Blog / Retail Workers
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Agata & Valentina's neighbors sign open letter
Yesterday, hundreds of community members living near Agata and Valentina signed an open letter to the owners (Joe Musco and Louis Balducci) asking the employer to reflect on working conditions at the store during this religious week, the letter read: "During this meaningful week of Passover and Easter holidays, our families take time to reflect upon the hardships faced by workers in our community. We are alarmed to learn that people who serve us so well in your store are suffering from sbstandard workplace conditions..." You can view the entire open letter here. When the community learned about the real working conditions inside the store the response was clear, they wanted change.
"The community had a very emotional response when talking about the treatment of workers inside the store" said Wendy Weiner, campaign coordinator for UFCW's Building Blocks Project.
We'll post video soon of yesterday's event. Stay up to date by signing up for updates from the Building Blocks Project by clicking here, or become a fan on Facebook.
We'll post video soon of yesterday's event.
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End the Food Injustice
Saturday, February 7, 2009, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer released "Food in the Public Interest," a food policy report developed in collaboration with the Building Blocks Project and other New York food advocates and labor activists.
The report calls for the designation of a New York City foodshed made of agricultural producers and food processors within 200 miles of New York City. Stringer also called for "funding to supermarkets that provide living wage jobs, health insurance, and food quality standards."
The Building Blocks Project is grateful to President Stringer for the passion that he has brought to the issue of food injustice and for his insistence that the voices of workers and communities should be part of the process that determines New York's food system.
Check out video footage of the press conference and read more of the report.
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Healthy Food Market Fund
The Building Blocks Project has been an outspoken advocate for a revolving loan fund that will finance supermarkets in food desert neighborhoods, in particular supermarkets that provide living-wage jobs to local residents. New York State has a responsibility to guarantee the basic rights of Good Food, Good Jobs, and Good Health to all New Yorkers, and today Governor David Paterson took a step in the right direction when, in his annual State of the State Address, he said:
Today, First Lady Michelle Paige Paterson and I are unveiling a comprehensive strategy to address this challenge. Our five-point plan includes the Healthy Food/Healthy Communities Initiative, which offers a new revolving loan fund that will increase the number of healthy food markets in underserved communities.
The Governor described his motives for the revolving loan program:
One out of every four New Yorkers under 18 years of age is obese.
Childhood obesity causes serious health problems including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. ...These children have much greater risks of having heart attacks, suffering strokes, and losing limbs.
Obesity not only blights our children’s futures — it creates a significant economic burden on our health care spending. New York spends $6.1 billion each year to treat obesity-related health problems— the second-highest level of spending in the nation.
It's reassuring that, even while acknowleding that our first step has to be funding new supermarkets in underserved communities, Governor Paterson didn't just talk about the need for good food access. He also focused on economic issues. Good food is just one component of good health: good jobs are necessary, too.
Paterson made a very important point today when he said, "Preventing illness is a good investment. It saves taxpayer money, improves patient care, and unburdens our economy."
By making the right investments now in good food and good jobs, we can prevent illnesses and make sure that our families and friends are healthy. By investing in supermarkets that have high wage standards, we can ensure that all New Yorkers have the basic building blocks.
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Retail Employs Most, Pays Least
Dwoskin, Elizabeth. "Retail Employees Lead City's Low-Wage Workers," The Village Voice. 5:20 PM, December 23, 2008
If the clerks, cashiers, and order-pickers in the stores where you bought your presents looked stressed, it's not just because working retail during Christmas week sucks. A study released today by the non-profit Fiscal Policy Institute shows that retail is the industry sector that employs the biggest chunk of the 1.3 million low- wage workers in this city -- that is, workers earning less than $13 per hour. Nearly half of these 176,000 low-wage retail workers earn less than $10 an hour, and the majority lack health insurance.
While people tend to stereotype retail workers as teenagers looking for extra cash or Williamsburg hipsters diddling around till their art careers take off, most New York retail workers are over 35 and work full-time. Ninety thousand children in New York City have parents that work in retail, and in many cases that parent is their sole provider.
The Insitute also reports that, as a consequence, retail workers also receive a larger share of public assistance than workers in other categories -- so their misery costs you money, too -- and suggests that when retailers look for "tax subsidies and subsidized loans" (hint, hint, Wal-Mart!), the city should hold out for a better deal for workers. "Even in an economic downturn," the report says, " improving the wages and working conditions of retail workers is not an impractical abstraction."