Arise Chicago Leads Campaign to Pass Anti-Wage Theft Ordinance

by Adam Kader

As a result of months of collaboration between Arise Chicago and Alderman Ameya Pawar (47th ward), last Thursday the City of Chicago passed an ordinance stating that, should an employer be found guilty of wage theft, the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection could revoke the owner’s business license.

The victory garnered significant media attention in the English and Spanish-speaking media.

“When I attended Arise Chicago’s launch event for the car wash campaign, where I learned that the average car wash worker has $4,413 stolen each year, nearly a third of their income, I felt an urgency to begin work on this ordinance,” Pawar stated.

Arise Chicago worked with Pawar to develop the concept, and with the mayor’s office to craft the language of the ordinance, which was then given a two-day hearing in the city’s Licensing Committee and moved to the entire City Council for a vote. The ordinance passed unanimously.

When Alderman Pawar spoke at the City Council meeting, he commented, “This will be a good ordinance for workers and the ethical business owners of Chicago…I commend the great work and leadership of Arise Chicago in leading the fight for this ordinance.”

The legislation is significant because it makes Chicago the second and largest city in the nation to enact such a policy. The National Employment Law Project’s publication on wage theft legislation identifies license revocation policies as a “top pick” for best practices.

This ordinance has a wide-ranging impact, effectively covering all workers who are employed by a business that needs a license to operate. But those who stand to gain the most are those workers who are the most marginalized: immigrant workers and workers of color, working in non-union and low-wage industries. Indeed, in its landmark report, the UIC Center for Urban Economic Development estimates that $7.3 million is stolen in workers’ wages in a single week in Cook County. The report also finds that immigrants are 1.5 times more likely than native-born workers to have their wages stolen, and African Americans are 27 times more likely to have their wages stolen than their white counterparts.

Arise Chicago Worker Center member Liliana Baca’s story dramatizes how egregious wage theft can be: “I worked for over 60 hours a week for five years at a grocery store. And I never received overtime pay. This is my wage theft story. But I’m not the only one who has a story. So many people have had their wages stolen, and this ordinance will help them recover their wages and prevent wage theft from happening to other people.” Arise Chicago’s Worker Center has worked for years with over 3,000 workers like Liliana (above)  recover more than $5 million in stolen wages and owed compensation.

When workers’ wages are stolen, it affects their family and community life. As Alderman Pawar reflects in his ward newsletter, “These stolen wages are not going to pay down consumer debt, not going to purchase consumer goods nor are put to work in our economy through sales and income taxes. When employers steal from their employees, everybody loses.”

Wage theft hurts ethical businesses, too, by creating unfair competition for employers who want to follow the law but find themselves in a market flooded with competitors able to undercut them by stealing workers’ wages. In the Chicago car wash industry, for example, extreme wage theft is the norm, making it nearly impossible for ethical businesses to compete.

Ethical businessman David Launius, owner of We’ll Clean Car Wash, says “the human element of business is the most important.” Writing in support of the ordinance in a letter submitted to the Licensing Committee, Launius stated, “We care about the well-being of our staff. We are proud to partner with Arise Chicago to ensure that our workers are the best treated in the industry.”

Fellow Chicago worker centers, including Centro de Trabajadores Unidos/Immigrant Workers’ Project, Chicago Workers’ Collaborative, Latino Union, and Restaurant Opportunities Center brought organizers and worker members to testify in the Committee hearing in support of the ordinance.

The ordinance’s passage is a historic victory for workers because it signals that the City of Chicago will not tolerate wage theft. Perhaps Arise Chicago Worker Center member Maria Garcia best sums this up when she states, “Now the bosses are going to know that the workers have rights, too.”

–Adam is the Worker Center Program Director at Arise Chicago

Media Highlights Salon The Guardian In These Times Telemundo click photo at right for video clip Think Progress Chicago Reporter La Raza  Portside Clasp                                DNAinfo.com Progress IL                        Lincoln Square Patch 47th Ward Newsletter Arise Chicago YouTube video of press conference

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Anti-Wage Theft Ordinance Passes through City Council Unanimously!

