Dear Lucas,
Five years after Wall Street and the Big Banks bet against the future of the American people and triggered the Great Recession, our economy is still limping along. Low-wage jobs, once held by teenagers looking to make extra cash, have become the norm for thousands of New York families.
While corporations continue to make record profits, wages for working people have stagnated and in one of the most expensive cities in the country, companies like McDonalds get away with paying their workers $7.25 per hour.
Last month, we embarked on an historic new campaign to organize workers in the notoriously low paying $11 billion fast food industry.Standing together on November 29th, more than 200 workers from McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Dominos and Yum Brands! walked off the job for a one day strike kicking off the campaign to demand higher wages and a union for fast food workers.
Can you support NYCC's campaign to organize workers in fast food and other low wage industries? Click here to make a contribution.
But that wasn't the only time we made history this year. As part of our WASH-NY campaign with Make the Road NY, car wash workers in Queens voted to join a union for the very first time in the history of New York City.Since then workers in car washes across the city have built on this momentum. Just this month, Sunny Day Car Wash in the Bronx became the 5th car wash to vote to union in NYC.
And in our campaign to organize grocery store workers we made great strides, winning more than 1 million dollars in back wages for immigrant workers who had been paid less than minimum wage for years.
Fair pay for a day's work is a fundamental American value, and a right that many of us have come to expect. But as the old saying goes, rights are like muscles - if you don't exercise them, they disappear.By standing up for their rights, these brave workers have fortified the rights of all working people.
Can you give $25 to support NYCC's low-wage worker organizing in 2013? Click here to make a contribution.
Best,
Olivia Leirer
Communications and Social Media Director