Blog
Download the report
In New York City, hundreds of car wash workers are mobilizing to raise their wages, improve working conditions, and gain dignity on the job.
This spring, CPD co-authored a report that highlights the low wages and rough conditions at car washes owned by John Lage, the largest operator in NYC.
The report, titled “The Car Wash Kingpin’ – John Lage and the Poor Conditions in New York City’s Car Wash Industry,” compares the annual multi-million dollar revenue that Lage receives from his businesses with the meager wages that he pays to his employees.
From 2005-2010, more than 7,000 U.S. citizen children in New York City lost a parent to deportation. For most of these families, deportation proceedings meant losing not only a loved one, but also a breadwinner.
In the wake of deportation, many remaining family members struggle to make ends meet, placing additional pressure on public support programs and, in the worst cases, leading to the placement of children in foster care. The estimated cost to NYC’s foster care system, for example, is $12.6 million a year.
To keep families together, CPD in partnership with the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights (NMCIR), and with the support of Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo Law School is advocating for the creation of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP).
NYIFUP would be the nation’s first government-funded deportation defense system, providing a system of representation for all New Yorkers who are detained and facing removal.
With NYIFUP, institutional legal service providers would be resourced to assist the estimated 2,800 New Yorkers who face permanent exile from their homes and families each year.
In time, NYIFUP would become a model for other jurisdictions that value immigrant families and want to end the destruction of local communities through mass deportation.
Stand with NY families:
- Endorse NYIFUP here
- Write an op-ed
- Send an organizational letter of support
- Help us find other potential partners
- Organize a public action
Email us to tell us how you'd like to support NYIFUP.
Last week, CPD partnered with allies at Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change, and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union to publish a report about John Lage, the man the Daily News has called the “Car Wash Kingpin.”
As part of a campaign to raise wages and improve conditions in the car wash industry, the report highlights the low wages that Lage pays to his employees, his financial ties to the City of New York, and the brave workers who are standing up to demand dignity on the job. Read the NY Times article on report.
Local Progress, the national municipal policy network founded by CPD, an amazing group of progressive municipal elected officials, SEIU and the Public Leadership Institute in November, is growing rapidly. It now has 215 members from 142 municipalities and counties in 36 states and the District of Columbia. These elected officials are committed to values of broadly-shared prosperity for all, equal justice under law, sustainable and livable cities, and good government that serves the public interest.
Recent months have seen a string of high-profile victories for Local Progress members. In Portland, Local Progress member Steve Novick joined his colleagues in passing a robust Paid Sick Leave law that will improve public health and the quality of jobs in the city by protecting all workers in Portland from being fired for taking a day off when they are sick or when they need to stay home to take care of a family member and giving five days of paid sick time to workers at businesses with six or more employees.
In Philadelphia, the City Council passed an expansion of the living wage ordinance authored by Local Progress Board Member Wilson Goode, Jr. The bill will improve the quality of jobs for working-class Philadelphians by mandating that more employers who are recipients of City leases, concessions, and franchises, as well as their subcontractors, pay their workers at least 150 percent of the minimum wage and provide them with health benefits and paid sick leave.
This week Governor Cuomo signed a state budget which includes an increase in New York State’s minimum wage, from $7.25 per hour to $9.00 per hour over three years. Over 1.5 million workers in New York will see increases in their paychecks totaling over $1 billion in additional earnings.
The Center for Popular Democracy is proud to have been a major partner in the coalition of labor, business, community, faith and policy organizations from across the state which lead this successful campaign. The coalition fought back the New York State Senate’s attempt to exclude tipped workers from the minimum wage increase, and to create a sub-minimum wage for workers under the age of 20.
In the final weeks, the coalition won a commitment from Governor Cuomo to use the Department of Labor “wage board” process to give tipped food service workers – who will not see an automatic increase under the budget deal – a badly-needed raise.