As a result of the months of collaboration between Arise Chicago and Alderman Pawar (47th ward), on Thursday, January 17th, the City of Chicago passed an ordinance stating that, should a business owner be found guilty of wage theft, the owner’s business license could be revoked. This makes Chicago the largest city in the country with anti-wage theft legislation. The ordinance, endorsed by the National Employment Law Project as one of the strongest actions a municipality can take to combat wage theft, will impact hundreds of thousands low-wage workers and their families in Chicago.

“This ordinance helps change the conversation about good business. To be pro-business also includes caring about how employees are treated,” reflected Alderman Pawar (right).   “I think this marks an important step in leveling the playing field for the many ethical business owners in our city.”

Arise Chicago Worker Center member Liliana Baca (below) said, “I worked for over 55 hours a week for five years at a grocery store.  And I never received overtime pay. This is my wage theft story.  But I’m not the only one who has a story.  So many people have had their wages stolen, and this ordinance will help them recover their wages and prevent wage theft from happening to other people.”

The ordinance gives desperately-needed tools to the city of Chicago to ensure employers obey the law.

Follow the latest on the new anti-wage theft ordinance by joining Arise Chicago on Facebook and Twitter.

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CTU Strike Action Update

THURSDAY 9/13/12

TIFs are for Kids

Penny Pritzker sits on the Board of both Hyatt Hotels and Chicago Public Schools (CPS). As a Hyatt Board Member, she agreed to the construction of a Hyatt Hotel using $5.2 million dollars of Tax Increment Financing (TIF). This money otherwise could have helped provide for students’ basic needs like libraries and text books.

As a CPS Board Member, she failed to prioritize students and has allowed hundreds of millions of CPS dollars to be siphoned off to be given to wealthy developers and corporate headquarters via the TIF system.

The 3:30 action will call on leaders like Ms. Pritzker and the CPS Board to put children first and to use TIF funds for schools, libraries and parks rather than tax breaks to the 1%.  The wider community will join striking teachers who are fighting to protect our children and provide the education they deserve.

Thursday, September 12

3:30pm – Picket at Hyatt Regency

4:45pm – Rally and Press Conference at Park at the corner of Congress Parkway & Michigan Ave

RSVP to the Facebook Event

FRIDAY 9/14/12Religious Support for Teachers Religious leaders organized by Arise Chicago will join other community leaders at a press conference at City Hall outside the mayor’s office showing the steadfast support for the Chicago Teachers Union who is calling for: -public education to remain public -quality schools for all students -more resources for neighborhood school -a recall system that will support African American and Latinos  .  teachers in our schools Religious leaders are invited to attend and to wear prayer shawls, stoles, collars, or other items of your tradition. Friday September 14, 10:00am City Hall, 5th floor

SATURDAY 9/15/12What Teacher Solidarity Looks Like This Saturday, the Chicago Teachers Union is asking for all allies to join in a mass rally to keep public education public. The 30,000 teachers, school social workers, clerks, vision and hearing testers, school nurses, teaching assistants, counselors, and other school professionals of the Chicago Teachers Union are standing strong to defend public education from test pushers, privatizers, and a national onset of big money interest groups trying to push education back to the days before teachers had unions. Around the country and even the world, this struggle is being recognized as the front line of resistance to the corporate education agenda. Educators and supporters from across the country have pledged to travel to Chicago in solidarity to rally. Will you join us?  Help us show the world what solidarity looks like! Wear red or your Arise Chicago t-shirt.Let the CTU know you will be there by registering here. Saturday, September 15 12:00pm noon Union Park at Ashland and Lake

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Why Chicago Teachers are Striking

The Chicago Teachers Union has been attempting to negotiate a fair contract since last November.  Teachers have been working without a contract since June 30.  Should there be a strike, it is not simply about compensation, although the Board of Education has proposed combining wage and health care proposals, resulting in a net loss in salary.  Although legally the union can only strike over compensation issues, this strike is very much a fight to defend a quality public education for every Chicago student.  It is, as CTU President Karen Lewis has declared, a struggle “for the soul of public education.”

