center goes beyond the wages he recovered. "I got to learn the facts more about my rights and how we can organize. I was not depending on someone else to solve my problem. At the Center, you get to be part of solving your problem," Vasquez says.

March 7th Lobby Day: Your Chance to Defend Workers' Rights

Legislators' decisions in Nashville will have major impact on workers throughout state

"There's just an energy in the air," Renee Dillard says of her experience at Lobby Day last year.



State Decisions, Local Impact

     What happens in Nashville does not stay in Nashville. Decisions made by state legislators can change the lives of workers in Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Martin, and all across the state.

    Just ask public school teachers who lost their right to collective bargaining last year. Or ask a low-wage worker at the University of Memphis who finally got her first pay raise in four years.

    That's why Workers Interfaith Network and the United Campus Workers union invite you to join forces in a statewide Lobby Day at the legislature on Wednesday, March 7th.

Your Chance to Be Courageous

     Before participating in Lobby Day last year, Rev. Renee Dillard says she hadn't been to the state capitol since a 7th grade field trip. "Lobbying was a little intimidating to think about," she says. "But the training I got ahead of time helped me know what to expect and how to talk about the issues. On Lobby Day, I met new people, and the exchanges we had with legislators were more positive than I thought they would be. It felt good to know I was doing my part to make a difference with workers."

What We're Asking Legislators to Do

      On Lobby Day, we'll be pressing our legislators on two main issues. The first is rejecting a dangerous and misguided bill that bans living wage ordinances in our state. If passed, Sen. Kelsey and Rep. Casada's bill will repeal large portions of the living wage laws that the City of Memphis and Shelby County passed years ago. The bills are just one example of conversative lawmakers who say they believe in local government control for one moment, then turn around and interfere in local affairs when they don't like something a city governmet does.

      The second focus of Lobby Day will be pressing legislators to pass a fair pay raise for employees at public colleges and universities across Tennessee. In his State of the State address, Gov. Haslam proposed a 2.5 percent pay raise for state workers. While this proposal is a good start, a percentage raise won't do much for workers who are paid poverty wages. For example, a typical custodian at the University of Memphis would get a $425 annual raise under the Governor's proposal, while the University President would get a $7,600 raise.

    At Lobby Day, you'll be pushing for a much more fair solution: a $1 per hour pay increase for all higher education employees. While top administrators don't need a huge bump in pay, ordinary workers will use this pay raise to meet urgent, basic needs for their families.

    During Lobby Day, we'll also rally on the capitol steps for good jobs and living wages at noon.

Sign up for March 7th Lobby Day

    Register for Lobby Day online or call Zach Ferguson at 901-332-3570 for more information. Once you have registered, we'll schedule lobbying appointments for you and arrange for your transportation. At this point, we know for sure we will have buses leaving from Memphis and Knoxville, and there will probably be caravans forming in other cities.

Schedule for Lobby Day

The Memphis bus will leave at 5:30 a.m. Central time and the Knoxville bus will leave at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time.

9:00 - 10:30   Training for lobbying teams

10:30 - noon   Visits to legislators in teams

Noon - 1:00    Rally on the capitol steps

1:00 - 3:00     Visits to legislators and/or lunch break

3:00                Return to home cities

Your best shot at protecting workers rights in the legislature

      The Tennessee legislature went into session this week, spending most of its time fighting over re-districting lines. But it won't take long before legislators begin debating bills that will have a big impact on the rights of workers across our state.

      Workers Interfaith Network wants to help advocates like you be more prepared and informed this year. That's why we're launching a brand new email list dedicated to tracking and taking action on worker rights bills in the legislature. Sign up here so that you'll know exactly what to do when critical bills come up, like:

• positive bills that will create fair raises for Tennessee's public higher education workers
• negative bills that will repeal our local living wage and prevailing wage laws
• negative bills that will take away the voice of union members in our political process
• negative bills that scapegoat immigrant workers and don't protect their labor rights.

      You may have noticed a pattern: a lot more negative proposals than positive ones. If you kept up with 2011 legislative session, you know that workers' rights were under heavy attack.