Unfortunately, the budget deal also included the creation of an unwarranted and wasteful tax subsidy to low-wage employers. The campaign will now turn to fighting for the removal of this tax subsidy.
CPD would like to thank the National Employment Law Project, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, SEIU 32BJ, Strong Economy for All, Make the Road New York, as well as Assembly Speaker Silver and Governor Cuomo for their leadership on this important issue.
At the end of February, under the umbrella of Minnesotans for a Fair Economy (MFE), unions, community groups, faith-based organizations and workers' centers engaged in a series of coordinated civil actions for workers' rights, aimed at major banks and corporations headquartered in Minneapolis. To support and learn from the campaign, CPD sent its lead organizer for economic justice to work closely with Take Action Minnesota, one of our partner organizations in the region.
In an impressive display of coordination and solidarity, janitors, subcontracted cleaners, and security workers went on strike one after the other. Demonstrations at Target stores were followed by civil disobedience at Wells Fargo branches and actions at Minnesota’s Chamber of Commerce. Worker demands ranged from improvements to Minnesota’s health care exchange, an end to discriminatory hiring practices at Target, and an end to mortgage foreclosures by Wells Fargo.
Take Action Minnesota, a core member of the MFE coalition, focused its efforts on the discriminatory hiring practices at Target which prevent formerly incarcerated people from securing employment. In the past year, Take Action Minnesota has won a series of impressive policy victories as a result of its campaigns. CPD is proud to have participated in this campaign and we are grateful for the opportunity to work alongside Take Action Minnesota in their fight for improved conditions for working Minnesotans.
The Center for Popular Democracy is proud to partner with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Junta for Progressive Action, SEIU 32BJ, the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance and other allies to introduce statewide legislation in Connecticut that, if passed, will limit the extent to which state and local law enforcement cooperate with federal Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport immigrants.
The CT TRUST Act was introduced earlier this year by State Representative Gary Holder-Winfield and would prohibit state and municipal police, the Department of Correction and judicial marshals from holding individuals in custody on ICE’s behalf, beyond the point that they would otherwise be released, except in the case of individuals convicted of Class A felonies.
One of the most progressive bills of its kind in the country, the CT TRUST Act builds on an administrative policy issued by Governor Malloy last year. A public hearing on the bill was held on March 22 in Hartford, which was dominated by immigrant community members, advocates and labor allies, who spoke out in favor of the bill and emphasized the destructive impact of detention and deportation on immigrant families and communities across Connecticut.
CPD has been working closely with the coalition to develop campaign strategy and policy, and to create advocacy materials to help move the bill through committee and to victory.
If enacted, the CT TRUST Act will be the first statewide legislation of its kind in the country and will benefit thousands of Connecticut’s immigrant community members, who would no longer have to fear that a momentary encounter with local law enforcement may result in permanent exile from their home and families. Congratulations to our partners in Connecticut for their tremendous leadership. Please support the campaign by signing this petition.
Today the Center for Popular Democracy joins with its partners in the New York City Paid Sick Days Coalition to announce a historic agreement to give over one million New Yorkers the right to take a paid day off from work to care for themselves or a sick family member.
The proposed new law, due to be enacted by New York City Council, is the product of a four-year campaign involving dozens of organizations and thousands of supporters. The law represents a major step forward for workers’ rights in the United States.
Andrew Friedman, Executive Director, Center for Popular Democracy said: “This agreement is a monumental step forward for workers throughout New York City. More than 1.3 million workers will no longer need to fear losing their jobs when they, or their children, get sick. More than 1 million New Yorkers will get paid sick leave benefits. I congratulate the many courageous workers who stood up and fought for what's right, and the many Council Members, particularly Gale Brewer and Speaker Christine Quinn, for making this vision a reality. We look forward to working in the City, and across the country, to ensure that one day soon all workers have the benefit of paid sick leave.”