In ten months of negotiation, the Board has refused to negotiate over core union issues that would create, as the union’s hallmark study declared “The Schools that Chicago’s Students Deserve.”   The Board refuses to negotiate over classroom size; over having a nurse and social worker in every school; over having a library in every school; and over funding neighborhood schools instead of its drive to privatize public education through creating scores of non-union charter schools where teachers and parents have no voice. This is a strike that teachers and advocates of workers’ rights and supporters of public education across the nation are closely watching.

On the first day of the strike, thousands of teachers picketed outside their schools in the morning. 

In the afternoon, over 10,000 teachers and allies marched in downtown Chicago, rallying at CPS, and then surrounding City Hall.

Arise Chicago staff and members have been supporting the Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign at strike headquarters, making banners, marching with teachers, and more.  See how to get involved below.

What You Can Do to Support Teachers:

• Each day of the strike, you can join teachers on the picket lines at every school from 6:30 to 10:30am.  Click here for list sorted by school or by zip code.
• Volunteer at the Chicago Teachers Union Strike Solidarity Center at Teamsters Auditorium at 300 S. Ashland to make signs and banners, organize donations, help with sign distribution, sign-up to leaflet materials, help with banner drops, etc. Call Luke for details: 616-745-5134 or just show up.
• Join teachers and supporters to rally and march every day. Check out CTU’s Strike Central for daily action updates.
• Offer public prayers for and blessings of teachers in your house of worship and invite a teacher to speak.
• Pick up your CTU support signs at Teamsters Auditorium at 300 S. Ashland to put in your window or yard and distribute signs to coffee shops, work places, etc.  For those driving by, pick-up on Van Buren, just west of Ashland, is possible without getting out of your car.
• Call Gus or Daisy at Primo’s Pizza at (312) 243-1052, a locally owned and teacher-friendly restaurant to make a donation by credit card so teachers and supporters at the Solidarity Center can have pizza, pasta, and salads delivered to them.  Consider pooling donations with others and making just one phone call.  Please try not call during peak hours of 11:45 to 1:15.  Donations have already been called in from around the country!
• Call Mayor Emanuel at 312-744-330 or CPS CEO Brizard at 773-553-1500 to tell them that CPS students deserve smaller class sizes, more libraries and computers, and that the teachers deserve a fair contract.
• Wear red every day, even if you are not able to join the marches.
• Sign up to get the latest news:
• Facebook:  www.facebook.com/ChicagoTeachersSolidarity
• Twitter: @CTSCampaign or @AriseChicago
• Website: ctscampaign.weebly.com
• CTU Strike Central
• Questions?  Email:  ChicagoTeachersSolidarity@gmail. com
• Text message updates: text @ctsc2012 to 23559 to receive strike and picket updates

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A Blessing I’m Thrilled to Have Been a Part of

By Mimi Harris

Mimi Harris, fighter for working people (Photo: Richard A. Chapman~Sun-Times)

Most of you who know me know that I’ve been raising hell in the streets, one way or another, for most of my life. But last Wednesday, May 23, was the crème de la crème for me, and I’m so exhilarated by it, I want to share it with you.

Dressed to the nines, and after two days of intensive, exhausting preparations, I attended (with about 30 others) the annual meeting of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a shareholder. Late last year the “Merc” received a huge tax break from the supposedly bankrupt state of Illinois. The tax break — a form of corporate welfare — officially goes into effect in July and will cost the state an estimated $77 million per year, though this number will depend on the CME’s profits (which have grown at an average rate of 19% annually for the last 30 years!). Over the next decade, that will cost us – you and me, folks – a billion dollars, easily.

Meanwhile the rest of us are expected to suffer through huge cuts to childcare, Medicaid (I, myself, will no longer get the help I need for medication), mental health facilities, state parks, as well as job and pension cuts. Sadly this long list goes on. And on.

At the CME shareholder meeting, the Board of Directors, including financial columnist Terry Savage, and the executives were there to vote themselves raises. After all, they made nearly $2 billion in profits just last year. (So why do they need a tax break?) Their last CEO retired at 50 with a golden parachute of millions. I’m still working, at age 80, because I have to, and paying my fair share of taxes.

What’s wrong with this picture?

The Merc was also awarded $15 million in TIF funds to redo their bathrooms and conference rooms. The Stand Up! Chicago coalition, bless their hearts, delivered a golden toilet to them. That evidently helped them to do the right thing: they relinquished their rights to the TIF funds.