      Tennessee's teachers were stripped of the collective bargaining rights they had for over 30 years. Legislators passed a bill that gives permission to local government contractors to discriminate against workers based on sexual orientation. Another law passed requires Tennessee employers to use the deeply flawed e-verify system to check workers' immigration status, an act that will surely lead to hiring discrimination against job applicants who look or sound foreign.

      If you're like me, you're ready to let legislators know that you expect them to stand up for Tennessee's workers, not attack them. So please, sign up for legislative alerts today.

     You may be asking, "If I already get emails from WIN, do I need to sign up for legislative alerts?" Yes, if you want to take action at the legislature, please sign up. This is a separate list from our general WIN email list, which mostly concerns local Memphis issues.

     How else can you stand with Tennessee's workers at the legislature this year?

• Share this post on your Twitter or Facebook page, or easily email to your friends by clicking on one of the buttons at the end of this post. Let people know why you're signing up for alerts, and encourage them to as well. We need folks from every county in the state to sign up!
• If you're part of a union, community group, or congregation that has a gathering coming up, use our print sign up sheet to collect names of others who want to be on the list. Then, just mail it back to WIN using the address at the bottom of the sign up sheet.
• Save the date for a worker rights lobby day in Nashville on Wednesday, March 7th.  Transportation will be available from Memphis and Knoxville, and may be available from other cities too. More information will be coming soon on the blog and through the legislative alert email list.

Gov. Haslam must go farther in stopping living wage repeal

Last week, Gov. Bill Haslam stated in a national CBS story that he didn't think the state should be getting involved in local governments' decisions about passing living wage laws. But Haslam stopped short of saying whether he would veto a proposed legislature ban on local living wage ordinances.

Sign the petition to Gov. Haslam, telling him he should commit now to vetoing any ban or repeal of living wage ordinances in Tennessee communities.

What is this bill about?
For those of you who are new to the living wage fight here in Tennessee, here's some background. In 2006, the City of Memphis passed our state's first living wage ordinance, require the City's contractors to pay workers at least $10.27 an hour with health insurance, or $12.32 an hour without insurance. In 2007, Shelby County passed a similar law for their local government contractors.

The logic behind these laws is simple: workers on government contracts are doing work for the City and are paid by taxpayer dollars. Therefore, the City has a special responsibility to make sure its resources are not being used to create poverty jobs.

Ever since activists like you got these living wage laws passed, state legislators (including many who don't live anywhere near Shelby County) have tried to get these laws repealed.

What happened to local control?
While a living wage should not be a partisan issue, most Republican state legislators are not in favor of living wage initiatives. As the Tennessee legislature has grown a deeper shade of red the past couple of years, this has put our local living wage laws in serious jepoardy.

The ban on living wages would also mean other local governments in Tennessee would never be able to debate and consider their own living wage laws for their local government contractors.

Gov. Haslam stated in the CBS article that "he's not a fan of living wages." We're not asking him or state legislators to promote living wage laws.

We are asking them to uphold a principle that conservatives do say they support: local decisions should be made at the local level. Aren't our local elected officials in a better position to decide what to do with their own contracts than the state is? If the federal government had new requirements for state of Tennessee contractors, conservative state legislators would howl about big government interference in their affairs.

Gov. Haslam's statements are a good start to taking the momentum away from the living wage repeal bill. But we need more than just words: we need a commitment that he will veto this bill if the legislature passes it.

What you can do:

• Sign our change.org petition to Gov. Haslam urging him to pledge to veto the living wage repeal.
• Spread the word among your friends across Tennessee that their signatures are also needed. Change.org  has easy to use features that allow you to share the petition with your Facebook friends, on Twitter, or by email.

Misleading comments from Sen. Brian Kelsey
    In the CBS article about Haslam's comments, Sen. Brian Kelsey, a sponsor of the anti-living wage bill, tried to claim his actions stem from a concern about the working poor. The truth is that Sen. Kelsey is trying to mislead people about what local living wage ordinances actually do.

    Kelsey claims that living wage ordinances cause unemployment among minority teens, presumably because companies paying living wages would no longer want to hire these young workers. His statement makes people think that living wage ordinances cover all businesses, when they are actually very targeted.

