Syracuse Common Council to Vote on Living Wage Bill

Syracuse Common Council to Vote on Living Wage Bill

In a recent letter to the Syracuse Post-Standard, a citizen asked:

School bus drivers, school monitors and parking attendants make poverty wages with no benefits. Why is it that the working poor of Syracuse have to suffer?

The Living Wage bill should have been passed two years ago. Other cities in New York state have done it already. Why not us? Our councilors are doing the right thing. This is our first step toward stopping poverty in Central New York.

Today in Syracuse, the Common Council has an opportunity to pass a Syracuse Living Wage bill. The vote will take place today at 1 PM at City Hall in the Common Council chambers. It would force companies who do business with the city to pay employees $10.08 an hour. It would also require them to provide health benefits and vacation in order to get city contracts.

What will they do?

What can you do?

UPDATE:

The Living Wage bill has not yet passed. There are matters of collective bargaining-related legalese that must be clarified and/or amended, and the Council will meet again in May (no date set yet) to reconsider the amended proposal.

Link to story here.


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U.S. Congressman James T. Walsh, R-Syracuse, will discuss transforming Upstate's economy at 6 p.m. Monday, April 25, in the Panasci Chapel at Le Moyne College.

The talk, sponsored by the Madden Institute for Business Education at Le Moyne, is free and open to the public.

Edwards Family Political Activism

Edwards Family Political Activism


Cate Edwards (left) helps to kick off 'Generation Engaged'
photo credit: WRAL-Raleigh

Cate Edwards, daughter of John and Elizabeth Edwards, is showing her enthusiasm for politics and is inviting other young people to join her. Cate and seven others are starting a new campaign called Generation Engage. She hosted an event last Saturday night at King’s in downtown Raleigh, N.C. to kick off the campaign. Generation Engage will encourage young people to become involved in politics on a regular basis, not just every four years when the nation elects the president.

John Edwards has issued a statement urging his former colleagues to reject federal Judge Terrence Boyle's nomination for the U.S. Court of Appeals, saying Boyle's decisions have been reversed at a disturbingly high rate. He has also said that Boyle's record on civil rights is troubling.

John Edwards made a phonecall to protesting student group in Missouri to say he supported them, according to Ojiugo Uzoma, a senior who had slept in a tent just outside the office on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The Student Worker Alliance (SWA) was conducting a sit-in protest, which included a six-day hunger strike, protesting the wages of university workers. According to Inside Higher Ed writer David Epstein, "the Washington University protests followed a hunger strike over similar issues at Georgetown University and marked a ratcheting up of activism on behalf of low-level employees in higher education. The protests here and elsewhere are attracting strong backing from organized labor, which sees student idealism as a powerful force."