It was so gratifying last week to be in the room with them and speak truth to power and see them cringe. For the landsmen (kinsmen) I saw among them, I had a special private message that I was able to deliver to some — that their behavior is a shanda (a scandal, shameful, humiliation for our people)!

Most of you, maybe all of you, even if you are very comfortable, are part of the 99%. I encourage you to act like it. After all, if Stand Up! Chicago got them to return $15 million in TIF funds with a golden toilet, think what else we can do! In my view, our country is at stake.

For me, this action was a blessing and I am thrilled to have been a part of it!

-Mimi is a veteran organizer, a Board Member of Arise Chicago, a Board Member of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and an active participant in Jane Addams Senior Caucus, Organization of the NorthEast, and the Social Action Committee of Emanuel Congregation.

For more photos from the action, check out the Arise Chicago photo album on Facebook.

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Hyatt Workers in Chicago Stage One-Day Strike; IWJ Supporters Join the Picket Line

By Micah Uetricht

Workers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago walked off the job on Monday for a day, and were joined by religious leaders, labor organizers, and the rank-and-file faithful Interfaith Worker Justice‘s biannual conference on the picket line.

Attendees paid visits to two other Hyatt hotels in Chicago, staging “pray-ins” in the lobby areas of the Hyatt McCormick and the Park Hyatt.

The workers’ union, Unite Here, says there are two big sticking points in their contract negotiations: subcontracting and working conditions.

It’s understandable why workers want something in writing regarding subcontracting. Hyatt made national headlines in 2009 after the company told 98 of its nonunion housekeepers they had to train substitutes to fill in for them when the housekeepers went on vacation. Later in the day, the workers were abruptly informed that those subs were permanent: all 98 were summarily fired and would be replaced by temp workers who made minimum wage.

The episode drew nearly unanimous scorn from community groups, labor, and even business groups–the Harvard Business Review, hardly known as a friend to workers, titled one blog post “Lessons from Hyatt: Simple Ways to Damage Your Brand.” (Apparently HBR was less concerned about a company laying workers off than a company laying workers off in a way that didn’t play well in the press.)

It is understandable, then, that Hyatt workers in Chicago would want some language in their contract that would set out some guidelines about subcontracting.

Regarding workplace injuries, a 2010 study found that Hyatt housekeepers have the highest rates of injury out of any hotel company in the country.

- Micah is a Midwest Academy Organizing Intern at Arise Chicago

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Chicago Stands Up Against Corporate Greed

Last week thousands of working Chicagoans protested corporations in attendance of a Midwest Chamber of Commerce summit.  Protesters demanded accountability from corporations who, by failing to pay taxes, have caused the housing crisis, unemployment, and budget deficits.  Check out the action here.

To join the growing movement, visit Stand Up! Chicago.

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125 Years Later

2011 Reenactment of the Haymarket Affair and the following trial and execution of the Haymarket Martyrs in Chicago

By:  Shelly Ruzicka

At first I could not understand why the workers…silently and without a sign of protest bore every insult the caprice of the foreman or boss would heap upon them. I was not aware of the fact that the opportunity to work was a privilege, a favor, and that it was in the power of those who were in the possession of the factories and instruments of labor to deny or grant this privilege. […] I did not know that there were thousands and thousands of idle human bodies in the market, ready to hire out upon most any conditions, actually begging for employment. […] I knew then why … they suffered the humiliating dictates and capricious whims of their employers.

These are not the words of a contemporary privileged middle class college student discovering the reality of today’s working class.  These are not the words of a recent immigrant to the United States, discovering that the “American Dream” of a good job to support one’s family is chock full of wage theft and exploitation. No.  These are the words of a German immigrant, writing his autobiography from prison 125 years ago.   These are the words of Haymarket Martyr August Spies

Many of the speeches of the Haymarket Martyrs have been reprinted and used as rallying cries.  Not quite as well-known are the autobiographies of all eight imprisoned men, commissioned by the Knights of Labor weekly labor journal in Chicago while in prison.  In reading these autobiographies for the first time, a few passages stood out to me, and when read out of context, appear as words from a contemporary writer.