    Living wage ordinances only cover local government contractors, and only cover the jobs that are performed directly for the City or County. The jobs covered by our local living wage laws are primarily janitorial, security, and landscaping jobs worked during the school day. Teens would not be filling these jobs even if they paid the minimum wage. Furthermore, the Shelby County ordinance specifically exempts contractors from paying a living wage to persons under the age of 18 or those completing student internships.

Do you hear an outcry from businesses?
    Rep. Glen Casada, sponsor of the House version of the anti-living wage bill, complains that living wage ordinances are just too burdensome on businesses. In a Tennessean article, he said businesses just can't keep up with different wage requirements in different places.

    If this is true, where is the outcry from businesses in Memphis and Shelby County about our living wage ordinances? When these bills were being debated, I was present at each of the three City votes and County votes where the bill was heard. No business came forward to say that these ordinances would hurt them if passed. I've heard legislators like Casada claim to speak for these businesses, but I haven't seem local contractors going to the legislature, calling for the living wage repeal to be passed.

    The truth is, the living wage repeal is not being requested by businesses. It is a huge overreach by state government into local government affairs. And it hurts workers who have been taking care of their families for years now with the living wages they earn. We must let Gov. Haslam, and all our legislators know, that Tennesseans do not want this bill.

What's really going on with the Postal Service

If you watch the nightly news, you've probably heard that the U.S. Postal Service has had $20 billion in lost revenue. You've probably also heard some Congressional leaders suggest this means the Postal Service must be slashed to make it more "efficient." But the news stories are leaving out a lot of relevant facts, painting an inaccurate picture of the state of the Postal Service.

Once you've learned more, I hope you will sign this petition from America's postal workers to preserve Saturday delivery. (Scroll down past the petitions you can download, and you'll find an online version you can sign.)

What you need to know about the U.S. Postal Service:

1. The Postal Service does not use any taxpayer dollars, and it has not for the past 30 years. All its funding comes from the sale of products and services.
2. In recent years, the labor productivity of postal workers has doubled.
3. Despite the recession, over the past four fiscal years, the Postal Service has earned a $611 million net profit delivering the mail.
4. The $20 billion in postal losses you've heard about are not related to mail delivery. The real reason behind them is legislation passed by the 2006 Congress that has the ridiculous requirement that the Postal Service pre-fund its future retirees' health benefits for the next 75 years, and that USPS must do this within the next decade. You read that right - Congress is requiring the Postal Service have funding now for retirees who haven't even started working for the Postal Service yet. This is a burden that no other public or private business is required to meet.
5. Lawmakers can fix this mess without taxpayer dollars by passing House Bill 1351, which would give the Postal Service access to the funding it has already set aside for these future benefits.
6. The Postal Service also has tens of billions of earned revenue in surplus funds, which other businesses would tap into during a recession. However, the Postal Service can only draw on this money with Congressional approval.
7. While cutting Saturday delivery represents a 16 percent cut in services, it does not save the Postal Service much money.
8. If Saturday deliveries are eliminated, it will undercut the Postal Service's ability to deliver parcels, which is the fastest growing part of its business right now.
9. Cutting Saturday delivery is likely to drive mailers away, making the Postal Service's financial problems worse.

Please support your postal workers by signing the petition today to keep six day delivery.

Lord, when did I see you oppressed?

A reflection on the lectionary gospel reading for Sunday, November 20th

    The weekend of November 19th - 20th, Workers Interfaith Network is encouraging Mid-South congregations to observe a wage theft sabbath. The following post is a reflection on the Christian lectionary text that clergy can use to incorporate wage theft concerns into their sermons or homilies.

     Many Christian churches will celebrate Christ the King Sunday on November 20th. The lectionary text for the day, Matthew 25:31-46, gives us an opportunity to reflect on just what kind of a king Jesus is.
   
    The rulers of this world often seek power and wealth for themselves. In Matthew 25, Jesus once again points toward the "upside down" kingdom of God. He does not ask the nations when they have amassed gold for him or gathered armies for battle. Instead he declares that our actions toward the most impoverished and vulnerable have actually been done to him.