Without this law, over a million workers – especially low-wage workers – were forced to choose between their own health, or the health of their family members, and a job. In addition to extending critical protections to New York City’s working families, the law addresses a serious public health problem. Without sick leave, many workers had no choice but to go to work sick – exposing co-workers, clients, fellow commuters, and others to disease.
The new law, which will take effect in April, 2014, will guarantee paid sick leave for workers in New York City who work at employers with 20 or more employees. That threshold will be reduced to 15 employees in October, 2015. The law will provide unpaid sick leave to all other workers so that, although they are not legally entitled to be paid for the time they take off, they may do so with a guarantee that they cannot be fired.
CPD would like to thank our partner organizations for their tireless efforts over the four year campaign. The Center for Popular Democracy and Make the Road New York were joined by NYC City Council’s Progressive Caucus, the Working Families Party, 32 BJ SEIU, A Better Balance, New York Communities for Change and the NY Paid Sick Leave Coalition.
The fight for paid sick days in New York City exemplifies CPD’s commitment to building strong coalitions of membership-based community organizations, progressive unions, policy advocates, and elected officials to advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda in cities and states across the country.
Today the Center for Popular Democracy, partnering with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and the Home Defenders League, released a new report, California in Crisis: How Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Pipeline is Damaging California’s Communities.
At a press conference outside Wells Fargo’s San Francisco headquarters, homeowners, elected officials, and policy experts gathered to call on the bank to adopt common-sense reforms to avoid major harm to California’s economy in 2013.
Read the full report here and join our call for reform here.
The findings of the report are disturbing. The housing crisis remains a major cause of the economic crisis that is keeping 10 percent of Californians unemployed. Two million California homeowners are underwater and the debt is crippling the State’s economy by holding back consumer spending.
Since 2008, banks have foreclosed on approximately 1.7 million California homes. Right now, around 65,000 California homeowners are in the “foreclosure pipeline,” at risk of losing their homes. Wells Fargo is the biggest mortgage servicer in California, responsible for nearly one in five of these impending foreclosures. Our report shows that if all 11,616 Wells Fargo-serviced homes go through foreclosure, California will take a $3.3 billion hit to property values and government tax revenues.
Every month, more homes fall into the foreclosure pipeline, compounding this disaster. African-American and Latino borrowers and communities are particularly hard hit.
Californians do not have to accept this bleak future. Economists and policy experts across the political spectrum agree that widespread modification of home mortgages to current market value would prevent tens of thousands of needless foreclosures, inject billions of dollars into the economy, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and would even be in the financial interest of the investors who own the mortgages.
Wells Fargo is pivotal to determining whether principal reduction becomes a widespread solution. Recent reports show that Wells Fargo is providing far less principal reduction than Bank of America, in California, despite the fact that it services more loans.
CPD is joining our allies at ACCE, who have launched a campaign to demand that Wells Fargo let families stay in their homes. We are calling upon Wells Fargo to: (1) commit to a broad program of principal reduction, (2) be honest with Californians by reporting data on its principal reduction, short sales, and foreclosures by race, income, and zip code, and (3) immediately stop all foreclosures until the first two solutions are implemented.
We urge you to support this campaign by signing ACCE’s letter to Wells Fargo CEO John Stump - click here.
After years of predatory lending and heartless foreclosures, it is time for Wells Fargo to stop. By signing the letter, you’re sending a clear message to the bank: Stop the needless foreclosures. Stop the needless evictions. End this housing crisis.
The California in Crisis report typifies CPD’s mission of developing cutting-edge state and local policies that deliver tangible benefits to communities and building organizational infrastructure and capacity so that our partners can grow stronger and expand.
You can click here to support our work.
CPD joined elected leaders and community partners on a national press call convened by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network about the growing number of cities and states across the country that are introducing and moving bills to limit the impact of punitive immigration enforcement policy in their communities.
Councilmember Mark-Viverito, along with elected officials from Connecticut, Massachusetts and California, spoke of the need to keep local police from contributing to a broken immigration system.