Since attending May Day events in commemoration of the 125^th anniversary of Haymarket, I’ve been reflecting on the differences and similarities between the struggles of the 1880s and today.  First, to remember the past.

May Day 2011: One hundred twenty-five years since the strike for the eight-hour day.  One hundred twenty-five years after May Day was established following the killing of McCormick workers and the Haymarket rally in response to the police brutality brought upon those workers.  One hundred twenty-five years after the arrest and imprisonment of a group of workers & organizers, now referred to as the Haymarket Eight.  One hundred twenty-four years after the state’s wrongful execution of four of those men (Albert Parsons, August Spies, Andolph Fischer, and George Engle—as well as Louis Lingg who died in prison either by suicide or murder).

One hundred and twenty-five years.  Four generations of lives.  A century and a half.  So much has changed in that span of time—in our world, in our country, in our city.  A city that sparked a national and international movement for workers’ rights.  While the context has changed and shifted, our economy has changed and grown, industries have developed and moved around the globe, certain basic concepts and ideals have remained the same.  Employer practices have changed, becoming more sophisticated in the strategies utilized to maximize profits and exploit workers.  And workers in turn, developed new strategies to organize and fight back (one example—the Worker Center model).  But again, while the context is different—we’ve raised the floor, created minimum standards, and won victories for improving the standard of living via collective bargaining and workplace benefits—some things remain the same. The premise hasn’t changed.  Workers have to fight tooth and nail to win small improvements and to hold on to already-won benefits.  Many struggle to even meet the fairly low standards our state and federal government put in place decades ago.  Even though the general environment appears quite different on the surface, there with striking similarities to the past.

While workers today do not face the same level of physical violence as the workers of 125 years ago, they face rhetorical violence that have similar effects.  Perhaps one of the greatest examples is the crackdown by the state (via far right wing politicians) on organized public workers (i.e. governors in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan…).  Another example of rhetorical violence against organized workers is the direct verbal threat of con artist Andrew Breitbart who declared that his next targets (to destroy via lies and video editing) are teachers and unions.  Public figures like Scott Walker and Andrew Breitbart are using their positions of power or “fame” to put forward policies and messages that are in direct opposition to the interest of the majority of the public.

However, in today’s unstable economy, some are willing to listen to scapegoating preached by those such as Walker and Breitbart.  Did we not learn anything from the wrongful state murder of the Haymarket Martyrs?  Have we not learned to dig two inches below the surface and ask questions?  Why have so many allowed themselves to fall victim to the lies?  I won’t get into the discussion of the right-wing media machine.  That is for another day.  Instead I turn back to August Spies’ observation of workers’ fear in a time of mass joblessness.  Why, he asked, would workers put up with horrible conditions?  Why, we should ask ourselves do we lay beholden to attacks on workers by corporations and politicians?  Some things remain the same.  The fear of losing one’s job, especially knowing how many thousands are eagerly awaiting employment—no matter how low-paying or discriminator—is a powerful motivator.

But are all workers so fearful and beholden to their employers and those in power?  While it may seem so, I have to report stories that speak to the contrary.  A man who worked for his employer for over a decade put up with non-payment of overtime wages and derogatory treatment for years.  After learning the tools to confront his employer, the worker did so, demanding his back wages and the right to a safe and non-discriminatory environment, saying it was more important to take a stand than to save his job.  The power here is not just in winning wages or even in improving conditions.  The power here is in the transformation of all those involved.  The worker said  “I feel like I can finally breathe.  After years of feeling like I was drowning, I can finally breathe.”  The employer—for probably the first time in his life—had the tables changed and understood that he no longer had the upper hand in the relationship.  But that worker didn’t stop there.  That worker is now engaged in building an organization, building a movement of workers to change the tide.  Riding on the heels of Wisconsin, this worker is ready to make history.  This is one story.  It is seemly a small change.  But it encompasses the power and the meaning of May Day.  Let us all embrace this courage, this vision held by the Haymarket Eight and by countless workers across this country.   Onward to a better tomorrow.

Over 1000 workers and allies commemorated May Day at the cemetery where the Haymarket Martyrs are buried, and raised their fists in commitment to continue the struggle of 125 years ago

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