    In reading Jesus' words about the hungry, sick, and imprisoned, we might assume Christ only asks us to meet the immediate needs of the poor. If we consider Matthew 25 in light of Jesus' many other teachings about wealth, poverty, and injustice, we quickly see that providing comfort alone is not enough.

    From Jesus' announcement in Luke 4 that he has come to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to his turning over of the moneychangers' tables in the Temple, it is clear that the kingdom of God includes economic justice. It isn't hard to imagine Jesus adding another criteria to his long list in Matthew 25. I can hear the nations asking him, "Lord, when did we see you oppressed, and we acted for justice for you?" Other nations might ask, "Lord, when were you a victim of injustice, and we stayed silent?"

    After all, hunger, poverty, and injustice are intimately connected. Seeking God's kingdom means both feeding the poor and asking why they are hungry. And for many of our brothers and sisters, their hunger and poverty is through no fault of their own. Some cannot find work at all, or enough work to pay the bills. Others have worked hard, and have been taken advantage of by an employer who refuses to pay them.

    There are few insults that sting as deeply as laboring for another person, and then not receiving the pay that has been promised to you. While it is shocking, wage theft is not uncommon. Recent research suggests that as many as two out of three low-wage workers have been cheated out of some wages that are owed to them.

    The bad news is that when people of faith and good will are silent, wage theft continues unchecked.

    The good news is that when people of faith speak up with victims of injustices like wage theft, bad employers are much less likely to get away with cheating their workers.

     This is another way that the church can feed the poor, in addition to our food pantries and soup kitchens. When wage theft is stopped, many of the hungry and naked can feed and clothe themselves through their own labor, as they desired to all along.

Find more resources and sign up your congregation to participate in the wage theft sabbath.

Speak out for a living wage on November 1st

     Some people would say it's crazy to call for a living wage in this economy. Maybe it is a little crazy. But I'll tell you something else - it's working.

     Because of the activism of workers, students, and community members like you, the University of Memphis has taken first steps toward a living wage for their workers. All of last academic year, the United Campus Workers union, Workers Interfaith Network, and the Progressive Student Alliance publicly pushed the University to move to a living wage for all U. of M. workers. Many of you wrote emails and postcards, made phone calls to the University. You lobbied the state legislature. You took part in a speak out on campus, a prayer vigil, and a rally to deliver the hundreds of postcards you gathered for President Shirley Raines.

    The result? After four years of no pay raises, the University implemented a raise of 3% or $750 a year, which ever was greater. The $750 option, called a flat dollar minimum raise, is important because it's especially targeted to low-wage workers. Many custodial workers and other low-wage workers ended up getting 3 times as big of a raise because of this new approach. And it was an approach raised by activists like you!

   The University has also just implemented a one time $1,000 bonus for most full-time workers.
   But before you assume that our work is done, I also want to stress that many current workers at the University still make far below a living wage. Plus, the University has not changed any of its practices or policies about what new workers are paid when they are hired. Many new positions still pay just above minimum wage.

    That's why workers need you to come to a Living Wage Speak Out on Tuesday November 1st at 6:00 p.m. in Brister Hall Room 220.

    At the Speak Out, you'll:

• learn about what pay and working conditions are like for workers right now.
• understand how the first steps toward a living wage were won last academic year.
• get involved in efforts this academic year to push the University to take further steps to a living wage.
• hear from activists in the successful Vanderbilt University campaign for a living wage.

    Directions to Brister Hall: Brister is located on Alumni Ave., near the intersection of Alumni and Patterson St. There are two ways you can enter the building. If you are entering from the Alumni Ave. entrance, you will already be on the second floor when you enter. If you are entering from Wilder Tower (which is attached to Brister Hall), you will need to turn left at the elevators and go up 1 flight of stairs to get to the 2nd floor of Brister Hall.

    Parking info: A few metered spaces are available for visitors in the lot at Mynders and Patterson. There are also metered spots available in the large parking lot across the railroad tracks on Southern. Garage parking is available for $2 an hour in the garage on Zach Curlin, next to Campus School. You may also be able to find free street parking along Walker or Zach Curlin.
   View a University of Memphis campus map.

Help strengthen WIN's work for a living wage. Become a Workers Interfaith Network member today.