Begin forwarded message: From: pete meyers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: March 4, 2007 1:38:58 PM EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: REMINDER: Celebration of Living Wage Employers, Monday, 3/5, at 7:30 p.m.
Hi folks: On Monday, March 5th, @ 7:30 p.m.,the Religious Task Force for a Living Wage, the Tompkins County Workers' Center, Catholic Charities, and the CRESP Center for Transformative Action invite you to help us "Celebrate Living Wage" at the First Baptist Church (the grey, stone church, located at the back of DeWitt Park in downtown Ithaca). The program will include Music, Poetry, Reflections, and a celebration of the local employers (now 37!) that have achieved Living Wage Certification (apparently the first of its kind anywhere) in Tompkins County. (A complete list of LW Employers to be found at www.TCWorkersCenter.org/employers). This event will also serve as the kick-off for local participation in the NYS Labor-Religion Coalition's 12th Annual 40 Hour FAST (more information on the fast can be found at http://www.labor-religion. org) which lasts from March 5th, at 8 PM until March 7th, at Noon. Workers in Tompkins County are hungering for living wage jobs. Going without food for one or more meals during the FAST is an expression of solidarity with them and their cause. Please read Edie Reagan's Letter to the Editor below about the importance of this Living Wage Employer Certification program. In solidarity Pete Certainly the recent raise in New York State’s minimum wage to $7.15/ hour is to be applauded as a salary boost to hundreds of Tompkins County workers. It is important to keep in mind, however, that this still falls substantially short of the salary required to support a family here. Someone working full time, at the new minimum wage, would earn only $14,872 annually – $2,000 below the 2007 Federal Poverty level for a family of three and $4,000 below the living wage required for a single person living in Tompkins County, according to AFCU’s 2004 Living Wage Study. Clearly we still have a long way to go. Rev. Martin Luther King once declared, “There’s nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American, whether he is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer”. The Religious Task Force for a Living Wage commends the 37 “Living Wage Certified” employers in our county who have embraced the social vision required to start pushing our local and national economic systems in a more just and equitable direction. (For a complete listing of these employers, see www.TCWorkersCenter.org/ employer.) Monday, March 5th, 7:30 PM, at the First Baptist Church, community members are invited to a “Celebrate Living Wage!” event, where these employers will be honored and we will “kick-off” local participation in the NYS Labor-Religion Coalition’s 12th Annual 40 Hour FAST (March 5th, 8 PM until March 7th, Noon). Come and “Celebrate Living Wage!”. Edie Reagan Director of Justice and Peace Ministry Catholic Charities of Tompkins County Pete Meyers TC Workers' Center 115 E. State Street Ithaca, NY 14850 607-269-0409 www.TCWorkersCenter.org www.TCSwarm.org "....Humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation which is one of the most passionate forms of love".--George Sand "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."--Paulo Freire "A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters. To lightly dismiss a success because it does not usher in a complete order of justice is to fail to comprehend the process of achieving full victory. It underestimates the value of confrontation and dissolves the confidence born of a partial victory by which new efforts are powered."--Martin Luther King, Jr. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Michael Burns http://www.cayuta.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Earn your permaculture design certificate. The Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute offers affordable local classes. http://www.fingerlakespermaculture.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _______________________________________________ fingerlakespermaculture@lists.mutualaid.org listserv RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information: http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/fingerlakespermaculture Support the list host by donating to: http://www.mutualaid.org
